It feels like the create podcast process in Castopod has some friction.

You cannot create a podcast unless you have a cover image ready for it.

The cover image must be at least 1400px × 1400px.

How many potential podcasters know they need to have this ahead of time? How many potential podcasters have an image of that size ready?

This feels like a place that could cause users to give up, and bounce.

Could a default or automatically generated podcast cover image, etc, be used if the user doesn't have one ready?

When you set-up a new Castopod server, there no link or hint on how to sign-up from Castopod homepage.

That is not ideal, as it is not clear what to do next.

You cannot do anything for your podcast without being able to sign-in.

The actual sign-in page is at /cp-auth/login

So, for example, if you Castopod server is a https://example.com/ then the sign-in page would be at https://example.com/cp-auth/login

A request for being able to choose what the preview image is for a video, chosen from the frames in the video.

https://socel.net/@folduptoys/111216008353147790

I can imagine having editing tools would also be useful.

It is also common elsewhere for people to be able to use custom images for preview images.

Where I live on the west-coast of Canada, alleys are dirty and disgusting. Most people don't go into the alleys. I think this is common is a lot of cities in Canada and the U.S.

In Korea however, alleys tend to be clean and utilized.

Here is a photo of a Korean alley in Hapjeong (합정) in the Gangbuk (강북) area in Seoul in Korea from October 2019:

Some want access to breaking news.

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1710701583988896115

https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/110483509566586790

https://twitter.com/Plinz/status/1685945305320329216

Korea has an Uber like service called: Tada (타다).

The photo is of a Tada (타다) vehicle which drove by while I was in Korea in November 2019.

This is a reply to this post:
https://jemmy.jeena.net/post/226905

(I could not to reply to it directly. So writing this as a separate post.)

Back in October 2019, after becoming aware of Korean fortune tellers — I became curious about them, and investigated them a bit.

(I go to Korea frequently. For example, I just got back from Korea 2 days ago.)

I think some of these Korean fortune tellers function as a kind of therapist.

I took notes about Korean fortune tellers (back then).

I posted my notes elsewhere at the time. I'll re-post them here:....

Fortune Tellers seem to be popular in some parts of Korea with some individuals.

Not everyone sees them, or believes in their powers. But many seem too.

For those Koreans who believe in the power in Fortune Tellers…

Some see their Fortune Teller whenever they are worrying about something.

While others might only see a Fortune Teller for a special event.

For example: figuring out a “good” date for a wedding ceremony.

I suspect these Korean Fortune Tellers often function as a kind of Therapist.

Although mixed with supernatural aspects.

These Fortune Tellers have books they consult.

I think there may be economic incentives to focus on negative aspects of the customer's life, which keeps customers returning for more sessions.

So perhaps something else these Fortune Tellers have in common with Therapists.

These Korean Fortune Tellers tend to be single unmarried women.

Apparently the Fortune Teller being single & unmarried is important for their powers for some reason. Something to do with their “third eye”.

From what I was told, being a Fortune Teller is quite lucrative, so there are economic pressures (i.e., “golden handcuffs”) for these Korean Fortune Teller women to remain single & unmarried.

Although there are some married (female) Korean Fortune Tellers.

And there are even some male Korean Fortune Tellers.

So although most Korean Fortune Tellers are single unmarried women. Not all are.

These Korean Fortune Tellers often give out yellow piece of paper.

They are talisman

In Korean: “bujeog” (부적)

What I was told was that the Korean Fortune Teller puts “mojo” into the yellow paper.

And a Fortune Teller can put more (or less) “mojo” in these yellow papers.

This is what (some of) the Korean fortune tellers books, that they consult when giving a fortune telling, look like.

This particular (male) Korean fortune teller did not give any talisman. Just provided the fortune telling.

There are Korean fortune teller locations all over the place in Seoul.

I don't know if all locations are like this, but this particular location looked like a restaurant inside.

The process at this Korean fortune teller location seemed to be:…

• customers comes inside & has seat at a table,

• customers order drinks,

• fortune teller eventually comes over and tells the fortune of everyone at the table.

You pay like at a regular restaurant.

We (of the Fediverse) should take a lesson from Linux (and the LUGs back in the day) and do in-person Fediverse JoinFests.

Where we help people join the Fediverse.

Similar to the Linux InstallFests decades ago.

I am old enough to remember when Linux was not yet common.

(I started using Linux back in 1996. And have been using some distro of Linux since then.)

Back then, Linux User Groups (LUGs) got created in different cities by regular people who were enthusiastic abut Linux — to provide help, support, and community for those who were interested in Linux.

(I used to be an active member of VanLUG — the Vancouver Linux User Group.)

From-time-to-time these local Linux User Groups (LUGs) would put on a Linux InstallFest —

An in-person event where people (who weren't using Linux yet, but were interested) would bring their computer to the Linux InstallFest, and someone from the local LUG would help install Linux for them on their computer.

This helped spread Linux.

We (of the Fediverse) could do something similar.

We (of the Fediverse) could learn from the Linux User Groups (LUGs).

We could have our own version of a Linux InstallFest — a Fediverse JoinFest.

An in-person event where people who are interested in the Fediverse, but are having trouble joining — can bring their mobile phone or laptop, and some Fediverse-savvy person (like us) could help them join the Fediverse.

We could install a Fediverse app on their mobile phone for them.

We could help them pick a server to join.

⸺ Charles Iliya Krempeaux ( @[email protected] )

(This is a re-post from [1] [2] [3] [4] )

Each Fediverse server instance has its own local user accounts. But because they on a federated social-media network (called the Fediverse) with other server instances, each server instance needs some "awareness" of user accounts on other server instances.

Part of this "awareness" tends to be caching the profiles, bios, avatar images, etc, of user accounts on other server instances — i.e., remote user accounts.

Some of these images can be very large. And can cause the cache of remote user accounts to take up a lot of drive space. Which often translates to a higher monthly hosting costs.

This could apply to any Fediverse software.

But this particular example of it happened to Pixelfed.

The conversation started here:

https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/111152253455206463

I also talked to Basit Ali (from #SpaceHost) about it, and he said:

There are different ways this could be addressed.

( https://mastodon.social/@reiver/110925625473415578 )

Fediverse software designed for a single-user solo usage should make the website's (root) home-page the user profile page.

I.e., This:

https://example.com/

Rather than this:

https://example.com/＠joeblow