Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

The willow is too close to the house.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“But what about the lurkers?”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / No One Seems to Be Taking About This

No One Seems to Be Taking About This

by | 158 Comments

This post is in: 

There’s talk of Post.news and Mastadon, but I don’t hear anyone talking about this.

What am I missing?

Hello,

A Bot Sentinel-powered social media platform is one step closer to becoming a reality. The name of the project is called Spoutible, and we are moving forward with the next steps to make Spoutible available at the end of January.

If you want to be part of something new and share your thoughts on what a Twitter alternative should include, then please pre-register here:

A social media platform doesn’t have to be sterile and boring to keep its users safe. Spoutible’s mission is to allow users to “spout off” while mitigating targeted harassment, threats of violence, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rampant misogyny, mis/disinformation, and platform manipulation.

Join us in our journey to build a more inclusive space without compromising the best parts of what we love about social media platforms.

Join me today SATURDAY at 12 PM EST on Twitter Spaces to discuss Spoutible and what you can expect next.

Join here: https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1599060706099286017

Best,
Christopher

Is there some reason people here don’t seem to be interested in this?  Has Christopher Bouzy fallen out of favor?

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  1. 1.

    Starfish

    I think people may still like Christopher Bouzy, but the question is, “Was internet debate club really a good part of the social media networks that people are going to miss?”

    I don’t think it was. It was usually men dragging you to internet debate club! Why won’t you debate me, various dudes ask, as you go make yourself a sandwich.

    I thought Christopher Bouzy was aligned with infosec Twitter, and most of infosec Twitter did move to Mastodon. There were a couple of holdouts, but most people moved.

    Right now, people are tired in a way that they were not before the pandemic, and they do want nice things. That is why we like Tamara’s nice posts with her giant dogs.

  2. 2.

    jeffreyw

    The first I’ve heard of it. I’ll wait to see how it shakes out Twitter has the massive first mover advantage that will be hard to overcome. I’m posting to Mastodon and Counter Social as a hedge. CS is a Mastodon fork that isn’t part of the federation.

  3. 3.

    Aurona

    I’m pro Chris Bouzy and appreciate the work he’s done on Bot Sentinel. I’m sorry, this I think will be the best of the ones delivering for 2022. Laurence Tribe can stay with Post, as that currently would be my #2, with #Spoutible (Bouzy’s) as #1. Also, he’s the only one who has recommended hiring diversity of 40% women when there are only 25% in big tech, and people of color. He’s got clean hands as far as I can tell and I won’t be crushed that this would turn into a Jack fantasy or an Elmo basura cremains.

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    I think on the whole that Twitter and Facebook have been destructive to democracy and major doctors FACTORS in the promotion of authoritarianism, Christo fascism and ethno nationalism.  I do not think there would be Dutarte in the Philippines without Facebook. I am skeptical about social media platforms generally and maybe they just need to fucking die.  The problem is that media/journalists/politicians are using these platforms and that means many of us try to tinker with the social media driven narratives at the margins.  Does it work?  I have no idea anymore.
    There is a need for platforms that allow people to organize, that make it possible for people with disabilities and chronic illness access to build community and to try to influence the conversation.  Does social media facilitate that? Yes but it also exploits as well.
    Not sure I trust Bouzy completely. I’ve heard good things about Post and that there is a mechanism for content creators to get paid which may be a good sign.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Aurona: We still need to know a lot more before it’s safe tome predictions, but based on what I know now, I think this has the best potential to be the twitter replacement, too.

    As someone who has seen “distributed” setups like this in a work environment, I think Mastodon is a disaster waiting to happen once it scales up.

  8. 8.

    Falling Diphthong

    This week I’ve been seeing AI-generated art and stories that are “good” if the metric is “huh, a robot did this; ain’t that a thing” but not if the metric is “is this a good picture or story.” I am skeptical that a bot moderation division will work at the level people want.

    And like Starfish and JeffreyW say, “Hey, debate me!!!!” was never the appeal. I like posts about all the ways Medieval illustrators drew bees.

  10. 10.

    MomSense

    Meanwhile on the dying bird app, GG has a thread in defense of Taibbi.  Liberals are to blame AGAIN for Taibbi showing his whole ass yesterday.

  11. 11.

    VOR

    @MomSense: I’m on a couple specific Facebook groups where people are trying to help each other. Those groups need constant moderation. One group is under assault by scammers who see the members as targets. The other has members who seem determined to go OT. We’re here to talk about policies at the cemetery where our loved ones are buried, not the specials run by your duct cleaning company.

    IMO Facebook has become less usable over the past year as the number of ads has ramped up. I’ve blocked almost all the MAGAt relatives and their friends posting BS, but the ads are relentless. You get 1 post from a friend, then a seemingly endless stream of “sponsored” and “suggested for you” crap. It’s exhausting

    YouTube’s algorithm is a PITA. It seems convinced I really, really want to see more Joe Rogan Experience, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro. Keeps suggesting content leaning that way. Blocking channels is your friend.

  12. 12.

    Mike in NC

    I turned on the boob tube earlier this morning (to MSNBC) and the chyron was all about “Donald Trump’s Long History of Racism”. Funny how that subject was entirely missing from the mainstream media in 2015-2016.

