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Sean Tilley

Former Diaspora core team member, I work on various fediverse projects, and also spend my time making music and indie adventure games!

Posts 97
Comments 225
wedistribute.org First Look: Loops, by Pixelfed

Loops is a Fediverse TikTok alternative by the creator of Pixelfed. We try the app out for a spin, and give our honest thoughts.

First Look: Loops, by Pixelfed

Loops aims to be an open Fediverse alternative to TikTok, Snapchat, and Vine. We take an early look at the app, and talk about what it's like!

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What's your unique story about a job loss?
  • Yeah, I'm on sertraline and Adderall XR. While neither one is perfect, the baseline quality of my life has improved. It's hard to quantify or explain, but my recall and short-term memory is a million times better. I'm currently going to school full-time, and my grades are the best they've ever been, even in my hardest classes.

  • What's your unique story about a job loss?
  • What the actual fuck?

  • What's your unique story about a job loss?
  • Most of my working adult life has involved struggling with untreated ADHD. It's one of those things that a lot of people failed to understand, and when I'd explain my symptoms to them, they would often just say that it sounded like I was depressed, burnt out, and overburdened at work. While all of those things were true, executive dysfunction is more complicated and nuanced - for me, it manifests in the form of procrastination, seeking stimulation, and difficulty carrying a thread of consciousness from one sentence to the next. It can also mean that your self-esteem is constantly in the toilet.

    In spite of this, I had a lot of success in early stage tech startups, which are often chaotic. You have to switch roles at a moment's notice, going from customer support and technical resolution to product development and logistics. When things are on fire, customers are angry, and things are broken, I tend to be at my very best. It's the slower, more tedious, repetitive tasks like manual data entry that I tend to struggle with. I have been forced onto Performance Improvement Plans more than a few times in my career - despite glowing performance reviews - and have never gotten off of one.

    In spite of dropping out of college, I had managed to make a career for myself. I worked at a few tech startups, and had a really good reputation among my team members. As I continued to climb a corporate ladder and move to bigger and bigger companies, I found myself becoming burdened with larger responsibilities. I can accomplish anything I set my mind to, but I gradually turned myself into a workhorse for the entire team. My manager eventually saddled me with an enormous task where I had to develop a deeply technical presentation from scratch and give it to a live audience of over 300 engineers. To be clear - no such resource had ever been developed within the company. I guess this stemmed from me rewriting so much of the documentation so that ordinary people could understand it?

    I did the best I could. I solicited advice from just about every department in the company, rewrote the whole thing several times over, and practiced my presentation in front of my manager over and over again, as they nitpicked every aspect of it. Presentation day finally came, it ended up being a huge success. For me, this was a massive accomplishment. Unfortunately, my work performance had been languishing in other areas, and I once again ended up on a PIP. My manager drove the team into the ground, and I tried to make the case that I was just about done with being treated this way.

    I ended up in an HR meeting that I thought was initially being done to hash out our differences and find a path forward, but it was actually just the company kicking me out. I got a severance package, struggled for months to apply for a new job, faced a ton of rejections and self-sabotage. I smoked pot and got drunk until I had to sell all of my belongings just to survive, and then had to move back across the country to live with my dad and apply for the military. Four years later, I'm married, going to school full-time, and living a pretty okay life as a veteran.

  • I'm feeling like just hiding in bed for the next 4 years. Friends on Lemmy, got any advice for us Americans coping with the oncoming shit show that is the Trump GOP takeover?
  • Yeah, the election results were a horrible thing to wake up to. I had really hoped for a better outcome, but this is the direction America decided to go.

    The biggest thing to remember right now is that the progressive cause will always have work to do, and challenges to face. Even if we had won, either partially or by a landslide in the House, Senate, and Executive branch, that would still hold true. The American Right may very well unleash new horrors that make life intolerable for absolutely everyone, and may take up policies that get people killed. Now, more than ever, it is on us to build bridges and networks of support. All we have to do is outlive these bastards, and oppose their worst tendencies at every turn. Vote early, vote often, and vote locally.

    In the coming days and weeks, pundits will likely try to highlight all the possible reasons that the Harris campaign failed, because they love sounding like informed geniuses who take a result, work backwards, and highlight what should have been done. Try not to lean into the tendency to blame people on the left, and try to avoid infighting. It's going to happen.

