This article is terrible! Here’s another crazy statement from it: “seawater is an almost infinite resource”. Reminds me when not so long ago people considered the ocean to be an “almost infinite” supply of fish.

The journal article that this article is talking about is paywalled, so I can’t check out the source. It’s abstract , however, certainly doesn’t use anything like the hyperbolic language of the article linked here. It’s in a good journal, so could’ve been interesting…

For those wondering what this is about, I quote:

This is a retrospective post about my experiment Searchtodon, an attempt at building a privacy conscious personal timeline search tool for Mastodon.

I’ve been tossing in hashtags on lemmy posts for some time. I actually started doing it on reddit also before that. They are so prevalent elsewhere, I just figured they may be useful for discoverability in these places someday too. And now that accounts here can be followed by Mastodon, for example, it’s nice the my hashtags show up and are possibly useful elsewhere in the fediverse, even if not yet used here.

In my view hashtags allow for ‘virtual communities’ that potentially span platforms. The sub-reddit style of community is good for organization, management and moderation; but hashtags allow for crossing all boundaries with minimal friction; one doesn’t have to find a group or “join” anything to be a part of a topic’s conversation (or at least see what other people are saying, and where they are saying it). Obviously this is how they became popularly used on Twitter, and then appeared in other big closed systems. But those systems don’t talk to each other, so your hashtags are trapped on each platform. They are even more potentially powerful in the fediverse as they can potentially span everywhere ActivityPub is federated. And in fact do span many fediverse platforms already.

It’s just a shame hashtags look so ugly. It’s a wonder they got traction on twitter at all, in the crude form that they did. It just goes to show how useful they proved to be.

This is one of the most pleasant home feed UIs I’ve yet tried. It’s not that much different functionally than the default Mastodon, it’s pretty basic, but it feels good. Spacious, with nice big images, and a cozy functional colour scheme.

Here’s a link to a running instance of the actual app, for those who don’t want scrape through the github readme to find:

https://elk.zone/

Security through obscurity raises it’s head again… we’ve been down this fraught road so many times.

If control is wanted over this privacy/discovery balance, better build it in fast. Or, third parties that prove themselves significantly more useful than what is built in will soon take over, once the network reaches a significant size. Search becomes a key feature of every network and communication/sharing platform there is.

Unless of course the hope is that by limiting the utility of the network it remains small and therefore obscure and less used as a whole.

The linked article is thoughtful and covers many of these points from multiple sides already though.

Also, Fedilab android client can schedule posts and boosts. It’s free on F-Droid, but can be supported by buying it in the play store.

(I don’t know anything about Sengi desktop client, but there’s a link to it that works.)

It should be noted that the linked article concluded that, in the authors’ opinion, moving to Mastodon IS ethical, despite vasuous issues.and concerns which the article catalogs.

Though it would seem we overwhelming and vehemently disagree with those that suggest there might be unethical to abandon them on the birdsite, we also should not just dismiss those who do think or feel that. Especially marginalized people trying to express the good thing they found.

It seems pretty clear that most humans do not prioritize “freedom” very highly compared to comfort and familiarity. And I can see a logic where, unfortunaltely, marginalized people whose lives tend towards experiencing more discomfort than most would be especially resistance to letting go of what little comfort they have found.

And the network effect is biggest boss to overcome (as all the vc feuled corps know very well).

All we can do is keep trying to make a place that is useful enough and iteratively more comfortable. If we care about these people, and the concept of decentralized freedom.for all. And we need to seriously listen and consider, and maybe even compromise, as the linked article has tried to do.

On android the official mastodon app is the weak. Long established third party Tusky is better. And Fedilab has by far the most features.

But bring on more apps, by all means. One of the nice things about reddit is how many apps there are to choose from.

I was worried that a headline like that was going to be some silly pseudo-science link. So I’m going to quote the fun analogies from the opening paragraph of linked article, to give a better sense to someone looking here where this is going :

I’ll start by giving you a few similar questions to answer.

1. How perfectly do you have to build a house so that it will become a single brick?
2. How well do you have to write an entire dictionary to change it into a single word?
3. What would you have to do to change an entire symphony into a single note?

