vixitusus

It's hard to come up with words for a first post. I don't really know what to say. And I'm afraid that whatever I end up writing will be cringe or embarrassing. But there is power in opening up and speaking (or writing) whatever is on my mind. If nothing else, it helps me see my own thoughts more clearly.

My plan for this blog is simple. This is going to be my outlet. I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (among other things). And I feel anxious. A lot. I worry a lot. This place will be an outlet for my worries. A place where I can air out all my thoughts (rational or otherwise). My hope is that by doing so, I will be able to handle my anxiety better and thus function better in day-to-day life.

So let's start with what I am worrying about at the moment. Mastodon. I want it to succeed. I need something that can replace Twitter.

Why ? Because Twitter has been immensely useful to me. I have been able to find a huge list of doctors on Twitter (which I would not have found just by relying on Google or Franktalk). My hope is that all of those doctors will move on to Mastodon as the default.

But as people move to Mastodon, already I see schisms emerging. Some people are dissing Mastodon (claiming it will never replace Twitter), while at the same time criticizing Twitter. Others want discoverability to be lowered.

All of this inhibits people from moving to Mastodon. And inhibiting discoverability means I can't find doctors on Mastodon in the future. I don't understand why can't people just private their profile if they do not wish to be discovered ?

Another worry of mine is the discoverability of profiles on the Profile Explorer page. Every Mastodon instance has a Profile Explorer page that lists all the profiles on the instance. I could use this to look for doctors who I know of (or scan profile bios for relevant keywords). I am afraid that this feature could go away. Or it could be made optional on instances. Or the profiles shown could be made opt-out by default.

This can spin off in so many directions, many of which will hurt my ability to search for medical professionals on the network.

And I have little to no control over what will happen.

However I do have a current list of doctors. So here's my contingency plans for now:

• Make a database of those doctors by country (use the Coloplast and Boston Scientific/AMS websites as well as Youtube/Instagram/Twitter/Franktalk)
• Write up a tool that will archive all Twitter posts of the doctors I follow. I already have the screenshots of their public feeds, but I need to write a tool that will get their conversations as well.
• Write a tool that will archive all of Franktalk
• Write a tool that will allow me to search/archive all of Mastodon and all of its instances, and alert me for specific keywords. I might need AWS for this, so I'll get one.

Other than that, I also need to focus on studying for GATE, while at the same time not have the studying be outcome oriented. This will be difficult to do, but I will try. Because that's all I can do.

I will also try to blog here everyday. Although I can't guarantee that I will.