





When I tell people the only social media I use is Lemmy, I always wait patiently for follow up questions immediately after, which never come, because nobody gives a shit about what obscure social media the 35 year old man uses.
I told one of my co-workers I used Lemmy, and he actually used Mastodan, so I’m the one who ended up asking him questions
Not even big instances, but big platforms I would say. Like, if you’re lucky someone might have heard about Mastodon, but that’s pretty much it.
“Ah yes the Dinosaur mato thing? Failed twitter alternative right?”
(actual quote from a convo I’ve had)
Failed Twitter alternative is pretty close to the truth actually.
Yeah it doesn’t have nearly enough nazis to compare
Yeah failed in the sense that it hasn’t totally disrupted how industries do business, but a success when it comes to chatting with people online about things.
As an competitor to Twitter, I’d call it a failure. As it’s own thing, I’d say they’re doing OK.
The original comic is actually genius, and very true.
You clearly see it when the Linux users start prostletysing.
I want to like Linux and leave Windows, but when I say that I don’t want to be forced to use CLI/terminal because I don’t live in the 1970s, people get angry at me.
If all you do is web browse and play games, you should be able to use Linux without the CLI just fine.
Unfortunately I’m a software developer…
I can use a CLI, but I’d rather not.
Vibe coder? 😏
MORE REALISTIC MORE REALISTIC
You mean more cow bell?
Silly to get angry about, because you can use Linux just fine without it. But the terminal is a powerful tool.
I don’t want to be one of the people you think is angry at you, but I do want to proselytize a bit.
have you ever used a dedicated download manager? think of the terminal, first, as a dedicated download manager. All you do is type wget and then paste in the URL.
eventually, you may want to specify where the file goes, or what it’s named when you finally download it, or something else. then, you can look up which flags to add with wget -h
I suggest you try Linux, any flavor, but especially Debian or Debian variants. instead of thinking you need to learn to use terminal, just remember that you have a dedicated download manager called terminal.
The thing is you will eventually learn that the terminal does a lot more than called wget. and you already know how to get help, and add flags.
Kill me.
If you say it like that you are pretty much trying to aggravate them, though
Then don’t use the terminal. You don’t need it.
Yes, eventually I learned how, but the vast majority of tutorials on how to install or do anything on Linux jump straight into it.
And as a software developer, a lot of tools I come across don’t have an official non-terminal installation option.
So here’s the thing: providing support is much easier on the command line.
Also if you think about it, insisting that people who provide support or documentation use the system the same way you want to use it so they can show you how to use it is pretty weird.
Hold on there: did you say you’re a software developer? Can you do us all a favour and put GUI-only on your CV?
.
For CLI programs I agree, but I’ve come across GUI programs for which the official installation instructions were CLI only (like Android Studio).
I’m not GUI-only, I just strongly prefer it. My CV does contain me having years of experience developing GUI programs.
OK, again, as a hiring manager I would really appreciate you stating your preference for GUI-based computing on there. It will save both of us a lot of time.
as a hiring manager
Yikes
It’s a preference, and I may complain about it on social media, but I know things are how they are and I’m not so hung up on it as to let it affect my work.
Worst case I would take a few minutes between tasks to quickly whip up a GUI helper, but I think that in 10 years I only did it 2 or 3 times.
don’t use terminal, you don’t need it.
so here’s the thing: providing support is much easier on the command line.
Uh-uh…
When I need to run terminal, it’s because I’m following a specific guide to fix or setup something. It’s not much different than following a similar guide for Windows, except there might be a bit more copy+paste going on on Linux.
The omnipresent mentions of terminal also delayed my switch and it was completely unnecessary.
Yes, I eventually managed to learn how to do most stuff without the terminal, but almost all “How to do Whatever on Linux” tutorials immediately jump into it.
I know the terminal is more distro-agnostic, but even the distro-specific tutorials do it.
Yes, but day to day usage, you don’t have to touch it
I’ve never felt like a bigger idiot than when I try to explain the fediverse to normal people.
I find it easier if the other person is a podcast listener.
“You know how podcast ads usually say ‘listen to it in Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts?’ It’s a bit like that.”
