Mastodon Feed: Posts

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

I preemptively blocked threads a while back because I do not wish to associate (or do business) with Facebook no matter what form it takes. I've never had a Facebook related account, and I don't intend to be part of it even passively.

For what it is worth, my opinion is that for-profit social media is bad for people and society no matter the underlying tech or "good intentions" of the engineers involved. Facebook has a history. Their influence here will not be positive.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

"Mechanical psychics" is my new favorite term for LLMs.

"The intelligence illusion seems to be based on the same mechanism as that of a psychic’s con, often called *cold reading*. It looks like an accidental automation of the same basic tactic."

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic's con
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

🍿🍿🍿

Apple's malicious compliance with the DMA is already Streisand Effecting them:

https://brucelawson.co.uk/2024/apples-new-core-technology-fee-is-a-core-technology-fleece/

/via @brucelawson

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

eyeling@mastodon.art ("Eyeling") wrote:

#SilentSunday #Hanami #CherryBlossoms #florespondence

Attachments:

• photo of bright pink cherry blossoms backlit by the morning sun. A single ray of light gleaming in your eye. (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Think Kropotkin.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/03/24/classic-long-term-evolutionary-thinking-for-the-win/

Attachments:

• BROS/ IT'S TIME/ TIME TO UNLEASH YOUR INNVER CAVEMAN Later, the men engaged in a cooperative system of social reciprocity in order to make good use of scarce resources in a hunter-gatherer society. (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

exador23@m.ai6yr.org ("Hippy Steve") wrote:

seems legit.

Attachments:

• photo of an electrical stub-out and breakers with green wires going to a plastic bag filled with dirt that has a "ground" electrical symbol on it. (remote)

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

This analysis of the web devoloper job market from Baldur Bjarnason is equal parts scathing and sobering.

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/the-one-about-the-web-developer-job-market/

I'm not a web developer (although I've created several bad pages and web apps like almost everybody else who does software these days), but the web touches everything and clearly many people fill that role presently.

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

brucelawson@vivaldi.net ("Bruce Lawson") wrote:

Inclusive Sans is a text font designed for accessibility and readability https://www.oliviaking.com/inclusive-sans

Attachments:

• Illustration showing clear difference between I, l and 1, high x-height and difference between letters often accidentally mirrored like "b" and "d" (remote)

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

mcc wrote:

Fantasy world where they have been breeding dragons to be smaller and smaller until they have little toy dragons that can sit in your lap and are popular among noble ladies and if you leave them unattended in a home they will gather up all the low denomination change under dressers and such and push them into a corner to make a tiny $4.78 hoard to sit on

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

kevinrothrock@infosec.exchange ("Kevin Rothrock") wrote:

I am not a psychologist or a terrorism expert, but I personally find it very hard to believe that anyone would agree to raid a concert hall and gun down random people just for a paycheck. This is the version of events gaining traction in the Russian media.

nadim@symbolic.software ("Nadim Kobeissi") wrote:

My Rust code runs faster on my iPhone (A16) than on my MacBook (M1 Max). How could this be? Can anyone explain this?

For information, it's single-threaded code that does a lot of intense tree search-type calculations.

Memory cache related, maybe?

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤"):

rbreich@masto.ai ("Robert Reich") wrote:

Walmart hiked prices on its Great Value food brands.

The result? Its net income spiked 93% to $10.5 billion towards the end of 2023.

Walmart rewarded shareholders with $5.9 billion in buybacks and dividends.

When I say price gouging is driving inflation, this is what I mean.

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤"):

FediPact@cyberpunk.lol ("fedipact.online") wrote:

not an instance admin? you can still block threads!!!

do note, however, that it won't be as effective as an instance-level block on a technical level (your data will still be sent to meta, etc.)

https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

#FediPact #meta #threads

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤"):

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange ("The Nexus of Privacy") wrote:

How to block Threads on Mastodon -- with screenshots!

https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! If you're one of the fediverse influencers who sees Threads arrival it as "historic" and "a glimpse of the future" ... well, you might want to skip this post.

But if you're one of the many many people on the fediverse who doesn't want to deal with Threads, read on!

https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

#BlockingThreads #Meta #Threads

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤") wrote:

> A legal mandate for Zuckerberg to police his users is a legal requirement that he surveil and control those users. It's fundamentally incompatible with the new drive in competition circles to force Zuckerberg and his fellow tech barons to offer gateways that make it easier to escape their grasp, by allowing users to depart Facebook and continue to socialize with the users who stay behind

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤") wrote:

About to go to Fogo de Chão for the first time. Any tips?

mbrubeck@mefi.social wrote:

"Cozy sci-fi" means sci-fi where people spend a lot of time drinking tea.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

zachleat@zachleat.com ("Zach Leatherman :11ty:") wrote:

Here’s the source code between the doctype and the for this site:

×26
×36 external
×91 external

This is not a nuanced point I’m making. We’re not debating the finer points of complicated web performance trade-offs. This is a very slow web site.

