The Glad Hatter

as has been said before, there are some things on cohost that are missing because we haven't done them yet (opt-in mention notifications, notification filtering in general, pasting images into the post composer¹, etc) and some things that are missing because we will never add them (public-facing like/share counts, public-facing following/follower lists, etc).²

if you need the former, we ask for and appreciate your patience; we are a small team and things can take time.

if you think you need the latter you are honestly probably wrong, but if you truly can't kick the habit of Numbers you will likely be happier on a different website.

i often tell people that cohost is not for everyone, that we are not trying to make cohost for everyone, and that cohost is better because it's not for everyone. we're trying to make the social media platform we want to use, that attempts to solve many of the social problems that we have experienced on other platforms, and if that works for you too then that's great and we're glad you're here! and if it doesn't, that's totally fine! there are other websites and we encourage you to try them.

i very firmly believe that alternative social media is not a zero-sum game and that one platform doing well is good for everybody. not every platform is going to be for everyone but a person realizing they can break from the twitter/instagram/tiktok hegemony to try something else, even if that thing doesn't work for them, is good for everybody; that person will often continue exploring options to find their home.

so if you don't like cohost, go explore! find something that works for you! you will almost certainly find something free of the incentives that corporate social media creates and we genuinely hope you find something you like, even if that something isn't cohost.

(i realize this is somewhat rambling; it's a collection of thoughts that have been kicking around in my head for a while but i haven't really written down. i spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing.)

1. this one's harder than you might think for reasons related to how operating systems handle images on the clipboard. you can end up with some pretty big images getting pasted in when their original form was a much more reasonable size.

2. we know this line can be unclear sometimes, but when asked we try to be straightforward about where a given feature lies.

today's mouse: Taco Bell on my laptop :)

mice are so tiny they can't even press down the keys on a keyboard! (they weigh only about 30-35 grams on average.)

hello, IT? my computer isn't recognizing any input from the mouse

In On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote that bumblebees are the only species that pollinates red clover. He discovered in 1862 that honeybees also pollinate red clover. Prompted by this discovery, he wrote to his friend John Lubbock, saying, “I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.”

via

Six years into his studies of barnacles, he wrote "I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship."

I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.

- Charles Darwin