@crcollins This is what used to happen with my family. Couldn't say or do anything much without it turning into some kind of drama. Now, most of the family is literally (and I mean literally) half a world away and no more drama.

Of course, not suggesting that you move 😀

I should be editing a chapter of my second novel before the day starts ... but today is one of those days I just don't feel it.

Started editing, but then I switched over to fixing an issue in my Fedi client to allow better replies/posts.

And then I decided to do some posts on here - nnything but actually do the editing I should be doing 😛

#Writing #IndieAuthor #Procrastination

@SJHoodlet Sometimes I think it's better just to forget about it and move on since I have no idea who did it. And apparently it was like 10 years ago though I only found out about a couple of weeks back when I actually decided to try to do something with my writing 😛

But I then I catch myself wondering who it could have been and what prompted them to do it at odd moments 🙂

But yeah, weird. I should just forget about it and move on.

Hope the bots leave you alone from now on ... unless they are good bots. Are there such a thing as good bots?

@SuperTaliaDX Thank you 🙂I'll guess we'll find out this weekend ...

Apparently, "No Man's Sky" has had a major visual update. That game has been getting updates for years now and each one seems to add something new.

I haven't played in a while. I like the concept of the game, but I generally don't like games that the wife and I can't play together. If one of us is just twiddling their thumbs and watching the other play, it doens't seem so much fun 🙂

But that was before we discovered the PS5 co-pilot feature. That allows both of us to take turns at a game without having to actually pass the controller over. Both controllers are active and it's still a single-player game, but either one of us can take over as neeed. Now we enjoy the single-player games we own a lot more.

Not that we've had a lot of time recently for gaming, but I'm hoping to give "No Man's Sky" a try over the weekend with the wife. Let's see how it goes ...

#Gaming #PS5 #NoMansSky

@SJHoodlet I had somebody leave a 1-star rating for my book on Amazon. I had done no promotion for the book at all and as far as I knew, the only people who bought the book were friends/relatives.

This person says that they read 10% of the book and that sounds like the Amazon provided free preview. But they still felt compelled to trash it and say not recommended 🙂

And that's the only review ever on that book. So I'm told by some that it's hurting sales, but then again, what sales? 😛

Some weird people (or bots) out there. I can only commiserate.

@sebastianmalloy Sure thing 🙂

At the lowest level, the link you post is just a text link. Whether it shows a preview or not depends on what is displaying the post.

So, if you want to be sure that others get an idea as to what's in the link (without following the link) a brief description might be helpful in case there is no preview 🙂

@sebastianmalloy I believe it depends on the server/client. Some servers are set up to show a preview for links but if the server is slow it might not show for a while ... or not at all.

I have my custom client (that I wrote) which I configured to show a web preview for the first web link if there are no images in the post and it shows it like in the attached image.

@pretensesoup @mythopoetica In Sri Lanka, I don't think anybody's ever said "xerox" ... at least anybody Sri Lankan 🙂It's "photocopy" over there and still is what is ussed.

I am looking for a new contract as freelance #iOS developer (preferably in Germany, but EU is a must)

Since 2016 I've been working on iOS-apps in both #swift and #objc, I prefer UIKit over SwiftUI, I value good craftsmanship and simple, yet elegant solutions. In 2022 I went freelance, you might know me as the author of release notes for Mastodon for iOS.

In case someone is looking for an iOS contractor now or in the near future: let's have a chat!

Thanks for sharing <3 #GetFediHired

A friend from school whom I'd contacted long ago on FB suddenly accepted my friend request.

I check their FB feed and the top post looked rather suspicious, a phone screenshot showing an SMS message saying that they'd had a large amount of money deposited to their account from bitcoin mining.

I couldn't resist. I messaged them 😛

Within the hour, I get a response back and one of the first things they did (even though I had not heard from them in over 40 years) was to send me the same phone screenshot and tell me that their life was good and they got a lot of money.

