Couriers of þe Fedi

Sure, I’ll go. I work a full time job that I’m happy with, but prices keep going up and wages never match. Gotta do something to close that gap.

40s from IL, more active on Masto and a big believer in the fediverse. Haven’t been on Reddit since stuff went down.

Hobbies, I’m a fountain pen nerd with a penchant for shimmer ink (username is a reference to one I particularly like) and buttery soft gold nibs. Discovered the older Sailor 21k nibs recently and I adore them - work day involves lots of notes, and pens/inks that make me smile tend to keep me in a decent mood through the day - especially now, in our semi-annual Crazy Season. I’ll just say I’m in FinTech, not in a startup (did that for a decade, burned out on the hours and b-school bros i had to work with.)

When I’m not working (and sometimes when I am!) I enjoy self hosting the fedi platforms I use. Off the top of my head, BookWyrm (GoodReads alternative), Mastodon, Firefish fka CalcKey, and a MissKey that I don’t think I’ll bother keeping. Up to my ass in Node apps, and it’s far from my favorite code ecosystem.

There’s an Elk (Masto front end), a Friendica that I think is actually stable now that I’ve handled the AP troll problem, and a PeerTube that I only use for watching presently.

Next stops are a mariadb cluster to add some redundancy to the Friendica, maybe dockerizing a few things, possibly a Pleroma or Akkoma (like Masto but in a functional language that I’ve never had much exposure to)…. Possibly a Diaspora* as well, though Ruby is…. Not ideal IMHO. A Wordpress and my own personal and professional sites are definitely priorities as well.

I do gig work because I like nice stuff and experiences, and how else do I justify the big expenditures to my wife, and try to ensure she can make some of her own?

I haven’t commuted to an office since Obama’s first term, and I’m good with that (and then some).

I actively miss some of the communities on Reddit, esp fountain pens and GIS but starting to see that sort of niche content here is awesome.

Slava Ukraini, and “everyone deserves the same privileges I have as a white male” sort of sums up my politics. Well, that and housing justice.

Wow, I probably sound like a lunatic but…. I prefer “ecclectic”

I gig because nobody is going to pay me enough for everything I want, and my health rules out a “traditional” second job, after working 8++ hours. It took me 40 years, but I finally learned the difference between “irresponsible overcommitment” vs “pushing hard enough to do what I need to do.” The lack of commitment in gig work fits well into that…