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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Quality over quantity.

    1. Meta is so well known for having good moderating. (/s)

    2. Meta is so well known for promoting posts that are active hate-speech. (For example, CW in Link: suggested “Threads” posts on Instagram have shown transphobic posts to me Which kind of goes back to point 1, terrible moderation. Btw, my partner is involved with Queer Activism on facebook and so it’s not like I am being targeted for hateful ads. This is just what they decided to promote, probably because it got a lot of comments and shares. Oh, why do we want Threads users who are actively sharing this rhetoric? Seems antithetical to the entire concept that the fediverse was founded on.

    3. What happens to the rest of the fediverse when it’s overrun by millions of Threads users, hundreds of thousands of them promoting this sort of content? All defederated instances will now have to pick and choose - something we already do, but I would say we only need to look at Lemmy.World to see why this is a bad thing, as imagine Threads communities become the regularly used ones, so now any instances that defederate don’t have access to the most active community. In turn, this either kills the defederated communities by keeping these communities small, or actively encourages those new to the fediverse to just join Threads since it has “the most active” communities.

    4. Now that there are millions of threads users, what happens to smaller instances that are now being overrun by traffic that their server couldn’t handle, or malicious users on Threads - with Lemmy’s moderation tools this can be a cumbersome and difficult process since, from my understanding, this becomes a case-by-case situation for the Instance Moderator, all while the Threads Moderating Team will likely do nothing and ignore the inflammatory users. From my understanding, you can have 1 Threads account per Instagram Profile, and users can have 5 Instagram Profiles. Obviously, this is also a Lemmy issue, but with Instance Admins having control over their users, Threads as an Instance Admin historically hasn’t seemed to be great.

    5. The Fediverse is some ~1.5m users. Threads is already 100m. As mentioned about server load, there’s also just the entire idea of it being so big that it naturally becomes a vital resource. E1) Extend. As it becomes widely used, Meta starts taking an interest in the future of ActivityPub. E2) Embrace. And finally, now that it is established and smaller instances are either defederated or have some form of, effectively a shadowban, all that is realistically left is Threads content. E3) Extinguish.

    Is the fediverse being more accessible a good thing? Absolutely, not many are arguing that. The idea is that Threads gets so big that ActivityPub either can’t exist without Threads, or Threads leeches the userbase from the rest of the Fediverse. Someone you like is on Threads but not the rest of the Fedi? Well, why have a Lemmy.ML account when you can just have your Threads account?

    Before you know it, we’re back to only having one website again for all of our social media needs.



  • Under “Publish by web & e-mail” section the short video shows adding a product listing, which looked pretty straightforward to add. Right click, scroll, add product listing.

    The template it adds looks nearly identical to the affiliate product links I put together for my site, just a bit different on how it fills it in.

    I’m in a similar situation, but I don’t really have physical products. I’ve been putting together my blog using google sites and I’ve come across a few other e-commerce sites, like Ecwid which I ended up using. I’m not sure if it’s temporary or not but they have 5 free listings which I did a quick mock-up for, and that just uses embed code. I can direct people to my Ecwid store ({websitename}.company.site) or simply direct them to my website.com/shop page.

    The main difference with Ghost I’m seeing is there’s no immediate product page for each shop listing, but that shouldn’t really be an issue unless for some reason it prevents you from creating site pages for each specific product.

    In short: I would say if you are able to create a shop page with 5+ listings (which you can see details and add to cart), and then you are able to click a product and have it bring you to its specific page to see more details and add to cart, Ghost is probably as good as anything else.


  • I wish I could say that I spent even 5% of my time on Windows troubleshooting it, within the last 5 years. Linux rant incoming (but not against it)

    A decade ago I would have agreed. In a couple years I will also agree again, because W11 is pretty awful. However, W10 after the first year has been really, really solid for me. The few issues I have had were hardware related and a fresh install solved anything angry that lingered.

    On the flip side, I have a home server that I want to run a bunch of local services on. Anything past Plex starts getting extremely difficult extremely quickly, and I have been playing with Linux on and off for the last decade as well (2014 was actually one of my first projects getting Linux on a laptop). I have trashed hundreds of Linux installs, I just trashed one a couple months ago and now my steady reliable Plex server is am expensive box until I can take the time to reinstall and re-set up this now decimated Linux install.