  14. 14.

    MomSense

    @VOR:

    I feel lately like I’ve been telling kids about how we used to organize with clipboards and index cards and actually standing outside and talking to people.  We even got together at coffee shops, bars, pizza places and sometimes at our homes and like talked.
    Then I adjust the onions on my belt.

  15. 15.

    Geo Wilcox

    @VOR: Hit your feeds and they go away. That’s the only way I can even look at Facebook. Either that or I check it out on my Ad Block protected PC, again no sponsored shit that way.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    @Mike in NC: Now that the orange wooly mammoth is staggering around on his last legs, the more timid hunters have worked up enough courage to give him a few jabs with their spears.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Is there some reason people here don’t seem to be interested in this?  Has Christopher Bouzy fallen out of favor?

    (one possible reason) who is Christopher Bouzy? Whose favor was he in and when, why and how would he have fallen out of it?

    A Bot Sentinel-powered social media platform is one step closer to becoming a reality.

    (and another) and a hearty bleep bloop blorp to you, sir!

    (and finally) I believe for a lot of people here, Balloon Juice is about as Very On-Line as they get. I look at twitter, but don’t really participate in it. I’ve seen people talk about Post and Mastodon, heard podcast hosts I listen to mention them, mostly unfavorably. I think if one of these upstarts figures out how to be as user-friendly, and free, as Twitter, it will take over. Something something algorithms, bleep bloop blorp.

  24. 24.

    MomSense

    @zhena gogolia:

    Elmo gave Taibbi documents “proving” that the Hunter Biden laptop story was censored.  A little digging showed a different story and Taibbi got some serious backlash which GG is now taking up.

  26. 26.

    Anoniminous

    @WaterGirl: ​
     
    Mastodon is like Blockchain, a system designed by a TechBro with limited to no understanding of Combinatorial Explosion, Iterative Complexity, and the general cussedness of humans.

  27. 27.

    Starfish

    @jeffreyw: I set up my Mastodon to follow the #BirdsOfMastodon hashtag. Occasionally, it gives me a picture of a bird in my time line, which is not quite as good as having Betty Cracker there posting pictures of birds, but it is pretty good.

  28. 28.

    zhena gogolia

    @MomSense: Thanks. I too wasn’t able to edit my comment. I tried to say that Tim Miller at the Bulwark filled me in.

    I’m trying to edit again

    This time it worked.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: Now that’s a thread that could be written by AI, just change the name of the person they are definding, and you’ve got your article.  Only Dems have agency, and only liberals are responsible for what these shitheads say.

  33. 33.

    Starfish

    @WaterGirl: One hypothesis is that what made a bunch of social networks as disaster was the ability to scale up. There is a scale at which we do not have enough human moderators in the world. If you are that big, then you are too big.

    What does it mean to scale up Mastodon?

    It means a bunch of people creating smaller instances.

    You can’t block the biggest instances because they have all the content, but can you block that one dude doing terrible things on his own instance, you can.

    I am not sure if there is a way to block all small instances.

    Some instances want a white list of “Yes, these people are good.” They had tried that in the past, and it failed for some reason, but I think it is a feature that is needed.

  35. 35.

    frosty

    @VOR: You get 1 post from a friend, then a seemingly endless stream of “sponsored” and “suggested for you” crap. It’s exhausting.

    I’ve had the same experience. Plus, the people who I followed when I signed up 10 years ago aren’t posting any more so I’m hearing mostly from people I don’t care about.

  36. 36.

    Barbara

    I pre-registered at both Post and Spoutible. I cannot make heads or tails of Mastodon, more important, I can’t find anyone even when I know they have accounts there.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    I want to do the twitter spaces thing today for this Bouzy discussion, but I don’t see how to do it.  Does anyone know?

    edit: never mind, it looks like you can’t access twitter spaces unless you have 600 followers???

  39. 39.

    Joy in FL

    He’s live right now on Twitter spaces for Q&A.

    I’ve signed for Spoutible and made a couple small donations.

  41. 41.

    Spanky

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  What Jim said. Also

    A Bot Sentinel-powered social media platform flying car is one step closer to becoming a reality.

    Ping me when all the steps to reality are complete. Then maybe I’ll be interested.

  42. 42.

    James E Powell

    @Mike in NC:

    Funny how that subject was entirely missing from the mainstream media in 2015-2016.

    At that time, the media’s top priority was keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House or, failing that, making sure she entered as weak as possible. Remember how they were excitedly promoting “Republicans will begin impeachment proceedings on day one!” stories?

  43. 43.

    Joy in FL

    @WaterGirl: I’m on his email list, so I got an email notice.

    ‘Also when I open my Twitter app, often at the top of the screen, I see Spaces that are currently happening – maybe try that.

  46. 46.

    MazeDancer

    Think it has t exist before people can get interested.

    Also, since I muted/blocked all iterations of Elon’s name, my Twitter feed feels like return to semi-normal.

    I don’t hate Post. Loathe Mastodon.

    Post just needs more of my Twitter folks.

  47. 47.

    Starfish

    @Anoniminous: Not at all the same thing.

    The German dude seems like a dorky controlling tech person, but he does not seem like a tech bro.

