Tootfinder

Growing up in the 80s, my mom was a board member of a 2nd-wave feminist bookshop in Atlanta, so I thought all bookstores were queer-friendly, feminist spaces
As the funny fad of the Internet started to take off, I naturally assumed — for literally months, in the early 90s — that "Amazon" was an online lesbian separatist bookstore in the vein of the Whole Earth Catalog.
In retrospect, my imagined reality was SO MUCH BETTER than what we wound up with

In the interests of starting a more productive dialogue than yesterday's main character was interested in, let's make a #brainstorm thread about design changes to ActivityPub and/or client UI that could actually help address drive-by (often racist) harassment on the fediverse.
Feel free to discuss pros/cons but don't feel an idea needs to be perfect to suggest it. Also since this is a brainstorm don't worry about complexity/implementation cost. If you have a great-but-hard-to-implement idea someone else may think of a way to simplify it.
Note that the underlying problem *is* a social one, do there won't be a technological fix! But tech changes can make social remedies easier/harder.
I've got some to start:
1. Have a "protected mode" that users can voluntarily turn on. Some servers might turn it on by default. In protected mode, users whose accounts are less than D days old and/or who have fewer than F followers can't reply to or DM you. F and D could have different values for same-sever vs. different-server accounts, and could be customized by each user. Obviously a dedicated harasser can get around this, but it ups the activation energy for block evasion and pile-ons a bit. Would be interesting to review moderation records to estimate how helpful this might or might not be. Could also have a setting to require "follows-from-my-server" although that might be too limiting on private servers. Restriction would be turned off for people you mention within that thread and could be set to unlimit anyone you've ever mentioned. Would this lock new users out of engagement entirely? If everyone had it on via a default, you'd have you post your own stuff until someone followed you (assuming F=1). One could add "R non-moderated replies" and/or "F favorites" options to soften things; those experiencing more harassment could set higher limits. When muting/blocking/reporting someone who replied to your post, protected mode could be suggested with settings that would have filtered the post you're reporting.
2. Enable some form of public moderation info to be displayed when both moderator and local server opt-in. Obviously each server would be able to ignore federated public tags. I'm imagining "banned from X server for R reason (optional link to evidence)" appearing on someone's profile & an icon on their PFP in each post viewed by someone on server Y *if* the mods of server X decide it's appropriate *and* server Y opts in to displaying such tags from server X specifically. Alliances of servers with similar moderation preferences could then have moderation action on one server result in clear warning propagation to others without the other mods needing to decide whether to also take action immediately. In some cases different moderation preferences would mean you wouldn't take action yourself but would keep the notice up for your users to consider. Obviously the "Scarlet Letter" vibe ain't great, but in some cases it's deserved, and when there's disagreement between servers about that, mods on server Y could either disable a specific tag or disable federation of mod tags from that server in general. Even better shared moderation tools are of course possible.
3. Different people/groups have different norms around boosting. Currently we only have a locked/public binary. Without any big protocol changes, adding a "prefers boosts/doesn't" setting which would warn in the UI before a viewer chooses to boost if the preference is "doesn't" could help. This could be set per-post, but could also have defaults and could have different values for same-server or not, or for particular servers. For example, I could say "default to prefer boosts from users on my server but not from users on other servers" or "default to prefer boosting on all servers except mastodon.social." Last option might be harder to implement I guess.
#ActivityPub #Meta #Harassment

Steven High, a historian of labour and de-industrialization, knows a thing or two. Here he offers his take on Lewis, contextualizing the positions he's taken in a very (very, very) brief potted history of the NDP and a reflection on the party as it stands at the moment. Worth a couple of minutes.
https://

Avi Lewis will make the NDP think big again
The road ahead will not be an easy one for Lewis and the New Democrats. And while his vision may ultimately resonate more with the party’s urban progressives than its working-class base, it is exciting to think that the NDP might once again be the source of bold new ideas. Canadian politics will be better for it.

