Tech: Nostr: 3-Months-In Impressions (~3.5min read)
I've been looking for a way to reach people, or just share in general, without the middle-man of megacorpo scum censorship, ad-padding, and one person/group/platform gatekeeping, so I was happy to have run across this protocol/network and have had a fairly positive experience with it.
As a semi-techy user, I managed to get my keys and, after getting a little Bitcoin, a wallet. As an artist, it's great to be able to share what I do with people who can show appreciation directly on-the-fly (via sats[pieces of bitcoin]) rather than depending on a 3rd party to "manage" the financial part of the experience, but, it being decentralized, I think people have to realize what they're signing up for.
It's still new(ish) tech. There are still things that the devs are working on or working through, so it's going to take time to have a truly polished experience. Also, if I were to casually throw a social/psychological visualization out there, I'd call Nostr what Twitter and Bluesky would be if they had a baby social media platform.
Sometimes, the feed there seems tech bro heavy, with all the idiotic red-pill, pro-capitalism/fuck the poor, dixie/nazi flag, emotionally stunted/underdeveloped pathologies you'd expect(much like a significant part of twitter's userbase), BUT, muting, then doom scrolling enough through the search/discover section of the client does yield some people who are emotionally mature, kind, and have constructive consideration of others(much like a significant part of Bluesky's userbase).
There is representation of the arts. There are women who post there. I have not yet noticed many members of the LGBTQ+ community there, or many POCS, so for me personally, I'd like to see more of that content showing up there and I hope that more members of these underrepresented groups will find their ways there.
The point is, like any platform, it takes pruning(muting) and, of course, follows, to get your feed set up to give you posts by people who you resonate with, and it takes the occasional maintenance to keep the experience going the way you want it to. If there is content, if there are people there who are shit, then it should be ME deciding who to shut out of my attention, but that doesn't mean that they should not be able to be shit there, and to experience the social and emotional consequences of their shittiness.
It's a small bit of effort for enjoying the freedom to express without having to deal with ad-revenue focused corpo censorship.
speaking of ads...NO ADS...ANYWHERE. I don't know how long that will last, but that's how it is now. Some clients have premium services you can pay for if you want, but that's specific to those clients and their devs, and the free versions of the apps/clients I've tried so far seem to work fine for where things are in development.
Nostr has a lot of positive potential to give people back control of their online experience and I hope it can get enough attention to get more casual users involved.
IIRC, the nihilist position is that there is no point, and the way I've chosen to interpret that is that it means we are free to personally define the point at any time, and for any length of time, as we please. The pointlessness lets us custom design life to fit our needs and desires, if we can minimize getting caught up in "you should do this and be that" external mentalities that may be incompatible with our natures. This seems like one of many correct paths to life satisfaction.
Of course, part of the battle is discovering what's in your(you in general not you specifically) nature to do and be, and then having the courage to see it through no matter what influences around you are saying or doing that may contradict it. The other part being unlearning incompatible mindsets that may have been fed into your mind when you were younger; authority figures anywhere in, and in any stage of, life are in dangerous positions to cause long term harm to impressionable, trusting minds, which is why I personally focus more on the "figure" and less on the "authority" part of "authority figure" when I'm dealing with people in those positions.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" - Aristotle or whoever actually said it.
and amphetamines.
Well that escalated into a different direction quickly. š
Mr. Max, you were the best guard dogue
Max, the little dog that was seen in one of the videos I posted here, crossed the rainbow bridge today.
I only got a few months to get to know him, but, given so little time I had with him, I didn't realize how big an impact he made on me.
It was his time. He was old. His back legs kept giving out on him, he was experiencing consistent back pain, and he had digestive issues. This had apparently been going on for months prior to my arriving to help care for my mom, but she couldn't bear to part with him, because she lived alone, and he'd been by her side for the past 4 years.
She is devastated, and I'm not feeling that great myself. I know time will dull the pain, but the house feels a little colder than usual, and far too empty.
We need to grieve now, so we can try to heal later.
Too empty...just...too empty.
Mister Dogue Update
HE'S CHIPPED! We found a way to get him back home. His actual name is "Butters", and that's adorable.
He's at a vet's office where they'll hang onto him until his family comes to get him.
I'm devastated that he's gone, but so very grateful for the time that I had with him, and so happy that he gets to go home to a family who have been worried sick about him.
It's not fair how big an impact a dog gets to have on our hearts, and so quickly.
With that, I shall end this story with a little play video I made with Mr. Butters, and wish him Dogspeed.
I have an account there that I use on occasion. If I read correctly, it's still in beta, so not as fully fleshed out as its competition yet. Doom scrolling through the random stuff in this beta is peaceful to me though. I like the variety and no ads.
Stray Dog, what to name?
Here's the info:
FOUND - a friendly, gentle if a bit clumsy, very skinny young boy puppy/teen dog. We found him sitting outside our door like it was his house. He seems to think he is a lap dop. We've been trying to get him on a regular feeding schedule to get some meat back on his bones and have otherwise been spoiling him rotten.
He clearly has pitbull genetics, but his rear area is so boney that we think he might have great dane genetics too, as well as his paws are HUGE. We suspect that someone might have been looking after him before because he looked just a bit emaciated, but otherwise well kept (coat, claws, etc). He appears to have just a flea problem, but is also drinking a LOT of water, so we're watching his tum for distension, and will be taking him to the vet to look for a chip and, if we can afford it now, get him looked over.
As of right now, he appears to be behaving like a typical adolescent dog; seems pretty happy and loving (like most pitties), does not appear to display physical or mental signs of fear or aggression, so we think he hasn't been abused (hopefully) --------------------------------------- We're fostering him for a month or two, in case the actual owner(s) make contact, but in the event that this becomes his furever home, what should we name him?
Quantum Computing
I need a quantum computer and GPU so I can install and play Minecraft and Solitaire on it.
Music Man
I like to play dad rock covers from the 80s and 90s, with a few new music covers thrown in on occasion. It's weird; I feel like I rolled single digits for my Charisma stat, but still want to live stream. Maybe I'm just a stage musician at heart, who knows.
https://youtube.com/shorts/i7INmjITDwQ?si=ZhVfYUJzjDNbu4en
Toni Time
In the event that this sub isn't dead, just wanna say that Toni is STILL killing it, playing 4d chess with her character work:
https://youtu.be/I-pxdDxP4BQ?si=_dyA-L3AEwn_QzqJ
New Online Home!
I'm so glad to have found a decentralized home on the Net. Maybe I'll finally rid myself of all those corpo controlled accounts. Don't expect consistent posting, but do expect...well...random posts, I'll be doing it here.