volkris

@volkris@qoto.org

Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.

Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.

But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.

So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.

Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.

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

joel, to wordpress
@joel@fosstodon.org avatar

So, (.com) is evil now, but is there anything stopping AI scraping of the ?

Wasn't going to federate? I am all for just blocking them now that these things are happening, but what's stopping others? Couldn't there be servers out there just silently taking away all of this?

We also have feeds for every user profile and hashtag, a feature I love, but a double edged sword.

I really want us to remain open and such, but they make it really hard...

volkris,

@joel no, for better or worse the design decisions of Fediverse/ActivityPub leaves it not only open but even welcoming to scraping.

And people need to realize how little control they have over anything they post here.

There is no real privacy here. It’s a public square sort of situation. Do not post anything you don’t want to air in public.

volkris,

@hankg

NO! Not only public posts, and that’s a huge problem on this platform. Many users don’t realize that all posts are transmitted out for the vacuuming.

In other words, on this platform there effectively ARE no public posts. There are only tags to posts with suggestions as to whose timelines they appear in.

This is an ax I grind because I worry that so many users are mislead into making posts they wouldn’t otherwise make because they don’t realize this part of the platform.

@joel

foufoutos, to fediverse
@foufoutos@kafeneio.social avatar

During the war in Ukraine and even more so in the midst of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the sometimes blatantly biased management of mastodon.social demonstrated beyond any doubt that big instances destroy the Fediverse

A recent example is the limiting of the account @LALegault

volkris,

@foufoutos

Destroy Fediverse? This is exactly the sort of strong instance moderation that so many people promote as a benefit of the system!

And sometimes that strong moderation will be against you and sometimes it will be for you, but that is just the way that approach works.

So apparently it’s a feature.

Anyway, this is a great illustration of why it’s problematic to look to instances of any size to shape feeds instead of focusing on empowering users to do it themselves, to shape their own experiences around here.

You say destroy but really it’s pretty much what so many people say they want out of the system, even if they’re not ready for the implications of that.

@LALegault

erin, to ethelcain

Now in , people who want to have babies can’t and people who don’t want to have babies are forced to.

This is the plot line of The Handmaids Tale.

volkris,

@erin how do you figure the Alabama ruling leads to that conclusion?

volkris,

@erin No, the ruling didn’t cause clinics to halt their operations, as it didn’t impose any standards on them.

It’s just not part of the ruling.

If clinics halted operations due to unwarranted fears sown by misreporting about what was in the actual rulings, well, that is in line with my perspective that misreporting is generally awful for society and needs to be called out.

freemo, to acab
@freemo@qoto.org avatar

Just a reminder, when a cop points a gun at you and you react as if your life is in danger, you get shot and the cop walks free.

When you point a gun at a cop, if the cop reacts as if his life is in danger, you get shot and the cop walks free.

volkris,

@freemo not necessarily

volkris,

@notaleman Must? I mean you can do what you want.

But me, personally, if someone–anyone–is pointing a gun at me, I’m going to try and react in the way that would least likely end in my getting shot.

@freemo

volkris,

@freemo then I’d ask him to rephrase the question because it seems odd to ask about society being held at gunpoint.

I’m thinking about literal guns, but perhaps he means something figurative if he’s talking about society.

@notaleman

volkris,

@freemo right so that’s why I wonder what @notaleman is actually asking.

I will leave it up to them to clarify the question.

stefan, (edited ) to fediverse
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

Some people argue that we shouldn't define the fediverse in terms of which protocols the different platforms use, or whether they support ActivityPub specifically.

Fair enough. How about, can the fediverse have ads?

volkris,

@stefan it’s not much of a question since Fediverse DOES have ads right now, so yes, it can, as we can see with our own eyes 🙂

volkris,

@stefan I see plenty of spam on here.

I know there are people who say this place is great because they never see spam, and maybe that’s the case, AND admittedly I don’t see it every single day, but I do see it in my feeds here, so I know it is here.

And recently there were stories about having to block instances that were spamming a lot, so again, that just goes to show that there is spam on here.

So this isn’t theoretical. It’s here.

Rasta, to SpaceX

Elon Musk violates Pentagon contract by denying SpaceX internet to US troops in Taiwan:

“Tesla’s success hinges on favorable business relations with China, which has led Musk to cultivate cozy relations with the country, despite its broader tensions with the U.S.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/24/house-china-committee-elon-musk-spacex-starshield-taiwan.html

volkris,

@Rasta you made a leap by going from the article’s description of a politician claiming they could be possibly violating to flat out saying it was a violation.

We shouldn’t trust these political hacks in the special interest committee in Congress to write the narrative that we accept.

If SpaceX is in violation of a Pentagon contract, that’s really between the two of them, and the Pentagon should take SpaceX to court to settle it.

We should not believe politicians so uncritically, though, as they are likely just engaging in political stunts.

osma, to Starlink
@osma@mas.to avatar

Venäläisen, selustassa tukitoimissa olevan sotilaan asemapaikassa käytetään Starlink-yhteyttä. Elon ja SpaceX kylläkin väittävät, että Starlink ei toimi venäläisille.