  • All of us waiting for Loops.video
  • It's a slow rollout. Dansup is doing his best to put a good foot forward, there's a lot of moving parts, and it's fairly more complicated than some of his prior work. I'm super stoked for it, and can't wait to put together a detailed review.

  • We Distribute Is On Temporary Hiatus

    Due to the ongoing strain of trying to write, edit, and publish articles on a consistent basis, and a handful of personal obligations of our founders, We Distribute is officially on temporary hiatus.

    This is not the end of our publication or our project, but we need to step back for a while and regroup, if the project hopes to survive.

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    Mastodon Announces Fediverse Discovery Providers
  • Hey, no problem. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

  • Mozilla Thunderbird for Android Is Finally Here
  • So excited about this! It looks and feels great.

  • Mastodon Announces Fediverse Discovery Providers
  • It's an issue with content negotiation for the WordPress-ActivityPub plugin. Upstream is working on it some, we're using a recommended caching plugin to cut down on how often it happens.

  • Mastodon Announces Fediverse Discovery Providers

    Earlier this month, the Mastodon project announced a new initiative funded by NGI Search: Fediverse Discovery Providers! The goal is to build a resource framework for different kinds of services that can work with potentially any instance or platform.

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    Evan Prodromou Launches The Social Web Foundation

    Evan Prodromou, the creator of StatusNet, the OStatus protocol, and co-author of ActivityPub, is launching a dedicated nonprofit for the purpose of advocating for and supporting the Fediverse.

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    sub.club Emerges to Offer Paid Fediverse Subscriptions
  • Most efforts haven't moved beyond the planning stages. Just because you can point to a plugin or a FEP spec doesn't mean that it's an ongoing active effort for bring a payment layer to the Fediverse, with a consumer-facing tool or platform. I'm sorry if I didn't catch that Mitra had some of that functionality, but I would also push back and say that the average person is not going to use Monero for payments on the Web anytime soon.

    Those PeerTube plugins are nice, and the Premium Users one was actually something I pointed @quillmatiq@mastodon.social to for sub.club, as an example of prior art. They're interesting experiments, possibly useful integrations, but not in and of themselves actual platforms to build infrastructure and solutions on.

  • sub.club Emerges to Offer Paid Fediverse Subscriptions
  • Probably because, to my knowledge:

    1. I didn't know that Mitra did that.
    2. Even though it does have that functionality, I have no idea whether it would work with the rest of the network.
    3. This article was about sub.club

    I'm not trying to slight Mitra in any way, shape, or form, but my focus for this article was scoped to one thing in particular.

  • Bandwagon is Emissary’s Bandcamp Alternative

    For Fediverse musicians looking for a new Bandcamp alternative, Bandwagon feels extremely promising. It's built on top of the Emissary platform, and offers a robust amount of features for playing, promoting, and discovering music.

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    sub.club Emerges to Offer Paid Fediverse Subscriptions

    sub.club is an emergent new platform for paid subscriptions in the #Fediverse. It's simple, smooth, and easy to use.

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    A Brief History of the Fediverse Symbol
  • Fucking amazing book, I laughed so hard from start to finish.

  • A Brief History of the Fediverse Symbol

    In the development and building of a shared, open, collaborative network, efforts have come and gone over the years for the Fediverse. We dig into the history, various attempts, and some of the ideas people have had.

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    Flohmarkt is a Fediverse Marketplace
  • Yeah, I'll try to look into this for clarity. It really depends on what they mean here - I think they're referring to curated server following between admins, which is what PeerTube does.

    When I tested out the messaging system, I was able to federate back and forth with Mastodon. Maybe it works fine at a user level, it's just the search entries that don't get federated automatically?

  • Flohmarkt is a Fediverse Marketplace

    As the Fediverse continues to grow, people are looking to build new experiences that change what's possible on the network today.

    Flohmarkt is a nascent project intended for selling personal items, and may be the first attempt of its kind here.

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    Flipboard Users Can Now Follow Anyone in the Fediverse

    Flipboard continues its rollout of federation capabilities, this time implementing a "soft-follow" system for users to try out federated subscription for the very first time.

