Bill Hayes @bill@mastodon.online
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- https://twitter.com/billdotmu
Married autistic Engländer with two cats living in the south of Germany. Sysadmin in healthcare. Mostly forehead and anxiety. Toots are my private thoughts but you may read them if you want to.
Joined Apr 2022
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Possibly jumping ship from Twitter. My name's Bill and I'm a Brit who moved to a village in Germany a month before Brexit. I'm married with two cats. I'm a big lefty nerd who supports IT infrastructure in healthcare for a living. I have no idea what I'm doing either here or anywhere else. Hi. #introduction
Bill Hayes
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The new Doctor is exactly what I wanted: someone I don't know.
We started assembling our new sofa yesterday and instead of feet for the sofa IKEA accidentally sent us half a bookcase. It's okay though because we're getting the missing parts in just over a week and we got a very helpful lecture over the phone about how we should have checked all the labels on the boxes as they were delivered.
One thing I miss having moved from the UK to Germany is customer service.
UK politics.
I think it's really sad how some people voted Conservative. Not many, at least, but still. I'll never understand people who look at this government, the last decade of government, and go "yes please more of this".
Voting Tory ought to be massively stigmatised. Like if someone tells you they did, reply as though they've just pulled their finger out their ear and licked it.
The floor in the living room isn't finished yet and this idiot's found a new hobby. She runs into the empty living room, yells very loudly (I guess she enjoys the echo) until I call her, then she jumps on me and tracks sawdust all over my legs.
Bill Hayes
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You know what? I want to see a de-make of Cyberpunk 2077 into the Sierra AGI engine.
Dozing through a CCNA course and calling out "DNS?" whenever the instructor goes quiet. Going well so far.
Politics, war.
I live in a tiny (pop. ~3000) village in Germany and the front page of the latest edition of the village newsletter has a big #Ukraine flag and says we've welcomed 70 Ukrainian refugees. Elsewhere in the newsletter they're inviting them to community events. It's beautiful and everyone seems really proud of themselves.
It's a shame that the UK is missing out, and it's entirely because of their government who have chosen cruelty when people want to be kinder. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/30/ukraine-refugees-are-flocking-to-germany-and-shunning-the-uk
Our tradespeople assured us our living room floor would definitely be finished for this weekend so we arranged delivery of our new sofa and TV for today. Well, they arrived. Here's a photo of me sitting on my new sofa watching my new TV.
Bill Hayes
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Bill Hayes
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So you just arrived here from twitter and it's quiet. Real quiet. That's because there's no algorithm here designed to drive engagement(which equals profit).
Here, you are the algorithm. It's up to you to find and follow people that are interesting to you. You can also see who they follow and who else follows them, as you build it up, it gets more interesting.
Also, if you find people you don't like or entire instances you don't like, you can mute or block them. You are in control.
Work is a silly idea. I can't go home and nap whenever I want without becoming unable to afford to keep that home? Who came up with this nonsense?
Bill Hayes
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New users from Twitter read this
New users: be aware that a lot of us, old users, hardly went on an other social network for >5 years. We had our dramas there and then but most of the time the fediverse was a peaceful place. Please don't bring the Twitter culture. I'm talking about the negativity toward others and everything.
The fediverse works with a federation of servers. We can block or mute whole instances so we won't engage with people we don't want to talk with, because they are kept outside of our instances and their instances of choice get muted.
The result is that we are mostly protected from nasty debates.
It's OK to confront hurtful statements, off course, but here we have the power to banish them out of our sights while they can do they so called free speach by themselves on other instances
The fediverse works with a federation of servers. We can block or mute whole instances so we won't engage with people we don't want to talk with, because they are kept outside of our instances and their instances of choice get muted.
The result is that we are mostly protected from nasty debates.
It's OK to confront hurtful statements, off course, but here we have the power to banish them out of our sights while they can do they so called free speach by themselves on other instances
It's really not like Twitter, is it? I haven't seen any hate or rage here, just chill conversations and shitposts. I first joined the fediverse back in 2018 and used it like Twitter, crossposting and all, but got bored with it and when the instance I was using closed down I didn't bother to migrate my account.
I'm getting much more out of it now by treating it as its own thing. Twitter is still Twitter and I'm still there, but spending a bit more time here instead of there is good for the soul.
Bill Hayes
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Bill Hayes
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birdsite migration musings
So it does seem like one of the things that puts people off coming here from twitter is something that we see in the open (science|scholarship|data) field as well: the idea that you have to switch 100% to the New Better Way on day 1 and anyone who commits any less than that is to be the subject of ridicule.
It's ok to be in both places, to dip your toe in the water, to vacillate, to acknowledge external pressures that push you in a different direction.
Twitter is the place I go to be angry. Maybe here I can find more wholesome, joyful things. Or is that just not what social media is? Anyway, what are your top tips for finding people to follow? I'll keep checking the local and fediverse feeds but maybe there's something else I'm missing.
Have a lovely day. x
This is a joyful little documentary about the history of Michaelsoft Binbows. Recommended if you've been around here ("The Internet") for a while and want to learn a bit about the lore, or if simply seeing the words "Michaelsoft Binbows" activated your seratonin neurons a little bit. https://youtu.be/yDzAAjzbV5g
Bill Hayes
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Imagine being wealthy enough to end world hunger with your spare change...saying you would, then deciding to buy the bird site **instead**.
Bill Hayes
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Ok, ok - Fediverse, wir brauchen euch: Aktuell gibt es eine Menge Leute, die sich Mastodon als Alternative zu Twitter ansehen.
Wir würden hier gerne mal Informationen sammeln, um diesen Menschen den Einstieg zu erleichtern: Tutorials, Tipps und Tricks, Übersichten über Instanzen, Empfehlung für Clients für verschiedene Betriebssysteme und Geräte - oder was euch sonst noch so einfällt.
Die besten Beiträge stellen wir dann auf unserer Homepage zusammen. / ÖA
I'm missing language translation from Twitter. Does any Mastodon app have built-in translation?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- https://twitter.com/billdotmu
Married autistic Engländer with two cats living in the south of Germany. Sysadmin in healthcare. Mostly forehead and anxiety. Toots are my private thoughts but you may read them if you want to.
Joined Apr 2022
