I'm not really a fan of nuggets in general. I've always been much more of a tendies human. By and large, I find the texture of processed chicken to be extremely revolting. Even as a kid, I thought they were vile and Dino nuggets always seemed to be particularly low-quality....
100% with you on tenders being better than nuggets. In general, nuggets have always been kinda eh (sometimes solid, sometimes awful), and dino nuggets are the worst of their kind.
Interesting. I might be somewhat of the opposite — I think barbecue's great, but I'm not a fan of barbecue potato chips. I'll maybe eat some if there's nothing else around and I'm hungry, but I've just never liked them.
Researchers have created the first functional 3D-printed brain tissue that can develop and form connections in the same way as real human brain tissue.
A serial comma (or Oxford comma) is an optional comma used before the last item in a list. For example, "bread, butter, and tax evasion" uses a serial comma, whereas "bread, butter and tax evasion" does not....
I think the point is more that without the serial comma, the last two items in the list aren't separated like the others, which (imo) feels like omitting the last bullet point in a list.
…Who exactly is asking for this? AI chatbots are cool and all, but I have no idea why you'd want them in your messages app. What would you even need that for?
This past weekend, I tried my hand at JavaScript. I ended up making a helpful userscript for Kbin, and I'm working on adding some features like settings.
Since Geometry Dash 2.2 released, I've been playing around with the game's level editor. Currently working on my first level, and I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far.
Sweet. I've found that trying to make solutions to problems is always a great way to learn more about a programming language or to introduce yourself to a new one. I imagine you'll definitely learn a lot from this (alongside the more important achievement of making something you can use to maintain your health).
Sounds fun. I've messed around with Godot a bit myself, though I unfortunately don't have the work ethic to make a full game out of it. Great to see more people using the FOSS option!
As of right now, you can follow either Lemmy accounts directly or follow Lemmy communities from Mastodon relatively easily if you know what you are searching for....
So, having played some #geometrydash 2.2 for a while, I'm starting to warm up to the swing. I'm still not a massive fan and way prefer the ship (which gives you more control), but the swing's long sweeps can help give sections with it a large, grand vibe (e.g., the swing section in Dastardly). Maybe my distaste is just a skill issue. Idk.
It's a new year — about 6 months since that Reddit migration occurred — and Kbin progressed a ton in 2023. What are your thoughts on it? How much value have you gotten out of it, and what would you like to see in the future?
I've been enjoying Kbin a lot, and it's been awesome seeing the progress that's been made over the past few months. We have magazine collections, an aggregate view for threads and microblog posts, awesome crosspost functionality, a marker for new comments, options for the homepage, and plenty more. I've gotten a ton of use out of all of these new features, and I've enjoyed working on my CSS userstyle (something that Kbin introduced me to) to further improve the UI to my tastes.
Because of the issues during the holidays and the previous focus on API and ActivityPub tweaks (as opposed to visible frontend features), a lot of people think that development has slowed down a lot, but I'm personally excited to see further improvements over the coming year. The things at the top of my wishlist are probably improved federation, better features for moderators, and some sort of subscriptions / favorited collections dropdown in the header please ernest I beg you. But of course, development takes time, and I'm happy with Kbin so far.
It's nice to see more Kbin and Mbin instances popping up. I'd love to get to the point where the majority of Kbin users aren't on one instance, though that's probably a long while away.
I see where you're coming from, though having the instance be related to the underlying software helps a lot with clarity. I still have trouble remembering whether programming.dev is a Lemmy or Mastodon instance, whereas lemmy.ca causes no such issues.
Also, with Kbin and Mbin, I don't think it's much of an issue. Kbin.run uses Mbin, and I've never seen that as odd. The differences between the two aren't very significant anyway (i.e., it's clear that they're both versions of the same general thing). I could see it being a problem if you wanted to switch your instance from Kbin to Lemmy, but that seems like an unlikely scenario that isn't worth the sacrifice in clarity.
@ernest
I've noticed this week that I'm currently seeing no visual indication that the boost button is active. No underline, color, or anything.
