My endorsed social media alternative

This post is about Mastodon. I've been on it since December 2022. I think it's a good choice for social media and I hope that more of my friends will go there.

The pluses for me:

• No ads
• No vitriol
• Interesting "Toots" (other sites would call these "tweets", "postings" or something else) from people in Ottawa, science fiction and fantasy writers I like, and others including my city councillor
  
• Comments on health, climate and politics that are sane and based on reality
• Open support of trans and queer people, people with disabilities, people of colour, and everyone who is increasingly facing hate on the corporate platforms
  
• I see all the toots from the people I follow, not just the ones that an opaque algorithm chooses for me
• I'm a desktop guy and there's a desktop site Phanpy that I find entirely acceptable for keeping up with people's Toots.
  

The cons for me:

• Most of my friends are still on the corporate platforms that are already enshittified or will eventually become enshittified (and sorry, but I agree with Cory Doctorow that there is nothing preventing Bluesky from going bad)
  
• It's been a bit complicated (but it's getting better all the time) 
  

Why Mastodon is better than the corporate platforms

Unlike X, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram and all the others, Mastodon is not controlled by a single corporation trying to make money off the people who use it. It is driven by many "servers" or "instances" that are each owned by different individuals or organizations. The servers are linked or "federated" in something people call the "fediverse".

Each instance is moderated by its owner. And the owner can block instances that are allowing hateful stuff to go through.

So, you do have to choose a good instance.

But, here's the thing, if your instance goes bad, you just move to another instance and you take all of the people who follow you and who you follow with you. Easily. It's not like when you leave X or Facebook and you lose your connections with everyone.

Some possibly useful links

• Me at Ottawa.place: https://ottawa.place/@dscrimshaw
  
• Phanpy - the reader site I use several times a day: https://phanpy.social/#/
  
• A guide site I follow with useful tips: https://fedi.tips/

Apps

I'm an Android guy, so have no advice for Apple people. And I use my desktop not my phone to keep up with Mastodon. Still I have two apps loaded on my phone.

• Tusky has a reputation for being nice for reading
  
• Mastodon sends me notifications when one of my toots gets liked, boosted or replied to, or when someone new follows me, and I can quickly check for new toots when something is going on in the world (which wasn't really a good thing for me at 4am on November 6, 2024)

Intro Video

If you're still curious, you might find this 3-minute video to be of interest:

Dealing with the snow on Christmas Eve

Here's a time lapse of me clearing the driveway today.

While you can watch the embedded version here, I recommend clicking through to YouTube and watching it full-screen for the full cinematic effect.

My new slightly quieter Corsi-Rosenthal box

Here is the TL:DR - I made a new Corsi-Rosenthal box with a disassembled pedestal fan that is 5 decibels quieter than my old Corsi-Rosenthal box made with a box fan.

This summer, I noticed that our pedestal fan was a lot quieter than the box fan mounted onto our Corsi-Rosenthal box. Louder enough to make a difference to a guy like me with a certain amount of hearing loss who wants to hear his visitors when they speak.

It occurred to me to see if I can get a quieter fan for my next box. I knew I'd be making a new box before long because the filters have to be replaced every few months.

So I went on line to find a quiet box fan. I actually found a couple of sites that said certain box fans were quieter than others and ordered one that was supposed to be quiet. But it was not. In fact, it was louder than the box fan I already had.

Next, I thought about disassembling our pedestal fan and using it.

But then I thought a little more and it occurred to me that the other resident here might not be pleased if I disassembled her pedestal fan even for such a good cause.

I did some looking. There were people selling pedestal fans for $10 on Facebook Marketplace, but I did not fancy the idea of driving to somebody's house, asking them to plug in the fan and then maybe driving away empty-handed if the fan didn't work or was louder than I liked.

So then I looked at the Belfast Road ReStore and the Cyrville Road Value Village. The ReStore had a pedestal fan that worked but seemed a bit noisy. Value Village had a $20 pedestal fan that didn't seem too noisy. And guess what. It was Tuesday, Senior Discount Day so 30% off!

I used five 20" x 20" filters for my first two Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. This meant I had to build a frame to raise the bottom filter off the floor. A worthwhile thing to do, but it was finicky.

It occurred to me that having the Corsi-Rosenthal box made from four 20" x 25" filters would give the same surface area of filters as five 20" x 20" filters but no frame would be required. (The old math classes came in handy. Check it out: 4 * 20 * 25 = 5 * 20 * 20!)

