🍄
Tap tap. Tap tap. Is this thing on?
Hello, it's your friendly neighbourhood mushroom overlord here. You can call me mushroom girl or whatever you want because I'm not putting my real name here.
🍄
I'm gonna be honest with you. I originally created this as a test site for trying out new things and once I'd learned a few bits and bobs, I was gonna delete it. I bought a silly domain that's connected to a running private joke (spoiler: mushrooms) and started testing some stuff. Then I decided I really liked this site and I'll keep it. So here we are.
It's still a test site, so things will probably break at some point.
🍄
Another running joke is that I was an engineer in a previous life. I love to learn things. I want to know how things work. I like to take things apart and put them back together again.
When it comes to IT things, I'm one of those folks who possibly knows a bit more than your average person off the street but next to nothing compared to my super techie friends. I have run forums and websites. I'm the one people in the office ask for a hand from before they call the helpdesk. I know lots about some things and very little about others. Etc.
So, I've dipped my toe in things a bit. But there's a lot more I'd like to learn.
🍄
I'm old enough to remember life before it was assumed that we all had devices in our hands 24/7. I have no desire to have a device in my hand 24/7. I'm immensely grateful that I grew up before social media was a thing. I find computers and the internet useful but I can live without them.
I'm not a fan of the direction things are going in. Tracking, scraping, hoovering up and selling people's data, the web is the same 5 pages that "everyone" is on (no, we're not), the same megacorps run everything, algorithms pushing outrage because that drives "engagement" (cough profits), hand over your government ID to use this social media site (lol, no). Ick.
🍄
I don't think we have to just roll over and accept that either.
Bring back the small web. The weird web. Blogs. Forums. Blogrolls. Heck, bring back businesses having their own site instead of only a page on that bleeping site that I truly despise.
There's a ton of ways to connect that aren't just "we all need to be on the latest social media site". There's a ton of tools for just about everything that don't come from the aforementioned megacorps and don't have all the horseshit we hate built in. Many of these are free, open-source, or both. Some have a steeper learning curve than others. I know some already and others I'm completely new to. I'm gonna use this space to share some of my adventures in learning. Who knows, it might be useful to someone else. I give you advance permission to laugh at me.
🍄
Yes, this is a lot about the site and little about me. The site really isn't about me (I've got a personal blog for that), and nobody needs to know my life story to laugh at me when I break things, so meh.
If you want to follow the blog you can bookmark it and I have the RSS feed turned on.
If you want to talk to me, I have comments turned on (but not the email function, so be aware I'm only checking for those periodically) and you can also find me at: fungi @ mushroomsin dot space if needed.
~ Mushroom Girl