    The tech bros came in when there was money in tech in the first dot com boom. They may not even be interested in tech. They could have been business bros, but the money was in tech, so they went to tech to make it stupid.

    One of the protocols that Mastodon is built on (ActivityPub) was by a trans woman (Christine Lemmer-Webber).

    There is a chance that Mastodon will be a niche tech space, like Google+.

    All the tech folks went, but all the tech folks are not all tech bros.

  49. 49.

    scav

    Sudden thought, so not quite worked out.  This is some sort of swarming event, bees gotta leave the nest, whatever reason. Thing is, bees gotta be with bees, that’s sorta the whole point of the colony.  So, wherever that colony ends up is going to have damn little to do with the ratiocination of individual bees. There’s going to be so much random.  Especially as a major thing with the Twitterhive was the scale.

    Next sudden thought — or like that crowd crush in a weird way.  When the density of a crowd gets to a certain point, they start to behave like a fluid, a thing at an entirely different scale.  doesn’t matter what the individual drops of water think or decide to do.

  50. 50.

    Kristine

    I just pre-registered with Spoutible and donated a bit. Mostly trying to grab my name everywhere so I have it at whichever Twitter substitute tales off. Assuming Twitter doesn’t reboot, which would be nice but I’m not counting on it.

    I hope Mastodon doesn’t crash and burn because I do like it so far. Some interesting follows. Learned that a Chandra group leader is a fan of my books, so that was really nice. The place still has a small town feel, which I assume won’t last.

  51. 51.

    ian

    100 years ago, people believed that the invention/advancement of AI and robots would lead to a golden age in which the automated things would do all the labor and people would be free to do art and technological stuff.

    Today, people do the labor/grunt work while the AIs and bots create the new technology and make the groundbreaking art.

    Maybe the luddites had it right.

  52. 52.

    artem1s

    great. a social media platform full of incels ‘well actually-ing’ at me. I cannot wait.

    yep. hard no.

  53. 53.

    Starfish

    @Barbara: Mastodon, a social network that does not have the goal of scaling massively, does not have a nice onboarding experience. I did start recreating some of the Balloon Juice list there, but it is small.

    People were putting together google spreadsheets of folks to follow when they joined.

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    @Barbara: Mastodon does have a steeper learning curve, I think because it kinda sorta looks like Twitter (screen divided into three basic reading panes, with different widgets and contents in each pane) so we expect it to act like Twitter.  I’ve been there a couple months and am just now getting comfortable with basic usage.

    I’m consciously trying to make checking Mastodon first thing in the morning a habit – but I’m still checking Twitter frequently because, unfortunately, Twitter is still a better place to see if any news is breaking anywhere in the world.  (And Mastodon’s Search engine is a PITA.)

    I’m also at Post, and have established a reasonable feed there.  Post really is more for chatting.

    Neither Mastodon nor Post have a [Show This Thread] button yet.  I hope their mods put one in soon, as right now you need to click on the Toot or Post item to reveal the conversation.

    To answer Betty’s question: At this point, I think people may be experiencing Too Many Alternatives Fatigue.  If the global online community splits up too much, an individual may have to enroll in three or more Not-Twitters to recreate their reach on Twitter.  And each one will have its own look-and-feel, it’s own set of tools and widgets… I don’t want to have to scroll six different social media accounts every day before breakfast, and I’m guessing the same is true for a lot of people.

  55. 55.

    dc

    I have an account on Mastodon. A lot of accounts I follow on Twitter have opened accounts there. I have also followed a few accounts that are “boosted” by the accounts I follow. I searched for a Ukraine account and now follow one that’s really a aggregator of news about Ukraine. I found this one on bills in Congress that I like as well: GovTrack.us @[email protected]

    Here’s a cat one: Cats and [email protected]@botsin.space

    And the great: George [email protected]@universeodon.com

  59. 59.

    Scout211

    @MazeDancer: Think it has t(o) exist before people can get interested.

    I agree. Most people seem to want a “move-in-ready” experience these days. No fixer-uppers wanted for most people.

    Since the only social media I read is what is posted on sites that I read, it’s all the same to me.

  61. 61.

    dc

    @CaseyL: ​
    I am currently on the wait list for Post: We have added your email address to the waiting list — you are currently #77625.

    I am not going to get five others to sign up, so I’m not moving up that list any faster. I can see the feed of one twitter account I follow who has opened up shop on Post though because he put the url in his Twitter feed. I can’t open his posts that he is charging points for though.

  64. 64.

    dc

    @Barbara: ​
      Interesting. I’ve found it pretty easy to find people / accounts there. I also opened an account on Counter Social. It does seem more difficult and fewer accounts I’ve looked for are there. JJ MacNab is there (anti-gov. extremist movement expert). I understand it’s an offshoot of Mastodon. But they don’t work together.

  66. 66.

    dc

    @Starfish: ​
    I do searches just for names and it works. For example, search George Takei and you get is account. Or Atrios, and you get his account. Sometimes there’s a list, with some bot accounts, but I look for the “real” account and follow.

    ETA: I just searched for Rude Pundit, just by name and found his account.

