Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

That is the sound that Twitter is making as it just…implodes.

The verification/Twitter Blue fiasco today – hoo boy, I don’t know how you get any advertisers back who have already left, or convince any others not to leave.

And parts of the site are already breaking – I had notifications turned on for the Foodraiser organizer so I could get updates. Realized Monday I wasn’t getting them anymore – not only am I not getting notifications, the button to get notifications is gone on his profile. (And it’s not something you as a user can turn off/disable.)

The only saving grace right now is that I still have the latest tweets option, which leaves me a bit less at the mercy of the algorithm.

But it’s not going to be long before they lose more advertisers, fire more folks, have more folks quit, and the site just isn’t going to function.

I’ll stick around as long as I can, but Mastodon is looking really good. The mechanics are close enough to Twitter that it didn’t take much time to get used to it, it’s a lot calmer overall (granted, I am following a lot less people) but I do like it, and it’s been pretty easy to find a lot of Twitter folks and find new people who have been there a while.

It’s also got some nice features – you can edit posts! When you mute someone, you can mute them for a specific amount of time – so when someone announces they’re gonna livetweet the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you can just turn them off for a day and then they’re automatically back.

Bit of a bumpy landing for some folks – a weird aversion to doing Content Warnings, which really, it’s just a subject line and I don’t get the resistance – it’s an easy thing to do, and makes reading easier – because there are filters, which are great – but if you’re just not feeling like keeping up on politics one evening *cough*last night*cough* – trying to filter out the word “politics” is still going to get you a lot of political posts. And a lot of indies are worried about self-promotion – cause there are some older users who are frowning on it, forgetting that indies are self-employed and need to promote their work.

But overall, it’s pretty good and the bumps will smooth out over on the pachyderm site.

But Twitter – I don’t know how they come back from today.

I’ve had my Mastodon account for about a week and a half, and I’ve seen a lot of folks who are finding it a bit difficult, and others who are hesitant because they’re hearing it’s hard. So, I wanted to just share what I’ve figured out so far. While I consider myself reasonably tech savvy, I’m also old and set in my ways and don’t get as excited about having to learn new tech, so learning a whole new thing was a touch, UGH.

Now, a lot of what I am about to tell you is my understanding and what I’ve found – likely incomplete and imperfect, but I’d love if it helps even one person.

In April, when folks started talking about going to Mastodon – I understood that it was individual servers, but there was an important bit I was missing at that point.

I thought it was this – individual Mastodon servers that just were all out there on their own.

What I did not understand was FEDERATION! Which means our five servers above are actually like this:

So, you sign up with the Cats server, but you can still follow anyone on the other four servers, and they can follow you back. Which is pretty cool and was a very important piece I really didn’t get until now, because I didn’t realize all these servers were connected. And you’ve probably read somewhere that “Oh, hate group XXX is on Mastodon” – yes, but this is where the “Federated” part is great – servers that are known to be cesspools of hate are “defederated” and the vast majority of the federated servers have banned those connections – basically this:

And though folks are still running into some shitbirds, each server has it’s own moderation and it’s pretty good – cause it’s run by actual people. Reporting actually gets something done.

The bit that is messing with people a lot seems to be picking a server – here’s the great thing: you don’t really have to stress too hard about which one you start with because you *can* change servers later, and there are tools embedded in the software to automate that process. So you are absolutely NOT stuck with the first server you pick.

At the sign up page, you can filter the lists down by region, language, interest – and then choose one. The “apply for account” ones appear to just be ones where they’re manually activating people just because there has been a big influx of folks moving from Twitter. Personally, I’m on mastodon.social – because there were a fair amount of folks I trusted that said it was a good a place as any to start.

And once you get signed up, you can start following people and posting! When you follow someone from a different server from yours, you may get prompted to put in your username – ie, cafechatnoir@mastodon.social – you’re not logging in again or anything, it’s just…IDK, maybe creating the connection between the two servers or something like that.

There is a web version, a mobile web version (ie on Chrome on your phone) and I’ve also used the Android app. The Android app is perfectly fine, but doesn’t have all the same features as the web version. (The Android app doesn’t have bookmarks, and something else I can’t remember now.) The web & mobile web versions look very similar. (Screenshots below are from desktop web.)

So, the screenshot below – this is your home page:
Left hand side – Search. You can search for people, hashtags, etc.
Posting widget – post and go! Icons at the bottom are attach (like photos), poll, audience, content warning (it hides the post and only shows what you entered as the warning until a reader clicks through), and EN = language.

Center/Home: This is the feed of everyone you follow. It is chronological and has no ads.
The icons under the posts are Reply, Reblog/Boost (no quote reblogs), Favorite, and Bookmark. (I’ll address the three dots with the next images.)