I was now fairly sure that their account was hacked. Especially since the way they wrote didn't sound like a Sri Lankan, but more like somebody from a different part of the world 😛

I congratulated them on the money and asked about some fake friends (just names at random). They were non-committal but immediately told me about some personal stuff and sent me more images (gathered from their FB photo album, I assume) to convince me.

Then they start pushing me again about bitcoin and whether I'd be interested.

I ask them what class we were in back at school. He says that it's so long ago and that they can't remember. This is definitely not true since I can remember and I'd just talked to two other school friends a couple of days ago, who also remembered.

So I say, "I think you are a scammer and not my friend X".

They say, "You can believe what you want but I leave you with this" and send me another photo from the guy's FB album.

I contacted a mutual friend in Sri Lanka (since I had no way to contact him directly) and asked him to check with the other friend. And yes, his FB account is hacked.

Not that this needs to be said, but people who contact you on social media might not be who they claim to be. Always verify. Even when it seems totally legit — unlike in this particular case 😀

And if somebody tells you that they have a great way for you to make money with little/no effort ... but you need to pay them something first to do so, be very, very wary 🤔

#Scams #SocialMedia #LifeTheseDays #Facebook

@crcollins Congratulations 🙂May your editing be swift and the publishing painless 😀

@keira_reckons You might like my "Honest, the Martian Ate Your Dog" It's a humorous sci-fi novel about a man on the run from his wife's wrath after selling her dog to a Martian and the various scrapes he gets into as he tries to get the dog back 🙂

It's very happy and no hospitals involved at all 😛

You can see a bit more info and shopping links here:
https://shop.farook.org/

Does anyone have a recruiter or agency they can recommend for iOS work (1099 or W2)? The job market is absolutely terrible and I'm still looking.

#iOSDev #FediHire #jobsearch

When life gives you lemons, most people make lemonade – but when life gives Normal Kint a dog he hates, he serves it up to a Martian with a side of intergalactic chaos. Join the misadventures of Earth's most reluctant pooch hunter.

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Other options: https://shop.farook.org

#ScienceFiction #Humour #Bookstodon #FediBooks #IndieAuthor

@mythopoetica Thanks, wish you the same 🙂

On Draft2Digital I haven't seen any movement at all, so I don't watch that one much. But probably my fault since I am crap at marketing 😛

@mythopoetica I felt the same way when the royalties re-set to zero this month and that was my first month where I actually had some royaltlies.

But we might be talking about different dashboards here since I was watching the Amazon one and I think it resets every month — I mean at least the default one does. But not sure I actually get a payment since I'm probably below the threshold 😛

But not sure that makes you feel better? 🙂

@AngelaPreston Believe me, I totally get you about not wanting to be a "burden" 🙂 I always thought it was a vestige of the British occupation in Sri Lanka (stiff upper lip and all that 😛) but maybe it's more universal than I thought.

But yes, I do the same thing — well, to an even greater extreme in that I don't talk about personal stuff much at all. I'll just talk about coding, or movies, or something that interests me and which I hope interests other people. But sharing anyhing personal seems "icky" somehow 🙂

All this just to say, I do understand how you feel but that I'm happy to listen to other people talk about their lives even if I can't seem to bring myself to (much).

I've been made redundant from my job, effective tomorrow.

So... if you know anyone who's in need of a bioinformatician to work remotely on small bioinformatics projects, please let me know.

@AngelaPreston Sorry about all the negative stuff and I do know how you feel about not wanting to talk about it. But I think you should talk about these things since it does make you feel a little bit better just having talked about it.

For years, till I met my wife, I didn't talk to anybody about a lot of things. Now, with her, I think I talk a bit too much since I talk her ear off 😛And sometimes it's just sensory-overload for her and she'll tell me that she needs some quiet time. It doesn't help that we are together 24/7. But overall we like it and having her to talk stuff out has helped me immensely.

Not sure if any of that actually helps, but if you need to talk, I'm sure that I and many others here are willing to listen 🙂

Hope you have a great day today!