L. Rhodes @lrhodes@merveilles.town

@endomain Elton John?

Ran across this weirdo pieboy while walking the dog. Tried to move that leaf out of the way for the shot, but it embedded in the shroom. Second pick is if some nearby friends. Possibly earlier stage of the same variety?

@Mayana If you think they'd be interested. My perception of the amount of hassle involved is all second-hand— mostly from discussion on Twitter, IIRC— so if the solution creates more headaches than it cures, I certainly don't want to push it on anyone. Thanks for weighing in.

@Mayana No, be negative! I'm perfectly aware that this is not my wheelhouse, and if the idea is wrong-minded, then I'd prefer to be told so.

I was thinking less of undescribed images than of posts that trigger a strings of garbage in readers— for example, posts that manipulate text to produce visual effects, like rendering glitches, or long strings of unicode. I've been told that those cause havoc in screen readers.

Seems to me it wouldn't be too difficult to automate the process to some extent, so that typing a certain number of non-standard characters into the text field automatically checks the box, though maybe that would detract too much from the benefit of raising awareness.

Idea: a checkbox under the text field that marks a post as "not screen reader friendly," with a corresponding user setting that skips posts so marked.

Benefit 1: Marking posts would allow people who rely on screen readers to filter out disruptive posts.

Benefit 2: Simply presenting the option will make people more aware of how non-standard posts exclude some followers.

@InvaderXan Some Christian denominations draw (some of) those distinctions, at least rhetorically, with explicit reference to the Greek conceptions. Broadly, that's the result of 20th century textual analysis surfacing those distinction in the Greek texts of the New Testament— the contrast between philia and agape being central— but C.S. Lewis' explication of the terms probably helped mainstream the subject for Protestants.

Ellison's Invisible Man is the closest thing to "the great American novel" that I've ever read, and the reason it's routinely ignored by school curricula is that it cuts too close to the heart of the matter for comfort.

@jameschip I find it much more filling, too. So much so, that I usually cut the portion by about a third or more.

@jameschip It's astounding how much less you have to rely on a sauce or additional ingredients when you're working with a base of fresh pasta. So much more flavor is built right into the dish.

@dokoissho Pot-bellied pigs were just one of those boutique pets for a while, and Instagram is no for having a caste of very posed, "quirky" influencers. I also considered hedgehogs.

@dokoissho I have a philosophy degree, so no, I can't explain anything.

Social Media Platforms By Favorite Pet

Facebook: dog
Reddit: doge
Twitter: bat
Tik Tok: cat
Instagram: potbelly pig
Mastodon: mushroom

Re-conceiving social media activity as a form of publishing, especially in light of the way federation makes true deletion practically impossible.

@cybernomad That theme song replays in my mind constantly.

It's amusing how new technological habits sometimes end up approximating old cultural patterns. Weekends are turning into the time that I go through and either read or delete all of the leftover online articles and blogposts I saved during the week. Which is not that different from settling down with the weekend edition of a paper, something I didn't do before and never meant to pick up.