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    The single most thing that improved your ADHD?
  • Adderall. There are, of course, some trade-offs. Having gone so many years without any kind of medication, though, it's a night and day difference.

    I feel like my memory recall is so, so much better with it. When I'm off meds, I often find myself in a mental fog, struggling to remember details spoken to me moments ago. It's like I'm constantly trying to hold onto a thought, as it's rapidly slipping out of my grasp.

    I still have to rely on the productivity methods that work for me. I obsessively take notes and make lists, because I would be totally lost without either. I'm slowly making lifestyle changes that are helping me overcome almost 20 years of clutter.

  • The Untapped Potential of Fediverse Publishing

    Within the last few years, publishing within the Fediverse has started to take off. This week's opinion piece focuses on some of the current hurdles this network has, when it comes to user experience, and proposes ideas and a vision of what's possible.

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    Introducing Decentralized Social Icons
  • Yep, I'm aware of their effort, and have reached out about collaboration. 😁

    The icon font I've been building might technically predate it. I've been building it since December at least, and it's something our site depends on.

  • wedistribute.org Introducing Decentralized Social Icons

    Over the past year, we've been looking at how to solve a really specific niche problem. We've been building dedicated news hubs on our site for various platforms, and thought it would be nice to store icons for all sorts of different platforms, apps, and protocols. That way, when you look at any giv...

    Introducing Decentralized Social Icons

    As we've been building out our site, we've wanted to showcase the icons of various projects and protocols. However, there's been a real lack of any kind of icon font for that purpose...Mastodon is pretty much the only Fediverse project to be featured in FontAwesome, and the ForkAwesome project has been dormant for a long time.

    So, we've been building our own.

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    “Mastodon for Harris” is a Success Story for Fediverse Activism
  • Regardless of how you feel about it, it's still notable that people on the Fediverse managed to scrape $500k together. This is the first time something like that has ever happened on this network. In the world of big politics and presidential campaigns, it's not much. However, within the scope of grassroots organizing, it's substantial.

    I agree that I would love to see that funding go towards mutual aid, infra and project funding, and supporting people who work on different parts of the network.

  • wedistribute.org “Mastodon for Harris” is a Success Story for Fediverse Activism

    A grassroots fundraising campaign for the 2024 election is trending towards half a million dollars raised by Fediverse members.

    “Mastodon for Harris” is a Success Story for Fediverse Activism

    The Mastodon For Harris campaign has raised close to $500,000 within two weeks of being live. It is probably the largest attempt for political organizing on the Fediverse, and may provide a playbook for other efforts going forward.

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    NeoDB is a Review System for Culture
  • I think it's a big opportunity that the Fediverse has largely slept on. A lot of people shrug it off, but Facebook, Instagram, Medium, and a number of other places offer an export archive of your data.

    Some of it isn't all that usable, but there's something extremely appealing about being able to take old parts of your social graph with you, and merge it into a new identity. A fixation I've had for the past few years is consolidating all of my data into one place, under one identity, and I'm exploring the possibility of writing data converters.

    Interestingly, Pixelfed allows you to import your Instagram archive, and it's fantastic.

  • NeoDB is a Review System for Culture
  • So, to be clear: it's not a concept like Nomadic Identity. Rather, it's a demonstration of importing data archives from other social networks and platforms, and integrating that data into an existing Fediverse account.

    In other words: it's not a singular managed identity for all your apps, it's a mechanism for marrying data from different systems to a Fediverse Actor. Paired with something like Nomadic Identity, it would be a game changer.

  • wedistribute.org NeoDB is a Review System for Culture

    NeoDB is a review system with some remarkable tricks up its sleeve, and may provide a way forward for decentralized content discovery.

    NeoDB is a Review System for Culture

    Today, we sat down and reviewed NeoDB, a Fediverse review system that lets you track books, movies, music, tv shows, games, podcasts, and more. There's some really incredible ideas beneath the surface.

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    What is something people you encounter at your job say that makes you want to scream? (Job, person & quote)
  • I used to work with enterprise customers at a SaaS company, and still have a lot of anger in how corporate types use this fluffy language. I think my "favorite" example of this jargon is "Please Advise.", which basically just means "What the fuck?!"

