I don’t bring attention to it, but I do have a Facebook account. But by the end of this year, that will be in the past tense.
I’m finally deleting the damn thing.
It had been on thin ice for me for years. I’ve been on much more fun sites, and I’ve been really getting into the whole "Old Web" pre Capitalist Hell we’re in now. And also. Let me count the ways…
accessibility nightmare
bad vibes
…well, that’s about it. "Bad vibes" has its own sublist of things that make up for it, like
""community standards"" that leave actual hate speech up
algo nightmare
ads
is totally evil
But I stayed. Why? Because that’s where most of my friends are. And that’s where the local communities put their events and groups. It’s the only place where I can reach certain family members via Messenger.
And that is finally, finally not enough anymore.
Like WordPress, but worse, FB decided to do more in feeding the LLM slop machine and really come down on how they treat creators and their work. By swiping it to use it however they see fit.
I’ve made my flouncy posts and reached out to people to trade contact info. I’m holding out until Dec 31st, New Year’s Eve, before I cut my losses and delete the account.
I have over 200 friends. I’m blessed to have several handfuls of people that I love and adore and admire– and we have rapport in other places besides Facebook, including offline. I’m lucky to have support networks that meet up for trail, game nights, and social things.
I’m going to miss the groups I’m in.
And the reels my partners and I send back and forth to annoy each other.
And the memes, and silly groups where we all just shitpost (respectfully).
And the groups I have been in for yeeeaaaars that had been there for me when I needed them. There is a ghost of a ghost of a remake of one that I’ve been in for over a decade and we’ve kiki history, babes.
But it’s time to move on, because I have to do better than fucking Facebook.
If I miss things, oh well. I’m on mailing lists, bookmarked websites, and frequent my haunts.
If the one group I’ve been trying to revive ends up tanking because I’m no longer on FB to pester people about it (I’ll be on other platforms, including an old-school forum)… well, can’t say I didn’t try.
(BTW, tangent, communities etc– please have your web presence be somewhere else besides Facebook. At the very least have different options. Instagram does not fucking count. And neither does Twitter.)
And for those that never reached out… I don’t think I’ll be missed. And if I am, hopefully we’ve people and hobbies in common that we’ll eventually cross paths again. Otherwise… yo. You had time to make me a priority, and by New Year’s Day you’ll be out of it.
When this posts, it’ll be a couple of days before the New Year, and we’ll be halfway through Kuchuqwanzaa, just about.
Or I can just post it right now! It’s been on my mind.
Next year, I’ll be the big ol’ Four Oh. 40. And when I’m 44, this blog would have existed for a decade. That’s ancient in computer times, right?
I began blogging when I was 34 years old, in 2019. That’s…
3 years into tRump’s first presidential election
I’m about to move in with my partners-at-the-time
My favorite queer-owned sober third space shut down
still on OKC (and got my hopes dashed pretty bad, twice)
And this would be my second (or third?) iteration of having a WordPress blog specifically. The previous ones sputtered out and were deleted, but this time… it stuck. I still can’t put my finger on as to why, other than finally finding a groove and voice that I like. But, it’s always been about trying to get into– and stay in– the habit of writing. Letting go, grieving, and figuring things out. I’d have long lulls, but I’d be back. I’m happy to see that I have returned, and it looks much more permanent this time.
It’s been a fun year for this blog. I ragequit my dot-wordpress-dot-com and moved to my own space, dusting off all the cobwebs from my server administration days (and being eternally grateful for the customer service I received when I broke things). I had headaches, but I had fun too! ClassicPress has been great to use so far. This space feels more like "mine," and having more control certainly helped in that. I’ve migrated twice with minimal explosions, and proud of the smaller things like IndieWebRing and ActivityPub integration.
The only thing that appears to be holding me back is the lack of "spontaneous" and "not polished" works– I need to do more of those! What a convenient New Years Resolution!
