As some of you may be aware, over the past few weeks there have been an increasing number of what I suspect are bots which will share one or even a few posts, all relevant to the communities they are shared in, at which point the account self-deletes. I’m torn as the stories are relevant, but they give me the impression of a narrative attack. I’ve seen only one of these accounts actually comment before deletion, otherwise they post and immediately nuke the account.

I have tagged mods and admins but have not heard any recognition on the problem. It’s also notable that by my impression this issue is getting worse. I noticed yesterday that communities I subscribe to which previously have not had this problem are now starting to receive these kinds of posts.

I want the fediverse to be a place to communicate with real people in good faith; this manner of posting runs contrary to that. So that begs the questions, is this actually a problem, and if so, what can be done about it?

In my search for the ultimate retro gaming machine I’ve been surprised by the limited options when it comes to controllers for iOS and android. While there are plenty of controllers that you can clip your phone onto in landscape orientation, I haven’t seen any that are designed to play in portrait mode. I see several benefits to a clip on controller for portrait mode. Pinball games, Tetris, and DS games all play best in portrait mode. Plus, a portrait mode controller would be close to the original gameboy in terms of form-factor.

Anyone else looking for something like this? Have I missed a product that’s out there? Maybe once I get a 3D printer I can cannibalize a Bluetooth controller and experiment.