Ask HN: What interesting people are you following on Mastodon? So far I really like the fediverse, but I am really missing some cross server follow suggestions. I was hoping someone here had some good suggestions on who to follow? |
Ask HN: What interesting people are you following on Mastodon? So far I really like the fediverse, but I am really missing some cross server follow suggestions. I was hoping someone here had some good suggestions on who to follow? |
No BS, down to earth infosec folks
Filippo Valsorda - https://abyssdomain.expert/@filippo
Marcus Hutchins - https://infosec.exchange/@malwaretech
Tavis Ormandy - https://social.sdf.org/@taviso
Royce Williams - https://mastodon.social/@tychotithonus
The Grugq - https://infosec.exchange/@thegrugq
Alex Bloor - https://bloor.tw/@bloor
Andrew Tierney - https://infosec.exchange/@cybergibbons
The usual Rust crowd
Mara Bos - https://hachyderm.io/@Mara
Aaron Turon - https://hachyderm.io/@aturon
Luca Palmieri - https://hachyderm.io/@algo_luca
Tim McNamara - https://mastodon.nz/@timClicks
Raph Levien - https://mastodon.online/@raph
Game Dev
Ólafur Waage - https://mastodon.social/@olafurw
Godot Engine - https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@godotengine
Celebrities (Stephen was one of the first people I followed on Twitter, so it is a tradition. The others are canaries.)
Stephen Fry - https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry
Kathy Griffin - https://mstdn.social/@kathygriffin
Greta Thunberg - https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg
Honorable mention
Dan Luu - https://mastodon.social/@danluu
Nevermind.
Another possibility is it'll work out great.
> else they would have already.
Except it doesn't work that way. People are some mixture of dumb, greedy and vain.
> Another possibility is it'll work out great.
What would be the positive outcome? Preferably one that wasn't heralded 20 years ago and has not borne out.
Of course there are and will also be highly negative effects, but the hope is they will be more easily isolated as a result of many cooperatives taking action to exclude those negative effects and their propagaters, rather than rely on policies and practices of a small number of profit-seeking companies.
I never understood it myself, was never active on anything but IRC. But ActivityPub seems truly magic when it comes to promoting communication across boundaries such as corporations and software stacks, so I jumped on it back in 2017 and loved seeing it blow up in 2022.
There are clearly a lot of very nice, and very normal, people on there who just love the concept of microblogging. Who am I, or you, to stand in their way? And why should they depend on one corporation to communicate when they can take it into their own hands?
It's really a very natural progression, just like we have many ISPs, phone companies, or anything else in society.
Because many are not nice and the platforms clearly have been abused, drive division in society and are bad for mental health. That's why we can't have nice things.
But at the same time I just learned of a protest here in my town, via social media. So it's also helping people organize IRL.
If you see disinformation and find yourself in an echo chamber on a platform where you can chose who you see and engage with, I am afraid it's not the platform's fault.
Rob Carlson (author of "Biology is Technology...") @rob_carlson@mastodon.world
George Dyson (great for history of science posts) @gdyson@sciencemastodon.com
Rudy Rucker (mathematician, author, artist) @rudytheelder@sfba.social
Alberto Cairo (data visualization - infographics) @albertocairo@mastodon.social
James Gleick (author of "Chaos", "Genius", etc.) @JamesGleick@zirk.us
Anne-Sophie Pereira De Sá (data visualization) @wonderveilleuze@vis.social
Maggie Koerth (Senior science writer at @FiveThirtyEight ) @maggiek@sciencemastodon.com
Vicky Veritas (Geologist, GISMS Earth science, kind person that gets people connected) @vickyveritas@c.im
this is barely scratching the surface.
Here's mine, for example, a giveaway cross section of my interests...
#linux #unix #weather #bendoregon #orwx #railroad #history #caving #caves #seti #train #motorcycle #bicycle #openstreetmap #osm #amtrak #railfan #nasa #usgs #hacking #computerscience #math #programmerhumor (some real groaners) #astrophotography #astronomy #rustlang #space #science #programming
And then mute people whose stuff you don't want to see.
As for people, I follow my friends and:
@openstreetmap@en.osm.town
@royalastrosoc@astrodon.social
@stephenfry@mastodonapp.uk
@georgetakei@universeodon.com
@archlinux@fedi.lynnesbian.space
@nasa@mstdn.social (I think this is unofficial)
@sdf@sdf.org
Julia Evans https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk
Simon Willison https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon
Steve Ruiz https://mas.to/@steveruizok
Molly White https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff
Mekka Okereke https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke
Mastodon View Profile: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mastodon-profile-r...
Basically you click to view someone's profile, then click this extension's button in your toolbar and it will take you to YOUR instance, where you can follow that person with just one click (no copy+paste+search)
It will work in many cases, but it will also fail in other cases. It's not universal.
