ElectroVagrant

joined 2 years ago
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[–] ElectroVagrant 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes and no. Mastodon instances can show Lemmy community posts in a clunky looking way, as they treat communities like a group account which boosts every post.

If someone on Mastodon is familiar with Lemmy, they can technically also follow individual people to ensure their feed looks a little less awkward. However, given the default limited character count of many Mastodon instances, it's still going to display as the title and link to the Lemmy post at best, if I remember right.

On the other hand, Mastodon people can post to Lemmy communities and reply to comments in threads here, but it also tends to come out rough, especially if they're unaware of the formatting differences. If you've ever seen a really long title that abruptly cuts off mid-sentence, there's a good chance that was someone posting from a Mastodon account, unaware that it's better to make a brief opening sentence as title, then an empty line followed by body text, to best fit the formatting here.

Similarly if you see someone replying to a comment starting with an @ mention to the person they're directly replying to, chances are it may be someone from Mastodon, as replies there include @ mentions by default. Also due to federation weirdness, I'm honestly not sure if they have to keep that mention or not for it to work properly, think I've seen it work without, but it's honestly easier to make an account on a Lemmy instance to participate than deal with awkward federation issues that come up between it and Mastodon.

[–] ElectroVagrant 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

True, but as noted, it isn't a necessity to run a full-network relay, which those resource demands and costs relate to.

At the same time, one of the larger Mastodon instances, Mstdn.social in terms of financial costs alone amounted to about 1000 euros per month as of October 2024.

The architecture of ATProto also enables a greater degree of flexibility in separating out costs by comparison, which in some respects may be an interesting model worth consideration for new or developing ActivityPub software, and in some respects is already in the works with projects like Bonfire and ActivityPods. On the ATProto side there's already at least one person looking to adapt ActivityPub to ATProto's PDSs in a manner similar to ActivityPods, just using ATProto data formatting instead.

[–] ElectroVagrant 2 points 1 week ago

We use different terms, but that's what I'm referring to here:

ActivityPub is more suited to scaling across multiple instances/sites than up, and I’d argue that’s its strength.

[–] ElectroVagrant 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I understand the hesitation, which is why I've been trying to monitor its developments closely. Hence why I linked the example of someone testing out a small network ATProto relay, and why I also dug up this post about self-hosting different parts of the ATProto infrastructure the other day.

From what I've observed, there's no pushback against people doing so, and the only things stopping people are the usual: time, costs, knowledge, motivation, etc. For the first step to really happen at all there have to be people with the resources and motivation to do so, which is always the tricky part. In a small way part of my OP is intending to encourage anyone with both to give it a shot, as I lack some of the necessary resources to try it myself.

[–] ElectroVagrant 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's not so much that ActivityPub can't scale up, so much as that for one, as I've understood it that's not really been desirable anyway (undermines the point of decentralization/distribution), and for two, it starts getting bogged down as you already recognize. It also runs into similar, if not worse, cost problems to operate as ATProto's full network approaches are now.

ActivityPub is more suited to scaling across multiple instances/sites than up, and I'd argue that's its strength. It unintentionally has an implosion threshold to counter centralization in terms of cost and performance.

On the other hand, ATProto's advantage is that it enables scaling up while also enabling better data portability. I'm aware of work on this with ActivityPub as well, but it's still very early stages. My thinking is that there may be some ways to work with both to push towards their similar shared aims in terms of an open social web, with more flexibility in moving between spaces and adjusting experiences to better find what one wants from these different spaces.

[–] ElectroVagrant 0 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Ideally they would be compatible, I agree.

Also you're right regarding the capacity to scale up, and frankly, while ATProto makes it feasible, I don't think it's necessarily desirable even with ATProto. Part of the point of it is to have various independent relays that would better distribute the load, and enable people's mobility when any of them go bad. Setting that aside, they don't all have to be full network relays, in fact someone is already toying with running a small network relay.

I also agree regarding moderation problems at a larger scale, and that ActivityPub's various software should take this as a wake-up call to improve the user experience, not so much for "big social media vibes" but for a better, less finicky experience.

However I also think there are potential benefits to ATProto, which blended together with ActivityPub, could make both better overall. The technical literacy and insistence on independent servers of the ActivityPub culture could make ATProto properly distributed and federated, which would be far better than letting it languish in corporate hands. Meanwhile the openness to optional transparent, customizable algorithms and preference for a smoother user experience of the ATProto/Bsky culture could make ActivityPub a more accessible, and livelier feeling space for more people.

Both can improve from one another, so long as both communities choose to try to learn from one another.

[–] ElectroVagrant 2 points 1 week ago

For a light, simplistic open source editor that's easy to get into, Goxel has been my go-to. I'd liken it to a voxel sketchpad with how easy it is to load up and simply mess about with.

For a more robust open source editor that's kinda rough around the edges, there's VengiVoxEdit, which I've honestly only scratched the surface of personally.

For a similarly robust editor that's less rough around the edges, the standard recommendation is MagicaVoxel. It's a solid choice, but I'm not sure if the developer is continuing work on it or not, which makes a difference here as it's not open source. It still works fine right now though, so if you're on Windows/Mac, it's a good option for a smooth, feature rich editor.