Bloganuary is next month (next year), and on top of that sometimes I need to just Write The Thing. I write for you, and my friends, and folx that come across it, and so on– but primarily, I’m writing for me. So next year, I’ll work on that. Not everything has to be 500 word SAT essay, or have a point (or be educational).
I am only going to pivot and say a few things that are now, more important than ever. And by saying, I’ll probably just end up posting links. My wordsmithing isn’t great at the moment, but I’ve been collecting links.
The Fediverse is a viable option. It may be the only option.
SpaceHey will be one of the few exceptions for me going forward, because at least there’s no algorithm screwing with things. I’ll revisit my thoughts on [that] platform occasionally.
Web3.0, as we call it colloquially, is frankly terrible. No to generative AI, Crypto, NFTs, and so on. And did I mention algorithms already
But with one huge caveat, I cannot stress this enough: Friends don’t let friends sign up for any ol’ Mastodon instance. And before you join any instance, be sure to look into them carefully. I have a handful of recommendations, if anyone is curious; these were spaces I have personally seen actually caring for their communities.
Every other app is setup to be quick, simple, and easy. But Mastodon requires, and I really mean it, requires that you investigate the server you’re looking into joining. It’s like we’re back in the 90s, and your avenue for social interaction online is internet forums, and you definitely don’t want to join a forum full of people with interests you don’t enjoy.
Regardless, keep an eye on the hashtag Fediblock and The Bad Space project to keep yourself and your communities safer. https://thebad.space/.
If you have the time, learn to build.
Or at least be aware of alternatives other than the corporate social media sites, networks, and programs. For starters:
There are cheap and even free options out there if you’re on a tight budget. The aformentioned 32bit Cafe link has a huge list of options, and even Reddit is helpful here: https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/wiki/pickingahost/ .
I’m currently on NekoWeb, myself, and I’ve heard good things about NearlyFreeSpeech.Net and Lexi’s Hosting.
If you’re starting up a service, considering hosting, or whatever else, be mindful of the Five Eyes (“FVEY”) surveillance alliance. Encrypt your data (end-to-end and on your devices), use VPNs, minimize your data collected, don’t be too open in public online spheres.
The future
isn’t
supposed
to be
like this
we’re
supposed
to be
free to
pursue our
passions and
liberate them
not be
robbed creativity
stolen and
fed into
machines that
aren’t
even thinking
only mimic
and devour
everything that
makes you
human
a ghost
amalgamation that
needs no
credit or
will to
live
doesn’t need
the water
it wastes
they made
the future
plastic polished
so
we
fight
back
with
static
I am absolutely running that joke into the ground.
Prompt: Write about your first computer.
Bloganuary is over, but I couldn’t resist this prompt!
My dad bought an AST Advantage! computer[1] from a coworker and we settled it on the desk in my bedroom. We were pretty excited, both of us being electronic gadget nerds in our own ways: I was into everything computers, while my dad’s forte was audio and video setups. We were both content in a RadioShack, back in the day.
It was a beige thing with a horizontal tower (vertical wasn’t all the rage yet) and came with CRT monitor, keyboard, mouse, a desk microphone, a manual, and a whole sleeve of CD software (s/o to Encarta, always coming in clutch when I needed additional research for school essays). The speakers were passable, nothing to write home about.
It was running Windows 95. A solid operating system– a opinion I hold to this day– but it felt a little dated compared to the Win98 (or 2000?) installed on computers elsewhere. But, that was no biggie. It also lacked adequate Internet access for its modem wasn’t quite up to snuff, if I recall correctly. But, still, it was pretty cool. When it wasn’t a word processor, it played music and we played a few MS-DOS games on it.
The Advantage! stayed in my room. From what I remember, the computer became my domain and thus, unofficially tasked with taking care of the thing. That included, in my assumption, that I was to do upkeep and remove any unnecessary files or programs. I took it pretty seriously.