It seems that a now-broken userstyle I'm using expects there to be an "active" class applied to the element, but it isn't anymore. Is that intentional?
Figured I should point this out to you in case you don't know already.
@Pamasich@ernest Can confirm that this is an issue. I brought attention to it a short while back, and there are also some bugs with the visuals for vote buttons not consistently working as they should.
If I’m not free to join the Fediverse from the server of my choice, whether that’s mastodon.social or threads.net, is the Fediverse truly free?
Joining the fediverse is just a matter of using a platform that implements ActivityPub (the protocol that lets servers communicate with each other. If Threads implements ActivityPub, it's part of the fediverse, and the people on Threads can interact without any instance that chooses to federate.
However, instances don't have to federate with Threads. That's part of the freedom of the fediverse. If an instance admin decides that they don't want to deal with an influx of hate, don't want most of the content their uses see to be from Meta, or just don't want to federate with a for-profit company that has an awful track record, they should be able to defederate. If a user of that instance really wants to see Threads content, they should be able to move to an instance that lets them, but defederation doesn't make the fediverse or ActivityPub less free.
Implemented menu icons in idkbin 1.3.6! They make the UI feel a lot more polished imo.
I also made these a standalone userstyle if you just want those.
Essentially all of the ones that I used. r/Minecraft, r/minecraftsuggestions, r/conlangs, r/vexillology, r/pixelart, etc.
The thing is that all of these have communities and magazines on the fediverse — it's just that there's little, if any, activity on them. I don't think you can really say that these communities are here if they have one person posting on them regularly.
The only communities that actually have a solid amount of activity here are ones about memes and news. If that's all that you used Reddit for, then the fediverse is doing great, and such people will act baffled at how anyone could stay on or miss Reddit. But for everyone else, the content just isn't there.
Yeah, it'd be nice to see an active Geometry Dash community given that 2.2 just released. /m/geometrydash is in the abandoned magazines section, so I might request ownership and try to get a bit of activity going there.
Many of the people who came from the initial Reddit migration left pretty quickly. This was always going to happen. Reddit alternatives are relatively undeveloped and lack the sheer amount of activity that Reddit has, so people were inevitably going to lose interest and leave after the initial rush of wanting to stick it to Spez.
Kbin development stopped for about a month. This was due to the developer, Ernest, having real-life stuff to deal with and thus very little time to work on Kbin. Development has since started back up since then, and you can take a look at the progress over on @kbinDevlog, but that long period of silence led a lot more people to lealve.
The people who are here aren't posting a ton. There are a lot of magazines where threads will get tens or hundreds of votes and comments… when someone decides to actually make a thread. Any social media site is going to have more lurking and commenting than posting, but if all the people who want to see content were to post a bit of their own, many of these magazines would be a lot more alive.
For-profit tech companies like #Threads and #Flipboard are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, and that's been causing a lot of chaos lately. Thus, I've found it helpful to take a step back, consider what it is about the fediverse that I value, and think about whether federation with these large platforms will bring us closer...
Of course, these platforms have only federated a handful of accounts, so the "chaos" right now is in the reaction and discourse. However, I don't think it's unjustified.
I've outlined my main issues with Threads federation here, and while I'm not as sold on preemptive defederation as I was when I made the post, I still find it reasonable to be concerned about about for-profit companies controlling a vast majority of the content, especially when (A) the users making that content may be unaware that they're on the fediverse to begin with and (B) companies like Meta have a terrible track record and would have incentive to grab a ton of users by defederating if they're able (though with so many other parties joining in, whether they'll be able to pull something off like that is becoming more questionable, hence me being less sure of the need to defederate).
That's because I'm not fully sure on how people should act in respect to this Threads situation (which is what got me thinking about all of this in the first place). In the recent past, I was all "defederate defederate defederate defederate," but now considering that multiple large platforms (like Flipboard) will be joining in, it's less likely that one company will control a majority of activity. Of course, you don't need a majority for there to be a problem — just a large enough portion for other instances to have issues defederating due to the amount of content they'd lose — but a mere large portion and not a supermajority may not be reason to defederate. Of course, there are other things to consider as well, and I'll probably make yet another wall of text with my new thoughts on how instances should handle this in the near future. For now, this thread is for me to share the ideals that I think people on the fediverse should prioritize and for others to discuss what they think on the matter.
