This is an interesting point, but many have heard of those providers and they're very popular, very established, and you can generally count on a very professional and reliable service.
What I see though is that there are dozens of servers, none of which I know anything about. So it's more like if you had to select an e-mail provider from a list of domains you've never heard of before. Not impossible, but not as easy as signing up on twitter.com.
It's nice, but I find myself saying "Don't care" to most of the questions, and I've got a huge list of instances as a result. I still can't really say for sure I'd be picking one I wouldn't regret picking later.
I think the biggest questions I'd have are:
- How do I know an instance is trustworthy and the mods behave professionally?
- How do I know an instance isn't going to go down and lose my account?
It seems like there's this "local community" idea where when you join a server, it's like a mini-twitter in its own right. It's a cool idea, but then it seems like part of the decision of which instance to join should be whether you feel like that local community is a good fit for you?
You can't do this on the web interface unless you're on the same instance. It's pretty clunky right now.
Correction: You can't do it if you are linked to their user page https://mastodon.social/username...that doesn't work if you're not on mastodon.social. And often I seem to find myself at these URLs and can't see if I'm following the person, and have to go through extra steps to follow them.
Can anybody point to some resources that would help someone who's interested in trying to use mind mapping?
I often see these mind map things and I'm interested in learning what benefits they can provide me, but I have no idea how they're actually used. My searches have only yielded people using them as study aids.
Strengthening the system can hurt though, if it discourages people from voting in the name of security.
And putting in stricter voting controls will not stop people from crying foul. These people aren't working off the facts in the first place, so what difference would it make? If their people don't win they'll call it rigged. If these laws don't give them the result they want, they'll continue to claim fraud until they get enough of an advantage to ensure victory.
For those who aren't strong and fearless cyclists, Strava can be helpful, but be careful and double-check those routes. I've seen some pretty dangerous segments that I have been very scared on, and they show up red-hot on Strava. Why? Probably because some die-hards go that way a lot, or go that way in a group. And those are probably the types of people that use Strava more than the casual commuter.
In my city there's a 5 lane bridge, shoulder just wide enough for drains, and nothing but a 3-ft concrete barrier 60 or 70 feet above the river. The speed limit is 45, but people drive like that's a mild suggestion. This is a very hot cycle route on Strava for some reason, but I think it's frightening.
What I see though is that there are dozens of servers, none of which I know anything about. So it's more like if you had to select an e-mail provider from a list of domains you've never heard of before. Not impossible, but not as easy as signing up on twitter.com.