From the Windows 95 desktop I dragged photos and irrelevant documents from Explorer to the recycling bin. You can guess where this is going. No, I did not delete the System32 folder, but I did something just as hilarious:
I deleted desktop.exe.
In my defense, I made sure to at least open programs before I made my decision to chuck ’em. And this particular executable was the AST-branded desktop environment with a distinct Windows 3.1 flavor. I thought it was safe to get rid of, because we already had a desktop environment– and a modern one, to boot! I thought I was safe.
The instant I banished it to the Bin, I got an error message. You were instructed to reboot the computer in hopes of the OS finding desktop.exe again. But it was in the Bin, untouchable, so you were effectively boot looped.
I panicked. Not because I’d get in trouble (and I probably did), but because we didn’t have the install discs for the operating system! So there was no way for me to fix it until we got them. A few weeks later I was able to repair the damage, and got a surprise. The install discs were for Windows 3.1! The Windows 95 install turned out to be a delicate patch job that I wrecked in my error.
But hey, the computer was usable again! So I got on with it with no complaint. I screwed up, after all. Armed with the Flatten-and-Rebuild option, I got to learning and making more mistakes. I hadn’t done any blunders of that magnitude since, but I kept those discs close!
I became real familiar with using the ALT key to access menu items– especially ALT + SPACE, for when a window got nudged off-screen and I could not see it. That happened a lot in 3.1, at least in my use case. I learned how Batch files did their thing and customized a whole startup routine pointing to different programs and Windows proper– including an NES emulator to play Mega Man II. I played with its audio programs, listening to my Final Fantasy MIDIs when I wasn’t creating silly audio skits. Imagine my delight when I saw it could’ve been used as an answering machine and phone! Stones.Exe was my favorite time-waster, when we weren’t playing MS-DOS games. And lastly: it was just pretty fascinating to interact with That Older OS, to see how far along its come.
Common objects I’ve ferreted to and from home via floppy discs were
Eventually, we did get our Technically-Second computer: A Gateway with Windows Millennial Edition. It was the family computer, chilling in my parent’s bedroom before it was moved to the corner of the dining room. We loved ourselves some Bejeweled, 3D Pinball Space Cadet, and That Game Where You Shoot Dial-Up Modems (was free with our DSL provider).
I thoroughly enjoyed browsing the Internet, sending emails, browsing GameFAQs, and putting together my fansites for Chrono Cross and Kingdom Hearts. I downloaded mp3s from OverClocked Remix— it took twenty minutes for one file, so I typically busied myself with something else– and the entire time I’d hope no one would call.
There was also this program that snitched on everything you did on the computer. Of course, it was installed! I was called out for the habit of deleting my browsing history (because they could see it anyway), but I just shrugged. I wasn’t doing anything out of line and to be frank, the real saucy stuff was regulated to the library computers, out of their reach. This Nanny program promptly disappeared when I exploited WinME’s login bug, snooped, and found a certain folder with certain images not under my account. That deeply amused me.
We had a year free of for Norton, when they were still reliable. All of us clicked on our fair share of dodgy sites (and yes, we used Limewire), and were super concerned with the worms and viruses. When Sasser was making the rounds I couldn’t help but feel smug– it didn’t target WinME systems (but it did get the last laugh when I finally upgraded to XP without reformatting– another lesson learned).
The era of Family Computers was a pretty special time. There was nothing like it. It was communal, whether we crowded around the screen or we took turns doing Important Things. We burned CDs, used the scanner, printed out photos, and bookmarked cool things for us to peruse. I have a family photo of all of us at the table, taken by our first digital camera, processed on our first computer, and printed out on our first printer.
I kept the AST for a few years, and eventually inherited the Gateway when it was usurped from the Family Computer crown. After that, I upgraded to a HP Media Center Edition for school (I needed all the horsepower for Photoshop and video editing– the TV watching was a bonus). And beyond that, I’ve had my run-ins with more HPs, Acers, and Dells.
But the AST Advantage! was first, and I’ll fondly look back on it always.