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think it was the O’Bros who were discussing trump’s refusal to return to Twitter, which I suspect Musk was counting on for personal, political and financial reasons. They want to take “Truth Whatever” public, and if trump posts on twitter, it’ll screw any deal– which deal I suspect is a fantasy anyway, but trump might well have convinced himself billions are in his grasp.

  68. 68.

    Starfish

    @dc: Are you on one of the main instances? I am off in the hinterlands on a smaller instance, so I have to search everyone by their name and instance.

  69. 69.

    dc

    @Starfish: I am not on a big one. It’s mastodon.lol . The lol does not mean it’s for comedians :) It was the first instance I saw that wasn’t giant and that described itself as anti-fascist:

    This instance is friendly towards anti-fascists, members of the LGBTQ+ community, activist movements, hackers, and anyone who doesn’t think “free speech” is the only important human right. Anyone is welcome so long as they abide by the rules. This is not a free speech zone, Nazis fuck off.

    We do not federate with fascist instances.

  70. 70.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @CaseyL: Mastodon is an example of why user experience designers are important. There’s so many things — especially the sign up process — that could easily be made far easier.

    I’ll be interested in someone creates the equivalent of Tweetdeck — but enables you to simultaneously see posts from/reply to Tweeter, Mastodon, Post.news, etc.

  71. 71.

    brendancalling

    @MomSense: what you said. I still have an existing FB account but I never use it. As a result, the algorithm has no idea what to do with me, and consistently sends me the most bizarre, lowest-common-denominator, right wing bilge. I can only assume that’s what most users who don’t assiduously cultivate their feed see as well (and I have way to many real-life interests to spend any time curating FB).

    I agree that social media, in general, needs to die.

  72. 72.

    Poe Larity

    It’s time for Balloon-Juice to break through the top 10,000 blog barrier and dominate a new platform.

    I, for one, welcome our new sentient overlords.

  73. 73.

    feebog

    I’m also on the waitlist for Post.  I want to give it a shot before I look at any other SM site.  One thing seems certain, Twitter is going to end up as another version of gab.

  76. 76.

    Starfish

    @CaseyL:

    Oh, there are others.
    @[email protected]
    @[email protected] -> Maybe too techie or too far left for some folks here
    @[email protected] -> Mostly just crossposting from Twitter
    @[email protected]
    @[email protected] -> Lots of journalists on this instance, but some instances have blocked the whole instance for not putting politics behind a CW or for including journalists of the “Let’s question whether trans people” are real variety. Ashton is not like that, but someone else on this instance. I don’t remember the details of the drama

  77. 77.

    davecb

    I notice that neither spoutable nor postnews says what is different about them. Once you’ve dug down and eventually found that postnews is a discussion where personal insults are forbidden, you can sort of see it hinted at in the marketing material.

    My old marketing manager said “what and why come first”, and we both agreed that advertisers and marketers were really bad at doing that.
    I’d love to see a user story something like “As a user experience designer, I want a discussion program that forbids personal attacks, so we can see if people will pay money for… non-personal attacks”​

  79. 79.

    JoyceH

    Hey, who’s up for an Open Threadish topic? Has anyone here had cataract surgery and want to tell me about it? Backstory – couple days ago, I noticed a cloudy spot in my vision (upper center on the right, to be specific). Scared me, so I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist – was worried about torn or detached retina. She looked at me with her bright lights and gizmos, said my retina looked fine. Also said ‘it’s up to you when you want to deal with the cataracts’. To be honest, I’d entirely forgotten that I had cataracts, though my optometrist had mentioned years ago that I had the beginnings of them. So I’ve been reading up on cataract surgery – I’d always thought they just scraped away the cloudy bits, but seems that they replace the entire lens, and in the process can improve your eyesight. That’s kind of exciting, I get new glasses every year and then my eyes move out of that new prescription pretty quickly. So, those of you who’ve been there, want to chime in?

  81. 81.

    dm

    Sorry, this is from an earlier front-page post, but what does Charlie Pierce have against The day the Earth stood still?

    Blake Masters, Kari Lake and the rest of the cast of The Day The Earth Stood Still who ran in the midterm elections.

  82. 82.

    zhena gogolia

    @dm: You may not be surprised to learn that this vital topic has already been discussed here on BJ. It might even be on this thread, but I think it’s an earlier thread.

    He obviously meant Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  83. 83.

    Eyeroller

    @JoyceH: Several commenters have had cataract surgery IIRC.  They will fit the lens in advance.  My ophthalmologist uses a nerve block even for simple surgery like that (he did my cataract surgery as well as my implant) because he really, really doesn’t want the eye to move (and he tapes the patient’s head to the table so the head won’t move either), but many surgeons just use topical anesthesia (and you usually get “sedation”).  The natural lens is blasted to bits with ultrasound and the debris sucked out, then the new lens is inserted and the incision is sewn up.  Recovery is quick but you need to adhere to the eyedrop regimen as prescribed.​

  84. 84.

    karen marie

    This is a joke, right?

    No, I’m not interested in “spouting off” or visiting a site where others are “spouting off.”

    I don’t think the people behind this can hear themselves.

  85. 85.

    Scout211

    @JoyceH: Yes, I have had lens replacements in both eyes and Mr. Scout has had both eyes done as well.

