Post B2YPZR27XkzGYQMUca by rlcw@ecoevo.social
(DIR) More posts by rlcw@ecoevo.social
(DIR) Post #B2WXRN3ypZ1tF3yf6u by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T22:42:39Z
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I had a job when I was in HS working in an office of a importer and exporter of cigars and the guy who ran the company thought I was a computer genius with rare super powers because I knew how to set up a mail merge in word and excel to make his invoices and letters for his customers. It was a little tricky back then. But really just read the directions and follow them. I thought "some day computers will be so easy to use everyone will be able to do this"Yeah. That didn't happen.
(DIR) Post #B2WXYacqnvWRKejK1Q by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T22:43:57Z
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Anyway today I did a mail merge (in google docs) and someone was very impressed. More impressed than by the Apache server that I set up... that just makes my soul cry. It's not any easier. In some ways it's worse now. Computers, I tell ya.
(DIR) Post #B2WXcgKBYdVwAJx0C0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T22:44:41Z
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Career advice: learn to do a mail merge and find someone who will be dependent on you for life. The end.
(DIR) Post #B2WXeTDzEZVg7Eu7RQ by rk@mastodon.well.com
2026-01-21T22:44:58Z
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@futurebird I was the kid they called out of class to go to the office to help the staff/teachers with computers. I was nerd famous. Also, I realize it’s probably nostalgia talking, but those old Macs/Windows 3.1 boxes were at least *honest*. (And obviously inferior to my lovely Amiga at home…)
(DIR) Post #B2WXkC67p99kjexLyS by computernut43@nexto.my
2026-01-21T22:46:00Z
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@futurebird I know the feeling. Us wizards and all.
(DIR) Post #B2WYLQSxMknC0pOAzY by beecycling@wandering.shop
2026-01-21T22:52:44Z
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@futurebird Back when I had a day job I was the office Excel/Word/Access guru. Which just meant that I was someone who actually used the Help or searched online for how to do something and figured it out. Just being willing to spend a bit of time to figure out something you don't currently know how to do is definitely a superpower in the eyes of some people.
(DIR) Post #B2WYNtGrF11ZvbuAsK by PizzaDemon@mastodon.online
2026-01-21T22:53:12Z
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@futurebird I setup the mail merge for my mom's small business on an Apple][ clone when I was an early teen. 2nd year college, I'm telling her I'm taking "Database Fundamentals" class and she asks why I have to take that. Asserts I already know the fundamentals. I respond, "This is like, fundamentals of the American Airlines reservation database".
(DIR) Post #B2WYTC0wysmnVXzcG0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T22:54:09Z
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@tantramar Oh they tried that. It was a disaster. Good lort.
(DIR) Post #B2WYlbceVduG8tPKvw by CuriousMagpie@beige.party
2026-01-21T22:57:27Z
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@futurebird cool! I also worked for a cigar importer/exporter in NYC on Madison Ave. it was the early 80s and the telex was their high tech 🙂 only two of us could use it.
(DIR) Post #B2WYpOZwwmNSqYwzqa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T22:58:11Z
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@CuriousMagpie This was in Ohio, maybe we ordered from ya'll LOL.
(DIR) Post #B2WZ2g0JTJTgeecAhU by CoolerPseudonym@wandering.shop
2026-01-21T23:00:32Z
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@futurebird Heat death of the universe will happen before mail merge and envelope printing are solved problems
(DIR) Post #B2WZ5ug3NDhd21gKWm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T23:01:11Z
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It's 2026. No one can figure out how to do a mail merge.
(DIR) Post #B2WZ9gmB03dh4mLWYi by screwturn@mastodon.social
2026-01-21T23:01:49Z
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@futurebird never have, never will, apparently
(DIR) Post #B2WZF2jqlt2ydhoM1g by aeveltstra@mastodon.social
2026-01-21T23:02:47Z
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@futurebird I blame the ridiculous learning curve and hollowing out of features imposed on us by Microsoft. What say you?
(DIR) Post #B2WZG5f9NuuRzx71E0 by CuriousMagpie@beige.party
2026-01-21T23:02:59Z
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@futurebird the scent of high quality tobacco is so good - I learned a lot from the owners.