Let's take an instance called Instance A. Instance A is currently on the fediverse, which we'll say is pretty evenly distributed. No instance has a large enough portion of users whereby others would have problems with activity loss if they defederated, which is good. If any instance starts doing things that Instance A doesn't agree with, they can defederate, and less activity won't be much of a concern with defederating from that single instance.
But now, let's take Instance B. Instance B is planning to implement ActivityPub and join the fediverse, and when it does so, it will control 80% of the activity. In other words, it has as much activity as the rest of the fediverse combined.
However, Instance B isn't particularly trustworthy. They don't value the open web like the rest of the fediverse does, their moderation is extremely poor, and they haven't cared for general well being in the past if it meant raising profits.
Here, Instance A and instances like it have two options: defederate immediately, or wait and see.
If it defederates immediately, Instance A will see some users move to other parts of the fediverse because they're excited about the 5x increase in activity from Instance B. They probably won't go to Instance B now, but maybe Instance C or D. However, a lot of people will be fine. After all, activity is staying the way it is, and Instance B is untrustworthy anyway.
If it waits and sees, this allows people on Instance A to enjoy and get used to the 5x increase in activity. Not bad so far.
However, let's say Instance B starts having moderation issues (e.g., widespread hate speech and more-than-usual spam) as everyone reasonably predicted. Instance A now wants to defederate.
If it defederated before, no problem! Nothing needs to be done.
If it didn't and wants to start defederation now, good luck. Now, everyone on Instance A has gotten used to the 5x activity on Instance B, and you're going to have an extremely difficult time convincing them to cut the activity they see and the users they follow by 80%. Way more people will leave Instance A if it defederates now than if it had just defederated early on.
In other words, if people on Instance A come to rely on Instance B for the activity they're used to, way more people will join the camp of "I'm leaving if you defederate with Instance B" then if Instance A just defederated from the get-go.
Let's take another example. Instance B wants to try to grab a bunch of users, so after some time, they stop federating at all.
If Instance A defederated, the people there are fine. They never saw stuff from Instance B anyway.
If Instance A didn't defederate, then 80% of the content that people are used to will suddenly be gone. Most of the accounts they follow will be disconnected, and activity will fall a ton. These users on Instance A will have two options: stay, with a horrendous drop in activity and no posts from the accounts they're most interested in; or just go to Instance B.
In either case, Instance B will be fine. Most interaction was between Instance B users, so this won't be that much of a deal. But for users on other instances that are used to seeing stuff from B, it'd be catastrophic.
In short, defederating immediately has much smaller consequences than trying to defederate when whoever you want to defederate from controls most of the activity that your users see.
For-profit tech companies like #Threads and #Flipboard are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, and that's been causing a lot of chaos lately. Thus, I've found it helpful to take a step back, consider what it is about the fediverse that I value, and think about whether federation with these large platforms will bring us closer...
I literally just opened Geometry Dash and was met with a terms of service pop up.
"…Why are they showing me this? Did my data get wiped or something?"
And then I see the Tower and realize that 2.2 just released.
Glad to finally see it here. Played through Dash (which is really easy for an insane imo, beat it much more quickly than usual), and it was mostly great! Only issue is that I REALLY don't like the swing copter. It's not fun to use at all.
@juggles
Can't say I'm great at it either. Honestly, platformer game type is a weird concept for Geometry dash, but I don't mind it. The way different game modes are incorporated into it is really fun though
Now that for-profit tech companies are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, I think it's important to establish what we want with the #fediverse and whether federation with #Threads, #Flipboard, Tumblr, and the like bring us closer to or further from those goals.
With that in mind, I've come up with a few statements (in no particular order) that describe what I think is an "ideal fediverse" — a fediverse that's not necessarily realistic but that we should aim for:
No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
Users can move between instances without penalty.
