• 0 Posts
  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle
  • I can easily go without using my phone for extended periods of time, and always have been. I’ve never really been “phone addicted”, and never used my phone during class - despite having one for the entirety of my school years.

    That still never stopped me from not paying any attention in class. Drawing on a book/desk, talking to the person next to me, looking out the window, or just spending time with my imagination were things I did too often, and I never needed a phone for any of it.

    I seriously doubt banning phones would make much of a difference, other than pissing plenty of kids off. You’re essentially being forced to go to a place, every day, where you will be stripped of your personal belongings and are not allowed to be in contact with the outside world.





  • Sort of, it depends on implementation. There are some techniques (which I don’t really know) that will allow a 32 bit OS to address more than 4GB, but natively it can’t for the same reason that the process will still be limited to 4GB.

    Perhaps you already know this but: 32 bits can only represent 2^32 numbers (4.294.967.296), which is how many bytes 4GB is equivalent to, and so anything after that cannot be reached. This also means 64 bits can address up to something like 17 billion GB, or about 16 EB.


  • You don’t need the friends, that is just one example. You have to think of the general concept and logic; Lemmy, as well as kbin, have communities. If one place manages to secure all or most major communities, they can pull the same thing. And Threads is meant to be a Twitter replacement, so you do have the bit about connections, as well as influencers. It’s like Mastodon, but completely centralized.

    So the same logic applies: if Threads joins the Fediverse and most people go to Threads, then most users who are not on Threads will still end up having a lot of discussions on Threads and following a lot of people there. Then some day, once Threads gets big enough, it will stop federating and Fediverse users will be forced to move if they want to keep those connections. Meanwhile, Mastodon dies. Lemmy and kbin might survive because they fill a different niche; however, if instances start federating with Threads and making it possible to follow people on there, then the same exodus will happen.

    We can learn from history, or we can let it repeat itself. Federating with Threads would mean a huge failure to learn from history. And then maybe ten years later you’ll be the one trying to warn someone else as they tell you how that time it’s totally different.


  • Copy pasted from my other comment:


    There’s been lots of discussions about this already, but the short version is that this is a play book tactic used by big companies to take over a sector.

    I didn’t experience this at the time, so the details might be off, but one example, as I understand it, is what Google did with Google Messages a decade ago or so. They federated using some other service that existed before Activity Pub I think, and most casual users just flocked to it with no idea about any federation. Once it got big, they just stopped federating, and anyone who was not on Google Messages but had friends who were (which most did since GM was so popular) had to change to GM.

    Other similar such things have happened before with other products and in other markets, and that’s what people fear will happen with threads.


  • There’s been lots of discussions about this already, but the short version is that this is a play book tactic used by big companies to take over a sector.

    I didn’t experience this at the time so the details might be one, but one example, as I understand it, is what Google did with Google Messages a decade ago or so. They federated using some other service that existed before Activity Pub I think, and most casual users just flocked to it with no idea about any federation. Once it got big, they just stopped federating, and anyone who was not on Google Messages but had friends who were (which most did since GM was so popular) had to change to GM.

    Other similar such things have happened before with other products and in other markets, and that’s what people fear will happen with threads.




  • In my country, they started the newscast 2h earlier than usual just to say “Debris were found; may be unrelated”. I think they initially went live earlier because the conference was meant to happen earlier and they couldn’t wait to show it; it had to be live. When it got postponed, they spent 2h just talking about it with commentators and different specialists; all just theorizing what could have happened, and whether there might still be a chance for rescue or not, and repeating that there would be a conference “so stay tuned!”.

    But refugees you barely hear about.

    I get this story has some more “thrill” and novelty to it, being a submarine near the titanic and all, but this really is ridiculous.


  • Oh, I did see some of them later, but thank you for the heads-up!

    I noticed it wasn’t peer-reviewed, but when they mentioned the process and I started to imagine all it must take to cultivate meat in a lab, it started to seem that it could be a lot worse for the environment than I had really considered, and it didn’t seem implausible that it could be worse than farmed meat.

    Either way, at this point I would be willing to bet it definitely isn’t as sustainable as just eating plant based food, so I’d rather stick with that for now; I’m accustomed to it already anyway.


  • I know they biopsy animals to get the cells, but I just assume it’s a one and done thing since there’s no need to go back; or at least just once for each company working on it. If it’s more than that, it would completely defeat the purpose and probably not be worth it for them.

    Not perfect, but assuming they only do it the one time with an animal that was already likely to be slaughtered, I think I’d still consider it vegan.

    Either way, I’ll probably still stick more plant based. Even if lab meat is better for the environment than farm meat, it still needs to be “fed” and so will probably always take more resources than plant based to be produced.



  • I know some vegans who would disagree with that

    I definitely would!

    Usually, the reason people go vegan is to try to reduce (hopefully eliminate) animal suffering, and/or to reduce green house gas emissions from animal farming.

    Cultivated meat deals with the first, and, depending on how it’s produced, can probably entirely avoid the second as well.

    I don’t know the process in detail, but I would also imagine that cultivated meat is no more sourced from animals than a plant that was fertilized with animal dung, and that would still be considered vegan.


  • If you think that “privacy” is the wrong term: granted. But sensible deletion protocols are not too much to ask for.