[–] ElectroVagrant 2 points 2 weeks ago

Mainly games built for replaying, so arcade puzzlers like Super Hexagon/Tetris Effect/Mixolumia/Equaline/etc, roguelikes such as FTL/BrogueCE/etc, or strangesims like Powder Toy or Vilmonic. Although even with those it's more occasional, like when I'm uncertain of what I'm wanting to do.

[–] ElectroVagrant 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's a fun mix, Gemini Rue was a pleasant surprise to see!

You might also enjoy Primordia given that.

[–] ElectroVagrant 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

obligatory but entirely sincere addition for those looking for palate cleansing games: Outer Wilds

and for those after a variety of others, in particularly no order, that may or may not come up as much:


But this is all from a flipside of a flipside, so each is as likely to appeal as repel, quick slide to catch clicks and clunks

[–] ElectroVagrant 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I should finally get into that. I keep putting it off for silly reasons that will never be addressed by putting it off. Can't get better at making models if I never make any, much less texturing a model if I never texture anything.

Also one of my favorite finds in a related area were voxel editors. Highly encourage anyone into voxel art from games like VoxeLibre or Minecraft to look into them. All the fun of building with blocks with a lot more flexibility.

[–] ElectroVagrant 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No, since there is only the PowerPC bits on the disc, there is no way to play the game on a newer x86 cpu without downloading the x86 bits

Something worth adding here, if you happen to know, would be if the games still work after download & install while offline. Microsoft's been rather inconsistent with this over the years (which is part of why Xbox One fell behind PS4 at launch).

 

Archive link.

Cloud apps like Google Docs and Trello are popular because they enable real-time collaboration with colleagues, and they make it easy for us to access our work from all of our devices. However, by centralizing data storage on servers, cloud apps also take away ownership and agency from users. If a service shuts down, the software stops functioning, and data created with that software is lost.

In this article we propose “local-first software”: a set of principles for software that enables both collaboration and ownership for users. Local-first ideals include the ability to work offline and collaborate across multiple devices, while also improving the security, privacy, long-term preservation, and user control of data.

 

Gradually we've been seeing the tv and movies or shows and movies communities pick up activity, which is good, and the multiple games communities each seem to be doing okay too.

Entertainment

However, there remains kind of an awkward spot where there's not exactly a general entertainment community (outside of Beehaw, that is) from what I can tell. There is an existing community, [email protected], though that someone could try to pick up and make active.

This could serve as a catchall for some of the more business-oriented news and some of the fluff celebrity chatter, depending on how one wants to go with it. Worth noting for celebrity chatter there is also [email protected] though.

Music

In a similar vein, while there's a variety of music communities, there's only a few generic ones, with the largest outside of Beehaw and Hexbear being the largely undefined Music community on Lemmy World. The lack of definition, that is, no sidebar guidance on what the community may be used for, makes it unclear what the community's expectations/preferences for posts are.

As with entertainment, this could be where more music business news could find its home, alongside some band chatter. Although as with entertainment, there's a music-themed community for the chatter to be found at [email protected] for those interested.

Sports

Likewise with sports, there's a ton of different sports communities, but only two large generic communities to be found on Beehaw and Hexbear (supposing Lemmyverse is accurate). Before any of the more specific sports communities can gain more activity, I think it'd help to have a generic sports community to help people get oriented and find likeminded folks to form whatever specific communities they'd like.

Much like the first two, this could be for sports news and chatter...But unlike the first two, I can't find any generic fluff sports star/team chat communities.

Ideas on How and Where to Organize

In each of these cases regarding broader communities, I think following a similar organizational approach to Beehaw could be a good idea, but they would be better suited to instances more openly federated and not at as much risk of defederation. A few Lemmy instances that come to mind for this are Lemmee, ShitJustWorks, Lemmy Zip, and perhaps Reddthat?

I'm not sure where Mbin instances are in terms of federation smoothness and stability, otherwise I might suggest some of them. On a different note, if there were more Piefed instances I might suggest them, but last I checked the flagship seems to still be the largest and isn't open for community creation.


In short: there's good opportunities for broad, generic topic communities for entertainment, music, and sports on more widely federated instances. At the same time, even where these communities may exist on some widely federated instances, opportunity remains for more clearly defined variations of these communities to encourage posting with less uncertainty.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20265433

Canadian National Railway said on Friday that labor union Unifor has filed a notice of dispute to the Canadian Minister of Labor, just three days after initiating negotiations.

Also known as "conciliation", the notice of dispute can be sent by either party to the Canadian Minister of Labor during a negotiation and typically results in the appointment of a conciliation officer to assist the parties in reaching an agreement.

 

On a brutal day for the frail and aging Pope Francis, the king of Belgium, its prime minister and the rector of the Catholic university that invited him here all ripped into the institution he heads for a spectrum of sins: for covering up cases of clergy sex abuse and being far behind the times on embracing women and the LGBTQ+ community in the church.

