MattDemers

Mm, okay. I tried signing up (I'm a marketing/community guy) and didn't use the Github sign-up. When I click the verification email link it just hangs on your logo.

Some feedback (not sure if this is on purpose):

I'm using Brave, and I couldn't right-click to "Suggest a Strong Password" in your signup field. I've never had that happen with any other site before. No adblock or Shields up.

Also I can't seem to confirm my membership.

I've launched a Substack about two topics, and I currently have no paid subscribers, but a sick URL. https://mattd.substack.com

I have two sections:

"Linked" is about our relationship with the Internet. I found that I wanted to do more writing about Internet culture that's fallen out of favour (forums, gaming clans) and also how people are using the Internet to enable their dreams (Twitch, "wanting to be an Influencer") and the psychology behind that. https://mattd.substack.com/p/i-dont-want-mmr-i-want-self-est...

"Ranked" is about competitive psychology, self-esteem, and people who play multiplayer video games to make a number (their skill rating) go up or down. This includes chess, and my own experiences trying to be more comfortable "learning by losing." A pretty apt headline is "I don't want MMR, I want self-esteem." https://mattd.substack.com/p/i-dont-want-mmr-i-want-self-est...

If those are things that interest you, I'm going to be publishing 1-2 times a week, as well as other stuff (thoughts on media, manga, anime, TV, etc) in a third "everything else" section.

I've been blogging for over 10 years, but I've always resisted centralization, and that's kind of hurt my ability to grow. After running Patreons, multiple blogs and other venues, this is my attempt to go "Okay Matt, everything's in one place, stop adding so much overhead when all you need to be doing is writing.

Even posting on this thread is really difficult for me in terms of getting over the self-promotion hump, but I'm hoping I can learn and grow as a person as I do it.

Then it just becomes a cat-and-mouse game for someone to make a tool that "de-GPTs the copy" and then so on and so on.

>Telling customers they're wrong for not buying from you is quite a look.

Can't wait until they find some moralistic reasoning that not buying smart = worse environmental choice. Then the true fun will begin.

The best lootbox sim I found is the CSGO Case Simulator [1] mostly because it keeps tabs on how much it'd cost to buy the case, buy the key, and how much you'd be able to sell your won item for. Obviously it isn't the exact same as the Valve system of odds, etc, but it's fun to let it auto spin for a while and see just how much you've lost.

[1]: https://convars.com/case/en

There's probably a discussion to be had here about the change from self-hosted servers and self-selecting your community, vs "party finder"/matchmaking becoming the prevalent way to play.

Previously you could go to "newbie" servers, learn the game or play without as much seriousness, or self-organize into clans/groups if you wanted something more serious. You needed to learn the customs and culture of every server and if you didn't like it, you could just go to another.

Now, everything is matchmade, there is no culture, and the "Ranked" vs "Quick Play" game modes means that you're just relying on the game to pair you with an enjoyable experience (that you can't just bail on without a penalty of some kind). Yes, this system is sometimes more preferable than going "LFG SM All" in LFG chat, but there is something that's been lost.

And apparently changed their CEO to someone whose primary experience was in mobile gaming.

Metatext on IOS is good.

https://elk.zone/

https://pinafore.social/

But unfortunately (unlike before) you can't default to "Following." You're defaulted to the "For You" tab on every hard-load, or app open (following a close) and you have to click or swipe over.

At least before you could click that "Home" icon and switch to "Latest" and it would reasonably stick.

I gave Twitter a lot more leeway than I should've through all this due to network effect and intertia, and I regret that a lot. When this "For You"/"Following" thing happened I actively went back to Echofon and Tweetbot, and was planning to make a subscription just to avoid what I was seeing on the first-party app/website. And now I can't even do that.

Wouldn't be surprised if Tweetdeck is forced to move over to the "new" Tweetdeck (which is just a wrapper for the web experience) soon.

Yeah, I really like them too! Is it just a second column?

I write about manga, video games, and odd tutorials for things like HomeAssistant: https://mattdemers.com

This article reads like they ran that thread through ChatGPT.

I feel like if the post repeats its premise or headline too many times within too close a margin, it instantly goes into my "written by an AI" box.

This seems ripe for replaceable bearings or some kind of maintenance thing.

I have an instant revulsion for any name that uses "z" instead of a "s".

A bit of a long-shot to put marketing/community management here, but I figure I'll throw my hat in.

Location: Hamilton, Ontario

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Adobe Suite, fandom/community management, Discord, livestream production, podcast production, CRMs, project management (Asana, Monday, Notion, etc).