    Well, that is in a nutshell what I am arguing. I’m not inherently against the ability to delete things, as it can be quite useful as a quick means to say “I take this back”, or “this information I shared is wrong, so I’m removing it” (although in that case I would opt to use an edit). Even “I’m embarrassed about this, so I don’t want more people to look at it” is a good enough reason that I would respect, and for which I would delete the thing if it was in my possession. Essentially, I just don’t think it should be treated as a privacy issue, because that might give a lot of people the wrong idea.


  • That’s not what is demanded. No one demands that the audience (users) forget what I said (the comment), much less: immediately. No one is asking for mind-erasing power or the ability to remove screenshots from other people’s client devices.

    Well, that why it is an analogy; the forgetting is equivalent to erasing from someone else’s storage. You have no real control over it. Other people can say they do, but you don’t know that. And that is what is being demanded - right now I can already “delete” my comments and Beehaw will indicate to other instances that it was deleted, but it can’t control whether they do it, and it has no way to know if they really deleted something or just hid it from public view.

    Differentiating between a client and a provider becomes extra tricky when you remember everyone can start up their own instance and still be essentially just a client - and, I think this is also worth mentioning, people can create their own backends that also federate using ActivityPub, but which are not open-source, and you’ll have no idea what goes on in their servers. In the bar analogy, this would be people watching a stream of the mic at home; or another place, other than a bar with the same set-up, streaming and recording what goes on in that bar.

    Also, if no one is demanding that things be deleted from client devices, then logically nothing should stop someone from sharing it with other people/clients. And if you believe otherwise, then as example: what if someone posts a comment, I reply, and then they edit it to put me in a bad light? Is it an invasion of privacy for me to show what it said previously?

    This is not a privacy issue; you cannot demand privacy for something you shared willingly and publicly.

    Respectfully, I find it more counterproductive, and even harmful, to encourage and spread the idea that people should have any expectation of privacy regarding things they have shared publicly.


  • After reading some more comments, I think I came up with a good analogy to explain this issue, and I wanted to share.

    Think of websites like a bar, that also has an open mic.

    Now, when I go to a bar, I don’t want to have to give the bouncers and staff my full name as well as my address. I also wouldn’t want them to know that I just came, for example, from a store where I was looking for a vacuum, and then have them warn a vacuum seller about it. A vacuum seller who is then going to sit next to me, while I’m trying to have a drink, and show me a pamphlet regarding the amazing vacuum he is selling.

    Ideally, I can also look for a bar that will allow me to come in costumed and not show my face. Or I could ask the bar to delete footage of me at some point, and to not store my ID if I do have to show it to a bouncer at the entrance.

    All of that is relatively feasible and within the realm of reason; and all of that are things that privacy advocates might advocate for.

    However, what is not feasible, within the real of reason, or what privacy advocates tend to advocate for, is the ability for me to willingly go up on stage, say something on the mic which I immediately regret, and then ask everyone present to forget it ever happened, and delete any footage they might have of it. No reasonable person would ask for something like that, because it is not a reasonable request.

    That is how regular websites work. With federated websites, that becomes enhanced; it’s like if the bar you’re in has a camera pointed at the microphone, and transmits both video and audio directly into several other bars. So when you go up to that mic, you better make sure you’re okay with what you are saying being made public and available to anyone.


  • I think you are conflicting some things.

    The analogy you used doesn’t quite work, because you are not telling everyone at the protest where you live. A more accurate analogy might be you going to a protest, loudly saying something which you later regret, and then ask everyone to just forget about it and delete any footage you might be on. Some might comply, but many won’t, and you won’t have any idea who didn’t.

    Furthermore, “people with the knowledge and resources to run their own servers” would be no more safe than you are, because other servers (instances) will still record whatever they post out there. If I make my own federated server and send out a comment, other instances that federate with mine will receive a copy of it. At that point I can ask them to delete it; however, even if they do comply, there is no guarantee that another user hasn’t made a local backup of the comment or just screenshotted it.

    At the end of the day, tech isn’t magic. Everything has limitations, and you can’t do everything at once. You can’t have a system that allows you to make public comments that go out to several servers where it is shown to thousands or millions of people, and at the same time expect to be able to delete all of it when you feel like it. Tech can’t do everything, and at some point we need to take agency and accept responsibly for what we put out there.

    Finally, I’ll add on what another user said:

    Opposite to Instagram or Facebook, on Lemmy or Mastodon you can create an anonymous account. Yes it will be logged (normal public internet), but you won’t be treacable. The UI doesn’t have any tracking scripts, and many instances don’t require an email even to sign up. Use the Tor browser to spoof your IP.


  • Might be a little unpopular, but my personal ranking:

    1. Arkham Asylum:

    It’s the most linear, but that plays a lot in its favour. In my opinion, it has the best setting and story. The linearity allowed for a more tailored experience, and it was very well tailored.

    1. Arkham Knight:

    The largest world, the most polished gameplay, the best looking, and has a new mystery villain. If you’re a big Batman fan you might guess who it is early on, but it’s still very cool. I think it has the longest story too, as well as the most villains.

    1. Arkham Origins:

    It’s a bit short, but it might have the most villains other than Arkham Knight, and it has great boss battles. The game takes place over Christmas, and I’d say it’s a nice Christmas game. Gotham looks beautiful in the snow. I think you also get to hand around the Batman cave and with Alfred more than the other games.

    1. Arkham City:

    Not bad by any means, but I played it last year for the first time and I felt underwhelmed. There’s nothing it excels at over the other games, and it feels a bit outdated. At least, according to myself.