Fairly Social

Be social, on your own terms.

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  • I Can Support Your Event

    I Can Support Your Event

    I’ve been talking about the Fediverse, digital privacy, and sustainable computing for a while now — mostly in one-on-one conversations and the occasional blog post. A few people have suggested I should be doing it in front of a larger audience. I think they’re right.

    I’m available to speak at community events, library programs, tech meetups, and similar gatherings. I’m not a polished keynote speaker with a production team — I’m someone who genuinely uses this stuff every day and can talk about it without making people feel like they need a computer science degree to follow along.

    What I can talk about

    A few topics I’m well-suited for:

    • The Fediverse for regular people — what it is, why it matters, and how to get started without the jargon
    • Getting off corporate social media — practical steps, honest tradeoffs, and what to actually expect
    • Privacy basics that aren’t overwhelming — password managers, two-factor authentication, encrypted messaging, without the fear
    • Self-hosting on a budget — running your own Mastodon, Matrix, or other services using something like YunoHost
    • Linux and sustainable computing — why your “too old” laptop might have years of life left in it

    I’m open to other angles in this space. If you’ve got something specific in mind, I’m happy to talk through whether it’s a good fit.

    What to expect

    I keep things practical and conversational. I don’t assume technical background — I started somewhere too. I do assume curiosity, which is usually the only thing that matters.

    Format is flexible. I can do a short talk, a longer presentation with Q&A, a workshop-style session where people actually set things up during the event, or something else entirely. Group size doesn’t bother me.

    I’m based in the Fredericksburg, VA area but I’m open to traveling for the right event, and I’m happy to do remote presentations as well.

    Get in touch

    If you’re organising an event and think this could be a good fit, reach out. Tell me a little about the event and the audience and we’ll go from there.

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  • Social Media and the Fediverse

    Social Media and the Fediverse

    In the last few years, my patience for social media has been waning.  I do like to keep in touch with people up to a point but the constant onslaught of targeted advertising, the monitoring of every click, and the algorithm deciding what I’m going to see next has taken it’s toll.  I’ve discovered that I don’t really like being “the product” and I don’t need someone telling me what I should see next.

    Doing something different is a significant mental shift in this revenue-driven world that too few are ready to take.  I recognize that some people do in fact like being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it [I’m an Apple consumer after all] and that’s okay, I’m not judging.  Corporate social media just isn’t for me any more.

    I’ve already been spending less and less time on social media.  I joke that I spend about 90 seconds at a time on Facebook or Instagram – an exaggeration but likely not too far off.  I’m sure Facebook and Instagram can tell you exactly how long I spend on each.  The real social media decline for me began with the downfall and meltdown of Twitter.

    Twitter was my social media vice of choice.  I was able to tailor a feed, time based, that would show me what was going on in the world in specific topic areas of interest.  Most often it was keeping up with tech news but, if there was a crisis somewhere in the world, I would go to Twitter to get the real story.  I was in the Washington Navy Yard in 2013 when a mass shooting occurred and, even being at the scene of the event, Twitter was my best source of information about what was going on and provided a quick outlet to let people know I was okay.

    But, Twitter did indeed fall, and is continuing to fall, in grand fashion.  I don’t know if much there is considered trustworthy anymore.  I canceled both of my accounts a while ago and started looking for my new social media “thing.”  I already had accounts on Facebook and Instagram; I likely see more family there than anywhere else, but there are just so many ads.  I tried Pinterest, but quickly lost interest [sic].  Reddit was not bad until they got greedy and became the next AI sellout.

    All this ultimately combined to initiate my personal exploration of what has today become known as the “Fediverse.”  Interestingly enough, the concept is really not that new.  Way back in the early days of computer networking, I ran a computer Bulletin Board System or BBS on FidoNET – essentially a bunch of computer systems exchanging data via “store and forward” over phone lines to share messages around the world.

    There were multiple applications that could speak to one another to electronically exchange and route data to the intended location and there were multiple user facing applications that could be used to consume the information delivered.  Basically, options and choices…

    I appreciate the open source movement continuing to push back against a limited pool of commercial software options and seemingly endless corporate profits. I’m not specifically against commercial software but what get’s lost is that many corporations take advantage of open source code in their end products without any thought of the hours invested by programmers. There are open source counterparts for Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and many other commercial products.

    Within the Fediverse, I appreciate having the option to pick a program of my own preference to do instant messaging; share thoughts, articles, or headlines; and share photos or videos without being beholden to an algorithm or submitting to the monitoring of my every action.  The real catch is that big corporate entities don’t want to play, they would rather lock you inside their walls and harvest your data. You will not be able to communicate with people inside the walled garden.

    There have likely been thousands of articles written about the fall of Twitter, social media addiction driven by “likes” and the algorithm, the rise of generative AI, and the challenges of the Fediverse but for me, the Fediverse is where I would rather be.

    I fully agree, it’s not as simple as just logging into Facebook or Instagram and having new people recommended to you.  It takes a little more work to find the people you want to follow; tags matter a lot. I really like the freedom of being able to do it myself.

    For friends and family, you may not see me on corporate social media as often, but I’m still around.  If you want to know more about the Fediverse, I’m more than willing to help…

    Fediverse image provided by logowik.com.

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  • Quick Fediverse 101

    Quick Fediverse 101

    There are many videos and articles describing the pros and cons of the Fediverse from different views and perspectives. My opinion is that they all roll-up into a few main points.

    • In the Fediverse, the “algorithm” is time-based.
    • You have to do the work to find people to follow.
    • You will see things you don’t want to see at some point.

    If you prepare for and learn how to deal with these three things, the Fediverse can become a great place to be. I intend to address each of these in future articles.

    “The Fediverse – Explained by Common Craft“

    “No, Mastodon Will Not Replace Twitter”

    Fediverse image provided under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License by Per Axbom.

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