Brutkey

Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

dad. musician.

software engineer for fun and sustenance

#AntiCapitalism

#Synth

#USPol

#Parenting

#WebDev

#UX

#Humor


https://beige.party at heart.


#Fedi23

Profile pic alt text:

Racoon sitting in front of a computer. Built with https://emojikitchen.dev/


Header alt text:

Chaotic vaporwave imagery, with colorful retro Word Art that reads "catch me on Mastodon"


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:blobcatrave: Just My Toots
https://justmytoots.com/@dusk@todon.eu
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

Hey Fedi!
We ARE the algorithm. But that also means it can take a little extra work to get the feed that works for you.

How do YOU 🫵🫵 curate your feed? How do you use lists?

Here's my algorithm:
Someone posts something cool? Follow 'em.
Someone posts something EXTREMELY COOL (or I've seen their cool content before)?
They get added to my ⭐⭐️ Faves list.

Then, in the Advanced Web Interface (Ala Tweetdeck, see 2nd link below), I've got:

1. ⭐⭐️ Faves. 🔘🔘Hide these posts from Home. Also, show me replies IF someone it's a reply to someone else also in my Faves list.

2. 🏠🏠 Home: folk I follow who aren't in ⭐⭐️ Faves

3.👋👋 # introduction (to welcome, follow, and boost interesting new folk!)

As always, don't sleep on @FediTips@social.growyourown.services 's excellent guides; here's the one on using Lists:

https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-the-lists-feature-on-mastodon/

And here's Advanced Web Interface:

https://fedi.tips/how-to-activate-mastodons-tweetdeck-style-advanced-web-interface/

#fediTips

Screenshot of three columns in the Mastodon advanced web interface: 1.⭐️ Faves 2.🏠 Home 3. # introduction A handful of posts can be seen in each column. Screenshot of the settings for my Faves column / list, in the Mastodon webui Buttons for editing and deleting the list "Hide these posts from Home" toggle is set to ON "Show replies to" setting: Options: "No one" "Members of this list" [<- selected] "Any followed user" "Unpin" button
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

@xssfox@cloudisland.nz

Me, to my Signal message thread with some friends:
"Omg, I no longer have to wonder how to explain mastodon to people"

❝I'm incredibly unpopular on a decentralized microblogging network❞

(with thanks to @jalefkowit@vmst.io for this brilliant find https://vmst.io/@jalefkowit/114943247172329792

A bearded model wearing a t-shirt that reads, "I'm incredibly unpopular on a decentralized microblogging network"
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

👋👋 New server, who dis!?

Migrating because I'm not keen on staying on a server in the 🇺🇸🇺🇸.

I'm a software engineer in North Carolina, #synth fanatic, and a father of a five-year-old.

Pic is a scene I was lucky enough to witness this morning.

#introduction #silentSunday

Fog hanging low in the valley at sunrise in WNC, near Asheville. Closer to the viewer is a dark tree line, then fog, then a ridge line. Some grey and pink clouds scattered across the sky.
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

My article, “Free Yourself From The Algorithm: On Fediverse” was just published in the Spring edition of Slingshot! I'm in print, bay-bee 📰📰

Easier-to-read version here:
https://slingshotcollective.org/6-free-yourself-from-the-algorithm-on-fediverse/

My article includes nods to @FediTips@social.growyourown.services as well as the excellent piece from @janusrose@mastodon.lol for
@404mediaco@mastodon.social “You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism”, tipping my hat to you both!

https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/

The print edition of the article linked in the post, Free Yourself From The Algorithm: On Fediverse The layout is a black and white hand-inked look. The illustration features a smartphone, time, 9:11, with a menacing mosaic mask with fangs, with a trippy tessellating background https://slingshotcollective.org/6-free-yourself-from-the-algorithm-on-fediverse/
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

Due to a typo, HR is pleased to announce that your benefits now include unlimited POT.

Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

In today’s live-stream of the launch of GPT-5, this is practically the opening slide. Take a close look at the values vs. the height of each bar.

( @garymarcus@sigmoid.social mentioned this in his newsletter, so I did have my eyes peeled for this QA miss)

#altTextIsAnArtForm #GPT5 #OpenAI

A screencap from 5:18 of the livestream of the launch of GPT-5. A person with long hair and billions in stock options is in a small window, while the slide deck shows AI benchmark performance scores. The models being compared are all OpenAI models: GPT-5, o3, and 4o. The main issue with the bar chart is that the heights of each bar bear almost no relationship with each associated labeled value.
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

Hey Fedi!
We ARE the algorithm. But that also means it can take a little extra work to get the feed that works for you.

How do YOU 🫵🫵 curate your feed? How do you use lists?

Here's my algorithm:
Someone posts something cool? Follow 'em.
Someone posts something EXTREMELY COOL (or I've seen their cool content before)?
They get added to my ⭐⭐️ Faves list.

Then, in the Advanced Web Interface (Ala Tweetdeck, see 2nd link below), I've got:

1. ⭐⭐️ Faves. 🔘🔘Hide these posts from Home. Also, show me replies IF someone it's a reply to someone else also in my Faves list.

2. 🏠🏠 Home: folk I follow who aren't in ⭐⭐️ Faves

3.👋👋 # introduction (to welcome, follow, and boost interesting new folk!)