Attachments:

• A huge screenshot of HTML with 26 preloads, 36 stylesheets, 91 external scripts (remote)

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

zachleat@zachleat.com ("Zach Leatherman :11ty:") wrote:

It should be fair to post screenshots like this for companies that tout “the fastest frontends” on their home page—especially notable that this is *not* a temporary regression. It’s been like this for a long time—why is no one talking about it?

Attachments:

• Pagespeed insights for vercel.com, Core Web Vitals: failed LCP 3.1s (average) INP 862ms (slow) CLS 0s (fast) FCP 2.8s (average) FID 152ms (average) TTFB 0.8s (average) Lighthouse: 28 Performance (bad) 96 Accessibility 96 Best Practices 100 SEO FCP 5.4s (slow) LCP 12.2s (slow) TBT 6970ms (slow) CLS 0ms Speed Index 7.8s (slow) (remote)

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

Some_Emo_Chick ("Frankie ✅") wrote:

Attachments:

• Americans: we have lower inflation, lower unemployment, higher growth than you. We win again. Europeans: Thanks for your email. I'm currently out of office on annual summer vacation until 30th Sep. 2024

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

The pearl clutching is incredible. Here's Sinofsky finding it offensive that the DOJ quoted a former CEO (and terrible human):

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/216-united-states-v-apple-complaint#:~:text=I%20personally%20found%20that%20deeply%20offensive.

And then he tries to make the case that it's fine for Apple to do this stuff because other companies act badly?

How much stock in a company do you have to own, exactly, to suffer a moral injury this stupid?

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

You know how I said there were going to be a LOT of bad takes?

The universe demands and, like clockwork, Sinofsky and Gruber provide. It would take weeks to enumerate even the basic ways the VC/Monopolist apologist class are wrong on the facts...but this specific one is delicious. Sinofsky tries to claim that Apple isn't talking.

Which must come as a surprise to [ checks notes ] Apple, who seem to be briefing both on background and in attributed statements:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24109033/doj-apple-antitrust-lawsuit-legal-expert-praise#:~:text=An%20Apple%20spokesperson,designing%20people%E2%80%99s%20technology.%E2%80%9D

Attachments:

• Sinofsky spends a lot of words trying to claim that it's only academics and antitrust professionals who are going on the record about Apple's position: "Right now the vast majority of analysis will claim this is a landmark case. The government is presenting a very strong case. This is a new era in the digital economy. In other words breathless coverage. They have to say this. Why? First, they are the only two parties talking now after reading the filing. There’s the antitrust world of academics and activists. The people who talk now are those that always want more antitrust. They spend their careers studying the topic and see antitrust with every big company at scale. There is literally nothing more exciting in the entire field than going after the biggest and most successful company of an era. Second, there are the regulatory critics that have long disliked technology and especially big technology companies. “Going after big tech” is a natural endpoint. These are the experts quoted in stories right now. The people who are not saying anything? Apple of course." https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/216-united-states-v-apple-complaint (remote)

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤") wrote:

@pluralistic Conversely, if a #Mastodon user switched to #threads, all they would need to do is switch on Fediverse for themselves and they gain access to all their Mastodon friends. No convincing required. Federation on mastodon is opt-out.

Therefore, the cost to switch from Mastodon to Threads is lower than the reverse.

So, how is interpolation with Threads good for the #fediverse again? Or did we get bamboozled?

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Winter is coming. In March.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/03/23/winter-is-overcompensating/

Attachments:

• Keeping watch (remote)

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz 🖤") wrote:

In the beginning chapters of The Internet Con by @pluralistic. In it, so far, he argues that interoperability reduces switching costs. Makes sense to me.

But in the Threads to Mastodon case, who benefits from switching? Neither users can port their account to the other using ActivityPub.

If a threads user goes to Mastodon, they'd have to convince all their friends and influencers to switch on Fediverse, as it's opt-in. That's a hair below getting people to sign up for a platform.l

Attachments:

• Text overlay on a yellow background discussing the impact of low switching costs on a company's need to retain business, with a specific reference to users who quit Facebook being able to communicate through a rival service.

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

#Caturday #CatsOfMastodon

Attachments:

• A black cat and a white cat with orange patches and a pink nose are both sitting on the back of a chair.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

Life hack: get a Chipotle bowl with some tortillas on the side, and wrap your own burrito. It's mixed better, *and* you'll probably be able to make two full-size burritos from one bowl.

(This was my wife's genius idea.)

Reblogged by pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑"):

mayaisloading@beige.party ("Mᴀʏᴀ :bc:") wrote:

Fentasy is where a 3000 years old dude is made to look sexy;
Sci-fi is where a pile of bolts and nuts is made to look sexy;
Horror is where a walking corpse is made to look sexy;
Romance is where a toxic ass stalker is made to look sexy

Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):

ada@zoner.work ("void *ada;") wrote:

i was this old when i found out that the icelandic word for computer is tölva, which apparently comes from tala and völva which translated literally means "number witch"

i will be only referring to myself and computing as number witch and number witchcraft

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

walpolea@mastodon.online ("Andrew Walpole") wrote:

Throwing my thoughts into the ring around @collinsworth's devaluing of front-end and also Design Engineering.

https://www.andrewwalpole.com/blog/invisible-contexts/