So I searched the local hardware stores' websites and Amazon, determined that Canadian Tire surprisingly had the best deal and ordered four 20" x 25" x 1" Merv 13 filters. I don't know why, but Canadian Tire gave me free same-day delivery.

These are the steps I took in making the new Corsi-Rosenthal box:

1. Disassembled the pedestal fan and reassembled it with the rotating mechanism removed and the power cord lengthened between the fan and the control box by about 12" with wire I've had hanging around and Wagu clips to connect the wires. (This is my first time using Wagu clips and I love them. They make joining wires incredibly easy. It might seem like $0.50 per join is a lot compared to a bit of solder and shrink wrap, but the time and effort saved is worth every penny. Plus, I'm not very good at soldering, so there's a high chance that my splices would fail.)
   
2. Cut a sheet of fibreboard I had in the basement into two 21"x 21" squares.
3. Cut a circle that was the size of the round fan grill into the square for the top to make a cowling.
4. Drilled eight little holes around the circle to attach the fan grill, and a bigger hole on the side of the circle for the fan's power cord to come out.
5. Drilled two holes 4" apart in two opposite corners for rope handles.
6. Took two pieces of 12" cord, threaded them through the holes in the corners and tied knots so they'd stay in place to make the rope handles.
   
7. Mounted the fan head in the cowling, attaching it with twisted binder wire and taping it down with duct tape. Making sure that the power cord came out through its hole.
   
8. Duct taped the filters together to form a box, being sure to orient the filters so that the arrows indicating the air flow direction pointed into the box.
9. Duct taped the fibreboard for the base onto the bottom of the box.
10. Placed four fuzzy floor protectors in the corners of the base and one in its middle.
11. Found a little box to put the Wagu connectors and wire that led into the control bar for the fan.
12. Painted the box black, cut holes for power wires and for a piece of cord to hang the control bar from. Put the stuff inside the box, duct taped the box to the cowling, hung the control bar from the box and put the lid on the little box.
    
13. Plugged in the fan and turned it on.
    

After trying the new Corsi-Rosenthal box, I realized that it still made some noise. That's when it occurred to me to download an app to measure how loud it is. I went with one called SPL Sound Meter. It was free and had a good rating.

According to the app, the new Corsi-Rosenthal box is 50 decibels loud at top speed and the old Corsi-Rosenthal box is 55 decibels at top speed.

I'm okay with that. And next time I'm in a Value Village, I'm going to see if they have an even quieter pedestal fan.

Snow creatures appear

On Wednesday, it was a bit too cold.

But yesterday, it had warmed up enough to make very good packy-snow. 

And these two creatures appeared. One had trouble keeping his head.

We are curious to see how the squirrels might respond. Particularly to the noses.

Time lapse snow

We had our first snowfall of the season yesterday.

I was almost all set. The snow tires are on the car and the shovels, brushes and scrapers are all where they should be, but I did not have the time lapse set up. 

So there was a bit of accumulation before I started.

Home repair with squid tentacle

Many years ago, way back when I was a solo act, I found it necessary to cut a hole in the wall in the bedroom/office area to access some coaxial cable. I cut a rectangle out of the drywall, accessed the cable and then put the rectangle of drywall back in place with green masking tape.

This wasn't particularly obvious to the other resident who came to live here because I had a dresser, a bunch of empty boxes, a clothes tree, and a sort of nightstand thing in front of this wall. But I've been downsizing a bit and moving things into my new studio space and the taped rectangle became entirely obvious.

It was gently suggested that I replace the taped-up rectangle with an access panel. I had to agree that this was a very good idea, so I got an access panel, removed the taped-up rectangle, and enlarged the hole so the access panel would properly fit.

Alas, in doing so, removal of the tape that had been on the wall for at least 20 years caused a section of paint to also come off, and I put a longer mark on the wall than I had needed.

Some people would probably have addressed these unsightly blemishes with some sort of paint solution. But I do not know much about house paint and am not good at using it.

However, I can draw a squid tentacle with a Rotring Tikky Graphic C.7 and a set of coloured pencils on a piece of fine tooth surface sketch paper and then use an exacto knife to cut out that tentacle so it perfectly covers unsightly blemishes on a wall.

And that is what I did.

If the other resident of your home has an affection for cephalopods, this is a home repair solution that I can recommend.

 

Halloween is over

It's November 2, but before I can make my devilled eggs, the monsters had to come down.

I set the time lapse to go a little faster, so this one will only take you 12 seconds to watch.