Yep. I saved hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month just from switching from Substack to self-hosted Ghost.
I pay a roughly flat $85/month now (~$75 for mailsending, $10 for hosting), vs. 10% of all my subscription income.
Here’s some napkin math for how expensive Substack is compared to its competitors, assuming that roughly 7% of all subscribers will pay for their subscriptions, and that subscriptions cost $5/month.
In case you missed it, there are Mastodon apps for retro computers from the 1980s & 90s
Apple II
https://www.colino.net/wordpress/en/mastodon-for-apple-ii
Apple Macintosh (pre-OS X)
https://github.com/smallsco/macstodon
Commodore 64
https://github.com/Havoc6502/MOStodon
Commodore Amiga
https://github.com/BlitterStudio/amidon
MS-DOS
https://github.com/SuperIlu/DOStodon
MVS
https://github.com/mainframed/BREXXTODON
Palm OS
https://github.com/knickish/heffalump
Windows 95
https://github.com/meyskens/mastodon-for-workgroups
Ready to resurrect a galaxy of GIFs, WAVs, and BMPs?
Join the DiscMaster Game Jam and build a game using strange and wonderful assets from vintage CD-ROMs archived by the Internet Archive. You’ll be assigned a unique collection to work from—textures, fonts, audio clips, and more, all in celebration of digital preservation.
$1,750 in prizes
Judged by industry pros
Open worldwide
Starts April 20 (USA) / April 21 (AUS)
Sign up here: https://itch.io/jam/discmaster-jam
Digital rights are human rights— and justice should never come with barriers.
Our tactile braille sticker turns that belief into something you can hold.
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It's been more than a decade in the making, but Facebook - or, if you prefer, Meta - is going on trial for antitrust violations, with the highest possible stakes and the worst possible evidence (for Facebook).
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/11/it-is-better-to-buy/#than-to-compete
1/
NOAA Scientists Are Cleaning Bathrooms and Reconsidering Lab Experiments After Contracts for Basic Services Expire
—
A Seattle lab has lost janitorial services, hazardous waste support, IT and building maintenance as it waits for the Commerce Department secretary to personally approve all contracts over $100,000.
https://www.propublica.org/article/noaa-contracts-seattle-lab?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
I’ve never been the type to intensely miss people just because I haven’t seen them in a while, but when I leave the house without Odin, I miss him so much. And my husband says that when I go out alone, Odin is inconsolable until I get back. here’s Odin 
No, it doesn't reflect "uncertainly in the science world." It reflects an anti-intellectual attack on science.
11 April 1987 | Primo Levi passed away. He was an Italian Jewish writer & chemist.
From 26 February 1944 a prisoner of the German Nazi camp #Auschwitz no. 174517.
In September 1947 he published his book "If this is a man". #poetry #history #OnThisDay #PrimoLevi
They’re not mad because you’re wrong.
They’re mad because you’re right, and they know you’re right, and they’ve over invested in pretending you’re not.
Trump has laid off the CDC's cruise ship inspectors. He did this despite the fact the program is not paid for by taxpayer dollars but by fees from cruise ships companies.
It's not about fraud or lowering taxes. It's about harming people and improving corporate profits.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-cruise-ship-inspectors-layoffs-outbreaks-norovirus/
“Part of the problem is nobody seems to be in much of a position to be a public information officer for VOA because everybody was let go.” https://www.reflector.com/news/local/pitts-historic-voa-site-signed-off-murrow-station-last-operational-transmitter-on-us-soil/article_ab749ed7-0f0d-41fb-b340-0c17e9169b61.html
In a bid to attract more followers online, I looked at which post images do well. People seem to like a) pets b) food, so I strategically painted this image of a weird little guy coming out of a hard-boiled egg. Am I social-media-ing correctly?
#illustration #art
Researcher uncovers dozens of sketchy Chrome extensions with 4 million installs
Even weirder: why would Google give so many the "Featured" stamp for trustworthiness?
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/researcher-uncovers-dozens-of-sketchy-chrome-extensions-with-4-million-installs/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
11. Share a favorite line of prose.
There are so many... can't chose. Instead I'll take one of my own from one of my many unfinished stories.
"The thoughts of a dragon are as deep as a well, as beautiful and rich as the stars at midnight, and as unpredictable as wild magic."
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 11
Share a favourite line of prose.
"And the food for the soul passes, candid and free, without paying tribute to the customs."
--Juan Ramon Jimenez from Platero and I, a treasure trove of beautiful prose
(Translation by Eloise Roach)
Behold Pong running in 240 browser tabs
a delightful project by Nolen Royalty
item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read and subscribe here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-33-two-hit-wonders-moonglass-and-trees/