Resume/CV: https://linkedin.com/in/mattdemers, https://drive.proton.me/urls/2PZA7Y0R8C#wTtsEnHlHaCH

Email (Using a SimpleLogin alias, forgive me): geniune_wpix@slmail.me

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I'm a social media, content, or communications manager (or well, a combination of all three!) that has 5+ years working with fandoms, communities, talent relations, influencers, and creating content to build brands. I have experience working within technical back-ends, git environments for web site development, and CRM environments. I'm an overlap of a Venn Diagram that has big "Empathy/Communications" and "Technical Competency" circles.

Currently looking for remote work.

Oddly enough, this is a similar dynamic with certain video games. Either the game is so chaotic that skill doesn't feel rewarded, or skill is so rewarded that unless you have the exact same skill, and you're only learning/playing with each other, someone is inevitably going to get better and start crushing the other.

I don't think that's an inherent flaw with the game itself, but with things like Fighting Games you have to still feel like you're having a good time (and be able to do cool things) while losing.

>Now it's an endless wave of samey overproduced trash that intends to generate "IP."

Can't wait for the movie adaptations and shipping.

I've been debating moving from TTRSS to FreshRSS, but I have a question: can you get a "group by feed" view when I'm viewing a whole category/folder? Also, is there any kind of auto-tag system? I like to be able to take "Ask HN" and "Show HN" to separate them from a bigger HN feed, and I'm not sure if I can do that in FreshRSS.

I've been using a TinyTinyRSS instance on Docker. I've also been playing with FreshRSS but there's some things that I don't like as much.

If you'd like some good science fiction about this issue and Kessler Syndrome, Makoto Yukimura's Planetes is just an amazing read.

>I agree that the "sprinkle a little money towards the sites you used in the month" remains pointless.

This was kind of the idea between Brave Browser's "earn BAT, auto-contribute to sites you use automatically" concept, and I actually admired the effort. I think people just saw it as being able to earn free crypto, though. It barely gets used for stuff like tipping, auto-tipping, etc.

If you (or someone in this thread) like self-hosted Docker stuff, I've been using FreshRSS [0] and TinyTinyRSS [1] (former is more visually modern, latter is a bit more deeper in functionality).

[0] https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS

[1] https://tt-rss.org/

You could probably run a Plex server with something like TubeSync that would download offline copies automatically; pair this with a metadata agent and you'd still get all the playlist/thumbnail/description stuff.

It depends on the site; I've actually had good rapport with Pocket's team on bringing up sites that don't work, and getting them fixed.

Would be easier to commit for me if there was a free option or a one-time fee. I know that's a dinosaur, but I can't justify the cost when I can put up with a little friction with Pocket + Joplin + FreshRSS.

Substack is nice because it handles email distribution, has free podcast hosting and RSS feeds for separate "sections" of your newsletter/podcast, and handles payment stuff. I could do the same things for Wordpress, but each of those functions is likely a (premium) plugin, with its own layer of tinkering, installation, config, updates, etc.

When Medium was better, it was easy to get a good domain for the same handle as your Twitter, with a good UI/readable final product. It's changed a lot since and kinda sucks now, but it's a step up from people using Pastebin as their blog.

I meant more that the strategies used by companies to interact with say, Kpop or Marvel fans, have bled into other environments. Also, the way that those kind of fandoms act, or the things they do in order to provide marketing for their parent hobby, have affected how other things continue to exist by proxy.

You make a good point. I guess it feels that the manga-to-anime pipeline feels more about straight adaptation, while the comic-to-MCU pipeline is much more about picking over a buffet of characters, beats, "things you know", etc to create "an MCU movie."

I find that this didn't exactly drive people backwards to appreciating or supporting the comics more.

I'm more of a manga reader than an anime watcher, and I can still find enjoyment in reading manga pre-adaptation and then choose not to watch the anime; I guess the same thing can be said about comics ("and then choosing to not watch the movie"), but it somehow feels more authentic, as if they can co-exist separately with the same amount of care from the rights holders?

Perhaps I'm confusing the feeling of authenticity with the idea of there just being so much history for something like Spider-Man, that you're going to have to condense or adapt or like, merge different things into one movie.

I don't know for sure; I still think that the work-for-hire nature of Marvel/DC really leads to a cynicism on my part. You've still got stuff coming out from Image and Dark Horse and the indies that you can "read comics for the comics", but something just feels off.

It's probably a bit of idealizing Japan for being Japan, but I never get the feeling of "if you don't watch the MCU, we don't care about you" like I do with Marvel Comics. If an MCU concept does well enough on film, they're going to backport it back into the comics regardless, so why should I invest in the comics when they're going to be manipulated by something I don't enjoy?