Creating and running an instance requires minimal effort.
People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.
These definitely aren't comprehensive, and if you have anything you'd add, let's discuss that! They're currently helping me reassess my stance on Threads now that Flipboard is also entering the stage, and I hope they're helpful for others as well.
I'll elaborate on these five statements in the comments.
No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
This is important for instances to be able to defederate from those with bad moderation, harmful values, etc. If a person or group controls a big portion of the content that people see on an instance, then that instance will lose a lot of that content should they defederate. That person or group would essentially be able to do whatever, and instances would find difficulty defederating because they'd lose so much visible activity and thus users.
If a single entity gets enough dominance over activity, they could make defederation from them out of the question for a ton of users. Furthermore, that entity could cripple the fediverse by simply leaving it, taking a bunch of users from other instances with them. This is a big concern many people have with Threads; if 90% of the activity you see on mastodon.social comes from Threads, then Meta would be able to nab a ton of mastodon.social users by leaving the fediverse, facing those users with the choice of either losing a ton of their connections & follows or jumping ship to Threads.
But you don't even need a supermajority of content to cause that much harm. For example, take the threadiverse (Lemmy/Kbin). A large portion of visible activity is controlled by the admins of lemmy.world. Thankfully, they seem to nice people, but if they were to start (for example) being more lax with hate speech, other Lemmy/Kbin instances would either have to deal with it or lose access to a large portion of the activity pool. If any threadiverse instance were to defederate from lemmy.world — even if the lemmy.world admins started acting against the interests of the fediverse and its users — that instance would lose a dangerous number of users.
Users can move between instances without penalty.
One of the main benefits of the fediverse is that you can move to a different instance and still be able to view the same content. If the admins of your instance start making moderation decisions you disagree with or you just decide that you want to be on an instance that you yourself run, you're able to move and still interact with the content pool. Thus, as long as the platform your destination instance uses (e.g., Firefish, Kbin, Mastodon) supports the same type of content as your old one, you should be able to move without any downsides. The more penalty there is for moving, the more people will feel trapped on an instance even if they want to leave.
This is partially a matter of robust systems for moving accounts, but it's also a matter of having good options available. Mastodon has a ton of active, stable instances, so if you ever want to move (e.g., because your instance is or isn't defederating from Threads), you can do so and still be able to use Mastodon. However, the only such instance on Kbin is kbin.social (not counting instances that run Mbin, a fork with different features & development). If you want to move from kbin.social to another Kbin instance, you don't really have a lot of options. And if you're on something that's closed-source, you'll be forced to move to a different platform entirely, which may not be great for the user — an important reason why free and open-source software should be prominent on the fediverse.
Obviously, this is something that might be impossible to achieve. But even if we can't eliminate the strings attached to moving to another instance, we should try to minimize them.
People can create and run their own instances to their liking with minimal effort.
If a user wants to, they should be able to control their interactions on the fediverse through running their own instance, and doing so should require as little effort as is feasible. Many people have already set up single-person instances for the purpose of having more control over their data. If people can't do that, then they're forced to put their account and content under the control of other people. Of course, most people are fine with this provided that they trust their instance admins, but the option to be your own admin should be as available as possible.
This is part of why it's so important to have prominent open-source platforms. If Mastodon weren't open-source, then anyone who likes Mastodon but wants to control their content would be out of luck. If you like the Threads interface but don't want to be on an instance run by Meta, you just don't have that option.
People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
If someone isn't aware that they're on the fediverse, then they can't really benefit from the openness and customizability that it provides. A mastodon.social user who knows nothing of the fediverse won't know that they can move to a different Mastodon instance or interact with the same content using Friendica, as they won't know that the options exist to begin with.
Furthermore, people will have more incentive to preserve an open fediverse if they're aware that it exists. If the fediverse is filled with people who, for example, think that Threads is all there is or didn't come to Threads with an awareness of the fediverse, the fediverse becomes much easier to undermine.
There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.