    I have issues with both Operating Systems. I fucking despise Linux so often of the time I’m using it because I want it to do something very simple and basic and it forces me to learn its unconventional and weird systems where there’s no “right” way to something with 3,521 ways to accomplish it (but don’t do those 5,320 other ways, that’s the wrong way depending on who you ask.). In many ways, that’s the beauty of it. In many ways, there is nothing wrong with having to learn how to use your computer. At the same time, that is the very thing that I attribute to the failure of Linux (both Linux and its wider adoption). If you are familiar, you may see a parallel between iPhone and Android here. One is a more walled off garden (Windows/iPhone) and the other is a looser but more complex system (Linux/Android), but at the core ONE set of users CAN’T switch because they don’t want to learn the other side. They are familiar with their swiping patterns, so switching from an iPhone is reprehensible, how could we possibly ever re-learn something? (FWIW, I’m not saying this is all iPhone/all Android users. My partner has stated she can never switch to Android, because she took forever to learn the iPhone. This is not the only person I know with this sentiment.)

    With that in mind, it becomes clear that we have made computers accessible to everyone. Linux is at the furthest opposite end of accessibility for anyone who needs to do something outside of installing a program from a package manager. There is a reason so many Linux GUI’s specifically try to look like Windows (and MacOS). It’s because those Operating Systems have pretty much solved the issue of the unknowledgeable user. Just the simple fact that someone can’t plug in a hard drive and have it work every time, they have to go into a specific folder and write a specific arbitrary un-memorable UUID and tell it to always mount it on boot. And that’s not even getting started on something like networking. Or GPU drivers, and we can not even try to deny that this is probably the most common bane amongst even well versed Linux users.

    I’m sorry, that is really stupid. In the name of security you are sacrificing basic functionality, which is what inherently will prevent this O.S. from being used. I think I only need to point to the Steam Deck to prove my point – make Linux easy and functional and people will use it. Lo-and-behold, the Steam Deck requires ZERO Linux knowledge and you can use it as a fully fledged PC. And even despite all of that effort, people still had issues setting and forgetting their password. THAT is the bar we are working with here.

    Which of course, brings us to Windows (and in a way MacOS but this isn’t really about them). For Windows, you are sacrificing security for functionality for the unknowledgable user.

    That said I’ve been on Linux for ages so a lot of the issues I ran into on windows were frustrations with knowing how easy it would have been to resolve technical issues in Linux.

    Windows users, scratch that, COMPUTER users in general have the exact same issue, but for their familiarity. You are familiar with Linux and have memorized the workflow to get your reliable answers. The average person is familiar with Windows and has learned that right clicking for the context menu allows them to open the settings. There is a literal SEA of knowledge between these two users, which appears to me to be the fundamental issue with Linux. You have to learn it, actively. This in itself isn’t necessarily an issue, but it is a huge inhibitor.

    What it comes down to is project reliability. When I spin up a Linux project I want it to be pretty much permanent, but I very quickly learned that it is very difficult to keep it stable. I have re-scrapped installs more times on Linux in 10 years than I have in Windows/MacOS for over 20. I have had more frustration, failure, and time waste on Linux than either of the others. Honestly, I hate it and I think I hate its philosophy too. Which is silly, because the whole point of Linux is that it very easily can be LTS, often specifically is. But that doesn’t matter, because as I USER I am not stable. I don’t know what to do, therefore I will break things. It could be as simple as trying to follow instructions for a project online, and doing all of the exact steps listed, getting an error, and now the user is stuck unable to progress. They have also changed things that they no longer know about. It’s only a matter of time before something conflicts and causes issues.

    But goddamn, when it does work and make sense it is really nice. I just don’t feel like I should have to know the contents of a textbook to accomplish that. There needs to be a middleground between telling your computer exactly to a T what you want from it, and from having an OS that actively inhibits the more heavy duty tasks due to imposed limitations. Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for Windows. I’m only using it now because it’s more reliable with the types of programs I use for it (VR, Photoshop, and editing mostly) both in software and in reliability. At the same time, I would never use Windows as a server PC again despite how frustrating I can find Linux to be, because quite frankly Windows is much worse at the same job, and the deeper you look into these niches the fewer and fewer Windows is able to perform well at.