(DIR) Post #B2WZJRDhgwXpj3s2K0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T23:03:37Z
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It was a fun job. Although my boss was always smoking and had a lot of shady "friends."He was always yelling "Where is that computer girl?"Because I'd get whatever he wanted done and go back in the stock room and read for hours.
(DIR) Post #B2WZR7u1OhE489KYMq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-21T23:05:00Z
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@alter_kaker Let's say you have a spreadsheet with names and addresses and billing amounts for a bunch of people and you want personalized letters for each one with their names and the price printed nice and pretty mixed in with other text.
(DIR) Post #B2WZbRZb7LAK28hHO4 by RnDanger@infosec.exchange
2026-01-21T23:06:51Z
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@futurebird @alter_kaker I literally learned how to do this as an assignment in middle school. But that was in claris works and I've never tried it again 🙃
(DIR) Post #B2WaQmt9cv5kuXKLHU by gooba42@mastodon.social
2026-01-21T23:16:06Z
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@futurebird And yet we *all* use them now. I'm regularly blown away by how little most users actually know about anything at all.I assumed email is something an office worker just has to know, like using a stapler or copy machine, but I know now I'm very wrong. Most people couldn't tell you the difference between a To, a CC or a BCC. They are totally mystified when they Reply-All and get replies from anybody else on the list of recipients.
(DIR) Post #B2Wal0IJUgjAHPjcxM by HappytoBe@mastodon.social
2026-01-21T23:19:46Z
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@futurebird I use them all the time. I get why people avoid them. What I don't get are the people who need a typist. And I only slightly understand people who need someone to properly format their docs.
(DIR) Post #B2WavjedhWiXrEILa4 by fuminghumanist@freeradical.zone
2026-01-21T23:21:41Z
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@futurebird I have to relearn how to do this every year for Christmas cards.
(DIR) Post #B2Wca8sfQhP3dIghPM by jasonb@sigmoid.social
2026-01-21T23:40:13Z
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@futurebird Wow. And I do it with Libre office!!
(DIR) Post #B2Wefg2bleEbpm6XNw by Unixbigot@aus.social
2026-01-21T23:57:15Z
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@alter_kaker @futurebird my favorite example is an Australian bank that wanted to do a campaign addressing their top 200 high-net-worth customers. Due to inattention to correct placeholder replacement, two hundred letters went out each beginning with the same salutation “Dear Rich Bastard”…
(DIR) Post #B2WefhZy36VsbWih1M by piggo@piggo.space
2026-01-22T00:03:23.084058Z
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@Unixbigot @alter_kaker @futurebird lol >The little UK firm responsible for the gaffe received a complaint from a potential customer who felt himself qualified to be a rich bastard yet had not received the letter he deemed appropriate to his station in life.from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dear-rich-bastard/
(DIR) Post #B2Wg1cbHLC5rUILhvE by madengineering@mastodon.cloud
2026-01-22T00:18:47Z
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@futurebird Reading the directions and getting cooperation from the end-user sounds like the easy part, right?*laughs in bitter experience*
(DIR) Post #B2WgbGObNF632xPmzI by oheso@ieji.de
2026-01-22T00:25:14Z
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@futurebird I've got one in Word and Excel that I use to print the New Year's cards. I'll have to redo it this year in LibreOffice.For work, I've written one in Python that does attachments. I've even written the docs (because I use it once in a blue moon and can't remember how to run it).
(DIR) Post #B2Wis6vU2DngVZxLXs by MARIALENA2294@mastodon.world
2026-01-22T00:50:41Z
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@futurebird both humanity and computers are stupid, imo 😔
(DIR) Post #B2WlEXIkquP6aaf7A0 by chris@myprivate.social
2026-01-22T01:17:09Z
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@futurebird @noondlyt I do mail merge activities exactly once per year: Christmas holiday cards. I have to relearn how to do mail merge exactly once per year: see above.
(DIR) Post #B2XKAKaJghgSO0bgdE by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
2026-01-22T07:48:36Z
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@futurebird I knew how to do a mail merge in the late ‘90s. I tried it in 2018 and none of the flows that used to work still did.
