Jeff Xilon

@jxilon.bsky.social

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All My Best Skeets Has Typos.

Just keeping the same thing as other places, probably should be updated: Dad wearing a lot of odd-job hats. Writer. Photographer. No longer a teacher. he/him Mastodon: @[email protected] Website: jeffxilon.com

Posts Replies Media

8 is my aspiration I think, but I'd be lying if I'd say anything other than 2 for quite a long time now.

I’m definitely a 7, you?

Nothing makes me follow an account that's into sharing art faster than if they are being really clear about crediting the creators of that art up. I mean, I generally block accounts that are just unending aggregators of art without credit so it's a very one extreme or the other kind of reaction.

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Jeff Xilon

Spoiler Alert — Asaf Hanuka

Losing track of the calendar and then realizing you have *less* work to do is so much nicer than losing track and realizing you have more. :)

Sigh. To this point I’ve really liked the Bluesky block feature - the way it just absolutely blocks me from seeing a blocked account and no way to click on a post from a blocked person and be like “ok, just a peek”. But I just realized it has a big problem too - it’s v. hard to track a troll brigade

I honestly think it was better that way to some degree. Or perhaps it’s better to say the pendulum started swinging in the 90s, traveling through message boards and blogs and finally social media and chicken or egg I don’t know but too much wonder and mystique replaced by too much jaded realism.

the 80s had a high density of celebrities whose authenticity was hard to figure out, as a kid. like, was Mr. T a real guy? he was like that in shows/movies but also in interviews? or pee wee, elvira, max headroom, various wrestlers. even alf was on celebrity squares. it was a confusing time.

"Verifying you are human. This may take a few seconds." I get it, website, I'm not sure myself some days. Take your time.

Absolutely Anything and anyone. Personally I block all people being assholes on sight and then I reserve mutes for exactly such things as temporary triggers or people I might normally be happy to follow but who are posting a lot about things I need a break from. Curate your timeline as you need to.

Oh hey, especially given the ‘This is a trigger for a while’ experience of this present time: Mute and or block anything you need to. A N Y T H I N G Your mental and emotional health is an unassailable fortress. Defend it with everything you have.

Ok, time to pull the plug on time-wasting rabbit hole diving on Trump's pick for VP when the "Tiger Mom" makes an appearance, because of course she would. (According to Wikipedia Vance and his wife's relationship that started at Yale was "encouraged by their teacher, Amy Chua.")

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Jeff Xilon

This is the last week of Hugo Award voting and we would like you to consider Strange Horizons for Best Semiprozine. For over 20 years, Strange Horizons has been publishing weekly issues filled with new stories, poems and non-fiction. Here are some more reasons you should vote for us below!

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Jeff Xilon

Bluesky absolutely needs better notification filters. Co-signed.

Update: he's saying there's a chance!

Sometimes I think people have really weird expectations and comparisons that make no sense to me at all. "Why did people make so much noise about X thing but not Y thing that is so much worse?" Uhm...maybe because X thing felt like something that people could do something about and Y doesn't?

Probably pushed it too far with the yardwork right after a 22 hole round of disc golf first thing in the morning, but I’m proud of myself from literally walking away from the wheelbarrow full of stuff to dispose of and marching inside to get cool and eat something *immediately* and not push on.

Every Republican leader or voter who talks about how terrible this violence is needs to be immediately asked, on the record, if they are now ready to support gun reform, end the use of calls for violence against their opponents and refuse to support leaders who stoke hate.

I can’t really explain how wonderful and awesome of a day it was for me because I got to spend it like this. We’re talking I can’t even really fully touch it myself without risking opening up some deeply sequestered emotional boxes. Just a great day, even if I did get my ass whupped at the game. :)

So the kid joined a couple of my friends and I for board games for the first time and proceeded to beat us at Eclipse: Second Dawn For The Galaxy just like he’s beat me every time we’ve played it one-on-one.

Huh. Dr. Ruth, Shelly Duvall, Shannenn Doherty, and Richard Simmons all died in the last few days eh? Shitty.

I will say this: it's fine and good to deplore violence but that must include acknowledging that first acts of violence are when people start describing whole groups as vermin to be exterminated and threatening the lives and existence of the people you've decided are undesirable.

Dang, quite a day to have *not* been very online as I usually am.

Jamelle Bouie is quite possibly the best writer tackling the state of America and its politics alive and he was using Bluesky and now he’s not and that is a tremendous loss.

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Jeff Xilon

Reply to

L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist

Find the people with the power (not just a platform, I know, confusing). Yell at them.

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Jeff Xilon

Reply to

L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist

Y'all not being able to differentiate your enemy from a hole in the ground has real world implications. It halts progress and disproportionately impacts Black people who consistently vote and organize as the single most impactful bloc on nearly any progressive measure you can name.

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Jeff Xilon

Reply to

L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist

Any audience, not just yours, person who will inevitably take this suggestion in the most aggravating way possible. Do you want systemic change or do you want to yell at the wrong people on the internet as praxis?

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Jeff Xilon

I think as a rule that when the issue is the Institution, it may be both more effective and less shitty if an aggrieved audience applied sustained pressure to the owners/masters/authorities of those institutions instead of the most accessible/also marginalized cog they can find.

Fucking hell, I haven’t given the NYT or their properties my money for a couple years at least now, but that doesn’t mean I hold the actual good and talented writers and journalists there in contempt. That really shouldn’t be how this works.

Personally I go so far as to consider people making posts like those describe here (and there are a few variants) to be actually acting in an actively assholic way.

When someone in a creative field is outed as a creep, "i never thought that guy had talent" is not a useful response. Its centering you and your aesthetic tastes in a situation where they are completely irrelevant.

I hate to say it, but the act of voting is just about the only time a real "cold equations" kind of mentality makes sense. You vote for the option that can win that hurts the fewest number of categories of vulnerable people. But after that moment you start fighting whoever won to protect everyone.

There are many things I block on sight for. One of them is bullshit "facts" posted for attention. I don't block re-posters, we can all get caught up in something cool seeming. But the originators? Into the bin.

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Jeff Xilon

Least sociopathic LinkedIn post ever Like infinite monkeys with typewriters eventually you get a LinkedIn post that makes sense

Made a pineapple fried rice with ham and brown & wild rice last night and damn was it tasty for a lunch just now. Would prefer it with shrimp like pineapple fried rice should have, but it was still good and one of those dishes that tastes better with every bite.