I gave up 15 years on Twitter and 22,000 followers. I used my anniversary to invite others to follow me to Mastodon, and I pointed out that every tweet is a donation to Musk. We know what he is and what he's doing. He gave Michael Flynn his account back on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

I started my #Twitter exodus as a boycott against Musk. Now, I'm thrilled to be here. I miss a few things, but Mastodon is just built better. I feel like it makes me (and you) better, too.

3 things I wish everyone understood about #COVID19 now:

- The main risk isn't acute illness or death but chronic harm to hearts, brains & immune systems: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12VbMkvqUF9eSggJsdsFEjKs5x0ABxQJi5tvfzJIDd3U/edit?usp=sharing

- You can get Long COVID following a mild illness: https://fortune.com/2023/01/05/origins-of-long-covid-90-percent-initally-mild-symptoms/

- COVID is evolving to be more dangerous by defeating our immunity protection: https://fortune.com/well/2023/01/06/kraken-xbb15-omicron-covid-variant-most-transmissible-yet-could-spawn-more-immune-evasive-variants-study-china-vaccine-monoclonal-antibodies-breakthrough-infection/

This means we should try to avoid spreading COVID & helping it evolve. And we should be more concerned for ourselves and others. #WearAMask

Reagan was extremely destructive to declare “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government is the problem.”

Has the "Party of Lincoln" forgotten that Lincoln proudly said, "Our Government is of, by, & for the people."

To declare Government as the problem is to declare the American people as the problem. And when you declare people as the problem, you become exclusive, cruel, & unjust. That's not pro-America—it's literally anti-America. That's what the GOP has become. Vote Them Out.

The number of active Mastodon users — those who've logged in in the last 30 days — has fallen to 1.8 million from a high of 2.6 million. This reflects the fact that while there's a wave of new users after each Musk tantrum, the majority aren't sticking around. Even the 1.8M figure is inflated by new accounts, so I expect a further drop.

Still, the number of active users is over 4 times what it used to be before the Twitter takeover.

Source: https://api.joinmastodon.org/statistics (and Wayback machine).

Amazing footage of a Cirroteuthid octopus stretching its tentacles to form a huge balloon, filmed by EVNautilus at a depth of around 1,600 metres.

Source and more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbHjs9A7sis