(DIR) Post #B2XKSVFMmjZMfOTMwa by Nicovel0@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T07:51:49Z
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@futurebird can confirm, but salesforce is making bank
(DIR) Post #B2XPefz3BuJVDDStEm by muhanga@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T08:50:04Z
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@futurebird I didn't know that this functionality existed in Office. Thank you.
(DIR) Post #B2XmE2eL6qcAdW2vtw by plantfeest@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T12:51:00Z
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@Jirikiha @futurebird the lack of knowledge... the gap between what people use of various tech, and what the tech actually could do for them alone is a perfect reason to stop making new tech.invest the time and money into onboarding people.SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY WASTEDwarm regards, someone who gave up on working as a UX engineer because of above sitch.
(DIR) Post #B2Xq0ONjuco9ng1qIS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T13:45:23Z
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@aeveltstra I can't blame microsoft when google docs is just as bad. You need to use their "apps script" to do a mail merge OR install one of the add-on made by third parties which means giving up a LOT of privacy to ... someone. I wrote some app script to avoid exposing my students grades and names to ... just anyone. To me mail merge is an obvious core feature of "office software" So why is it still so obscure and hard to do? Where is the "progress?"
(DIR) Post #B2XqFUaB8mufNJ2zdQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T13:48:06Z
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@aeveltstra Most people will give in and install an add-on to do this kind of operation. And it will probably be fine. However, I can see a manager saying "you see? this is why we need to keep our Microsoft licenses. It keeps us safe."Making these kinds of operations easy for a broad user base is non-trivial. But it's also the kind of real software design work that just isn't "important" for some reason. No. It's more important to have an AI chatbot elbowing in on my workflow for no reason.
(DIR) Post #B2XqYWRSS54Ydy2gro by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T13:51:33Z
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@aeveltstra I desperately want to be impressed by software design. Even for just a moment once again in my life. I want to think "wow computers are a great idea that save me time and solve problems"The other teachers who were doing a similar task to me, just decided to write out their documents by hand, it was faster. I could save time by writing a script but they can't do it on their own.The inefficiency of it all tortures my soul! Even as I understand why it exists.
(DIR) Post #B2XqcV0NjfB3LWH3SK by sovietfish@todon.eu
2026-01-22T13:52:12Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I agree that this ought to be considered a core feature, but that unfortunately is the myth of progress at work.Realistically speaking if a use case is sufficiently obscure that someone would expect to need to do an internet search to figure out how to do it/remind themselves how they did it last time, then that used case will never be considered core to the product by the product managers, and it will be lost in one or another rearchitecture. (In this case it was not lost, but explicitly moved to a plugin, away from the "core" feature set of Google Docs.)But the social dynamic at play feels like a physical force in the development of software, once you know it well enough to recognize it.
(DIR) Post #B2XrClVHs7cYwM1TjE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T13:58:49Z
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@sovietfish @aeveltstra Totally agree. Software tries to get new users with flashy features, but then keeps them by making them scared of change. How many little companies pay thousands and thousands for microsoft just because of some feature like mail merge that hasn't gotten any better in decades?How many do the same with google?What I really love is how documentation just doesn't exist anymore. The "help" menu in programs is mostly useless. "Go search reddit and stack overflow"
(DIR) Post #B2XrHRc3FlLQhJPyXA by SeanPLynch@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T13:59:38Z
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@futurebird Libre office has a pretty good mail merge wizard nowadays ( is that a real word).elIf your recipient names and addresses are in a spreadsheet, you type up the form letter.Call the wizard from inside the form letter, choose the spreadsheet, and drag and drop the cells you want from the spreadsheet into where you want them in the document.
(DIR) Post #B2XrW409K0wxoPf0sa by sovietfish@todon.eu
2026-01-22T14:02:16Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra Yeah re: help functions maybe the more general Unified Law of Software is something like: Features are Constituted by the Expectations User Have of Them, i.e. if no one expects something to work then it never will. The only way things get fixed is if the product manager's mental model of their user is a person who would care about something being broken. One of many ways in which agile has deeply broken our expectations of the world.