    Windows can do Photoshop. It can run a Plex server. It can run Stable Diffusion. All of these things at the surface level, IMO, are easier to do on Windows - you download an .exe (or clone from .Git), you run it, it downloads stuff and it works.

    Linux can do Plex. It can also install hundreds of extensions, such as DizqueTV. Windows cannot do this. Linux can run Stable Diffusion, and you can configure it to do even more things that are frankly, nearly impossible to accomplish reasonably on Windows (training data on Linux is SO much easier.). Linux can also configure networking, using things like NGinx Proxy Manager. Windows can’t really accomplish this to the same effective degree that it can be in Linux.

    What this comes down to is utilizing the tools best available for the job. I would be an idiot to try and host an extremely customized Plex server through Windows, because I’d be severely limiting what extreme customization I can do.

    Similarly, I would be an idiot to try and use Photoshop on Linux.

    You can do both. That doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.

    Tl;Dr easy is relative to each O.S. and the abilities of the average user. Windows is much better at some things than Linux ever will be. Likewise, Linux will be better at things than Windows ever will be. Heh. Lemme just say, there’s a reason Linux users have to use VM’s…



  • Serious question - aren’t maps for navigation? I’ve heard this rhetoric a few times and I just… don’t entirely follow the logic. Like I do to an extent, insofar as Open Street Map data is for information like rivers, buildings, updating cell data (used to do updates here and there in my city.)

    But to me all of these maps, and initially starting out, maps are for… navigating?

    Idk lol, not judging, mostly just confused at the intention. “We plot out maps! But dare to try and follow it to get where you are going at your own peril.”


  • I think context matters a lot. Green Day’s “Dominated Love Slave” isn’t very political, and to be honest it would be kind of dumb to try and make it out to be. Similarly, for “Pulling Teeth” by them as well - they’re just stories about them. “American Idiot” on the other hand is political, and it would be quite dumb to argue that it isn’t.

    As such, all things can be. Now, if the argument is that everything can be made to be analogous to a political statement, like how “I’m all busted up, broken bones and nasty cuts, accidents will happen but this time I can’t get up” for domestic abuse and our current state of the government then by all means yes though our human perception we can make that jump, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it was the point even if I would agree. Exactly the way I likely would for someone’s argument about “American Idiot” not being political, like argue all you want but objectively it’s false.

    Anyway not really sure what my point here is. I guess not everything is political, but it can be if it is reconstructed through multiple lenses. Kind of like memes!



  • R.E. politics, the tail-end millennials (me) grew up during the death of education which I think is a huge factor. For every good part of our education was two dying branches of it. Funding going down, extracurriculars being cut, food quality going down, strikes in colleges for pay and I mean so, so many others. And I grew up in California where education was a heavy focus, especially for anyone who wanted to get out. But despite all the shortcomings of our education system, we had teachers who cared and some students who wanted to learn, these teachers were mostly all within a decade of my age now and so they were fairly young and politically minded. Some were Teach for America staff so they were literally just out of college, I’m sure many remember what it’s like to have that mindset. We also grew up in the Obama years so we had the full range of “holy shit first black President representing us!” to “oh God he bombed Syria” which pretty heavily politicized us (and then we got Trump who appointed Betsy DeVoss as Sec. of Education which set that politicization further). I can’t speak for all millennials of course but I feel like all this led to us being hyper-aware of our politics making it especially easy to see the insanity that Fox News peddles, and more recently the transition of CNN from biased but informational to Fox News lite. All in all it’s a pretty strong foundation for young leftists to form some convictions.

    It seems to me that Gen Z did not have these foundations by design. In 2016 with the appointment of Betsy DeVoss as Secretary of Education our school system was absolutely butchered. Fox News wasn’t even under the guise of news anymore, it’s just “pundit” talk shows providing “statistics” that they use to push hate. They grew up with the tail end of Obama culling any possibly early sense of hope that the millennials had. That apathy only further onset when Trump was elected, but not just apathy. Since in red states where the changes to education hit the hardest it became identity politics, now the identity of an individual has become politicized, something that has only been exacerbated by our media. IMO that’s why the events of Kyle Rittenhouse went down how they did, a child was politicized by their area and family and instead of being politically minded about it they made it about some identity that doesn’t exist. And nevermind the societal changes they grew up with, as they’re the first generation to grow up fully inundated with technology and the Internet, getting barrages of >1 min clips that can never tell the full story.

