@John@socks.masto.host
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

John

@John@socks.masto.host

I am retired in Southern California after working on the computational side of chemistry, medical electronics, environmental monitoring, motion pictures, and even some web commerce.

I am interested in hiking and the outdoors, exercise physiology (especially for someone in my age group), gardening, and old man projects in general.

Posts auto-delete after two months.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mookie, to random

Is the quieter nowadays?

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@jrconlin @mookie Yeah, I really started to notice it last week.

I'm comfortable here though.

gruber, to random
@gruber@mastodon.social avatar

Bluesky is going to skyrocket to mainstream popularity and actually replace Twitter, and Mastodon cannot, because Bluesky is being designed to be simple, fun, and — most importantly — easy to understand.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@adamjcook @jperlow @gruber

I hope bridging will be explored, and some sort of useful composite moderation is found, but I think we should all be aware of the limits.

No one is talking about a bridge between Mastodon and Truth precisely because there are limits to composite moderation.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@adamjcook @jperlow @gruber Bluesky and Nostr may pull something off, but I fear that they both assumed a can opener, wrt post classification.

Sure, users can select what they want to see if 100Ms of new posts a day are fully decorated with correct metadata.

But how do you do that?

If they can't, their correct fall back will be to create something like Mastodon, with smaller instances more closely managed.

timbray, to fediverse
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

The notion that federated social media depends existentially on scalable moderation is obviously getting momentum. Here are two efforts I've run across that are focusing on this. One is a non-profit, the other smells like a startup company:

  1. https://about.iftas.org
  2. https://www.lassomoderation.com

Screen grab from Lasso: "Content Moderation tooling out of the box"

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@interfluidity @timbray Would it be fair to say that federation leads to a composition of moderation attempts rather than a localization?

I, for instance, am on a single user instance, and my view is the composite of moderation taking place everywhere else. I have done a very small number of blocks because that composite seems to work for me.

Is it also excluding people I might find interesting? Possibly.

ct_bergstrom, (edited ) to random
@ct_bergstrom@fediscience.org avatar

"Our neocortex is entirely controlled by our lizard brain."

How is this guy real?

(For a while I found this sort of bullshit really annoying, but now I'm just embarrassed for him. And what sucks is that he's totally right about LLMs as a dead end on the road to AGI.)

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ct_bergstrom I believe he was fought and finally surrendered to the position that LLMs are not the (short) path to AGI.

jeff, to internet
@jeff@newsie.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @jeff I agree completely, and think we should distinguish between the two:

    • Launch your own instances

    • Launch instances for the communities you serve

    As we saw with the FT article, publications can be nervous about the implications of hosting a community. The first option gives them a great deal of benefit without that exposure.

    atomicpoet, to internet
    @atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

    For what it's worth, people on aren't hostile to .

    They want to read Mastodon posts.

    It's incredibly sad that people on Bluesky can't talk to Mastodon and vice versa.

    @fediversenews

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet @tchambers

    I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to read my posts on Bluesky, and reply, and sell me crypto.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet @tchambers Perhaps we should think through the implications of an easy linkage to a low security environment before we get there.

    If, all things considered, Bluesky were to have "low" moderation, would an easy linkage mean that someone on Mastodon would have to clean it up, on their side of the fence?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @tchambers @atomicpoet @activitypubblueskybridge

    Possibly, and possibly I shouldn't worry because the likely outcome would be that Mastodon instances would not link to a massive Bluesky core instance with 50 million users, 1 million of whom are "bad."

    A bridge to nowhere.

    shoq, to random
    @shoq@mastodon.social avatar

    "I regret to inform you but Bluesky is fun..and Mastodon will remain as a niche product."

    Well there it is folks, Wired has spoken. Let's go home. Nothing to see here. It's all over but the IPO. Nice try, though. A plethora of venture capitalists and a cabal of fascist plutocrats think you're a swell buncha peeps. Sincerely.

    https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-is-fun/

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @shoq it occurred to me yesterday that Bluesky is simply Twitter without Elon, and that it might succeed on that basis.

    Fine I guess. If the people like the wildness of that environment, that is their choice.

    J12t, to internet
    @J12t@social.coop avatar

    The suggested follower experience appears to work. I made one single meaningless post right when I created the account, engaged basically with nobody, and I have 49 followers.

    What can we learn from that in the ?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @J12t I might like to learn a little bit more about how that worked. Did it make suggestions based on your bio? Do you think your followers have aligned interests, are they randos, are they pornstars?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @J12t That's interesting to know. Probably an especially connected group.

    mjgardner, to programming

    59 years ago today, the first computer program written in was run.

