I read an article today about these newer social media apps, and they mentioned that Masto is focusing now on quote posts among other features, so that may be coming soon.

The CEO of Bluesky just posted they hit 17M users today after hitting 16M in the last 24 hours.

The juice is juicin’.

A couple of those items have at least been addressed to varying degrees now.

There’s definitely a screen to show you “who to follow” now, and an Explore tab to show popular posts of the day.

Not saying that solves all the problems, but at least they have made some strides in the last couple of years.

I think they described some basic-ish stuff you’d get if you subbed, like longer video uploads. There were a couple of perks that I don’t remember off the top of my head.

And that may not be the only revenue stream in the end. They may still get financing from somewhere else, which certainly has its issues. But at least trying to figure out something while they are relatively small is probably a better approach than waiting until the walls are falling down and then scrambling.

For FFXIV, specifically, if you are looking to add some friends I’d say start by hanging out one of the three starting cities (Gridania, Limsa, Ul’Dah) near the Aetherytes. Often people are just hanging and chatting some there. Limsa, on my server at least, seems to just be filled with people all the time hanging out. And you may even see some open calls for people to join Free Companies (Guilds). Those people are actively looking for new blood, so you could start up a discussion with them and see if their group is something you’d like to join. By doing so you may be able to get several friends pretty quick that way. Just remember that you owe nothing to those folks, and if the free company vibe doesn’t feel right once you get in, then bounce.

But commenting on someone’s look is fine, too! People work hard to collect or craft certain pieces of gear and dye them to make their character the way they want so if you notice something cool chances are they will be happy to talk about it.

There was one time last year during a Live Letter (this is a live streamed event the producers of the game do a few times a year) I went to Limsa and said to anyone who could hear it that I’d be “over by [a specific bench] to discuss the Live Letter” and lots of people I didn’t know gathered around and we all had a fun chat about the event as it streamed.

Or even if you have questions, say them out loud in a crowded space and chances are someone will help. FF14 is notorious for people NOT being trash, so most often you’ll find helpers before finding jerks.

And I promise that you can’t out-weirdo the weirdos that run around pretty much any game, so try to not worry about that.

Coincidentally, the CEO of bluesky posted this infographic today. Maybe some of these things will not hold up in the long run, but we’ll see.

https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/113/478/385/983/255/387/original/47310b3e334f918c.jpeg

They have recently said that they are going to have a subscription model for some extra features to curb the need to throw in ads and whatnot. We’ll definitely see how that all works. But I do feel like they might be at least trying to set up a business model that doesn’t totally suck. All to be determined at this point.

This continues my streak of buying zero (0) games from Epic but still having a sizeable library there.

All I’m saying is that the moderation tools are NOT the same.

Manually blocking hundreds of people (where those people can still see your posts [how twitter does it]) instead of subscribing to one list isn’t the same, and being able to remove your quoted posts from some troll is not the same.

There is an argument to be had about who funding the app and what that means, but there’s no denying that Bluesky’s moderation tools from the user level are streets ahead of anything twitter has ever done.

Here is one. I’m sure there are several.

https://bsky.app/profile/skywatch.blue/lists/3l53cjwlt4o2s

Edit: Just came across a post with several useful block lists for maga, nazis, other shitheads:

https://bsky.app/profile/azalben.bsky.social/post/3lawjdxpick2l

Twitter didn’t have block lists. You could block people individually, but not as a group.

I don’t know if hate speech will be able to flourish on Bluesky like on twitter simply because of the moderation tools.

There’s already a giant blocklist of maga idiots who have tried to move over, and if you follow that list you’ll never see their posts. And the unwritten rule of the place is to block anyone who is trying to start stuff or that you simply don’t like. On twitter that felt taboo for some reason, but on Bluesky that’s normal - as it should be, really.

Shoulda become president first THEN leaked classified documents to russia. He’d be fine in that case.

The good news is that users can create block lists you can subscribe to, so if there becomes a lot of spam, I’d assume some good lists will start showing up.

For example, there’s a great MAGA block list. Don’t want to see any MAGA garbage? Just sub to that list and you’ll never see them.

Outlaws looked great, and had you go to interesting locations, and fly in space. There were no towers to open up maps. The outlaw system wasn’t super amazing in the end, but it didn’t detract from anything.

I don’t disagree it has a reputation, but Outlaws was a fun break from the super boring Assassin’s Creed games of late.

It seems like to me some of their games simply just need another two months in the oven.

There were lots of little bugs in Star Wars Outlaws, but I found that game to be really fun, and largely pretty solid. But then they dropped updates a month out or so that fixed a lot of those little bugs. I wonder if they had just had that extra month to polish it up if it’d have gotten slammed as hard. People may still have wanted different things storywise or whatever, but on a technical level just one extra month could have helped.

In high school we were hosting a marching band competition for schools a little smaller than ours. The band students helped work the whole event, so we were outside running around the football field all day.

Eventually, we got to lunch, and myself and friends ran over to Arby’s. I’ve never really enjoyed coffee in my life, but a friend convinced me to try the JaMocha Shake. “It’s so good,” they said. So anyway, after a shake and roast beef sandwiches, we go back to the football field to help out in the afternoon.

An hour or two later, something in my gut started turning sideways. I was sitting high up in the stands with friends, waiting for a band to finish their performance. Suddenly, it all came up. Roast beef and coffee shake. All over the stands…and dripping down onto who ever was unlucky enough to be below. At this field, the concessions were under the stands. Oof.

So I ended up going home, of course. But I know that a friend of mine unfortunately had to clean it up. Poor girl.

True. And that is a lot of people. But I was assuming way more than that based on the headline.

kidRidingBikeAndPuttingStickIntoSpokes.meme

Though the article says they went from 1,900 to 1,700 employees, so not necessarily a huge amount relatively.

fReE sPeEcH AbSoLuTiOnIsT

2 in my opinion is the worst of the trilogy.

3 is a masterpiece, and doesn’t have that gotcha crap.