As always, don't sleep on @FediTips@social.growyourown.services 's excellent guides; here's the one on using Lists:

https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-the-lists-feature-on-mastodon/

And here's Advanced Web Interface:

https://fedi.tips/how-to-activate-mastodons-tweetdeck-style-advanced-web-interface/

#fediTips

Screenshot of three columns in the Mastodon advanced web interface: 1.⭐️ Faves 2.🏠 Home 3. # introduction A handful of posts can be seen in each column. Screenshot of the settings for my Faves column / list, in the Mastodon webui Buttons for editing and deleting the list "Hide these posts from Home" toggle is set to ON "Show replies to" setting: Options: "No one" "Members of this list" [<- selected] "Any followed user" "Unpin" button
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

My article, “Free Yourself From The Algorithm: On Fediverse” was just published in the Spring edition of Slingshot! I'm in print, bay-bee 📰📰

Easier-to-read version here:
https://slingshotcollective.org/6-free-yourself-from-the-algorithm-on-fediverse/

My article includes nods to @FediTips@social.growyourown.services as well as the excellent piece from @janusrose@mastodon.lol for
@404mediaco@mastodon.social “You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism”, tipping my hat to you both!

https://www.404media.co/you-cant-post-your-way-out-of-fascism/

The print edition of the article linked in the post, Free Yourself From The Algorithm: On Fediverse The layout is a black and white hand-inked look. The illustration features a smartphone, time, 9:11, with a menacing mosaic mask with fangs, with a trippy tessellating background https://slingshotcollective.org/6-free-yourself-from-the-algorithm-on-fediverse/
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

👋👋 New server, who dis!?

Migrating because I'm not keen on staying on a server in the 🇺🇸🇺🇸.

I'm a software engineer in North Carolina, #synth fanatic, and a father of a five-year-old.

Pic is a scene I was lucky enough to witness this morning.

#introduction #silentSunday

Fog hanging low in the valley at sunrise in WNC, near Asheville. Closer to the viewer is a dark tree line, then fog, then a ridge line. Some grey and pink clouds scattered across the sky.
Dusk to Don :raccoon:
@dusk@todon.eu

Now hiring: Garden Hermit

Compensation:

If and only if the hermit fulfilled the terms of his contract, living in solitary contemplation without stepping foot outside of the estate for seven years, he would be rewarded with £500 to £700 (around $95,000 to $130,000 today).*
Was reminded of the role via the always-excellent, pro-labor history podcast for kids, “Forever Ago” (still interesting and listenable for adults, imo)

Episode title: "Jobs that don’t exist anymore"

https://www.brainson.org/episode/2024/12/04/jobs-that-dont-exist-anymore

* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ornamental-hermits-were-18th-century-englands-must-have-garden-accessory-180982469/

#parenting #history #BrainsOn #recommended #podcast

An 18th-century etching of "eccentric hermit" John Bigg Wellcome Collection under public domain An excerpt from English Eccentrics by Edith Sitwell Publication date 1994 Source: https://archive.org/details/englisheccentric0000edit_r1x9/page/25/mode/1up > . . . advertised for a hermit, he built a retreat for this ornamental but retiring person on a steep mound in his estate. This hermitage annoyed Mr Horace Walpole, who announced that it was ridiculous to set aside a quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in: and, indeed, the retreat seems to have been re- markable more for its discomfort than for its beauty, for we learn that there was 'an upper apartment, supported in part by con- torted legs and roots of trees, which formed the entrance to the cell'. Still. Mr Hamilton seems to have found no difficulty in pro- curing the hermit; and in any case, a professional discomfort was only to be expected by the hermit, who, according to the terms of the agreement, must 'continue in the hermitage seven years, where he should be provided with a Bible, optical glasses, a mat for his feet, a hassock for his pillow, an hour-glass for his timepiece, water for his beverage, and food from the house. He must wear a camlet robe, and never, under any circumstances, must he cut his hair, beard, or nails, stray beyond the limits of Mr Hamilton's grounds, or exchange one word with the servant.' If he remained without breaking one of these conditions, in the grounds of Mr Hamilton for seven years, he was to receive, as a proof of Mr Hamilton's An excerpt from English Eccentrics by Edith Sitwell Publication date 1994 Source: https://archive.org/details/englisheccentric0000edit_r1x9/page/25/mode/1up admiration and satisfaction, the sum of seven hundred pounds. But if, driven to madness by the intolerable tickling of the beard, or the scratching of the camlet robe, he broke any of the conditions laid down, he was not to receive a penny! It is a melancholy fact that the Ornamental Hermit stayed in his retreat for exactly three weeks ! But a gentleman living near Preston, Lancashire, had better luck with his hermit. He had advertised in the papers, offering a salary of £go a year for life, to any man who would live for seven years underground, without seeing any human being, and without cut- ting his hair, beard, toe-nails, or finger-nails. The advertisement was answered immediately, and the happy advertiser prepared an apartment underground which, as Mr Timbs assures us, was "very commodious, with a cold bath, a chamber organ, as many books as the occupier pleases, and provisions served from the gentleman' own table'. The ornamental occupant bloomed, unseen, in this retreat for the space of four years. But, unseen as he was, it is a little difficult to guess what pleasure his employer can have got out of the matter. The restored hermitage at Painshill Park Rictor Norton and David Allen via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0 It's an old, tiny house with a pointed roof, nestled in a lush garden, and raised off the ground by wooden stilts.