Wednesday 9th November, 2022

Mastodon is bloody hard work. Importing over your old Twitter followers to your own node is an impossible task. Even if they have accounts, it’s still fiddly as fuck jumping between different servers. I spent a little too long on Wednesday morning thinking that I could achieve this. What if Elon is going to be alright, all along? He won’t of course.

The servers seem to have calmed down a little after the gold rush of the past 48 hours. I was still being timed out, both on mobile and desktop. And then it appeared that the two different platforms were operating off two different servers. I also made the mistake of signing up on the metalheads node. I thought this would be where the cool DIRTY D ‘n’ B kids would be hanging out. It isn’t. It’s full of metal greaser types. No ta.

There is an early innocence to Mastodon though. It reminded me very much of Twitter around 2008. I started to follow people who appeared interesting, rather than matching up folk I know offline. This was one of the original joys of Twitter. It’s where conversations and networks were built before the politicos turned it into a toxic cesspit. I hope Mastodon doesn’t go in the same direction at an accelerated pace. If anything I think it will be the tech challenges that prevent this.

The Postman Delivers: another month, another ONS Covid shit testing kit. Yep – these are still a thing in our household. The Postie pushed through the letterbox a His ‘n’ Hers matching kit. I’ve somehow got the better deal with only a monthly swab required. Meanwhile A has to also self administer filling a test tube full of her finest claret from her thumb.

OUCH.

You would have thought that by now I would be a past master at the Covid shit testing thing. It didn’t get off to a good start when the swab stick snapped in two before I could tickle my tonsils. I had to reach deep inside my mouth with what remained. It was also a mistake to poke around straight after the morning porridge. Poke a little too deep and the morning porridge may make a return.

Lined up for my morning listening was some Forest podcast action ahead of the #lolspurs match later in the evening. Darren Fletcher was an absolute STAR on Garibaldi Red. He went off on a superb VAR rant after Forest were screwed over at the weekend. He made the excellent point that football is the only sport that is using technology to make the game duller than it was was pre-VAR.

Tell It Like It Is, etc.

Meanwhile the Forever Forest podcast was full of pessimism for the months ahead. They even featured a quiz where the guests had to name the five clubs with the five lowest points total in the history of the Premier League. Cheerful buggers. I do fear that it will be another BONKERS transfer window for Forest in January.

A large part of the afternoon was taken up carrying out endless health checks across various sites. JetPack remains the Online Enemy #1. Its features are linked so heavily into the WordPress core, yet most of them you don’t really need. I’ve had a few close calls in the past month where JetPack has come close to taking my work sites down.

A little more fun was setting up some mobile menus across the sites. Looky looky above – I’ve even whacked one up on m’blog you’re reading on mobile or tablet. The trick was to figure out the settings on one site, and then simply port them over to all the others. I think it’s quite a neat set up.

A pre-Christmas trip to Nottingham was then planned. I’ve managed to break up the journey by staying over in Sunny Stockwell first, and then once again on the return leg. It’s also led to some cheapo tickets. My benchmark for affordable train tickets back to the Fair City is around £40 return out of St Pancras. Admittedly my benchmark was set around 1995. I’m not that far off the budget for the trip next month.

And then Wednesday evening was all about Forest. BBC Nottingham had a brilliant build up the match at The World Famous City Ground against Spuz. The first hour was focussed on the many legendary Cup games between both teams throughout the 90’s.

I suffered the hit and miss audio streaming from the Forest app for the commentary. This meant that I missed the two Forest goals. Hey hoe. Forest always beat Spuz, etc.

Dotty drew Wednesday to a close by bringing in another mouse. This was a lively one. Daisy soon took over and tried to take the credit. I was left trying to work in the office with a mouse running around my feet.

Links for 9th November, 2022

It is time to bring FOI into the modern age and properly empower the public

Book Review: Reds and Rams by David Marples

The transformation of Denmark Street and the Outernet

Brixton history – the Barrier Block (Southwyck House) pictured in December 1986

The BBC’s Investigation Into Online Abuse Is Total Bullshit

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