    I agree with you overall in that millennial and gen Z are closer generations than most, but I do think there are some important distinctions that likely influenced how each of these generations grow up to interact with the world. I also think that it seems likely that these polls probably won’t get as many responses from certain demographics due to potential lifestyles. Someone in a liberal city may not answer the poll because they’ve got the city life to live, whereas someone who gets the poll and they’re done with their school day and the neighbors are 40 minutes away… sure, nothing better to do let’s fill this out. So I don’t think Gen Z is entirely set to be conservative, however I do think their elders have been heavily gearing up to try and brainwash them with their archaic mindset. I don’t particularly see a reason why a group of highschoolers would campaign for conservatives otherwise.







  • I think Boost gets recommended often for good reason. Even if it isn’t using existing code, design-wise it likely still would be the furthest developed Lemmy app since he’s worked on the Boost for Reddit app for so long.

    As of right now, I think it may only be missing specifically hide on read. However it does have mark and dim on read in the settings, and for now the Mute dialogue option is a fine alternative.

    Unfortunately it’s not FOSS, but it’s just a single dev from Portugal and paying for the app removes any tracking present from the ads.





  • It really depends on the image. Some AI generated images of people really seem indistinguishable from a photograph. Not all, but it’s definitely going to become more common. At this point it seems like every month has a new breakthrough for some aspect AI regarding consistency and realism. As people work to bring stable diffusion video to a more reliable state the images themselves are only going to get better.

    There’s a number of models out there right now that don’t have hand issues as much. There are other methods like using a pose to force hide the hands. We’re getting to the point where we just need metadata viewers on every image because the eye alone isn’t reliable for this. How many artists have already been accused of being “AI art like” and they were not.

    Stopping it? I don’t know if you can stop Pandora’s box. Personally, I’m of the opinion that flooding AI images is the only way to “stop” it, simply by making people not care about it. At a certain point, you can only make so many variations of gollum as a playing card /ninja turtle/movie star before they get boring to the public. I also have doubts that the people using this are overall the type of people who would have paid artists for commissions, or that that would even stop a sale from happening in the first place (my partner makes mushroom forest scenes with Stable Diffusion but she also buys about $300 of art from our friends and local artists through the year). Like, Stable Diffusion doesn’t make oil paintings.

    Little Jimmy in his room or the 60 hour week worker? They pose no harm making these images and it makes them happy, so why take that away from them? And regarding the nefarious aspect of it - that one is much harder but it’s in part societal shame as well. Explicit images made by AI may make the process easier, but if it’s something nefarious the people will find a way to do it regardless. Video sex scams and catfish were around long before AI. I’m not certain that these will inherently become more prevalent as the tech becomes more accessible. It’s the people posting them. Which to me comes down to more of a societal issue than a technological one.

    However, in terms of trying to stop it maybe there could be a hash similar to the CASM that gets used here. Maybe the image uploader can look for metadata markers that come with generated images and deny those ones? That’s an easy workaround though, since metadata can be stripped.

    I dunno. I think we’ve gotta EEE AI. Embrace AI images by flooding society with their presence, Extend AI images by getting the ability to use it into the hands of everyone, and then Extinguish the power that generated images hold over people because fake pictures don’t matter in the slightest.


  • I think the chances for the fediverse having this are generally lower. I saw a rough estimate that puts our bubble at 1.5 million. By comparison, reddit is 500 million and YouTube is 2.5bn.

    Yes, we are a bunch of nerds in that 1.5m number but we also value human input and generally seem to only use practical bots - and some people don’t even like those. We also have the bot account option, which should inspire more trust, though we have to trust that people actually use it.

    Compared to reddit or YouTube, which I’ve personally seen as testing grounds for rolling out bot accounts. Whole subs dedicated to it. It’s not that it doesn’t, can’t, or won’t happen here, I know we have a number of repost bots from various instances - I’m moreso just saying that I think being so small helps. When the dead Internet arrives, the fediverse will have been one of the last bastions of human interaction on the Internet.

    Except for mastodon. I see a lot of bots there compared to lemmy/Kbin