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POTUS on the Fediverse

As I write this Joe Biden is the 46th President of the United States. There is a Presidential account called POTUS over on Twitter (X) at twitter.com/POTUS which honestly should probably be deleted since Twitter (X) is run by a fascist-friendly entity in 2024. (Note: I stopped posting on Twitter in 2022.)

There is also a @potus account on Threads, which is a platform owned by another terrible entity, Facebook.

Both of those accounts exist so the President can talk to the people, which is good. Sure, the President has many ways to talk to the people, but those platforms provide a place where the people can talk back, and share, and discuss. Those are (sometimes) good things.

But this is the Internet my friends, and just like the President, any company, any organization, and any person, can have a web site, the President can have their own damn server for social media microblogging.

Do you know about the Fediverse? Imagine if you could choose an alternative to Twitter, but still talk to Twitter users… or talk to Facebook users, and Instagram users, and Threads users, and now imagine we don’t need Twitter or Facebook (which also owns Instagram and Threads). It’s possible.

Also imagine you can block users and also entire servers. If there’s a Nazi server you can block it so you’ll never see their posts. And yes, there are such servers. Most of them are already blocked by most civilized Fediverse servers.

Threads is starting to federate, and what that means is I can see all of the posts that @potus@threads.net posts even if I never have a Threads account, because I have a Mastodon account at @rasterweb@mastodon.social on the Fediverse. I can subscribe and see the posts at https://mastodon.social/@potus@threads.net. Now, at this point I cannot reply to those posts, but supposedly by the end of 2024 this will be possible. (Threads needs to turn on two-way Federation, basically.)

Now, there are two opposing views of the Fediverse allowing federation to and from Threads, and those boil down to “Hey, Threads is run by a terrible organization that will not behave and does terrible things so we’ll block them!” and “Hey, this is the way we get more users to leave Facebook/Threads, by showing them there is an open alternative!”

I’ve probably simplified the two views, but I’m a simple man. I will admit I still use Instagram (mainly because I have a lot of friends there) but I also use Pixelfed and believe me, if I could just use Pixelfed and still interact with Instagram users, and they could see my posts and interact with me, I’d probably stop using Instagram…

Of course if Facebook hears enough of this, they’ll probably never want to Federate. It would mean losing users. Large companies depend on lock-in to keep you there, and it sucks.

So while I mentioned my account at mastodon.social, that’s not all there is… In fact, there are hundreds, sorry, thousands of Mastodon servers. Here’s a list of some. Check out FediDB and right now there are over 27,000 servers on the Fediverse. Some have thousands of users, some have just one user.

But I just wanted to let you know there is an alternative. Best case, we destroy these large powerful corporations that control social media, and worse case we live alongside them, as an alternative for some people.

Wait, who pays for this!? Well, people do. I donate a small amount of money to the servers I have accounts on. Not everyone does, and that’s okay. I don’t see advertisements, and none of the people who run the servers I use are selling my data. The Fediverse is much more about the people, not the money. But will it scale? Sure, maybe, or not? We don’t know, but we sure as hell should try it and find out.

Anyway, welcome Mr. President!

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Kids Camera Instant Print

I picked up this Kids Camera Instant Print which is a “toy” camera for kids that has a built-in thermal printer and spits out photos on what is commonly known as “receipt paper” and it’s a ton of lofi fun.

The one I got was around $40 USD but you can find them for less than $20 as well. (Just make sure it’s one that does thermal printing!)

I had seen a blog post from Joe Van Cleave titled Thermal Printing Fun! and then learned other nerds were getting these little cameras and having fun with them. (Note: Joe seems to be into typewriters and cameras so this puts him into the interesting person category for me!)

Here’s a fun Mastodon thread on these cameras and you can also see the #ShittyCameraChallenge hashtag for more.

There are a ton of these from different manufacturers and they’re all a little different and somewhat the same. Thermal paper is pretty cheap so the cost per print can be pennies.

This seems like the perfect camera to take to events and shoot photos of people and then give them a print. I know, you’re saying “But Pete, the photos look like shit!” and I would counter that they don’t look “like shit” but have a unique lofi look to them that has a certain charm.

This thing reminds me of the Game Boy Camera. When I got the Game Boy Camera working (and eventually the Game Boy Camera Dumper) I liked the style and quality of the images, but doing the transfer from the Game Boy to a computer was still a chore.

Anyway, the Game Boy Camera is still neat, but this Kids Camera Instant Print thing is more of an all-in-one unit. It’s a bit bulky but hey, it’s got a built-in printer.