The only reliable method is to use the search field on your instance, or to directly query the Mastodon API.
let your_instance="masto.ai";
document.location=(
"https://"
+ your_instance
+ "/authorize_interaction?uri="
+ encodeURIComponent(document.location)
)
You can use my bookmarklet editor to turn it into a bookmarklet:
@breakingtaps@universeodon.com: electron microscopy images and hobbyist nano-scale maker and tinkerer. Has a youtube channel.
@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz: the science fiction author, mostly posts about math.
@danluu@mastodon.social: tech writer/blogger, his articles often make HN's top page.
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz: famous physicist, posts about math.
@TechConnectify@mas.to: whimsical and eclectic youtuber, thorough explainer of things like dishwashers, toasters, and LEDs.
@TomDuff@mastodon.social: inventor of Duff's device, posts about music and pen plots.
@robpike@hachyderm.io: inventor of Plan 9 and Go.
@aram@mastodon.sdf.org: don't follow this guy!
Also mathstodon.xyz, math-oriented mastodon instance.
https://mastodon.social/@jonoxer - Jon is an awesome bloke in Melbourne, Australia who is really in to electronics and home automation.
https://theblower.au/@cathywilcox - Australian political cartoonist. If you followed on Twitter, follow here instead.
https://blackrock.city/@spolsky - Joel Spolsky. If you followed on Twitter, follow here instead.
https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix - Matrix, Element, etc.
https://mastodon.social/@oatmeal - Because he is a funny bugger.
@fasterthanlime@octodon.social Hacker
@tlalexander@queer.party Working on open source farming robots
@fchollet@sigmoid.social Deep learning stuff, creator of Keras
So I'm mostly following a lot of RPG designers, but a few non-RPG-related names are: Cory Doctorow (super interesting of course), Neil Gaiman, Stephen Fry (sometimes receives a lot of pointless responses, which makes it frustrating to engage) and George Takei (always receives a lot of pointless comments; I'd like to be able to hide other people's comments from his posts, because it's all noise).
Of course not everybody I'm following is on Mastodon. I'm not even on Mastodon. The Fediverse is a lot bigger than that.
John Baez (https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez)
Vi Hart (https://mathstodon.xyz/@vihart@mastodon.social)
Greg Egan (https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF)
Katie Steckles (https://mathstodon.xyz/@stecks)
Marcus du Sautoy (https://mathstodon.xyz/@MarcusduSautoy)
Eugenia Cheng (https://mathstodon.xyz/@DrEugeniaCheng)
Terry Tao (https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao)
Tim Gowers (https://mathstodon.xyz/@wtgowers)
Matt Parker (https://mathstodon.xyz/@standupmaths)
@librarianshipwreck@mastodon.social -- pithy critiques, cats
@nomdeb@mstdn.social -- history and other random things
@OkieSpaceQueen@scicomm.xyz -- science communications, conspiracy deconstruction
@tprophet@defcon.social -- writer at 2600
@kjhealy@mastodon.social -- pithy sociologist
@notjustbikes@notjustbikes.com -- urban planning
@enron@tilde.zone -- hacks and snark
@HelenBranswell@scicomm.xyz -- infectious disease reporting
@Jessicascott09@infosec.exchange -- misc infosec
@harshad@sharma.io -- farming in india
@tendstofortytwo@tech.lgbt
@rashi@mas.to
@chenthil@mastodon.social
@sridala@mastodon.social
@anniezaidi@mastodon.social
@sharanyamanivannan@mastodon.social
@vaditi@india.goonj.xyz
@Calamur@mastodon.social
@nixxin@mstdn.social
@rahulbhatia@mastodon.social
@nilanjanaroy@mastodon.social
@hackiechan@mastodon.social
@nikita32@india.goonj.xyz
https://mastodon.online/@streetartutopia
https://spacelase.rs/@dekaminski
https://infosec.exchange/@troyhunt
https://a.gup.pe/u/histodons # This is a group that boosts every post mentioning it. supposed to be history related but it can be abused of course.
https://mstdn.social/@simonegiertz
https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
https://mastodon.social/@Popehat
https://hachyderm.io/@nova # Imho the best fediverse admin.
https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs
https://infosec.exchange/@cisacyber
https://mastodon.social/@oatmeal
https://wandering.shop/@cstross
https://mastodon.world/@JeriLRyan
https://bitbang.social/@NanoRaptor
https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei
https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff
https://atomicpoet.org/users/atomicpoet
https://social.data.coop/@cryptohagen
https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive
https://mastodonapp.uk/@aliceroberts
https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself
https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry
https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg
https://mstdn.social/@kathygriffin
https://social.network.europa.eu/@EUSPA # Just a twitter relay so far
Seems like there ought to be a simpler way. I just kind of stumbled into this approach.
Take one example below: https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon
This does not map to https://myserver/@simon@fedi.simonwillison.net but rather https://myserver/@simon@simonwillison.net