Meg

@[email protected]
1.6K Followers
517 Following
14.5K Posts

I like video games, programming languages, and hacking things up with old video game hardware. I also post a lot about TV I'm watching, and sometimes books I'm reading too.

At my day job I hack on dev tools for a moonshot operating system, and I think Plan 9 is cool. I've also worked on social networks, streaming, and low level network software in the past at companies big and small.

Used to stream on twitch (as megmactv) but don't really anymore.

Anything I say here is 1000% my own opinion and probably no one, including any employers I have or have had in the past agree with me.

#NoUnroll

More Personalhttps://sunny.garden/@megan
PronounsShe/her but they/them is fine too
BoostsIf it's public or unlisted feel free!
Following backSay hi and probably! Here to interact!
Bluesky (not active)https://bsky.app/profile/megmac.tv
SignalSee pins
Meg8h ago
Amelia Bellamy-Royds 8h ago

RE: https://mstdn.ca/@Paulatics/116274422810116128

Seeing lots of people in the replies here not understanding why a government IT department would be negative about Mastodon & the fediverse. I suspect it's all about legal liability.

With big corporate social media, the big corp's lawyers & mods are responsible for libel & hate speech in replies to public figures.

If you stand up your own fediverse software, you are responsible for moderating not only posts from people with accounts on your server, but also any incoming replies from other servers. If you join an existing server, you're dependent on volunteers (with limited or no legal funds) to moderate content.

There are lots of nasty little social networks out there using ActivityPub software. Some of them keep to themselves, like the ones where accounts share abusive images. Others exist to harass & torment other people on the fediverse with hateful replies (often with limited visibility). If you have never experienced this, thank your local server mods (& other fedi mods that share block lists).

1/2

Show threadMeg9h ago
@linux_mclinuxface @Daveography @robyn getting local for a sec tera-byte doesn't even list colo services on their website anymore, for example.
Show threadMeg9h ago
@linux_mclinuxface @Daveography @robyn kind of a general problem is that there's a missing middle hosting level for this sort of thing. Colocating one beefy server at your friendly neighborhood datacenter used to be a thing that wasn't too difficult or expensive relative to alternatives, but nowadays it's way more expensive and difficult than either cloud hosting or using the fiber you already have to your home.
Show threadMeg10h ago
@linux_mclinuxface well, the joining part is mostly if you migrate. That causes a huge queue of new network events to inform other servers of the change and refollows. Most of the time problems with mastodon scaling are of this kind of big deep job queue sort afaik. But then also every post needs to be sent out to other servers so once you're there, if you're active you can trigger it again when you post.
Show threadMeg10h ago
@linux_mclinuxface mastodon specifically has some really unfortunate design decisions that make it pretty bad at scaling in a non-"throw hardware at the problem" way. Gts and some other fedi software can do better, so it's not inherent to the network, afaik.
Meg10h ago
Neil Brown6d ago
An appropriate T-shirt for today.
Show threadMeg11h ago
@GeePawHill though relative scale also matters obviously. Like there are different degrees of "small server" too. If there's already a bunch of 6k follower accounts but there aren't many accounts total it might be less of an issue.
Show threadMeg11h ago
@GeePawHill I think that's in "check with the admins" territory. It's also a good idea from a "vibe check that the server is well run" perspective anyways.
Meg12h ago

PSA: Something to keep in mind when inviting people to a mastodon server you're on is that if your server is quite small, taking on even one multi-thousand+ follower account might result in a significant increase in the cost and difficulty of running that server. Even just the migration itself might be a costly event.

People with a lot of followers should be really be careful themselves about moving to a server, and check in with the admins about if they're willing to take on the increased load, but it's also good to keep that in mind when suggesting your server that you have no part in sysadmining to your favorite fedi celeb.

Show threadMeg1d ago
@Daveography did you see it at city center? I wonder if you were leaving right as we were going in to see it lol