A russian behind-the-lines base uses Starlink for Internet service despite Elon's and SpaceX claims of no service for russians.

Finnish: https://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000010240408.html
Google Translate: https://www-hs-fi.translate.goog/ulkomaat/art-2000010240408.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_hist=true

volkris,

@osma I don’t think it’s wise to immediately trust a Russian behind the lines report…

volkris, to conservative

I often stay up to date with media in just to keep apprised of what the is talking about, or to put it in a different way, so you don’t have to, but lately it’s getting just two much even for me.

It’s one thing to disagree with facts that are working with, but lately they are getting more and more unhinged in their actual arguments, contradicting themselves but seeming oblivious of it.

For example, this week I heard the line that progressive attacks against are good for him because they will make him seem moderate to voters. If the ideologues are attacking him, then he must be moderate, right? But then the next moment that same presenter started talking about progressive attacks against without applying the exact same reasoning to that case.

In the past few weeks mainstream conservative talking points have just gotten ridiculous in their blind support for Trump. They’ve stopped talking about policy, or their claims about accomplishments, or anything like that. Now it’s just getting into chanting that really didn’t exist before.

On one hand, it’s sad to watch, it’s pathetic, and on the other hand it’s boring.

So I figure they are setting themselves up for a repeat of the red wave that never showed up during the last election. They are not setting themselves up to win.

Sigh. I wish they would at least make it interesting to watch.

volkris,

@freemo a while back, maybe last year? I heard somebody propose that these days Republicans tend to err in magnitude while Democrats err in direction or sign.

Since then it’s been very interesting to think about current events through that lens.

For example, off the top of my head, you could consider federal government deficit spending where Republicans have been talking as if it’s the end of the world while Democrats have been talking as if it’s actually a good thing.

So I don’t think Democrats are following suit, but they are committing their own errors in ways that are orthogonal to the errors of Republicans.

To put it simplistically, it’s almost like Democrats are doing a good job of a bad task while Republicans are doing a bad job of a good task.

I don’t know which is worse, but I personally find the Republican side to be more frustrating.

freemo, to random
@freemo@qoto.org avatar

oooookkkkkaaaaaayyyyyyy......
QT: https://glammr.us/@katykaty/111972052629957886

volkris,

@freemo these days I'm constantly struck by how much money is spent to buy the latest computers that are slower at doing the same processes we used to do decades ago on hardware that was exponentially slower.

Because apparently efficiency is not given enough priority in computer engineering these days.

It's really something.

hesgen, to mastodon

Nearly four days of downtime on this mastodon instance, qoto.org, and it's still broken. There was no sticky warning on the app of the host migration or updates, so I've no clue what's going on.

Is this normal for Mastodon, at least on the non-corporate instances? If so, I don't see the platform having a future. Site owners don't owe us anything, but for users, it's not worth the hassle. Social media can not function like this.

Maybe I should call it quits and set about engaging properly with Bluesky.

Please don't advise me to create my own instance. I have a life and try to live some of it away from a screen.

volkris,

@hesgen One of the huge issues I have with / / is that it is engineered to be completely centered around instances, unlike other platforms.

And so this is one downside of that decision. When the instance goes down, it really messes with users.

It's why I emphasize that this platform is not decentralized but rather it is centralized around instances. Federated, not decentralized.

did not make the same design choice.

volkris,

@BeAware

You’re overlooking that on BlueSky users have a lot more authority so that the federation between servers isn’t nearly as important.

And that such an important difference between the two platforms, between the two approaches.

@hesgen

cdarwin, to random
@cdarwin@c.im avatar

Ahead of a significant meeting next month for members of the federal judiciary, a watchdog group hoisted another red flag over U.S. Supreme Court Justice 🔸Clarence Thomas 🔸for what it says is a
👉 “30 year pattern” of cherry-picking his financial disclosures once he is raked in the press.

The renewed call for review of the long-embroiled justice comes exactly a month before the "Judicial Conference of the United States" convenes for its first of only two meetings this year.

The group of federal judges, which is led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, acts as a policymaking body for federal courts across the land and can also make recommendations to Congress.
It is, as ProPublica has reported at length, a powerful but largely opaque body that polices itself.

On Wednesday, the Campaign Legal Center raised the alarm again, this time in a letter to Lee Ann Bennett, the conference’s acting secretary, urging the group to weigh findings of a troubling pattern that has gone on since 1996.

Using a flowchart to clarify, the watchdog group contends that each time Thomas complied with financial disclosure rules and then received negative media attention, he responded in kind.

When he was first asked to disclose his spouse’s employer between 1987 and 1996 and media reporting exploded on the controversy surrounding his spouse’s employment with the Republican Majority Leader at the time and her role investigating a sitting president, Thomas stopped formally reporting his spouse’s employment until the media caught on in 2011.