    Your ophthalmologist will give you a choice of distance correction or (if both eyes are done) a monovision correction (one eye for near vision, one for distance).  Most go with the distance correction.  Your doctor will discuss all those options for you.

    The surgery is usually done on one eye at a time.  You have a follow-up visit and then a final visit before you are ready for new glasses.  If you get the distance vision correction, get yourself several different readers in different strengths because you will lose your close-up vision and those few weeks are kind of frustrating until your get your new glasses that give you the new correction.

    I finally agreed to the surgery when I had the same issue that you do now.  I’d get a new pair of glasses and within a few months, they weren’t strong enough. My vision was definitely going downhill.

    I had LASIK surgery 20 years ago and the correction is more difficult on the replacement lens for those of us who have had LASIK surgery in the past.  I still wear blended bifocals now but I have worn the same correction for two years so that is an improvement. But many people without previous LASIK get very good vision and don’t have to wear glasses for distance after getting their cataract surgery and lens replacements.

    Ophthalmologists perform cataract surgeries all the time and most are very skilled at it.  But you might want to get a referral from people you know or from your optometrist to an ophthalmologist who they recommend.

    It was definitely a good decision for both of us. Good luck with your decision.

    ETA:  for clarity

  86. 86.

    zzyzx

    I hadn’t heard of that one.

    Maybe I just didn’t know who to follow but Mastodon feels more like usenet than anything, something where I’d want 10 accounts, one to post about music, one to post about politics, one to post about Doctor Who, etc, because everything goes into the main feed and I’d feel like I was annoying people for being off topic. On Twitter people have to choose to follow me and so I’m “Hey if this annoys you, the unfollow button is right there!”

  88. 88.

    FledtheUS

    @davecb: Post.news turned me off when they made ‘net worth’ a protected status and not gender. Also any tech bro that says ‘we want free speech and open dialogue and discussion’ makes me think that marginalized groups are going to end up getting dogpiled and then asked why they don’t get a thicker skin.

    no thanks.

  89. 89.

    karen marie

    @Barbara: I have quite enjoyed Mastodon over the last month. I looked for and found quite a few of the reliable people I followed on twitter.  I solved the problem of not seeing their posts by grouping them in a list folder that I can view the same way I can view local and federated.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: that’s hilarious. I don’t know how people do what TDS used to call “field pieces”, a combination of quick wit and sheer nerve

    And I hope that two-tooth goon who talked about “women gettin’ over” is walking around in a hoodie and sunglasses hoping no one else recognizes him

  91. 91.

    MattF

    @JoyceH: The lens is removed, replaced by acrylic. You lose the ability to accommodate to distances. The common path is to get an implanted lens that gives you good visual acuity ‘at infinity’. This means driving without glasses, but reading glasses are needed for reading and computer work. Another path is ‘monovision’ where one eye is focused at infinity and the other is focused at arm’s length. This is usually recommended only for people who are already using monovision with their contact lenses.

    Cataracts will make your vision cloudy and dull— improvement after cataract surgery can be major.

    Cataract surgery is considered routine and safe, but there is a (very) small chance that it will go wrong. Worked fine for me, although a minor laser procedure (capsulotomy) was needed five years later.

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

     

    Rugged Amethyst #TexasBorn #CaliBred (@groove_sdc) tweeted at 11:30 AM on Sat, Dec 03, 2022:
    Folks trying to make the Democratic Party more “progressive” should applaud centering its Black base cause we’re generally more progressive than other demographics and especially the white working class. That’s not their issue tho. They want a party that’s modeled after Bernie.
    (https://twitter.com/groove_sdc/status/1599093663648268288?s=02)

  98. 98.

    CaseyL

    @Scout211:

    As someone who also had Lasik 20+ years ago, thank you for this information!  I’d heard having Lasik could complicate cataracts surgery, but not specifically how.

    I’ve already lost most of my close-up vision, and already use readers, so that transition won’t be much of a shock.  (Note that I don’t need cataracts surgery yet, and am not planning any in the near future.)

  99. 99.

    cain

    @Barbara: ​
     
    If you are using the mobile apps on iphone they are terrible. 🤮🤡 Just poor quality and I can see why you would be confused.
    The desktop one is easy .. I think some confusion on the different timelines and what they do. Once you do it is a much better experience than the bird site.

  100. 100.

    karen marie

    @JoyceH: I haven’t had cataract surgery but a neighbor did. She let them correct her vision so one eye saw far, one close. It was a disaster. She struggled even with glasses.

  101. 101.

    Scout211

    @CaseyL: What most of of develop after LASIK surgery is irregular astigmatism.

    They have a new procedure (that cost me $500 out of pocket per eye) called ORA that is an extra correction in the replacement lens for astigmatism. It works for astigmatism correction but doesn’t work as well for irregular astigmatism.  I paid for it but I am not sure if it helped.

  102. 102.

    cain

    @CaseyL: ​
     
    This is also a good thing .. it makes it harder to overwhelm social media with trolls and propaganda and requires more resources to do it .. make it expensive.

    I expect mastodon to scale well and eventually splitting into smaller networks that don’t talk to each other and grow independently as people figure out what they want.