  • What is something people you encounter at your job say that makes you want to scream? (Job, person & quote)
  • I was working at a tool checkout in my shop for a while, and the sheer amount of ignorance and repetition blew me away.

    People would come in, see signs stating things like "Don't throw your hazardous waste in this trash can!", and people would straight up ignore it. Things got so bad that we had to stop offering a trash can in our part of the shop.

    A lot of people would also just repeat the same statements, day after day, week after week. For example, we have iPads that contain maintenance manuals. We have to update those manuals every week, on the same day. Without fail, the same people always forget which day Update Day is, and have to ask.

    The worst ones happen when people come to turn in their gear before end of shift. Most people are fine, but every toolbox has to be thoroughly inspected before being scanned back in. Often, somebody misplaced a tool, left garbage in the box somewhere, or there's some other undocumented discrepancy.

    Most people are cool about it, and willing to make things right. But, some people act like you've purposely screwed them over, or react with total apathy and disrespect. I don't make the rules, man, I'm just trying to do my job.

  • wedistribute.org Privacy and Consent for Fediverse Developers: A Guide

    Some people think that privacy, openness, and user consent are all at odds with one another. Here's a guide on how to navigate all three as a developer.

    Privacy and Consent for Fediverse Developers: A Guide

    Sometimes, developing a new app, platform, or concept for the #Fediverse can seem like a minefield. Here's some rules of thumb on how to maintain goodwill with the community, and ideas of how to do it.

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    wedistribute.org ActivityPods Releases Example App to Help Developers

    The ActivityPods team released a new example app that's easy to get up and running, to help developers hit the ground running.

    ActivityPods Releases Example App to Help Developers

    In an effort to better help prospective Fediverse developers understand Solid, the ActivityPods team has released an example app as a reference point for understanding how everything works under the hood.

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    CANVAS 2024 IS LIVE
  • Great job! We just gave you a shout-out on We Distribute: https://wedistribute.org/2024/07/canvas-2024-live/

    It's seriously awesome that you got this to work with more than just Lemmy. The app is looking great, and it seems like you're off to a strong start!

  • wedistribute.org Canvas 2024 is Live!

    A beloved Lemmy event returns this year, and it's already off to a strong start! There's still plenty of time to participate, here's how.

    Canvas 2024 is Live!

    And now, for some lighthearted fun: Canvas, the r/Place alternative for Lemmy, is back for its 72-hour collaborative art event, and this time, the whole Fediverse is invited!

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    Peertube @lemmy.ml Sean Tilley @lemmy.ml
    wedistribute.org An Admin's Guide to Fixing PeerTube

    In this guide, we go over tips and tricks for dealing with some of the biggest headaches of running a federated video server.

    An Admin's Guide to Fixing PeerTube

    Self-hosting your own federated video platform can be really cool. But, what do you do when it acts up? We wrote a guide on how to give your PeerTube server the love it needs.

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    wedistribute.org Maven Imported 1.12 Million Fediverse Posts

    A social network founded by a former OpenAI employee was caught importing public posts from Mastodon...and ran AI analysis to add tags to them.

    Maven Imported 1.12 Million Fediverse Posts

    Maven, a new social network backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman, found itself in a controversy today when it imported a huge amount of posts and profiles from the Fediverse, and then ran AI analysis to alter the content.

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    wedistribute.org IFTAS Launches Moderator Resource Portal

    The dedicated Trust and Safety organization launched their community platform for moderation support last week. Here's what it does.

    IFTAS Launches Moderator Resource Portal

    IFTAS, the Trust and Safety organization for the #Fediverse, launched a new community portal full of guides, resources, discussion groups, and tools for community moderators and instance admins. We take a look at what it does.

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    wedistribute.org FediVision 2024 is Live! Listen and Vote!

    It's time to listen and vote in this year's edition of the Fediverse's favorite annual music contest, FediVision!

    FediVision 2024 is Live! Listen and Vote!

    FediVision is an annual music competition in the spirit of Eurovision. This year probably had the biggest turnout ever: 72 entries from a variety of artists and musicians, and you can listen to all of them!

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