Right hand side:
Home, is well home.
Notifications are pretty much just like Twitter.
Explore will show you trending posts, hashtags, news, and “For You” – which is other accounts you might be intrested in.
Local – this is the feed of everyone on your particular server whether you follow them or not. If you’re on a small server, it may be very manageable. If you’re on a big server, it may be a firehose.
Federated – the feed of your server and alllllll the others. Definitely a firehose, LOL.
Direct Messages are different from Twitter. If you set the post audience to “mentioned people only” – that is considered a direct message, but ANYONE you @ in those posts can see them.
Favorites, Bookmarks, and Lists are just like Twitter.
Preferences are things like light/dark mode, notifications, and whatnot.

On the posts themselves, there is that “…” button – it’s just things you can do with an individual post – copy link, bookmark, report, etc. This one is from someone I follow who is also on my particular server:

This menu is from someone I follow who is *not* on my particular server – the big difference is that not only can I block this particular user if I need to – I can block the entire server they came from.

Now, if you click on your profile icon on the left hand side, that will just take you to your profile page with your posts. The “…” dots next to your name give you a few other options – many similar to Twitter:

Editing the profile is very straightforward – very similar to Twitter, and you can add up to 4 “metadata” items – I have just put in my blog and my linktree – look around at other profiles to get other ideas of what you can put in.

So, that is a very high level overview of Mastodon. A lot of servers are a bit overloaded dealing with the Twitter exodus, but they’re all working to take care of that. I know my server has already upgraded some hardware and I’ve seen things speed up and the image loading wonkiness is pretty much gone.

Please feel free to drop a comment if you have any questions!

Got my second shingles shot yesterday, YAY, and then called out of work today, LOL.

I don’t feel *bad* but I am just so, SO tired. This morning I thought once I was up and moving around and had some coffee, I’d be fine, but nope – after I went through my emails and Teams notifications and then just found myself staring blankly at my work laptop that I realized, nope, there would not be enough coffee in the world today to be able to function properly for work.

Sure, I could power through it and make mistakes all day and have to redo it all tomorrow, but that doesn’t seem smart.

And honestly, I’m pretty proud of myself for just taking a knee today instead of forcing myself to try and work. PTO is for anything, dammit.

And of course I am too tired to mentally function, but also too awake to go back to sleep. So today will just be a lot of resting on the couch and gentle puttering about, because I am allowed to put myself before work every now and again.

The Bull City Foodraiser is still going!! I am matching!! Seriously, if you can give, even the smallest amount – it will help. If you’re lucky enough that you’ve never experienced food insecurity (I am one of those lucky ones) – please, help other families avoid it. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to not know how you’re going to feed your kids. Many of these families are in reduced/free breakfast & lunch programs and when winter break rolls around – well, the kids don’t stop needing to eat just because the school is closed.

I hope you enjoyed that extra hour of sleep last night, lord knows I did. I went to a going away thing last night (and only because I truly adore the person leaving town) – it was in the loudest fucking venue I’ve ever been in, it was supposed to start at 8, we got there at 8:15, and the guest of honor was an hour late. I did get to see a few people I haven’t seen in forever, but still, so. fucking. loud. and. unenjoyable. Yes, I am officially OLD.

So, while Twitter may or may not be dying and completely non-functional soon, I’ve been looking around at the various and sundry social media sites. None are truly Twitter, tho.

Tumblr: Still delightfully weird and the land of gifs
Instagram: I miss when it was just all pictures, but it’s not terrible.
DreamWidth: Came out of the Russians buying LiveJournal, basically long form blogging with filtering on who can see your stuff.
Mastodon: Layout very similar to Twitter, but a lot of folks seem to be having problems with it – I didn’t have any issues – pick a server and go, but your mileage may vary. Mastodon.social seems to be having some understandable growing pains – bit slow, some image loading wonkiness, but overall, I do like it.
CounterSocial: Another that is similar to Twitter. Web version is VERY busy tho, and can be offputting. (You can unpin columns to calm things down, but when you first open that page, it’s kind of overwhelming.) Also dealing with DDOS issues. I do like the “Community Firehose” tab where you can just see everything.
Tribel: Big nope, it’s run by the Occupy Democrats folks, the TOS is garbage, and honestly, it just looks like Facebook and you register by name, not a handle.
Cohost: Looked promising, a bit of a cross between LiveJournal/DreamWidth and Tumblr. But the fantastic Rahaeli on Twitter did a HUGE breakdown on the TOS and the fact that it’s so poorly written that basically by using the site, you’re breaking the TOS.
Discord: I’m on a couple servers there, and I like it – but it’s not at all like Twitter, you can’t see everything in one feed. (Or if you can, I haven’t figured it out yet.)

I’m a pretty heavy Twitter user, and honestly – there is nothing really like it out there right now. And it’s sad to watch it fall apart in real time, all because of one egomaniac who doesn’t know what he’s doing and wants to be the “cool kid” with the right wingers. I hope he personally goes bankrupt from this and regrets the purchase every day for the rest of his life.