After the whole Adam Something "dating advice for leftist men" thing, I realized I should probably write something about that. I didn't, but I realized I should. Here I am sort of getting around to it.
I had a friend call me an "elder" at one point. I was like 35 at that time, but like... a lot of old leftists are just dead or in prison, so we take what we can get I guess. Being also an elder in the sense that I'm an elder millennial, who is also a parent and married for almost 10 years and all that, I guess I'm technically qualified.
So here it is, dating advice for (straight cis) leftist men:
1. Don't.
That's it, actually. That's the whole thing. Let me explain a bit.
First of all, this is dating advice for neuroatypical folks. We're way overrepresented in both extremes because this system wasn't built for us. And that's who is *the most* confused by all the relationship stuff, and most likely to try to apply all this masculinity/manosphere bullshit. I'm also talking a bit from experience here, as a neruo-spicy trying to "figure out" how to date within a paradigm entirely built around neurotypicals and their relationships. It's garbage. Throw it out. There's nothing worth saving.
His video had some line comparing not having sex to your house being on fire. I'm not gonna bother to quote it because I'm busy with actual life. But like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I recognize that and it's horribly destructive. Men who buy in to patriarchy actually believe this, because those men value themselves based on (hetro) sex. Yeah, if you think you're worthless because you aren't "getting laid" then yeah, you're gonna feel like that's an emergency.
"Dating" as a paradigm turns humans into roles. It dehumanizes us all, and thus makes human connection much harder. It is a game that, like thermonuclear war, can only be won by not playing.
When you abandon "dating" and just act like a human, everything starts to be easier. There's no such thing as being "friend zoned" because you're just friends. Sometimes friendships become other things, sometimes they don't. It doesn't actually matter, because if you're actually there for friendship then you don't *need* anything else.
My grandma, at 98 I think, gave me some advice. My grandparents always got along well, and were married for enough decades that I listened really closely. She told me I should just do things I loved to do and everything else would work itself out.
And it kind of did.
I understand the fear, the idea that you'll die alone. I get that. I get the loneliness. It all hits a lot harder when you have ADHD emotions and past trauma. I get that. But that fear is self-manifesting. When you build your confidence, when you don't *need* to be "in a relationship," you have more room to actually build relationships. For me, dating was dehumanizing. When I abandoned that, I was able to actually be a good partner, and I was able to find my partner.
I would advise against marriage as well, but we did get married for legal reasons. It can still be hard to maintain that, to see each other as people rather than roles. That becomes extra hard as parents. But the times that we cut through that are the times we're closest. Those are the times when it becomes easier to remember that we're both humans and all human relationships need tending.
Roles don't need to be tended because they are classifications. Classifications are static. But relationships between humans are not. Humans are messy and chaotic. Humans have all kinds of complex needs and desires.
So yeah, don't date. Just be a human and see what happens. Maybe google "relationship anarchy" and see where it takes you.
If you have ADHD, it can be especially useful to understand that relationships with neurotypical folks can be especially difficult. Assume you're incompatible with 90% of the population as your baseline, and you'll start to understand why the standard "dating" thing has made you feel so alienated and miserable.
Neurotypical folks generally have no idea that atypicality exists, much less how it impacts relationships. Having to conform to a neurotypical relationship just adds additional mental strain unless you find someone (really special) who can do at least some of the work.
The ADHD thing was especially important for me. There were so many things I was told to do in specific ways by neurotypicals that never worked for me. Their advice always made me feel like a failure. When I was finally diagnosed, I realized they were just giving advice for the wrong type of brain. It was advice I could never use. Basically all dating advice I ever got fell into this same category.
That's my braindump. Maybe I'll develop it more in the future, but I'm busy so maybe not. I hope it helps someone who is struggling like I was.

It's nicer when we think we know something.
From Little Big Man, 1970:
Silas T. Meriweather: He gave you a vision of moral order in the universe, and there isn't any.
Those stars twinkle in a void, dear boy, and the two-legged creature schemes and dreams beneath them, all in vain. ALL in vain, Jack.
Two-legged creature will believe anything. And the more preposterous the better.
Whales speak French at the bottom of the sea. The horses of Arabia have silve…

I've decided to open the #DualShock and try cleaning it up.
Took me about an hour to find the right tools and disassemble it, getting to the analog stick potentiometers. Used compressed air (read: lungs) to clean them up. Found a bit of cat hair. Took me about half an hour to figure out how to reassemble it properly, with my back aching already. After reassembly, it turned out that side triggers randomly… well, trigger.
Disassembled it again. Started reassembling while making sure that the mainboard is tightly in place. After putting the battery back in, noticed that I didn't connect the touchpad ribbon. Disassembled again, reassembled. Miraculously, it works.
The analog stick causes no trouble so far, so maybe it won't need replacement for a while still. After all, I'm not using it much.

Nothing says an overvalued Nvidia better than a random ad for a $5000 nothingburger prebuilt PC. Do you know how much fresh air that kind of money could buy you? Unlimited supplies. These bozos are on their way to make reading books fun again. Hell, at some point you would even be able to afford a cheap Chinese TV set to see them properly tarred and feathered.

How to keep bees like a scientist - Honey Bee Suite #beekeeping

How to keep bees like a scientist - Honey Bee Suite
Our honey bees are better off once we learn to think like scientists and analyze our observations. We cannot keep bees by following recipes.

This part seems questionable… is it possible?
“Hardt has torn tendons in his own hand after accidentally triggering a cadence sensor that caused the wheel to spin out of control on the stand, even when the motor and battery were disconnected.”
https://www.wired.com/story/why-is-it-so-h

Why Is It So Hard to Fix an Electric Bike? (2026)
Bike shop mechanics have lost fingers and their shirts while repairing ebikes of dubious origins. Make sure yours is repairable and third-party certified.

Cowboys Linked to Potential Bold Move for 5-Time Pro Bowler https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/joey-bosa-dallas-linked-free-agency/