Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

I’m about a month behind on picking up Exapunks (Zachtronics’ latest puzzle game), but it is really good.

Its reimagined 90s cyberpunk dystopian fantasy invokes all the right nostalgia for me. I also really like how its “manuals” are sourced from 2600 magazine and other zines that are still around today.

The only thing I wish it had (maybe later?) is a shout-out to old Winamp visualizers like Whitecap, sitting adjacent to its IRC window and puzzle interface, to set the tone.

Omg, Animal Crossing Switch in 2019! Aaaaaaaa

That’s all I’ve got. Thank you for reading. 💜

I believe that defenders have an advantage in terms of online trolling, and that a reckoning is coming for the gatekeepers that allowed this to happen (social media orgs, etc). The technical means to block trolls are not new. Powerful people allowed this to happen that you can help remove from power.

In the US, if you can, please vote this November. In the UK, please vote when you’re next given the opportunity in MP elections. And elsewhere, do what you can to keep authoritarians out of power.

Thank you for tolerating my bullshit while I got the anxiety out of my system. I know much of what I’ve put behind CW has been hard to process; I needed to have it somewhere out of my own head.

Current events are hard for me as someone that values truth. I’m not great at articulating that. And having been on the receiving end of mob behavior and unsubstantiated rumors before, it strikes a nerve.

For my emotional health, I need to disengage from the topic further. With one note as postscript.

Also, support your local fediverse admins if you can. This isn’t easy to work through, given how invested larger platforms and troll farms are in lies right now that seem credible.

I guess I’m thankful Awoo and a good % of the fediverse have figured this out. I’m an optimist, and I think the defenders against disinfo have a strong advantage here compared to Twitter, etc. Mostly, because that weakness isn’t built into the platform to monetize it.

But that doesn’t make this any easier to deal with, until enough people make the jump. Maybe now is a good time to convince more of your friends to move to Masto?

One of the reasons I’ve been so closed off lately is I’ve experienced different iterations of this problem, and almost unwittingly caused this to happen to former friends a few years ago before I realized what was happening and shut that shit down. That scares the hell out of me, and I think about it a lot.

Truth dies in a vacuum that promotes mobbing and conspiracy. The only countermeasure I’ve found is to shut that shit down and defend with good administration.

Not in a great headspace as I watch Ben Wittes and news folks chased off of Twitter using the same disinfo and mob tactics employed against friends-of-friends by a different troll factory.

Social media has a serious disinfo and mob problem. I’ve studied this issue since the days Portal of Evil went after people on web forums, and I don’t know of a perfect solution.

But I’m pretty sure _a_ solution is to vet information better, and I’m thankful Masto seems to do so.

Forgot to post it here, but I finished Smaugust successfully this year. Arts are here: http://colorslive.com/author?id=33323

I’m also thinking of making more arts of this floof, but haven’t figured out exactly what yet:
https://awoo.space/media/DBzqt8PXgqiaHuduxmY

Oh good, they banned him, even if they lied again about their reasoning for doing so. Hopefully this starts a trend of conspiracy theorists like Jones being kryptonite to major platform owners.

I will never forget them tolerating it when they thought it would be profitable. Fuck you forever, Jack.

My project space is messy and cluttered in a way that facilitates picking things up and working on them, and I would not have it any other way.

“So, what projects are you working on these days?”

Me: Not much, just a few art projects on the side, when I’m not working.

Also me:
https://awoo.space/media/kE7qI7vL710wlPYCxqI

I guess this is all of a way of rambling out that I think Masto is great, that it has a place in replacing birdhellsite for community, but that culturally there is still a thing missing for people that want to post and keep track of larger projects again.

So I think I’m going to try to figure out what shape of that works for me, more than trying to figure out how to make that work with Masto.

I find myself spending much more time now working with people who are creating stuff that takes a long time, and isn’t based around common cultural touchstones that share rapidly, so much as labors of love they’ve invested in (including my own longer-form projects). And... Masto isn’t shaping itself well around those discussions for me, in ways I cannot easily articulate.

But chat, project boards, longer posts, and in-person are, so I’ve been there instead.

I think this is a common trend and mostly a pendulum swing, because the same trend happened with BBSes, USENET, and around the advent of early forum software and image hosting. Enough people diasporaed off of bigger hosts, causing the next iteration to slowly come online.

I guess the other side of Masto not working for me is personal: I lack the unbounded optimism for public posting I had for LJ and early Twitter, and the jump from long-form projects to memes doesn’t work for me.

I think my conclusion is that I’m going to use other services than Masto for art blog and public presence, and relegate to communities off Masto for now. Birdhellsite and Tumblr are better image boards (masto-dot-art is getting there), and I’ve submarined most of my personal life nattering to other communities.

I’ll miss having the fusion of public discussion and community around neat projects that was LJ or early Twitter, but so far, I’m not finding that just yet through Masto.