    The more diversity the better. I would stay away from anything that requires ads to read. Meh. I currently live in an ad free world for the most part except in for Twitter and reddit

  103. 103.

    way2blue

    @davecb:

    I’ve signed up for Post.News and already have an invitation to join.  I seek a space with no bots and no toxic assholes hiding behind anonymity.  My worry with Post is that folks like David Simon wouldn’t be welcome there.  And he does so enjoy flaming the twits with his inimitable fluency in the art of insults…

  104. 104.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Starfish: I worked for him 5 years ago. We had a big company event where he was “interviewed” by the former CEO of an acquired company.

    Larry spent 20 minutes ranting about Hillary Clinton. In front of a captive 8000 person audience who couldn’t leave or express disapproval.

  106. 106.

    Scout211

    @karen marie: If you’ve never had a monovision correction before cataract surgery, it would not be a good idea to try to adjust to that type of correction when you are older.

    Some people have worn monovision contact lenses or have monovision LASIK correction.  Monovision lens replacement after cataract surgery is an easy adjustment for them.

    A friend of mine had the monovision lens replacement with her cataract surgery and likes it.  But she wore monovision contact lenses for several decades and had no problems adjusting.

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    @brendancalling:

    Aside from balloon-juice, I want to spend more time with people in real life.  I did the coastal clean up last summer with a really nice group and we’ve gotten together a few times to cook using an outside oven that one of them built.  It was so enjoyable.  I like the crafting evenings that are every couple of months.  The east bayside area of Portland, Maine where a lot of the breweries, distilleries, art studios are,  have regular fun events.  They have trivia nights, game nights, pop up artisan fairs, fundraisers and lots of live music.  It is such a cool community of people in an area of town that is all refurbished abandoned warehouses and industrial buildings.  I think you would love all the music events there. There’s a new open mic at high fidelity brewery on Monday nights and I’m going to start going.  The long running (30 years or so) dogfish open mic ended in September when the restaurant that held it closed.  It was devastating so I’m hoping this new one catches on.

    Is the group Living Liberally f/k/a drinking liberally still a thing?  I can see that being a good way to connect with people active in democratic issues.

  109. 109.

    way2blue

    @JoyceH:

    I listened to a podcast recently that you might find helpful:

    thedrive [The Peter Attia Drive]; episode 198; Eye health—everything you need to know | Steven Dell, M.D.

    Dr Dell is an eye surgeon, so lots of discussion of various state-of-the-art techniques.  Including pilots obtaining 20/20 vision by swapping out eye parts for synthetics…

  110. 110.

    zzyzx

    @cain: That feels like that would – once again – move us into more and more homogeneous spaces and lose all ability to communicate with people not like ourselves. I feel like that’s a large part of what’s gotten us into our current problems.

  111. 111.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    I rate Bouzy highly based on his tweets, Bot Sentinel, and election predictions. I agree that “spouting” as the verb doesn’t appeal, but I have more faith in his values than the venture funded Post.

    An experienced tech author friend called Post “another plaything for billionaires” with all the same vulnerabilities as Twitter, then I read it was backed by a16z who has some super toxic tech bro leaders, eg Marc Andreesen.

    I was going to make a comment on BJ about Bouzy’s project last night but I thought Juicers are not so into Twitter.

  112. 112.

    steve g

    Mastadon appears to me to be for people who like Linux and know what distros are. Do you like Mint or Ubuntu?  I can’t see it ever going big time unless it is substantially streamlined. As it stands your “handle” changes if you change servers, as far as I can tell, which is not a good thing.

    Post looks too polished to me. There is some kind of agenda lurking there, it will cater to a particular subset of users, based on demographics and politics. Quillette as a social media or something.

    Spoutible is too new to complain about so far.

    I’m not sure some people out there really grasp how much bigger 100 million users is compared to 500 thousand users. It’s going to take a while to replace Twitter.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @cain: That’s interesting. Emily Gorcenski was local to me, and she was part of the Charlottesville antifa community at the time of the disastrous Unite the Right rally.

    In the aftermath, Gorcenski got harrassed and swatted, so she picked up stakes and moved to Germany. She was quick to leave Twitter when its change of ownership became a prospect.

    I’m glad Ms. Gorcenski found a good place to land. She seems very knowledgeable in her field.

    Xeni Jardin left Twitter also, in late October when Musk’s “hung deal” looked like it would finally be completed.  I’m not sure she is on any social media now. Jardin took a couple months off Twitter this Spring already, and she has health challenges, so she may have decided to stay off social media for now. Maybe she’ll come back under her birth name.

  114. 114.

    Another Scott

    If I ever knew anything about BotSentinel I have forgotten it.  I’m glad that people work on such things, but it’s too much for me.

    I’m not a “social media” person.

    I’ve got accounts on Mastodon and Counter.Social but haven’t posted anything nor spent more than about 2 minutes looking at the “feeds”, total.

    I hope that something sensible replaces Melo’s Twitter. I have a feeling that we won’t know for a while what that something is – life doesn’t move as fast as the news and tweets would want us to believe. And first movers often aren’t the winners – when was the last time you used AltaVista??

