What interesting people are you following on Mastodon?

Mastodon has been the social media experience we've been hoping to someday find. Much more content rich than twitter, and discussions that go somewhere interesting. There are too many bright people on Mastodon, and it's wonderful... just a few...

Rob Carlson (author of "Biology is Technology...") @rob_carlson@mastodon.world

George Dyson (great for history of science posts) @gdyson@sciencemastodon.com

Rudy Rucker (mathematician, author, artist) @rudytheelder@sfba.social

Alberto Cairo (data visualization - infographics) @albertocairo@mastodon.social

James Gleick (author of "Chaos", "Genius", etc.) @JamesGleick@zirk.us

Anne-Sophie Pereira De Sá (data visualization) @wonderveilleuze@vis.social

Maggie Koerth (Senior science writer at @FiveThirtyEight ) @maggiek@sciencemastodon.com

Vicky Veritas (Geologist, GISMS Earth science, kind person that gets people connected) @vickyveritas@c.im

this is barely scratching the surface.

I know this is asking about people, but following hashtags are where it's at. And it's a great way to find people, besides.

Here's mine, for example, a giveaway cross section of my interests...

#linux #unix #weather #bendoregon #orwx #railroad #history #caving #caves #seti #train #motorcycle #bicycle #openstreetmap #osm #amtrak #railfan #nasa #usgs #hacking #computerscience #math #programmerhumor (some real groaners) #astrophotography #astronomy #rustlang #space #science #programming

And then mute people whose stuff you don't want to see.

As for people, I follow my friends and:

@openstreetmap@en.osm.town

@royalastrosoc@astrodon.social

@stephenfry@mastodonapp.uk

@georgetakei@universeodon.com

@archlinux@fedi.lynnesbian.space

@nasa@mstdn.social (I think this is unofficial)

@sdf@sdf.org

Anil Dash https://me.dm/@anildash

Julia Evans https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk

Simon Willison https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon

Steve Ruiz https://mas.to/@steveruizok

Molly White https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff

Mekka Okereke https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke

Just wanted to share a tool (Chrome extension), that has made following people on Mastodon much easier.

Mastodon View Profile: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mastodon-profile-r...

Basically you click to view someone's profile, then click this extension's button in your toolbar and it will take you to YOUR instance, where you can follow that person with just one click (no copy+paste+search)

Please don't just post a bunch of links! Try to give a short introduction or explanation on why that person is interesting or otherwise worthy of following.

@breakingtaps@universeodon.com: electron microscopy images and hobbyist nano-scale maker and tinkerer. Has a youtube channel.

@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz: the science fiction author, mostly posts about math.

@danluu@mastodon.social: tech writer/blogger, his articles often make HN's top page.

@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz: famous physicist, posts about math.

@TechConnectify@mas.to: whimsical and eclectic youtuber, thorough explainer of things like dishwashers, toasters, and LEDs.

@TomDuff@mastodon.social: inventor of Duff's device, posts about music and pen plots.

@robpike@hachyderm.io: inventor of Plan 9 and Go.

@aram@mastodon.sdf.org: don't follow this guy!

Also mathstodon.xyz, math-oriented mastodon instance.

Kind of reminds me of the early days of the web, you have a feeling there's good websites out there, but there's no established mechanism to find them.

The people who post to hashtags that I'm interested in, mostly. Try searching for your interests and you'll get cross-server results that should help you build up a network of people from other servers.

https://mastodon.social/@PragmaticAndy - Andy Hunt, co-author of The Pragmatic Programmer among other endeavours. Also tends to boost interesting or funny stuff.

https://mastodon.social/@jonoxer - Jon is an awesome bloke in Melbourne, Australia who is really in to electronics and home automation.

https://theblower.au/@cathywilcox - Australian political cartoonist. If you followed on Twitter, follow here instead.

https://blackrock.city/@spolsky - Joel Spolsky. If you followed on Twitter, follow here instead.

https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix - Matrix, Element, etc.

https://mastodon.social/@oatmeal - Because he is a funny bugger.

@simonstalenhag@mastodon.art Great Sci-fi art

@fasterthanlime@octodon.social Hacker

@tlalexander@queer.party Working on open source farming robots

@fchollet@sigmoid.social Deep learning stuff, creator of Keras

Until recently, I most of my stream was politics, and I was missing the gamer crowd I used to hang with on Google+. Turns out they're all on dice.camp, and now that I found them, my stream is happy again.

So I'm mostly following a lot of RPG designers, but a few non-RPG-related names are: Cory Doctorow (super interesting of course), Neil Gaiman, Stephen Fry (sometimes receives a lot of pointless responses, which makes it frustrating to engage) and George Takei (always receives a lot of pointless comments; I'd like to be able to hide other people's comments from his posts, because it's all noise).

Of course not everybody I'm following is on Mastodon. I'm not even on Mastodon. The Fediverse is a lot bigger than that.

Here are some of the more notable mathematicians from Mathstodon.