One of the interesting things about the prints (since they are on thermal paper) is that they won’t last… at least not in their native form. You can’t laminate them as the heat will destroy them by turning it all black. You can “cold” laminate them with clear packing tape, or you can scan them to a digital file, or take a photo of them, make a copy, or just… let them fade, much like life itself does. They are ephemeral and maybe that’s okay.

Who knows? Caturday may be a lot more interesting(?!?) in the future…

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Recupero Urbano

Jeff Winkowski asked if I would want to take part in a benefit to raise money for the Bay View Community Center‘s food pantry program and I said “I’m in!” so join us Saturday, April 6th, 2024 at Puddler’s Hall from 6pm to 10pm. (See the Facebook Event!)

And what’s happening? It’s an Art Show (and Sale) and I will be offering a bunch of my recent digital illustrations (well, prints of them) as well as some of the relief prints I made in January.

This is another Pay What You Want experiment on my part, and I will be donating 50% of all sales to the Bay View Community Center. Get one of my prints for $5 and the BVCC gets $2.50… Give me $50 for a print and the BVCC gets $25. We’re going to work together on this, providing art to people at a price they can afford, and hopefully also raising some money for those in need. (Fun Fact: I used to live right down the street from the Bay View Community Center and passed it every day on the way to work.)

There’s also a silent auction planned that will feature a never-before-seen illustration I’ve done. It’s a classic Milwaukee historical thing, and you might like it. Oh, there will probably also be some music or other things happening… a live band? A local DJ? I don’t even know. (Literally, things are still in the works.)

Oh, there is an entry fee! It’s one non-perishable food item. So canned goods or the like, something you would donate to a food pantry. Anyway, I hope you can join us. (And bring some cash or a card or your phone or all of those things!)

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Game Boy Sketch

Game Boy (Sketch)

Game Boy (Sketch)

For me the peak of portable handheld gaming in the 1990s was the Nintendo Game Boy. I remember not having on, but using the one my girlfriend had. A year or so later we broke up but I got a new girlfriend and she also had a Game Boy. (Also, just a quick shout out to Adafruit for the Game Grrl.)

Game Boy (Sketch)

Anyway, past relationships aside, I pretty much just played Tetris on the Game Boy. So yeah, Tetris… which led me to the Anbernic RG35XX last year. I probably spent more time playing Game Boy games in 2023 than I did in all of the 1990s.

Game Boy (Sketch)

For these sketches I always start with the lines, typically working directly from a photo, doing some tracing and making decisions about each hand drawn line. Damn I am really enjoying the capabilities of the Apple Pencil! I still have a lot to learn and I spent about 20 minutes watching a video over the weekend and learned a few Procreate tricks I was unaware of…

Game Boy (Sketch)

I should probably spend a bit more time just screwing around in Procreate and doing some real learning but I also find the drawing so fun and enjoyable that I mostly try to do that when I have a small amount of free time.

Game Boy (Sketch)

Finally, here’s a more loose and sketch version. Once again this digital illustration was done with an Apple Pencil on an iPad using Procreate.

Oh, just a quick side note, I do have a Game Boy Advance for my Game Boy Camera but I sort of wish I had the Game Boy Color because the form factor seems much better for using the camera.

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The Ghosts Sketch

Why (re)draw a bunch of 8-bit characters from a video game that was released over 40 years ago? The first answer is “Why not?” and that should be enough, right? Yes, it’s sort of ridiculous to make a hand drawn sketch of blocky pixelated characters, but life is ridiculous, life is absurd, and sometimes you’ve just gotta play along with it.

You may remember me from the Pac-Man Cookies my daughter and I made in 2011 or the Life-Size Pac-Man project of 2019. (The Life-Size version is at Jason’s house now and I’m a little sad I didn’t get the Shelf-Size version we made that was shown on TV for a Maker Faire promo… Oh well.)

Doing these sketches is sort of therapeutic for me, and I really enjoy doing them. I’m still not sure I want to create these as actual physical art pieces for sale on a web site. I’d like to continue the Pay What You Want for Art experiment I started in January. Enough people have been supporting it lately that I think it’s worthwhile to keep pursuing.

Pac-Man was a game I first played in an arcade as a kid. I’m pretty sure I sneaked off to Palmer’s Billiards on 27th street with the neighbor kids and play it along with Space Invaders. I wasn’t really a huge fan of either, and I was more of a Tetris fan later on.

So hey, enjoy these fun ghosts that were drawn on an iPad with an Apple Pencil using Procreate.

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