Andy

I don’t agree with their approach, but I’ll admit that their argument is sound.

Particularly the part about rejecting the opinions of an outsider.

I don’t want to live in Singapore, bit if this is genuinely how Singaporeans wish to run their society I do not consider it my place to meddle. Especially because, as they note in the response, all of us should focus on getting our own houses in order before prescribing to others.

Personally, I do want a common communication platform for people I despise because I want to be able to keep tabs on their public announcements. Also, I don’t want any tech platform to have sole authority over who can communicate, as in the present, that will invariably work against the left more than the right.

I do not want to share close proximity to them on a network graph, or regularly engage with their supporters, though. So I agree that federation is crucial. But to be clear, it’s not because I want to ban them from a platform, it’s because I want managed distance and better moderation.

I don’t mind Bluesky verifying them, but I’m glad that on Mastodon I don’t have to share the same giant server as them.

Yeah, it’s wild how clearly we can see that Palestine is the world’s laboratory for surveillance and state violence tech and tactics.

My aggravation at the people who run big tech companies makes me more interested in hacking than ceding tech to them.

I think stepping back from a lot of specific tools is appropriate. I’m trying to de-Google, and I’ve left a lot of platforms. I also appreciate unnetworked things like physical media, and music and e-books on non-networked devices.

But leaving tech overall isn’t appealing to me. I just recently started getting into mesh radio, for instance. It’s dope stuff.

This article doesn’t really seem to validate it’s headline. I was eager to learn more about the methodology and how to better detect corporate content, but I was disappointed that they apparently just made the leap from the claim that 15% of popular subs host a non zero amount of corporate manipulation to the claim that this represents the fraction of total content.

I’m not saying this to dispute how much of the total content is corporate bots. I’m just pointing this out because I actually care about the quality of statistical claims and data science, and I hate to see my ideological allies either misusing data because they’re dumb or because they don’t have a commitment to truth.

I read op’s question about whether money was the primary bottleneck facing scientists.

And that’s actually a reasonable question.

There is, unfortunately, a real efficiency problem in science.

The money spent is generally a great investment: you’re not just funding discovery: you’re also financially supporting millions of jobs that support discovery that include the businesses that sell to scientists and the restaurant staff in small college towns.

However if we look at where the money goes, it’s long been an open secret that a lot of the support costs are taking unjustifiable slices of the pie. Examples include what’s called “overhead expenses”, which are essentially astronomical rents universities charge their science departments. Also, equipment and repair costs are wildly inflated.

I would like more funding of research, but I would also like reforms to limit this kind of exploitative price gouging in science. But to answer the question: yes, science would still produce more social impact faster if given more money.

Gotta pay the gravity tax

Yes, 100%. That’s more than a red flag. A red flag is a warning sign of a problem. That’s just a problem.

Thank fucking God that they’re finally waking up. This is long overdue.

I think that if we want new folks, it would make a big difference is we organized the equivalent of a new member drive.

Currently, look at a default front page for your home instance and ask how enticing it is to a total newbie. There might be some good stuff, but it’s foreign and overwhelming. You feel out of place.

Now imagine if the first Friday of January had been “new subscriber day”. People on Reddit and Bluesky are taking about the fediverse and if it’s any good. And on Lemmy there’s a bunch of posts about finding the best instances and memes about being new on Lemmy. That’s a much more inviting beginner experience, and it makes it more likely for folks to come back the next day.

I really think planning for bursts of new folks is the way to welcome people.

I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.

First, the most honest answer is that it’s a shitty question. This ‘Sophie’s Choice’ promise is inherently designed to disrespect someone. In real life, you just react and try to save both, most likely based on who is a better swimmer, is closer, etc.

But the question between who you prioritize is valid. The answer is subjective, of course, but my advice would be that you prioritize your mother over a casual girlfriend/bf, but you prioritize a finance or spouse over your mother. And this isn’t hard to explain to Mom. I did. I said, “Hey Mom: remember how Dad always put Grandma in front of you because he was such a wimp, and it made you feel absolutely terrible? Well good news: you raised a better man than she did.”

She didn’t love it, but she got it. And she respected it.

It’s pretty wild, because this is genuinely great politics and great policy. It’s weird that folks haven’t realized this and acted on it yet. Fingers crossed.

That’s what I said! Fifteen minutes isn’t far. But it’s no longer close.

About twelve.

This is really deep.

I also gotta say: I reserve more respect for anyone who changed their attitudes to something I admire than someone who always held them. Me? I’m pretty progressive. But it’s not like I can take credit. I share similar views to most people with my upbringing. Holding these beliefs is about impressive as a ball rolling down a hill.

Questioning your beliefs and going somewhere else? That’s an achievement.

Get ready, because this is kind of cheesy stuff, but these two pieces of sports advice, taken together, have guided me for years.

First: a mentor of mine who was a pool shark taught me that when you’re playing pool, there is always a best shot to take. Sometimes, when you’ve got no good options in front of you you want to just do nothing or quit. But no matter what, billiards offers a finite set of options of where to try and aim the cue, and if you rank them from best to worst, there is always a best. When you’re in a bad situation, you find it and you take the best option. Often, that’s either a harm reduction strategy, a long-shot that feels impossible, or a combo of both. But if you always do this you’ll usually suffer far less harm in the aggregate, and if you take enough long shots you’ll occasionally achieve a few incredibly improbable wins.

Second: A kayaking instructor taught me – and this I’m told is true in many similar sports – you go where your focus is, so to evade a problem, focus on the way past. If you see a rock, don’t stare it it, you’ll hit it. It doesn’t matter if your brain is thinking “I gotta go anywhere except that rock!” If you’re looking at, you’re heading into it. If you don’t want to hit the rock, instead you have to look at wherever it is you DO want to go. It takes a bit of practice, because your brain sees “rock!” more easily than “smooth water flowing between two rocks”. But that’s how you get down a river, and it’s also how you work through almost any other problems in life that are rushing at you: don’t focus ON them, focus on whatever is the preferred alternative. This is especially useful if the alternative is sort of a non-thing, like an empty gap between two problems. And it often is.

Taken together, you get the basic approach that has steered my problem solving throughout adulthood. And it really works.

Holy shit, really?

That is Sony levels of stupid.

View from the Top.

I saw it when I was in my twenties with a friend because we (two mostly straight guys) thought we were going to see the latest silly Mike Myers movie. And then it turned out that he was barely in it! They just took all his scenes and put them in the trailer! The actual movie was a very dull romcom staring Gwyneth Paltrow and some guy who I don’t remember being in the trailer at all.

When it ended, we walked out of the theater and just said to each other ‘What the hell was that?’.

Also, I think Shallow Hal kind of falls in this too. I don’t recall the trailer being great, but it had to be good enough that it got me to see that terrible movie.

Also, I don’t know if this qualifies, but I remember that The Cable Guy staring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick was the first time I saw a movie and realized that a trailer can be misleading. They deliberately promoted it like The Mask and Ace Ventura. I think I was like 12 when I saw it, and it creeped me way the fuck out.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s actually a better movie than people remember, but the misleading promotion was a great way to ensure the movie didn’t find its audience.

Ulgh.

Blocked