If not, I have to say something weak or complicated like “it’s a bit like email, dunno how to explain this if you have never thought about how email works, though”.
That’s a really good analogy.
The email one works too once they realize they’ve never actually thought about what an email is. Like:
“If I send you an email from gmail, you can open it in outlook, right?” “Yeah”
“That’s because an email is just a file that both gmail and outlook can use” “makes sense”
“Can I see your Twitter post on Reddit?” “No of course not”
“But i can see Lemmy (Reddit) posts on Mastodon (Twitter). And these apps aren’t owned by huge companies. Normal people run each instance, and the software is free for anyone to use or host.”
I usually start with email, but I wonder if podcasts would be smarter. when I read what you said, my first thought was"but podcasts require you to upload to every instance that you want to be seen on" and then I realized that for the people that are just trying to get content this doesn’t matter. That’s actually genius.
Hey… so you know about Email, right?
How you’re with Gmail and I with… say Proton. And we can still send Emails to each other? …
Is my go to approach
That’s a pretty good analogy.
it’s not an analogy lol. it’s literally the same thing.
It gives the wrong impression though. The user experience is more like reddit, it just has the backend like email.
Except using Lemmy is nothing like sending an email.
Frontend: like reddit
Backend: like email (or can just say its split into different servers controlled by different groups and they sync with each other)
Even that is way too technical for most people.
For those on traditional social media, I just say “What if Facebook and Twitter and YouTube could all talk to each other? People on Facebook could follow people on Twitter and people on Twitter can follow people on Facebook.” Then they usually reply “that would be neat” and then I tell them “yeah, that’s what we are building over here in the fediverse.”
It usually is easier to give them an analogy related to something they are familiar with.
Ironically as a fediverse user I had a visceral reaction to reading that. That sounds like absolute nightmare fuel to me…
True. But when talking to someone who lives on traditional social media, it is an explanation they would understand. Sometimes you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.
I actually have separate accounts on the different fediverse products - for me it’s the decentralization of instances that’s the most appealing.
[off topic?] When William Gibson was researching ‘Neuromancer’ he spent a lot of time hanging out with hackers. They’d tell stories and he’d catch about a quarter of what they were talking about.
When it came to write the book he decided that he’d make the book like that, the reader would have to push though a lot of things that didn’t make sense until they acquired more information.
Duh, she is the fediverse chick after all
It’s so annoying to me because she kinda looks like an ex with the same name
I’m sorry to hear that. That’s a feeling alright 😞
I know she is, but its kind of creepy.
It’s no longer as humorous as she was at first withe them whole shit j. The world and the content just makes me worry it’s something else that we Rob ok can’t control.
Edit : ok that happened a second time this morning why the fuck am I dosing off suddenly and not realizing I didn’t check before I hit save?
A yeah, Nicole hit me yesterday again. 😂😂😂

Whats the story on this? I had it in my inbox too a few days ago.
Goddamnit! I love this and want to share it, but don’t know anyone else that will appreciate it. Is this… irony?
You can share it with me if you want!
To top it all off, I share this to discord groups where nobody even knows what the fediverse is.
What is misskey? I am a fediverse user and I don’t even know what that is.
Microblog platform out of Japan
https://misskey-hub.net/en/
Best way I can describe misskey as a user of it is that it’s like mastodon but if they implemented every feature request possible. I mean it literally has a toggle to convert your text into cat speak for no other reason other than the dev felt like it. It even has its own markdown language to give your text crazy effects because who wouldn’t want an emoji amplified 4 times that spins and changes color?
It uses activitypub as well so it’s entirely interoperable with mastodon instances (although some functions like quote posts or the custom markdown language aren’t formatted as nicely when viewed from a mastodon instance)
toggle to convert your text into cat speak
SOLD!
If you want to enable the setting, it’s under
Settings > Profile > Advanced Settings > Mark this account as a cat
(wording/location may vary if you’re using a misskey fork but it should be under the profile settings somewhere)
This will give your icon cat ears in public timelines and any text you write will be converted to catspeak. Works better in Japanese, which is the language it was designed for, but in English words like “now” get converted to “meow” for example.
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Nice one
This isn’t just Reddit with extra geeks?