    Whatever it is, it needs a funding stream. Donations can do a lot, but it has trouble scaling to millions or billions of users. If it’s not donations, then what? Advertising seems to inevitably demand more “engagement” and a race to the bottom of everyone’s lizard brain, along with more tracking and data collection to make more customized information available to advertisers. If not donations and advertising, then what, subscriptions? That’s fine, but also has trouble scaling, and can introduce its own issues (insiders/outsiders, walled gardens, paywalls, etc.).

    I’ll be watching, but don’t expect to have to decide anytime soon.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  115. 115.

    NobodySpecial

    I, personally, gave Hive a try based on the recommendation of people I trust. The only problem was that it’s very slow, which I expect when the team is only three members at the moment. It does have the most “Twitter like” UI, which is helpful. It may not be ready yet but with expansion and more investment based on that expansion, I think it has real potential.

  116. 116.

    jonas

    @VOR: ​
      I wonder if people watching Rogan or Peterson are being constantly pushed to watch Seth Meyers “A Closer Look” or BLM content.

    I somehow doubt it. They’re probably being shown even more radical alt-right trash.

  118. 118.

    HinTN

    (Almost) Dead thread, I know, but…

    The Balloon-Juice store page  is still advertising profits going to MARC. Is this correct? I got no problem with this, mind you, because MARC is just over the hill from me, but I did think we’d moved on to that Athens outfit.

    In other news, I don’t care about any of the massively online idiocy transpiring all about us. That is all 😘

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    Is there some reason people here don’t seem to be interested in this?

    The name?

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    say what you want about Twitter but Danny Bonaduce is trending in the year of our lord 2022, and that’s saying something.

    I don’t know what, but something.

  124. 124.

    craigie

    @VOR: ​
     

    You get 1 post from a friend, then a seemingly endless stream of “sponsored” and “suggested for you” crap. It’s exhausting

    This is why I dropped Instagram.

  125. 125.

    HinTN

    @JoyceH: @Scout211: I had cataract surgery and I elected to retain my nearsightedness because I can have one set of specs for driving or teevee viewing and none of the multitude of reading glasses with which Mrs H is afflicted. I like reading unaided, thank you very much

  126. 126.

    JPL

    @zhena gogolia:  There’s a big ad buy during the SEC game for Warnock.    It highlights Walker’s accomplishments while at GA, but then focuses on his history of abuse.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @HinTN: No, MARC is two pet charities behind.  Can you post a link to the page where you saw that?

    edit: Never mind. I found the page. I just can’t figure out how to get to it to edit it. :-)

  129. 129.

    Betty Cracker

    I think Post.News blackballed me because of my sketchy nym — I never heard back after signing up. I signed up for Mastodon on two instances and never got a confirmation email from either one. The universe may be telling me to be less online. I’m listening.

  130. 130.

    different-church-lady

    @VOR: ​
      It sounds like where Craig’s List eventually wound up.

    I think back to the days (before Air BnB) when I used Craig’s List to find a decent affordable place to stay without thinking about coming to a violent end, and I shudder a little.

  136. 136.

    ian

    @Another Scott:

     Melo’s Twitter

    Is Melo the new word for Elon?  How did we get to that name?

    Melo to me was what people called Carmelo Anthony, back when he played on the Denver Nuggets.

  137. 137.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    I think Mastodon is a disaster waiting to happen once it scales up.

    I think most any open conversation site, like twitter will fail as it becomes more open. We have two widely separated sides of the political aisle, and not just in this country, in many parts of the world. There is always going to be friction between the two sides of life, the controlling side and the freedom side. We’ve seen this on a major growth and scale in the last 50 yrs, not that there weren’t differences prior, but the scale has grown, what with increased communications during this time. It shows up in a lot of different ways, many of which were much smaller, less noticable half a century ago. That we sit and communicate with people we’ve never met, over thousands of miles, in a manner where we all can be writing/talking at once and yet it still works. This blog is a great example of how communications has changed. I remember walking into a bar in 1972, in Norway and my buddy asking the bartender where the phone exchange was and the guy picked up the phone and said just pay for the call and you can use the phone here. That was rather new at that time, 50 yrs ago, that you could make an overseas call from any phone. Now you can communicate with most of the world, on a device you carry in your pocket, and pay for it with the same device. Men used to do the work outside the home, that changed in WWII with women building planes, jeeps and everything else and while it’s taken a while to make that true in most aspects of working it mostly is today. The political right, I believe, does not see the world in the same way as most of us do, that there is work. Conservatives still see man’s work and woman’s work, separate roles by gender, separate rolls in life by gender, women and kids, men – physical or brainy jobs. Conservatives are old world, me man you woman. They do not understand equality and because they see the world through the eyes of gender, men’s work is strength and women’s role is cleaning and kids and the two sides shall never met. And of course the world has passed them by and the only way they can “win” is that the roles revert to the old, and that’s just old and wrong. The world has changed dramatically in my nearly 3/4 of a century and will likely continue to change and the right, the old side, has no idea what to do because they can only see the past, never the present or for sure can’t even imagine the future.

  139. 139.

    Starfish

    @Ruckus: Now expand these ideas to what it looks like when the discussions are in languages that your moderators don’t speak about topics such as whether genocide is a good idea.

    This is what Emily was discussing on Mastodon. She said that you shouldn’t ban people speaking the languages of Ethiopia even though there is a genocide happening in Tigray, but you do need moderators to make sure people on the instance they host are not encouraging others to commit genocide in Ethiopia.

