Category: General Nonsense

Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

If you heard Saturday’s show (repeated Sunday afternoon) you heard a bunch of soundbites from Bert and Ernie of “Sesame Street.” (As opposed to Bert and Ernie of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”)

I don’t mean to disillusion you, but they weren’t in the studio with me — the magic of radio! theater of the mind! — and they also weren’t exclusive to me. Not hardly. They were part of a video series that Elle Magazine has created called “Song Association,” in which celebrities are given a vocabulary word, and then have 10 seconds to think of a song that includes the word.

You can view Bert and Ernie’s entire appearance on YouTube (it’s actually a load of fun — they also sang “If I Had $1,000,000” by Barenaked Ladies, as well as “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman) and check out the other celebrity videos at the hashtag #SongAssociation. Billie Eilish, Adam Lambert, Olivia Rodrigo and Meghan Trainor have all participated in the long-running series.

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Brand A or Brand B?

I’m experimenting with two of the social media apps that have been touted as replacements for Elon’s House o’ Nazis & TERF Emporium — Post and Mastodon.

Honestly, I expected to like Post better. There is a waiting period — apparently there’s a huge backlog of people trying to sign up — but once you’re approved, setting up an account is very simple.

Mastodon has a much shorter waiting period. But it’s a little more confusing. Unlike Twitter or Facebook (for instance), or Post, where all of the technological infrastructure is owned by the company, Mastodon is a series of servers — basically, privately-run networks. You have to pick which server (I’m going to call them networks) you want to join.

Think of it like signing up for a cell phone plan. Your Verizon phone can talk to my T-Mobile phone, and both of us can call someone with an AT&T phone.

Most of the Mastodon servers (networks) seem to talk to the other networks, so people from one Mastodon network can talk to the people from the other networks. But unlike Twitter or Facebook, when you sign into your account, you’re not signing into your account on the service; you’re signing into your account on your particular network.

Like I said, it’s a little confusing and clunky, which is why from the beginning, I expected to like Post better. I’m https://post.news/jaythurbershow on that app.

And guess what? I think, so far, I like Mastodon better.

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