(DIR) Post #B2Xrt836RGzf1g2Z16 by maswan@mastodon.acc.sunet.se
2026-01-22T14:06:26Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I haven't had reason to do this in decades, but how does this hold up UI-wise for mail merging?https://books.libreoffice.org/en/WG252/WG2514-MailMerge.html
(DIR) Post #B2XsPPCsBOlfVR07YO by jmax@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T14:12:16Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra It came as a shock to me when someone pointed, entirely correctly, that this drives some of the genuine AI enthusiasm.For some folks, it's the only experience they've have that approaches that kind of usefulness. The machine (they believe) does what they want.
(DIR) Post #B2XstH3h2dqovGwwMq by Photo55@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T14:17:39Z
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@futurebird Once upon a time any computer could generate and send (e)mail.So send an address and some text to mail and iterate through lists and it was done.Then people started to want bold, italics, comic sans etc, and a word processor got involved, and it got harder.And then Google partly solved the spam problem and it had to go through their server, and got harder.
(DIR) Post #B2XtR0PzPt7b9wSlvM by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:23:42Z
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@WesternInfidels @aeveltstra It really isn't helpful. Or it's not much more helpful than looking on reddit. I think this is what a lot of people think AI will do, help "regular people" be more like invested users who like computers. Thoughtful software design can do this. An LLM can't.
(DIR) Post #B2XtuRQ66UahIlY7xw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:29:06Z
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@WesternInfidels @aeveltstraI imagine your question being asked on a open mic at a big conference with total innocence:"And if LLMs are really such warp-speed advancements in software development, that should be easier now than its ever been, right?"The audience nods. Looks to the speakers. They all look at each other hoping they don't have to take this question. A tumbleweed rolls by. The silence stretches into years and the better software never shows up.
(DIR) Post #B2XtxHP7nYOB6iRpsu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:29:38Z
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@WesternInfidels @aeveltstra Am I being melodramatic?Maybe. But ... you can see it right?
(DIR) Post #B2XuKQ21t5ZCWdg9c8 by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2026-01-22T14:33:47Z
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra incredible strides have been made in the last month in software dev. Too much to type in a toot, but codex5.1 does some great stuff. These tools make expert devs much more efficient and they can run while you sleep. Saw this with my own (skeptical) eyes yesterday.
(DIR) Post #B2XuQftxnRepTytBuS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:34:57Z
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@noplasticshower @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra "they can run while you sleep"Tell it to make the mail merge easier and let me wake up to that being fixed and everyone at my work using the mail merge without bugging me tomorrow?
(DIR) Post #B2Xuii12ftcFFgndA0 by Baikal@infosec.exchange
2026-01-22T14:38:10Z
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra AI visionary in vintage eighties track suit leans in to mic..."Have you tried our new Mountain Dew Extreme AI"
(DIR) Post #B2Xuup2mN2EiWYO7dI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:40:23Z
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@Baikal @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra "It's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave."
(DIR) Post #B2Xv0YwN9gdmJm824W by iDGS@mas.to
2026-01-22T14:41:24Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra Unrelated to mail merge, but for A++ software design in a writing app, I really like iA Writer. @ia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA_Writer
(DIR) Post #B2XvCkoMqTRIbsCJYO by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2026-01-22T14:43:37Z
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra that should be a snap. I am not kidding. It is set up for PRs...uses JIRA, builds test cases and canaries, etcThe IDE for everything days are coming to an end.
(DIR) Post #B2XvMC250V0Ldo71e4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T14:45:20Z
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@noplasticshower @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra What do you mean by "IDE for everything days" ? I thought you were being sarcastic with your previous post and I was agreeing but now I'm confused.
(DIR) Post #B2XvY0HeVyP2g51nXs by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2026-01-22T14:47:27Z
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@futurebird @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra I am not being sarcastic at all. Look into codex...
