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Blague

1  noun  ˈbläg, -ȧg   plural -s
: HUMBUG, CLAPTRAP, RAILLERY
2  intransitive verb   -ed/-ing/-s
: to talk pretentiously and usually inaccurately : lie boastfully

503, a LIVE GIG, and Fediverse things

Writer's picture: PhoolePhoole

My site's content management system offered me about a hundred AI tools to make a post for you. Instead, I am tippy-tapping these words for you on a keyboard, just like in olden times.

A Firefox browser window returns a 503 Service Unavailable error, except it says "a show about tech, the web, and loss" across it and has the Phoole and the Gang fuchsia flag logo on it.
A Firefox browser window returns a 503 Service Unavailable error, except it says "a show about tech, the web, and loss" across it and has the Phoole and the Gang fuchsia flag logo on it.

🖥️ Phoole and the Gang Show Number 503!

💻 In honor of the 503 error, it's about tech, the web, and loss, all vital themes for online life on Earth in 2025.

⚠️ We already did a computery show, so this one is a little bit like that, but with different tunes, and with some tunes about services not being available, and things being lost, because, on the internet, a 503 error means a service is unavailable - a server can't be reached, that sort of thing.

🤖 Tune in Friday 17 Jan 2025, 6pm Central US time at https://slipmat.io/phoole, https://mixcloud.com/live/phoole, & https://twitch.tv/phoole!

New Slipmat guide! https://phoole.com/slipmat

Rewind past shows at https://phoole.com/rewind


I Have Booked A Live Gig

Madame Phoole, the Dancehall Darling of the Milwaukeean Exposition of 1888, in full circus regalia.
Madame Phoole, the Dancehall Darling of the Milwaukeean Exposition of 1888, in full circus regalia.

The last live, in-person gig I played before the pandemic was at the Mitchell Park Domes' Gardens and Gears steampunk soirée, which they ceased hosting after 2020.


Well, guess who mailed me yesterday, saying they would love Madame Phoole's Panharmonium back for the triumphant return of that event this March? They did. SPLENDID. Hence the photogravure of Mme Phoole above.


It is a COVID-safer gig - the space is extremely well-ventilated, with good air circulation and air filtration, and Tiffany and I can wear P100 or N95 respirators for the gig. Plus the location of the DJ booth keeps crowds at bay and heavily restricts the number of people who can get physically close to us.


It will be odd to not run to FierceBerk and InstaGurn to attempt to promote the event - and also it will be a massive relief, because 'promoting' events on ForceBork or ErnsterGrrrm has seldom ever amounted to even one person seeing posts and deciding to attend. What a great joy, to not need to waste all that time and effort! We will go and dress up, and I will play old-timey music in a giant glass dome, and people will attend, and it will feel a little bit less like time-to-bug-out, and a little bit more like time-out-of-time, for old time's sake.


If you can attend, it's happening at the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee on Sunday, 29 March 2025, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This year, Tiffany and I are bringing chairs for ourselves. None of the standing-up-for-seven-continuous-hours malarkey I forced myself to endure in previous events there. I am centuries older now.


Leaving Meta


I'm trying to leave all of the most horrible online platforms.


I realize the irony of this statement - the platform I currently publish this very site on is responsible for genocide. I'm working on moving to different hosting.


Meta seems to also be winning the race to become the worst corporation in the history of everything, so I have deleted my personal FaceBook profile.


That meant "losing" over three thousand "friends."


I did all the things beforehand - I retrieved a copy of all of my data in the platform; I posted over and over and over that I'd be leaving, despite the cliché: "Madam, this is not an airport; it is unnecessary to announce your departure." I left notes saying where I'd be going.


A very small and wonderful number of actual friends took note, and they followed me to phoole.com and my new Fediverse accounts:


Mastodon (Federated microblogging, analogous to the site formerly known as Twitter):

Handle: @phoole@mas.to


Bluesky (Federated-but-centralized microblogging, vis-a-vis Mastodon but with a user experience closer to the site formerly known as Twitter):


Pixelfed (Federated photo sharing, analogous to Instagram - VERY SLUGGISH at the moment due to a massive influx of InstaGurn refugees)


loops.video (Federated short video sharing platform, analogous to TikTok or its many clones)

This is only in beta testing at the moment.

There is currently no browser version of this app; there are mobile versions in test for Android and iOS.

Loops is made by the people who made Pixelfed.

My handle on Loops is @phoole - if you decide to join the beta test, look me up if you like!


The Fediverse experience can be a slow, quiet, creaky experience.


Sometimes things don't work.


Sometimes things take a long time to load.


Sometimes you have to perform many steps to make something happen.


I will accept these in exchange for not contributing content to attract viewers to fascist-regime-installing, ad-ramming, capitalist cyclones.


I have reached a point in life where I don't mind just being quiet and doing nothing while a photo of Angelo takes a full minute to upload. It really is fine. I didn't need to be in a hurry. Angelo is not in a hurry, most of the time.


But it is of course weird, and tiring, and sad, to start networking over again from zero with these applications.


I try to stay conscious about de-capitalizing my heart. I have reclaimed so much time and energy by abandoning worry over "engagement." "Why did only x number of people heart my post?!" BECAUSE EVERYONE IS LIVING ON EARTH IN 2025, STAR CHILD.


I still have a fake, secret "personal" profile on FaceBook while I have "pages" there for Jane the Phoole and for Phoole, but those are not long for Meta's world. They too will be gone soon. I wish to harvest some data from there before I burn those too.


I hopped on Threads for a hot minute, and promptly deactivated my account. What a propaganda-firehose it is.


I am winding down my Instagram and it too will be gone soon.


It's just the Quest now


I have a moral quandary with which to grapple, because the only thing I now engage with that is connected to Meta is my Meta Quest 3 VR headset, which is on my head for a minimum of one hour every day while I flail and punch and smash targets in Supernatural VR, which is wholly owned by Meta.


Do I hate that I pay ten moneys a month to Meta, which is spent by Meta to shore up the Fourth Reich in my country and decorate Zuckerberg's Hawaiian volcano villain lair? Yes.


Do I lack the initiative to just...exercise, without playing a streaming video game at the same time? Also yes.


I am pinning this abhorrently-decadent moral quandary to a metaphorical bulletin-board and leaving it be for a while, while I get other ducks in rows, so to speak.


Other Fediverse things

In 2025, I aim to move this site off of Wix and into Publii.de - thank you, The Aardvark, for that impetus - and to start up my own PeerTube instance, because I need to be Jane the Phoole, and I can't be her in a P100 respirator or N95 mask, so I will have to be her in videos instead, but I'm also not about to generate advertising revenue for YouTube any more than I already have, because they too fund fascism.


The PhooleOut Shelter abides

Despite the world getting increasingly grim, for two hours on some Fridays, we can have a nice time. I have upcoming themes cooking. Artists I love are still making music. Sometimes I even have time to listen to promos. And it's just a comfort to hang out with you online for a little while, even if it's just what Phoole and the Gang is.

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