    Some random tech dude running some Mastodon server that is 100 times bigger than it was a month ago is not ready to do that.

    Even thinking about moderation policies and GDPR can be a challenge. People need support on the small instances.

  140. 140.

    cain

    @NobodySpecial: on mastodon people have been sounding the alarm on Hive. They’ve actually shut their servers temporarily because apparently hackers can grab all your data. So I would stay away for now.

  142. 142.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I don’t Facebook, Twitter or anything that has to do with social media. Nada. Computers and programming/databases/etc have been a hobby since the mid-80’s with me later making them a career, so I’m not unfamiliar with things digital. I just knew what a shitshow those platforms were going to be (and boy was I right). Our kids don’t do social media either because I made them wait until they were 18 and when they reached that point they had no interest in any of it.

    Our daughter and I are checking out Mastadon and so far I like it. It’s no Twitter but you do have more control over everything, which I like. She’s set up her Steam gaming group on it and members are joining up. I’ve read a lot of complaints about it and so far I’ve found most of them to be from people who just haven’t figured out how it works yet.

    I’m not saying that it’s going to be the next Twitter but coming from a person who hates social media, so far I like this. But really, only time will tell.

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    @Sister Golden Bear: Agreed that aftermarket interfaces are important.

    I’m getting a lot of nostalgia for USENET reading this thread.  It showed that distributed “chat” groups can work and scale, but also showed that there have to be ways to counter spam and bots or it quickly turns into a cesspool.

    I loved using Souper and Yarn on OS/2 to read several USENET groups off-line.  I could read stuff, write my comment, then upload them all at once at my convenience.  There wasn’t the pressure that seems to be ubiquitous on “social media” these days that you have to be looking at it Right Now, All – The – Time, or stuff will scroll by or any input you provide will be ignored or never seen.  With USENET, one could comment on a thread from years earlier and people would see the reply if they wanted (because the readers were smart enough to only show new stuff).  Or you could camp out and have near-real-time conversation if you wanted.  The conversation worked the same either way – and why shouldn’t it?  It’s just text on the screen.

    I hope that the brainiacs creating these new conversation spaces think about the good aspects of non-real-time conversation.  But I’m not holding my breath.

    [/onion-on-belt]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  151. 151.

    SteverinoCT

    @Another Scott:

    …the pressure that seems to be ubiquitous on “social media” these days that you have to be looking at it Right Now, All – The – Time, or stuff will scroll by or any input you provide will be ignored or never seen.

    This is why I rarely post here— posts and comments go at such a pace that even today, with nothing better to do than read, I only just caught up. Skipping posts or forgoing comments (often the best part) is the only way I can stay current.

  152. 152.

    Mousebumples

    Late to the thread, but fwiw, I’m on Mastodon only right now. [email protected]

    I still have my Twitter account but am not doing much with it. I’m still using lists for Sports content since I’d miss BucksTwitter otherwise. Trying to limit my engagement but I enjoy the commentary and generally no Nazis.

    I can reassess in a few months but enough of my follows have jumped up Mastodon that that’s just where I went, too.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @SteverinoCT: 👀

    No thread is dead here until J R in WV comments on it.  And even then it may still have some life.  Post more often.  :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Expatchad

    @MomSense: As a 13 year resident of SO. LEYTE, RPh, I am curious why you think FB, abhorrent as it is, is responsible for   Duterte the Deplorable. My Pinoy Headservant ( all sane Kanos, and there are 350,000+ of us, have staff for protection of us AND the host country) assured me that he would NEVER ascend, and when he indeed did, I immediately dreaded that the Trump creature would, due to some unfathomable abberation of insanity, likewise transmogrify into the Angel of Death, and lo, it was to be.

    But Facebook? HOW RECKONEST THOU

    What did I miss?

  155. 155.

    Matt McIrvin

    I went to Mastodon ( https://mathstodon.xyz/@mattmcirvin ) because the specific instance was one I had already been wondering about checking out for some time, run by someone I had encountered before, and in fact someone on here reminded me of it.

    The vibe on that instance reminds me of the old Google+ math/science community, for better or for worse. But the federation aspect also means I can follow people I knew who signed on elsewhere, including some people who are here. I suspect, though, that the things I find cool about it are the same things that might put off the general public. The feature that charms me the most is that I can use LaTeX math markup, but it’ll only render for people who are on an instance that supports it, and there are only a few of those.

  156. 156.

    MTerwill

    I’d be hesitant to give money to Spoutible. The founder was heavily involved in running a cryptoscam a little while back, and his ‘bot sentinel’ algorithm rates a literal Nazi twitter account as “normal,” because all it does is look for anti Amber Heard or Meghan Markle hashtags.

    I don’t think he CAN deliver on this platform, and his ethics appear weak due to the cryptoscams and his apparent bankruptcy fraud. I’d avoid this for now.

  158. 158.

    Fluffehbunny

    @Aurona:

     

    @Aurona: He hasnt got ‘clean hands’ he is currently locked in two defamation battles with different individuals and also is under investigation for bankruptcy fraud. He also was exposed in the Daily Mail as being a troll against the Royal Family. I see very little to like about him

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