John Baez (https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez)

Vi Hart (https://mathstodon.xyz/@vihart@mastodon.social)

Greg Egan (https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF)

Katie Steckles (https://mathstodon.xyz/@stecks)

Marcus du Sautoy (https://mathstodon.xyz/@MarcusduSautoy)

Eugenia Cheng (https://mathstodon.xyz/@DrEugeniaCheng)

Terry Tao (https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao)

Tim Gowers (https://mathstodon.xyz/@wtgowers)

Matt Parker (https://mathstodon.xyz/@standupmaths)

(Me) (https://mathstodon.xyz/@OscarCunningham)

@futurebird@sauropods.win -- science, math, entomology

@librarianshipwreck@mastodon.social -- pithy critiques, cats

@nomdeb@mstdn.social -- history and other random things

@OkieSpaceQueen@scicomm.xyz -- science communications, conspiracy deconstruction

@tprophet@defcon.social -- writer at 2600

@kjhealy@mastodon.social -- pithy sociologist

@notjustbikes@notjustbikes.com -- urban planning

@enron@tilde.zone -- hacks and snark

@HelenBranswell@scicomm.xyz -- infectious disease reporting

@Jessicascott09@infosec.exchange -- misc infosec

@harshad@sharma.io -- farming in india

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron

https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs

https://infosec.exchange/@troyhunt

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog

https://infosec.exchange/@malwaretech

https://infosec.exchange/@hacks4pancakes

https://infosec.exchange/@tinker

https://merveilles.town/@neauoire

Has anyone written a Chrome extension yet to take the username/server combinations of the top posted names and make them easy to click links? Like I can't click: "Rob Carlson (author of "Biology is Technology...") @rob_carlson@mastodon.world"

The, one and only, Ron Gilbert: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@grumpygamer

Maybe just list your top 4 or 5 and a brief summary why you like them would be more helpful than just dropping a long list of people.

There's an Observable notebook on this topic too who-to-follow-on-mastodon https://observablehq.com/@mauforonda/who-to-follow-on-mastod...

For folks from India, these are some random India specific accounts which toot frequently:

@tendstofortytwo@tech.lgbt

@rashi@mas.to

@chenthil@mastodon.social

@sridala@mastodon.social

@anniezaidi@mastodon.social

@sharanyamanivannan@mastodon.social

@vaditi@india.goonj.xyz

@Calamur@mastodon.social

@nixxin@mstdn.social

@rahulbhatia@mastodon.social

@nilanjanaroy@mastodon.social

@hackiechan@mastodon.social

@nikita32@india.goonj.xyz

I feel that everyone should follow God on mastodon - quite refreshing!

https://shitposter.club/users/nousnaut / @nousnaut@shitposter.club

Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive) @brewsterkahle@mastodon.http://archive.org

Richard McElreath of Statistical Rethinking: @rlmcelreath@nerdculture.de

https://social.growyourown.services/@FediFollows

https://mastodon.online/@streetartutopia

https://spacelase.rs/@dekaminski

https://infosec.exchange/@troyhunt

https://a.gup.pe/u/histodons # This is a group that boosts every post mentioning it. supposed to be history related but it can be abused of course.

https://heath.social/@carl

https://mstdn.social/@simonegiertz

https://mastodon.social/@elonjet

https://mastodon.social/@Popehat

https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64

https://hachyderm.io/@nova # Imho the best fediverse admin.

https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs

https://infosec.exchange/@cisacyber

https://mastodon.social/@oatmeal

https://wandering.shop/@cstross

https://mastodon.world/@JeriLRyan

https://bitbang.social/@NanoRaptor

https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei

https://njalla.social/@njalla

https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff

https://atomicpoet.org/users/atomicpoet

https://social.data.coop/@cryptohagen

https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive

https://mastodonapp.uk/@aliceroberts

https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself

https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry

https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg

https://m.brokep.com/@peter

https://mstdn.social/@kathygriffin

https://mastodonapp.uk/@zsk

https://social.coop/@dajb

https://social.network.europa.eu/@EUSPA # Just a twitter relay so far

https://bsd.network/@solene

https://merveilles.town/@neauoire

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral

Vitalik Buterin

Terry Tao and Zack Weinersmith

Nobody. I'm not interested in social media at all.

In no particular order within the respective sections.

No BS, down to earth infosec folks

Filippo Valsorda - https://abyssdomain.expert/@filippo

Marcus Hutchins - https://infosec.exchange/@malwaretech

Tavis Ormandy - https://social.sdf.org/@taviso

Royce Williams - https://mastodon.social/@tychotithonus

The Grugq - https://infosec.exchange/@thegrugq

Alex Bloor - https://bloor.tw/@bloor

Andrew Tierney - https://infosec.exchange/@cybergibbons

The usual Rust crowd

Mara Bos - https://hachyderm.io/@Mara

Aaron Turon - https://hachyderm.io/@aturon

Luca Palmieri - https://hachyderm.io/@algo_luca

Tim McNamara - https://mastodon.nz/@timClicks

Raph Levien - https://mastodon.online/@raph

Game Dev

Ólafur Waage - https://mastodon.social/@olafurw

Godot Engine - https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@godotengine

Celebrities (Stephen was one of the first people I followed on Twitter, so it is a tradition. The others are canaries.)

Stephen Fry - https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry

Kathy Griffin - https://mstdn.social/@kathygriffin

Greta Thunberg - https://mastodon.nu/@gretathunberg

Honorable mention

Dan Luu - https://mastodon.social/@danluu

Absolutely nobody. I refuse to play in some capricious individual's walled garden. After Elon's acquisition, twitter became good enough for me.

Yeah, let's repeat twitter, but with an even less controlled messaging system. That'll go well.