And that was all before Francis met with the people most harmed by the Catholic Church in Belgium — the men and women who were raped and molested by priests as children. Seventeen abuse survivors spent two hours with Francis on Friday evening, telling him of their trauma, shame and pain and demanding reparations from the church.

 

In May a huge iceberg broke off from an Antarctic ice shelf, drifted, and came to a stop - right in front of “maybe the world’s unluckiest” penguins.

Like a door shutting, the iceberg's huge walls sealed off the Halley Bay colony from the sea.

It seemed to spell the end for hundreds of newly-hatched fluffy chicks whose mothers, out hunting for food, may no longer have been able to reach them.

Then, a few weeks ago, the iceberg shifted and got on the move again.

Some bittersweet news, with an important reminder of how much more precarious life is for creatures living on the Earth's poles due to the changing climate.

 

A young capybara's escape from a zoo a fortnight ago gripped animal lovers across the globe.

Cinnamon's Friday 13th flit from Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Shropshire has inspired memes, merchandise, and a song, which staff have on repeat.

 

Four additional healthcare workers in Missouri who came in contact with a hospitalized bird flu patient developed mild respiratory symptoms but the virus was not confirmed in any of them, U.S. health officials said on Friday.

The report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brings to six the number of healthcare workers who cared for the Missouri patient and developed respiratory symptoms.

Unlike previous U.S. bird flu cases this year, the Missouri patient, who was hospitalized on Aug. 22, had no known contact with infected animals. Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people.

 

Canadian National Railway said on Friday that labor union Unifor has filed a notice of dispute to the Canadian Minister of Labor, just three days after initiating negotiations.

Also known as "conciliation", the notice of dispute can be sent by either party to the Canadian Minister of Labor during a negotiation and typically results in the appointment of a conciliation officer to assist the parties in reaching an agreement.

 

Buried in a roughly 200-page quarterly filing from JPMorgan Chase last month were eight words that underscore how contentious the bank’s relationship with the government has become.

The lender disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could punish JPMorgan for its role in Zelle, the giant peer-to-peer digital payments network. The bank is accused of failing to kick criminal accounts off its platform and failing to compensate some scam victims, according to people who declined to be identified speaking about an ongoing investigation.

In response, JPMorgan issued a thinly veiled threat: “The firm is evaluating next steps, including litigation.”

Title is original from site.

Arguably a better title:Why JPMorgan Chase is prepared to sue the U.S. government over regulation

 

Note: article may be paywalled if you've read all your free articles from Wired for now. Archive link in that event.

[...] Against the back wall, where one might find confessionals in a different kind of church, there’s a tower of humming black servers. These servers hold around 10 percent of the Internet Archive’s vast digital holdings, which includes 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, and 15 million audio recordings, among other artifacts. Tiny lights on each server blink on and off each time someone opens an old webpage or checks out a book or otherwise uses the Archive’s services. The constant, arrhythmic flickers make for a hypnotic light show. Nobody looks more delighted about this display than Kahle.

It is no exaggeration to say that digital archiving as we know it would not exist without the Internet Archive—and that, as the world’s knowledge repositories increasingly go online, archiving as we know it would not be as functional. Its most famous project, the Wayback Machine, is a repository of web pages that functions as an unparalleled record of the internet. Zoomed out, the Internet Archive is one of the most important historical-preservation organizations in the world. The Wayback Machine has assumed a default position as a safety valve against digital oblivion. The rhapsodic regard the Internet Archive inspires is earned—without it, the world would lose its best public resource on internet history.

Note: article may be paywalled if you've read all your free articles from Wired for now. Archive link in that event.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ElectroVagrant to c/business
 

In a video uploaded to the Chinese social media platform Bilibili in October, a Shein warehouse worker in southern China with black-rimmed glasses tells the camera he picked 650 clothing items during his last shift—a feat he claims to have accomplished, in part, by not taking a single bathroom break. The worker says the sacrifice would help him reach his goal of earning 10,000 RMB (nearly $1,500 at the time) a month at his job picking and packing customer orders for Shein, the global fast-fashion juggernaut valued last year at $66 billion.

In a separate Bilibili video posted a few days later, a different Shein staffer says that he is “sweating profusely after picking goods all night,” but he’s grateful, at least, that his team leader is friendly. In a third clip shared to the short-form video platform Kuaishou in November, another Shein worker with long hair pulled back into a low ponytail tells the camera she is having trouble lifting her left hand after completing an 11-and-a-half hour shift at a Shein warehouse. “My first time working in logistics, there won’t be a second time,” reads the caption.

Note: title is drawn from the article, and I'd argue is rather exaggerated given the contents. A better title might be, "A Look Into Shein's Reliance on Gig Workers". Just realized this may be behind paywall for some, archive link in the event of that.

 

RT was long known to be government-funded and a source of Russian propaganda. But it claimed to be independent. It hired American journalists, and featured some big names like former CNN host Larry King. The channel’s aesthetic was sleek, modern, and cable news-like. But over the years, as American relations with Russia cooled, skepticism of RT grew.

Now, the U.S. government has accused RT and its parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, of going beyond propaganda, as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to destabilize democracies and erode international support for Ukraine.

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