Alternatives to Twatter

[Gaston Lagaffe]

Or just pay a monthly usage fee for everything.

Why would anyone want to own things and be unhappy 🙁

[rogerzilla]

Neighbours at Fort Larrington are swanning around in a Model X.  Prices start at £73k

The one that looks like a dog trying to squeeze one out.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I googled "Tesla Model X" to see which one it was and the second thing that came up was a McLaren on Ebay for £50k!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295105237633

[Cudzoziemiec]

Neighbours at Fort Larrington are swanning around in a Model X.  Prices start at £73k

The one that looks like a dog trying to squeeze one out.

A comparison I remember Flatus using many years about Specialized bikes with the curved top tube. Oh, innocent days.

[TheLurker]

Or just pay a monthly usage fee for everything.
Why would anyone want to own things and be unhappy 🙁

Because in the unhappy event that you lose your job or your income is otherwise drastically reduced you can keep the things that you own.  And, as we're considering cars, if you live in an area with no public transport, having a car is a necessity.

[Mr Larrington]

Neighbours at Fort Larrington are swanning around in a Model X.  Prices start at £73k

The one that looks like a dog trying to squeeze one out.

A comparison I remember Flatus using many years about Specialized bikes with the curved top tube. Oh, innocent days.

J*r*my Cl*rks*n used it about the coupé version of the Chrysler Crossfire.

[ian]

You can't actually buy a Tesla for that price, my wife tried. Expect to pay about £65k for any model you can get before the end of the decade the Business Genius tanks them too.

But, regardless of brand, the nation's driveways and pavements are now filled with new cars that retail for a multiple of their annual household income.

You buy a house on tick. 

Second biggest purchase is a voiture, why not spread the (financial) cost over decades…?

To be fair, even the modest lifetime of a modern car is probably longer than that of the average Taylor-Wimpy or Bellway new build.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Neighbours at Fort Larrington are swanning around in a Model X.  Prices start at £73k

The one that looks like a dog trying to squeeze one out.

A comparison I remember Flatus using many years about Specialized bikes with the curved top tube. Oh, innocent days.

J*r*my Cl*rks*n used it about the coupé version of the Chrysler Crossfire.

Flatus steals all his best lines from T*p G**r.

[spesh]

And back to Elon Musk for a moment... He's gone and pulled another Pontius Pilate move by running a poll WRT a general amnesty for banned accounts, showing that 1) he still won't own his decisions and 2) he still hasn't got a clue what his current favourite Latin phrase means.

The people have spoken.

Amnesty begins next week.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
7:58 pm · 24 Nov 2022

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1595869526469533701

When you read the original quote* from which "Vox populi, vox dei" has been plucked, it's actually warning about people like Musk:

"Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."  translates as:

"And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness. "

Given the likelihood of bot accounts being used to get the "right" result, the more appropriate Latin should be (with a nod to William T. Sherman) "Vox falsorum hominum, vox humbug."


* From a letter the scholar Alcuin of York wrote to Charlemagne in 798.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is Kanye West an alternative to Twitter?

[Basil]

Don't worry if some of you notice that I have un-followed you on twitter. I haven't fallen out with you. This is because I also follow you on the heffalump site and I'm trying to tidy up a bit.

[rogerzilla]

Kanye West really needs sectioning.  He's very unwell.

[Kim]

#DuvetKnowItsChristmas^[1] is disappointing this year.  Can't work out if that's because nobody's posting anything, or if it's being buried by the algorithm.  The results seem to be full of old posts and adverts.

There's a bit of effort to get the hashtag going on Mastodon, but little in the way of photos so far.

It'll be a shame if this internet tradition dies out...


_{[1] People posting photos of their sleeping arrangements while visiting their parents' homes.  Staples include children's duvets, their old childhood toys, indoor camping, and having to share a room with siblings/pets/sinister doll collections/exercise equipment.}

[Mrs Pingu]

Maybe nobody's getting home for xmas cos trains?

[Kim]

So having already killed off most of the third-party clients, the latest stroke of business genius is charging for API access.  Effectively killing off all those useful/fun bots that aren't run by a well-funded organisation.

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

[andrewc]

As Kim usually makes sensible choices I'm now on @AndrewClark@mastodon.lol .  A lot of the other servers don't seem to be signing people up anyway.

And mastodon.lol is now closing down in May, so I'll have to find another server & migrate to that one.   

[Kim]

Yes, I'm a bit miffed about that.  But as there's a migration option, not as miffed as I am about Musk's destruction of the birdsite.

[Kim]

So having already killed off most of the third-party clients, the latest stroke of business genius is charging for API access.  Effectively killing off all those useful/fun bots that aren't run by a well-funded organisation.

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Rumour has it that the recent outages were caused by failing to account for the fact that the API is used by Twitter itself when they attempted to switch it off.   

[Basil]

Oh bugger.  @toot.wales @tŵt.cymru appears to have disappeared up its own fundament. 
It was fine this morning.
Suppose l'd better go watch Scotland v Wales and see if someone has switched it back on later.

Oh.  It's back. How odd.

[Wowbagger]

i've just attempted to write a post - the first for a couple of weeks - and the app is bunging me out when I try to open the editor. This happens on my iphone and the ipad.

I'm @wowbagger@c.im .

Anyone know wossgoinon?

[Kim]

Does the website work?

[Wowbagger]

I've had to create an account at mastodon.social, it seems. Couldn't work out how to log on to my original account. It seems others have been having similar problems at mastodon.c.im, but a while back. I've not been able to find that server with my desktop's browser, only from the phone app.

Wondering if I can be arsed.

[Basil]

Oh bugger.  @toot.wales @tŵt.cymru appears to have disappeared up its own fundament. 
It was fine this morning.
Suppose l'd better go watch Scotland v Wales and see if someone has switched it back on later.

Oh.  It's back. How odd.

No. Its gone again. 

[Mrs Pingu]

Twitter doesn't seem to have much 'new' on it these days. I used to be able to scroll and see new content all the time but now it seems to be the same old stuff so either the people I used to get a lot of content from have stopped posting or Melon has buggered it.
Mastodon isn't doing much better for me either, I clearly haven't found enough people to follow on there. Or maybe everyone else is full of ennui at the state of the world.
<Goes off to eat worms>

[Basil]

My problem with Mastodon is that you follow someone because their toots are interesting, only to find that they are an industrial booster, causing my timeline to completely fill with re-toots that don't interest me and just endless tedious virtue signalling.