If you are thinking that those questions don’t make much sense, then you are feeling very much like a scientist who has been asked “How much proof does it take for a theory to graduate to being a law?”

A scientist who failed to get her preprint article published in peer review journals (basically advocating evidence for lab covid leak theory), self-publishes criticism of other scientists who did manage to get their preprints published in a peer review journal (basically advocating for covid natural origins). Fair enough, but keep in mind we are basically comparing opinion piece to peer review here.

Also it’s a bit unfortunate that she starts out describing how the media ran with the preprint she is criticising, when the media did the exact same thing (and probably did it worse) with her own preprint. She seems like a smart person, but it seems there are also reasons top be extra skeptical of her analysis.

Some interesting perspective from the inside. Of course one usually can’t overcome systemic biases with training, but at least some are thinking about it which is, arguably, better than completely ignoring it.

Great, high energy talk. But I found myself getting a bit depressed thinking about the incredibly stunning amount of resources that goes into these military planes, while the government claims not to be able to afford much else. And similarly the jingo of “bad guys” and “bad-guy-land” was a bit grating to me. But there’s no denying, the technology is amazing, and the pilot is skilled at flying as well as explaining. Really interesting.

Nebula is a subscription service started by some significant youtubers to share revenue and get out from under youtube’s enormous thumb (if possible). Most of the content you can find also posted on youtube for “free”, but Nebula is ad-free and has some unique content, and tries to support creators more equitably.

It’s not exactly a worker’s co-op, but maybe as close to it as we viably have for streaming video so far. See the FAQ. It’s not FLOSS, or even free, but it is an alternative to potentially consider.

For free and FLOSS, TILVids node of peertube might be of interest.

I found this lecture a bit hard to follow. And I found myself wondering “but why??” a lot; there is a lot of description of the phenomenon, but not a lot of explanation. The Q&A at the end is quite helpful in filling in some gaps and answering some questions. Really interesting, though I’m still a bit baffled as to the “why” of it.

The best way I could analogize my understanding might be like if foreign films subtitled in English inserted stereotypical “valley girl” phrases into all the foreign women’s speech, making all foreign women seem like “valley girls”. And all foreign men added the word “cool”, on the end of many of their sentences. This is, I think, a more extreme and more ridiculous example than what is being described, but gives the idea (maybe). But I’m still wondering why, and how this came to be a norm! Some hints are in the Q&A, but not enough.

The example given in the lecture of Ripley in the movie “Alien” having her lines “I got you, you son of a removed!” translated with these stereotypical “softening/feminizing” words inserted was particularly hilarious.

Lovely looking game. But I don’t see any indication it is open source?

Cons here too. It’s been Con since the riding was created, but the sadder thing is that it’s actually getting close here to marginal change (mainly just due to changing demographics – urbanization). Last federal election was within around 2000 votes. I think Libs could have had it, but as far as I could see they put in very little effort until the last days, and although the race tightened up in the last week, they lost by more this time than last time. This despite the PPC doing embarrassingly well also. Didn’t help that the candidate the Libs dropped in was a former candidate for mayor, who in that race opposed a lot progressive issues, but despite being seemingly mysteriously well financed thankfully lost that race against the incredibly boring establishment incumbent.

I had to hold my nose pretty hard while strategically voting for this guy, just hoping against hope for a Con upset. Oh well. None of the candidates for any party here were actually interesting to me. So at least I don’t have to feel bad for not voting for a person I actually liked. Is that a bright side?

Definitely recommended for the boomers. It’s relatively user friendly, will work/sync on all their devices without you having to think about it. And if it doesn’t work out in the future, there’s no lock in.

I’ve used it for years. I ran my own server at first, just to make sure it was possible and reasonable. It was nice, and fully featured (I used the third-party bitwarden_rs sever, now called vaultwarden). But eventually I got tired of maintaining it and just switched to the free account bitwarden offers, reassured that I could load a backup to self-hosted again at any time if bitwarden’s servers ever go away, or get bought out by a disagreeable corporation, or whatever.

