lunarcat

I've heard of Katabasis! RF Kuang is one of those authors I hear a lot about, but she seems to come with polarizing opinions. Katabasis is the one that appeals to me most out of all of her work so far. If you've read her other books, what did you think?

I'm not sure what the first part of this means lol, but the latter half is definitely admirable! I can see how you'd de-windows and de-amazon your tech, but I can't imagine not using google. Do you have a replacement in mind for it?

Today is my first day here and I've mostly just been wandering hobby/interest groups!

I think the biggest barrier for new users is that the whole system here is pretty complicated with the "decentralized" model. I don't really understand what it means or how it works, what the difference between the various servers are, or what to join or even which app to download. There are a lot of options and complicated technical terms (like "federated", "fediverse") you need to research just so you can sign up. The fact that you have to write all of these explanations about it doesn't really help. A platform like reddit (which I migrated from) is clean, easy to understand, and makes sense to the casual user.

As for the political stuff, I think people here should engage more with positive content. We should make the wholesome, fun stuff popular because it's appealing. Post about the cool/funny/awesome/interesting stuff you encounter every day; talk about the arts, your hobbies, your funny life fuck ups, your non-serious relationship woes, your pets, etc.! In my exploration today I noticed those kinds of communities barely get any interaction whereas the news/political ones are always active.

I only did it in the past when I was reading for school, but I'd like to start annotating this year because it helps me really engage critically with the story!

My way of notetaking before was highlighting passages/quotes, or writing small little notes about my thoughts. For example, if something a character said or did related back to an important theme, I'd highlight that and make a small note of it. If a description of the setting emphasized the mood/atmosphere of the story, I'd highlight it and make another note. If I morally disagreed with a character's actions or if their actions disagreed with the narrative, I'd make note of that. Etc., etc.