I've been using Mastodon for some years now and I can't praise it enough. I believe mainstream social media has become a cancer on our society, but not because being social is inherently bad, but because people have allowed themselves to be herded into social spaces controlled by for-profit comp...
I started using Discord in early 2019 mainly because most of my gaming friends were already using it and quickly recognized it as a fantastic platform for collaboration. I started to write about using it for organizing a project and never finished that post. I ended up creating and maintaining a...
Now that baconreader no longer works on reddit due to steep price hikes for third party apps to use reddit's API, I have deleted my 11 year old account there. I did not typically read the site in a browser and I hated the official reddit app so if baconreader won't work anymore I won't be usin...
Google, in what might sound like hyperbole claimed in a recent court brief for Gonzalez v. Google that if the Supreme Court chooses to limit the scope of Section 230 that it would "upend the internet". They are probably not wrong. Such a decision would certainly disrupt the internet as we've k...
This is a subject that I like to research from time to time. Occassionally, as I run across a resource I may update this list. If you wish to contribute information, please include source and email nate at this domain.
Electronic mail was first "invented" in 1965 by Tom Van Vleck, and implemente...
note: this post was never finished and was never made live in 2019. I had intended to add some screenshots showing how I set up various servers, documenting permissions settings and describe all the servers I was running but just got bored and didn't finish it. Since I deleted my account this w...
I occassionally need to post a link on Facebook back to a Wordpress site. Even though almost every other social site seems to be able to handle this simple task sanely, Facebook demands that you format your page with "Open Graph" tags or it will stubbornly refuse to show any image or if it will s...
When I first set up a twitter account sometime in 2007 I did it just because it was the new thing and I wanted to ensure that I secured my "twitter handle". I never posted anything on it, and then forgot about it. Sometime in 2011 I was having a discussion with my office mate about the service and...
Back in 2010 when I deleted my Facebook account it was mainly because I didn't like the way the company was constantly changing their policies and privacy settings. Things I knew I had turned off would be mysteriously turned on again, and they were manipulating how I saw the content posted by u...
note (2026): In late 2024 I moved on from picoCMS but it served well for some years. Read more in Site History
This site has undergone a fair amount of change over the years. I've tried to keep a changelog of sorts every time I've moved the furniture around. See the Site History page for m...