I’m also not mad at anyone who keeps or decides to get Twitter Blue. It’s got a few nice features, and for some folks, they need to have the algorithm on their side for work and identity protection and whatnot. I won’t be messing with it cause I have no need for it, but I’m not going to begrudge anyone who does need it.

If Twitter fully goes under, I genuinely don’t know where I’m gonna land. I’ll still be right here for sure – this little blog has saved my sanity over the course of the pandemic. But it’s very uni-directional, and Twitter was great for a lot of interactive communications.

Time will tell, I suppose.

Not even 2PM and I’m bushed.

Woke up in a mood – why, I do not know. Most of that has at least burned off.

Went to the farmers market – with new insoles in my shoes, forgetting that the Scholls ones I just bought are incredibly inferior to the Walgreens store brand version, so I came home with tomatoes and sore feet.

Changed into my sandals that have actual arch support (yay for a warm day) then off to Total Wine, completely forgetting I also wanted to pop into the butcher shop a block away, then Walgreens for the *good* insoles, Hallmark to see if they had Christmas lanterns in that a friend is looking for (they do!) and I feel like there was somewhere else in there, but it’s escaping me at the moment.

Walked 2 miles and got 86 zone minutes in, and 335 for the week, which is good.

But I still have a long list of to-do’s around the house and I am mentally very, very, “No.”

So, today may just be very bare bones around the homestead.

You have a lovely Saturday.

The annual BullCity Foodraiser is on this weekend!! $19 in matches for your donation! Kids and their families will be able to eat without worry over Winter Break!

And if you’re thinking “I don’t have much to give” – seriously, even $1 helps. I’m one of the matchers again this year, so please, spend my money!

Ate the frog, called insurance, they can’t do anything until the claims department opens at 8AM.

JUST GIVE ME THE OPTION TO EDIT THE PROVIDER NAME ON THE CLAIM ON THE WEBSITE AND THAT WILL BE EASIER FOR EVERYONE.

And I know the receipt does in fact have all the correct information on it, because they’ve processed other claims for the same service!

And I could tell I got a PI call center, and my first thought was, “I wonder if anyone of my team is friends with anyone at Aetna?” (Yes, I know, there are a half million people in Makati.)

But it sounds like I’m probably gonna have to resubmit the claim altogether, risking a) the scanning software fucks up again or b) it gets rejected as a duplicate.

So, they’re gonna call me back…

And who is going to have a leisurely pre-work morning and log on at such a time that she actually has a half-day when she logs off at 1PM? THIS GAL!

In fun Adulting things, I get to call my insurance company today, WHEEE. My acupuncture isn’t covered by insurance, which is fine, but the flex spending company won’t let me submit the receipts directly, they have to be “denied” by insurance first. Fine. But when you submit the claim to insurance, you literally just give them the date, amount, and upload the receipt.

Well, on two receipts, the automated scanning system plucked a provider name out of thin air and they’re going “OMG, we can’t find this provider’s license numbers, etc, etc” – all these things are on the receipt, with my acupuncturists actual name. It’s not even like it scanned Sarah to Syrah or something like that – it’s a TOTALLY DIFFERENT NAME.

There is nowhere on the website you can “edit” the claim to fix it. I emailed (via the insurance message center) saying “here is the EOB and the receipt – please have a human look at the receipt and you will see that you have the information you want already” – got a response of “the reason your claim isn’t processed is because we have no information on [provider our system made up] – so, yeah, that didn’t work.

So now I get to call and force a human to look at these and fix the provider name so they can be properly “denied”…

And you know what? I’m gonna eat that frog and get that done before work even starts today.

Honestly, one year I’m gonna full on decorate for Halloween with really scary shit. Skeletons and witches and vampires on hold with the insurance company, paying bills, dealing with water leaks, that kinda stuff.

You have a great day with no need to call the insurance company!

Lord help me, I have a Linktree now. So, if you’re looking for me on the other socials, you can find me.

That being said, I am hoping things calm down at Twitter and Elon Musk gets his head out of his ass. I am definitely staying there for the time being, but I am really starting to understand why Tesla’s catch fire.

I mean, watching that man not understand that he needs Stephen King on the platform, not the other way around…whew.

And I’d love to sit here and detail the right way to fix Twitter, but it’s FML Wednesday and I have meetings, and I don’t think that egghead would listen anyway, LOL.

You have a great day!

And hoo boy, we are set for a while. We did have a good turnout considering the weather – raining on and off all night – but as I tend to do, I bought too much candy. (I am TERRIBLE at judging how much we need.)

And now we’re on to my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving!!!!!

Did not win the lottery last night, but it’s OK – I’ll make do with the 1.2 Billion with a B on Wednesday. It’s not “pay too much for a social media platform and destroy it” money, but I think I can manage.

And now it’s time to go slog through the day and just make it until I win the lottery, LOL.

You have a great day and enjoy that candy!