(DIR) Post #B2XwPxhsJPv2K41TJw by williampietri@sfba.social
2026-01-22T14:57:12Z
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@futurebird I totally agree with all your points, but I think building a good mail merge is tricky for two reasons.One is that it takes a thing that people are familiar with and tries to add a new dimension. Some people, especially the kind who go into programming, find this sort of meta-work easy, even preferable. But for a lot of people it's sheer wizardry.The other is that the word processor and the spreadsheet are basically fossilized. Somebody from 30 years ago would have no problem using Google Docs today. And they're close metaphors to paper formats that go back at least hundreds of years. They're just not well suited to meta-ization like mail merges.People have tried innovating there without much luck. E.g., Lotus Improv was wildly successful in niche markets, but disliked by mainstream audiences. Even today things like Notion and Firebase and Salesforce, nominally for everybody, tend to be handled just like your cigar boss did: putting a primate interface on top of it.@aeveltstra
(DIR) Post #B2Xz1L0ErOP7CIYuUC by tkinias@hcommons.social
2026-01-22T15:26:20Z
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@futurebird what I love is how there’s no stable version of the software any more, so if I look on line for “where can I change setting X?” I’ll find three different answers describing three different configuations of the Settings dialogs, none of which corresponds to what Settings looks like in my instance @sovietfish @aeveltstra
(DIR) Post #B2Y0J3fa8vvObdui36 by Sean@liberal.city
2026-01-22T13:24:43Z
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@plantfeest @Jirikiha @futurebird selling new tech without their customers' understanding of what th is tech does is where the profits are, so I'm pretty sure that Silicon Valley are going to be taking a hard pass on this advice
(DIR) Post #B2Y0J56CpQod2VNUBc by plantfeest@mastodon.social
2026-01-22T14:27:32Z
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@Sean @Jirikiha @futurebird Maybe Silicon Valley is not the intended recipient, but the people buying, or rather NOT buying shit, ahem, new tech.Get refurbished instead, repair/upgrade/learn about what you got, save yourself a shitload of money
(DIR) Post #B2Y0J64pC3Iy4Vjtfk by cmthiede@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-22T15:39:20Z
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@plantfeest @Sean @Jirikiha @futurebird can't do much with refurbished when it has no "brains." Everyone's fighting over the scraps.https://youtu.be/T6eiFyJMWgM
(DIR) Post #B2Y0J77hIrCHJi5hmy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T15:40:23Z
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@cmthiede @plantfeest @Sean @Jirikiha Yeah I added this one to the fediTV playlist. Do you know about it?
(DIR) Post #B2Y0nu3nv7NRmRx3Fw by jwcph@helvede.net
2026-01-22T15:46:19Z
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@futurebird No, seriously. I used to run events in my previous job & we had two bigguns each year where we needed to print name tags etc. from an excel file & I swear it was both different & a little bit more difficult every time...
(DIR) Post #B2Y152Rxyrj6ivQLMO by cmthiede@social.vivaldi.net
2026-01-22T15:49:26Z
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@futurebird @plantfeest @Sean @Jirikiha I do not, enlighten me and those that don't know, thanks.
(DIR) Post #B2Y1NKfIzoCQQgO0ae by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-01-22T15:52:44Z
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@cmthiede @plantfeest @Sean @Jirikiha The #fediTV #fediverseTV playlist is just a shared youTube playlist that anyone with the invite link can add videos to. It's a way to discover what other people around here are watching on youTube and share what we're watching. INVITE LINKhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTh3hv32NLhrPBgOXrUgwp6BQaC94lt9n&jct=HNo63JsyzJgiqq4wtxlQLw
(DIR) Post #B2YECUz5aXDoeUnvyy by paulc@mstdn.social
2026-01-22T18:16:28Z
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@futurebird @aeveltstra I head a group where I have do to a mailing of at least once a month and the list needs to be confidential so I can't cc everyone. And a bcc everyone will result in nondelivery in many cases. A free MailChimp account is all I need.Hmmm, now I am wondering about dmarc setup to ensure deliverability.
(DIR) Post #B2YPZR27XkzGYQMUca by rlcw@ecoevo.social
2026-01-22T20:23:50Z
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@futurebird Also hearing similar things, and might invest some time to try them out myself. This is a good summary of the current state of things with links to sensible people doing cool things: https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/22/codeless/@noplasticshower @WesternInfidels @aeveltstra