When he first complied with disclosing his travel expenses from a friend in 1997, and then media reporting emerged a year later that he traveled on a private jet and had expensed a “wealthy real estate magnate,” the justice spent the next 24 years omitting any disclosures on travel expenses from his friends until reports surfaced in 2023.

The same thing happened in 2002 when he initially disclosed tuition he had gifted to a grandnephew.

Two years later, he was outed in the press about the tuition gift, and by 2009, Thomas again stopped disclosing tuition gifts entirely.

In 2011, Thomas initially complied with a disclosure for assets he had sold off, including those assets sold without capital gains.

That same year, reporting emerged on the role he played in having Harlan Crow purchase real estate in Georgia from a third party.

That too appears to have prompted the justice not to fully disclose those details for at least three years until the press unearthed the omission, the CLC contends.

This all goes toward proving Thomas knowingly and willfully violating the Ethics in Government Act, the center argues. Extensive details about the omissions can be found in the CLC’s 161-page letter

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/watchdog-group-raises-red-flag-about-clarence-thomas-again-claims-new-research-shows-pattern-of-omission-when-under-fire/

volkris,

@HistoPol The problem is that a lot of that has already been debunked.

It looks like a clear pattern if you don’t take into account that a lot of it just isn’t the sensational story that pro-publica is trying to sell to the public.

@cdarwin

0x1C3B00DA, to bluesky
@0x1C3B00DA@stereophonic.space avatar

How do people against the bridge feel about https://rss-parrot.net/? I saw nothing but praise for that when it was announced a little while back, but it’s the same thing. It’s a bridge translating one protocol to another, meaning someone’s public posts could end up on a platform they didn’t opt-in to.

volkris,

@0x1C3B00DA it’s not so simple since this platform at its core sends content around without needing any permission of any users.

People are arguing about opt in versus opt out are missing that the nature of ActivityPub that runs the Fediverse is under no obligation to comply with any opting of any sort anyway.

If anything, a lot of people have opted in without realizing what they have opted in to.

wjmaggos, (edited ) to fediverse
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

Using the is both like browsing and email. We can go look at whatever we want, but people can also tag us with whatever they want. This is what makes server level blocking/silencing complicated. We don't like anybody limiting what we can see, but we also don't want to have to individually deal with horrible stuff flooding our inbox. A healthy fedi will be full of servers fully federated and dedicated to balancing these concerns for their users and the larger network.

volkris,

@wjmaggos but therein lies the problem :)

How does the server know what the user would consider crap vs what they want?

And even harder, how does the server deal with two different users having vastly different judgments about that?

This is the problem with focusing on servers.

It’s exactly why I think we should rather focus on users, letting them control what they see, based on what they would find to be crap vs wanted content.

volkris,

@wjmaggos that’s a great example I might use, as email server spam protection very often works with users to tailor filters for each one.

So we could focus on doing similar things here.

For generations now we’ve watched email server spam filters try various ways to tailor themselves to each user, with techniques ranging from analyzing frequent contacts through feedback mechanisms.

Let’s learn from that and follow the example here!

volkris,

@wjmaggos it would be nice to at least see talk about user focus, even if its expressed as a longterm hope or a direction that we’d like to see development progress in.

Heck, if we talk about such things then who knows if a developer with experience in, say, email spam filtering might not be able to offer a relatively easy solution from solved problems in that world.

However, I see so much talk about server focus without and developing things to help servers that talk of user focus is starkly absent.

If these are problems to be handled by a more developed ecosystem, all the more reason to start working and highlighting them now.

josemurilo, to Bitcoin
@josemurilo@mato.social avatar

" now consumes two whole percent of electricity in the US, all to perform math problems that are entirely pointless by design.

None of that touches on the vast architecture that has accreted around —the forums and the exchanges and the —like some cancerous tumor."
@HeavenlyPossum
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/over-2-percent-of-the-uss-electricity-generation-now-goes-to-bitcoin/

volkris,

@HeavenlyPossum

That’s exactly how Bitcoin works: I trade some amount of energy for a chance to score Bitcoin.

That is the definition of mining.

In other contexts–car fuel efficiency, lighting efficiency, whatever–there are more externalities and complications, but not in this case.

The way Bitcoin works allows people to buy the chance to earn in exchange, directly, for energy.

Each miner decides whether it’s worth each 1kWh he might want to spend on it.

@josemurilo

volkris,

@HeavenlyPossum

It seems like you’re misunderstanding over and over.

For example, when you say that has nothing to do with efficiency, I say YES! That’s exactly my point!

It doesn’t have to do with efficiency, which is why we need to stop acting like it does!

The purchase price in energy for Bitcoin is not about efficiency but about value. The energy traded for Bitcoin doesn’t have anything to do with efficiency, so let’s stop buying into the stories saying it does.

BECAUSE it’s about value and not efficiency, let’s stop misunderstanding that as a metric for efficiency.

@josemurilo

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