    The easy-to-learn and -use language revolutionized . A decade later, would co-found to develop and sell the BASIC interpreter for the 8800, the first commercially successful desktop microcomputer.

    More from when celebrated BASIC’s fiftieth anniversary: https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @mjgardner I have a second hand story related to this. I was in a night class, early in my own computer career, and on the first night of introductions an old guy said "my claim to fame is that Bill Gates used to work for me." Everybody chuckles, like sure, old guy. But after a couple classes the instructor says "maybe you should tell the class your story." What he said was, he worked for Altair and ..

    /1

    atomicpoet, (edited ) to fediversenews
    @atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet @kissane @fediversenews

    My timeline I've been talking about Bluesky's other,

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet @kissane I am fine with full text search being offered, being put in front of everyone as an opt-in, but even as a relatively recent newcomer, I think I would opt-out. That's fine right?

    Maybe I know of one opt-in system that already exists, but because people have to go find it uptake is very low?

    tchambers, to fediverse

    🚨 For the 10, 800 + users that make their home, we want to make a special shout-out to the 247 users who are Patrons and give to support the work here at .... 🙏

    If you are new here, consider supporting us, even at $1 per month, that deeply helps! We ask that you consider that if you can. 💵

    I feel the entire is seeing times of great promise and drama & your support helps keep IndiewebSocial growing and in the heart of it. https://www.patreon.com/indiewebsocial

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @tchambers I appreciate your work. I am actually a patron without being a user.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @tchambers No, no. I know you guys keeping things running are the actual heroes.

    kissane, to random
    @kissane@mstdn.social avatar

    I meant to be finishing a post about books I'm reading but I got distracted and wrote ~2500 words about Mastodon and Bluesky and the related things (welcoming design, insular culture) I've been stewing on for a few months

    And also about vegetarian meat substitutes in the 1980s, which were really something

    https://erinkissane.com/blue-skies-over-mastodon

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @GWillow @gregpak @stevelieber @kissane Hmmm. I use Mastodon and drive a stick shift. I guess I could see the argument that in both cases it is involvement in the mechanics.

    atomicpoet, to random
    @atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

    Can someone explain the Matty Iglesias thing is and why everyone on Bluesky hates him.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet It was surprising to me. He has a fairly weird Twitter style, but not an especially harmful one. I say this even though he did quote tweet and dunk on me once (he later deleted, maybe because I played my answers seriously).

    To my mind he tries to be unserious and ironic in ways that make it hard to tell when he is serious.

    evan, (edited ) to random
    @evan@cosocial.ca avatar

    If you're thinking about putting more of your time and attention into a siloed network, we are asking: please don't.

    We need you here, building the social Web with us.

    If you're going anyway, please take some of what you've learned here with you.

    And remember that this open social web will be here when you find your way back. Better, even.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @evan I think the Fediverse at a place where it can be quietly confident. The hard lift off is behind it, the system is coasting into orbit.

    I don't think we need to worry about platforms that are trying their own hard lift off now, let alone platforms that are losing orbit.

    Some others may survive, or succeed by some definition, but I don't think they can really take anything away from the Fediverse achievement, a really diverse and expanding collection of applications and users.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @evan We can disagree about where we are in the arc, but I think I'm correct that this is an open system with a lot of momentum. We're getting new nodes, new branches, new client apps, new bots, every week.

    Conspicuously the alternatives that you might worry about are not gathering the same energy.

    atomicpoet, to random
    @atomicpoet@mastodon.social avatar

    I can’t block this racist on Bluesky.

    I can only mute him.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @atomicpoet Accidentally were on purpose Blue Sky seems to have shown everybody what happens when you have easy sign up and limited moderation.

    Easy search might even have something to do with it.

    Em0nM4stodon, to fediverse

    What are your favorite bots? List them below! 🤖👇

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @Em0nM4stodon I subscribe to a few, but for the moment I will just suggest @benoitmandelbot as a simple pleasure.

    davew, to random
    @davew@mastodon.social avatar

    Tucker Carlson should just do a YouTube channel and a podcast (with an RSS feed of course, please). And forget about big media companies. Go direct. Keep all the profits. Don't get fired next time.

    And how about the TC from the leaked text messages, not the conspiracy theorist.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @davew I'm not 100% with Noahpinion, but he's pretty good here:

    https://open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion/p/tucker-carlson-and-the-age-of-bad

    TC was bad because he took grievance farming to the highest level. He would not try to sell a more reasonable version of himself for the precise reason that it would not sell as well.

    evan, (edited ) to random
    @evan@cosocial.ca avatar

    If offered the chance, would you leave Earth?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @evan Strong no b/c qualifiers are so unlikely

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