Mastodawn

halcyondays Jan 10, 2024

Something needs to be said about LW

Something needs to be said about LW - midwest.social

Alright, this may not be popular, but I really like this instance for a lot of reasons. And I know this has the potential to turn into a “cool story bro”, which is why I’ve been holding this back for a couple months, but I’m about at my breaking point, and I’d rather try to discuss this here than feel like I have to just exit quietly. Compared to six months ago, when federated with lemmy.world, lemmy has turned back into Reddit. Completely, entirely, full stop. 80% of all is LW, and even when using the individual instance block their comments ruin every thread. I can’t take any more of the inane reposts of 10 year old Reddit quips. I can’t take any more of every single mainstream news article being posted, and then reposted across 5 communities, and then the reposts of those every day for a week across the same 5 communities. I can’t take any more stupid memes with no discussion. I can’t take any more of the vote blue no matter who milquetoast centrism that is the exact fucking opposite of what a non-corporate platform should be advocating. I can’t take all of the excess noise with no purpose. And for the record I’m at 400+ communities blocked, I’ve really tried to make it bearable, but it’s a never ending onslaught. My daily usage lately seems like block community, block user, block user, block community, block community, block user, actually read one thread, repeat. Part of me hates to advocate for segmenting out such a large part of the fediverse, but it seems pretty clear at this point that LW (and kbin.social) have no interest in building any sort of community other than user counts, and they’re taking all of us down into the depths of everything we left Reddit for with them. Is this something this instance is keeping an eye on? Is there any inclination towards the future of federation? Is there a consensus process in place? I really like the idea of being on a locally based and left leaning instance that federates with instances like lemmy.ml [http://lemmy.ml], beehaw, and hexbear, and shuns mindless spam like lemmy.world and kbin.social. But the former isn’t making up for the lack of the latter lately.

halcyondays Dec 18, 2023

Quick fixes for muddy yard?

https://midwest.social/post/6605186

Quick fixes for muddy yard? - midwest.social

I moved into a place towards the end of summer that has a backyard with a bit too much clover and just sparse patches of grass, which has turned into a bunch of mud with sparse patches of grass over the winter. I’m thinking about some xeriscaping (TIL it’s not “zero scaping”) next summer, extend the concrete out from the house a bit, some pavers, maybe some gravel/rock portions, and of course reseeding the grass. But in the meantime, it’s difficult to let the dog out without her coming back with muddy paws, and it looks like it isn’t going to freeze properly this winter - so is there a half assed solution I can throw in over a weekend to hold us over?

halcyondays Nov 25, 2023

What did you do with semi-trusted emails?

https://midwest.social/post/5810982

What did you do with semi-trusted emails? - midwest.social

Curious for any input on this - I want to finish migrating off the gmail I’ve had since 2004. I’ve moved everything vital, utilities, banks, financial services, doctors, vets, etc, to proton. But what about spammy or untrusted services, or general e-commerce? Think sweetwater, etsy, newegg, etc. I could create an alias in proton, but I really like being able to have notifications on for the proton mail app; if someone emails me there it actually matters. So, I don’t want to lose access to these services, and I don’t want to give them an email that matters. Do I need another provider? Is there a better solution?