A long time ago on a network far, far away I started to post quotes I thought notable or relevant to current events. On Sundays. With the hashtag #QuoteSunday.
I wasn’t the first, merely carrying on a tradition I think started by the estimable @nitinkhanna.
It’s often fun to find one, unless I’m commenting on current events. But I still try.
#QuoteSunday (a tradition on pnut.io):
"It is a little known fact that Professor Stephen Hawking (RIP) invented all of the financial instruments backing the concept popularly known as Quantitative Easing, thereby saving the British economy from ruin during the dark times following the unprecedented and utterly-unforeseeable Great Squeeze." – Sir Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-1929).
During the springtime of 2013 I decided to join a new online community at App.net (Wikipedia entry). Heck, as it'd recently changed to a' Freemium' funding model I even paid for social networking! Today (Friday the thirteenth in year 1 PostCelebPocalypse) I found that the service will close in the middle of March 2017.
Its major strengths: no ads, 256 character posts, awesome apps, and a willingness by all to engage with and welcome newcomers. It simply wasn't too big. Though on the surface an oasis of calm amidst the chaos of the wider Internet there were indeed flaws, the business model wasn't perfect, but it didn't matter to me, I 'belonged'.
The apps that stood out for me in a network originally setup to encourage and to fund app and service development:
So Baz haz a sad that the inevitable end is near. But why, seeing as I've not been an active participant since before the middle of 2016?
Signing up to App.net (ADN) resulted in the some of the best things, the most stimulating things (even including btinternet.chatter!) I've ever done online. Rather than simply participate I joined in.
My big but short, exhaustive but necessarily incomplete, list of stuff:
It's not a big list, and though I may have forgotten something big it's representative of the network's scope.
But, without all those lovely people, none of my activities mentioned above would have been remotely possible . I'm conscious of the fact others may have been involved prior to my arrival, but I'm speaking from my personal experience. And that's the key to ADN, a very personal experience, not shaped by the knowledge someone's looking over your shoulder with a view to monetising your post content.
Best-of-all I relaxed. I met some wonderful, chatty, clever, insightful, downright amazing people there.
Thankyou all, I'll never forget.
But, to perhaps understand what I'm thinking right now, you had to be there. I was, it was great.
I am @bazbt3 both on 10Centuries.org (Jason Irwin's burgeoning social/blogging/podcasting network, for which I have invite codes) and on Twitter.
*Let's just say I popularised them, albeit in a limited manner.
Elaborating on (or maybe not, it's not my place to say) my 'Between' post yesterday, @matigo provided some nicely written (as-ever) insights into a modern curse..
'Curse' is my cruel trick; a word, a hook to drag you in. Oops!
Social burnout.
Most here will have a social networking networking history, may even identify personally with Jason's words… For me it's a case of 'the wrong time of year'.
For you…?
Choice. While I had only IRC and MS Chat, that's all I used. IRC was a one-day thing for me; i can't recall any actual interactions at all. Literally one day. I got online and, within the first month explored every protocol and service available to me as a new Microsoft Network (MSN) customer.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention ICQ in my blog post; a service I used mainly to connect to people I already knew online. In real time. Mine was, probably still is, a 6-digit user ID.
Nowadays though we've dozens of places we can go to express ourselves. There are social networks, forums, niche services… There we can chat about our desires, hopes, dreams… with other like-minded people, hopefully without troublemakers intervening. Most of us want a quiet life when we want a quiet life.
Yes, that.
So, App.net (ADN); it's a place with lots of good memories, good people, but it's been let down by its founders and those in search of a bigger audience.
Now mine's not a massive criticism. I'm hardly there at all, my feeling's more one of a remembrance of the emotional baggage stemming from the SOTN post, the frankly-ridiculous antagonism (I'll never understand why people don't simply block) and the network's inevitable subsequent decline.
And guilt.
I'm not doing #QuoteSunday (always a low-engagement thing) in part due to IFTTT's ADN support shutting down, nor am I running #ThemeMonday (once an entirely different proposition.)
That reminds me, I should really move the #ThemeMonday page at my site and replace it with… Sometime.
I must examine my other social network profiles linking to ADN, to see whether I must move them to where I'm most comfortable calling my social hub.
Or must I?
A perhaps-telling FYI; Last year, despite others not doing, I upgraded my ADN account to 'Developer'. More of a statement of intent, a gesture, an attempt to pay back in… I developed nothing of course but got a vague sense of wellbeing, and a hammer to add to my bio. THIS year I downgraded. To an 'ordinary' paid user account. Not all the way to '40'.
Hollow.
But here I am at 10C, with a Premium account paid-up until 2017 (over the top of Jason's invite) developing an 'app' for 10C. How odd.
So, back to the blog post. Burnout maybe, but I'm happy to call 10centuries.org (10C) home.
One thing to bear in mind; I'm crap at publicising stuff; hence the one successful invite. Kinda successful, I'm hoping the guy I invited will spend a bit more time at 10C…
And that others will follow. There's nothing to lose. No ads, no spam. Really.
And here be (more) Adventures! Maybe.
If you're not following me on App.net you're missing out on the occasional post about Ruby – our dog.
Ruby's lovely. Approaching her first birthday, as she's grown she's lost none of her puppy enthusiasm; as she's become more accustomed to our commands, we've tempered none of that quivering anticipation of awesome things about to happen.
Here's a flavour of her impact on our lives, just my posts:
Planning required:
"@pme Aren't the little buggers great? A good thing it's nothing like Ruby 'Chomp-all' Dog. The rest of my family hadn't quite understood the importance of putting things away. But there is an expectation that adults can put stuff in a safe place, right?"
Not quite according to plan:
"@indigo @rabryst I made sure that, if my wife was going to get a dog, said dog would be hypoallergenic, smart, and would not shed fur. Ruby has not let us down once, she's awesome. A mutant compared to all the others round here, but awesome. :)"
Conflict:
“@matigo The cat woke me, I went downstairs to feed him and his sister – and Ruby dog – only to find she'd emptied out the contents of a box all over the living room floor. Hairbrushes, broken crayons, spectacles, pencils, paper, card, sticky tape, lipgloss…
… a plastic troll too! All chewed, damp. :/
My wife can sort it out when she comes home from work; she's the one who leaves stuff out, allows the girls to, then complains when the dog chews.
Yeah, I just threw it all back in & stomped upstairs. :/"
Striving for an uncomplicated existence:
"@hazardwarning @hutattedonmyarm I didn't go looking deeper, Ruby dog wanted me to play with her ball. Simple things… :)"
And, this self-referential #QuoteSunday post:
'"Ruby dog, GET OFF MY PENIS!!!"*
- @bazbt3
Slightly* disconcerting #QuoteSunday quote.
*I mentioned my hedonistic lifestyle earlier in the evening, never thinking it'd come to this!'
True joy arrives unbidden in life, often unexpectedly, and in many different forms. Whilst bent over cleaning the cats' litter tray, wearing a gaping dressing gown with the dog nuzzling one's man-bits, trying to not startle Ruby 'Chomp-all' Turner though‽
Yeah, why not.
FYI: I am @bazbt3 on App.net.