I just found it interesting how the Canadian founder of Farm Aid sees things differently than his American partners in regards to Covid-19 delta context.

How about a simple but ambiguous directive: “Use the Link” (“Use the link, Luke” would be going to far! haha)

Let’s see more ideas. The more the better.

You sound like you might have been a thoughtful and attentive high school student. Too bad you couldn’t vote! (Just kidding, re: your other recent reply. ha ha)

Anyhow, thanks for the urban heat island article. Q uite interesting. I hadn’t come across that before.

You make some valid points, but my perspective somewhat differs. I’m not sure we understand the significance of “fully developed brain” in this case. For example, would you advocate that there must be an IQ threshold required for voting? I understand IQ is narrow and limited test, just the way that a drivers license is a limited analogy for voting competence. It’s just one example. What tests would you suggest require being passed? What about adults with various cognitive impairments?

Then there is also the issue of there being a fairly wide range of development levels in individual teens. Some seem to mature much sooner than others. Currently we seem to try to pick some sort of average which may be weighted a little on the cautious side. (I have a family member turning 16 in a few weeks – this isn’t abstract to me – I know how very young she is, in so many ways.)

My personal bottom line argument is probably not going to impress you though, as it’s not based on brain development or any other technical condition. I think simply that if they want to vote they should be able to vote. Most adults vote for stupid reasons, I don’t think kids would do much worse. And it would have the virtue of potentially engaging some of them in society sooner. Of course a lot will just be compelled by their family’s views; and a few might vote simply to spite their family. This is nothing new.

Once upon a time, shockingly recently in our culture, women were said not to be mentally developed enough to vote. Scientific arguments were made in this regards. Obviously not exactly the same situation, but if I’m making a mistake I’d rather make a mistake on the side of personal volition. If women want to vote, they should be able to vote, regardless of what the science says (said) about their smaller brain sizes, their limited domestic understanding of the world, their easily manipulated maternal instincts. Ditto for kids.

Yeah I understand what I’ve expressed is a little simplistic, lacking in consideration of various details. But the details could be hammered out later. I’m just interested in the principle for now. Actually my passing interest is almost worn out. Maybe ADHD should exclude me from voting. Which makes me wonder: do we have any stats on how many people vote drunk? Maybe breathalizers should be installed in voting booths.

On the other hand, now that you’ve made me think about it, the legal age to drive clearly should be raised to at least 29. Driving is (usually) a lot more dangerous than voting. And I don’t want non-fully developed brains hurtling around in massive steal objects! So, I say 25 + 4 is 29. You gave me the good idea of the +4. Thanks! 25 to let their brain fully develop, and then 4 years buffer for them to ease in to their awesome fully developed cognitive powers.

Anyhow, isn’t every vote a referendum of sorts?

Cheers!

The data visualization examples in this lecture are amazing. There is a visualization of wars this century using poppies. Elements of the #MeToo movement using dandelions. David Bowie’s Space Oddity (!) using vinyl records. As well as other examples, such as overlying cases on maps to solve the origin of a historical cholera outbreak in London, and one showing the amount of various types of water on earth.

For a constant flow of data visualizations of varying qualities (but often quite good!) see reddit’s DataIsBeautiful sub. (Sorry to referrence reddit here! But that’s where it is.)

Haven’t tried the new guided thing, but had to do a new install a few weeks ago without much time, so decided to give the Anarchy Installer a try. Just accepted all the defaults, and it was super fast to get up and running with Arch without hardly a thought – which some may not appreciate, but I did.

Digikam has a few options for metadata. It stores everything in its own SQLite database by default. Optionally one can set up mysql/mariadb. Also you can have metadata stored embedded in your actual photo files as EXIF and/or XMP tags. Finally you can have XMP sidecar storage which is an XML file with same filename as image but XMP extension. EXIF and XMP (embedded or sidecar) are fairly standardized. So shotwell likely (I’ve never used it so I don’t know) embedded your metadata in the image files, and Digikam picked it up from there. You can use a command line tool like exiv2 to see what metadata is in your files.

My Sorels of course. Just kidding. Thought about getting the slackline out a few times in the snow, but never did.