If someone wants to join a closed-source instance run by a for-profit company, they should absolutely be able to. However, that should ideally be because they prefer an instance moderated by Meta, not because the free and open-source alternatives are relatively lacking. Open-source software is extremely important in order for users to have options and agency, so we should aim for these factors to not come with a sacrifice. Otherwise, companies will be able to draw most newcomers to their instance and attain a large share of the content on the fediverse, which is bad as discussed with Statement #1.
Going by this principle, if the owner over a closed-source fediverse platform starts trying to create exclusive functionality that would attract people their instance, they should be regarded with extreme caution. If you're familiar with the whole "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" thing, a company doing such would be the "Extend" phase of EEE, and that's a situation we should avoid at all costs.
@rah I'd say the fediverse in general, particularly those on instances with microblogging (as they're the ones affected by Threads, Flipboard, etc.). Obviously, everyone won't have the same values, but I think it's still important that everyone at least thinks about what they want the fediverse to grow into.
@rah Maybe I'm not being clear. When I say that "we" means "the fediverse in general", I don't mean that everyone should gather 'round and come to a consensus on what values they should uphold and who should be excluded. This is obviously something that should occur on an instance or individual level, as (A) there are a large variety of different people and instances on the fediverse with different priorities and (B) as you stated, anyone can implement ActivityPub and tap into the fediverse if they want to, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
What I mean is that people should be thinking about what they think instance owners should aim for and form their opinions on the current situation based on that. My goal with this post is to show what I think an "ideal fediverse" looks like and have others share their thoughts. Having thoughts about what's healthy for people on the fediverse and having wants based on that isn't misunderstanding the technology — it's simply expressing preferences.
OK so #Reddit search has always sucked.
It has sucked especially in the New Reddit era.
Now, they have deployed the Even Newer Reddit user interface.
One of my biggest use cases of Reddit was "what are people in various communities talking about this particular video"?
In Old.Reddit, you could at least see crossposts in the unlikely case that the YouTube URL was somehow equivalent to the actual URL posted to Reddit. You know, because YouTube videos could be called upon by many requests, and Reddit fucking gave no shit about any URL normalisation.
But they at least let you see if anyone had crossposted shit.
Apparently, the New New User Interface fucking doesn't even let you do that. I tried searching for a particular video that was already posted in particular communities. Nothing.
Tried Google Search to find this particular thing. OK, found it.
Slapped "old." to it. "6 discussions."
That's it. Reddit was already shit at finding discussions about particular YouTube videos if you didn't use old.reddit. The new Reddit interface at least pretended the crossposts were there. Crossposts no longer are there. Why the fuck do people even follow the site any more.
Why the fuck do people even follow the site any more.
Unfortunately, that's where all the content is. Things like this don't bother a lot of people — for example, discussion about YT videos wasn't something I ever used Reddit for — and as long as Reddit is the only platform providing what they're interested in, they're going to stay.
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....
Ah, I follow. Even so, I'd love to see Kbin grow as a platform for viewing, interacting with, and posting microblogs. I have gotten a ton of value out of the All Content view, and I think that more robust microblogging will make Kbin a much more attractive platform. Thus, I think it's important to consider the impact (for better or for worse) of big contributors like Flipboard and Threads, even if most of the people on Kbin rn aren't bothering with microblogs.
Do any of you eat and actually enjoy dino nuggets? ( kbin.social )
I'm not really a fan of nuggets in general. I've always been much more of a tendies human. By and large, I find the texture of processed chicken to be extremely revolting. Even as a kid, I thought they were vile and Dino nuggets always seemed to be particularly low-quality....
What food or drink do you dislike that a lot of people like? ( kbin.social )
What the title says. Feel free to get into fierce food debates in the comments....
3D-Printed Neural Tissue Grows And Functions Like a Human Brain ( www.sciencealert.com )
Researchers have created the first functional 3D-printed brain tissue that can develop and form connections in the same way as real human brain tissue.
Do you use a serial (Oxford) comma? ( kbin.social )
A serial comma (or Oxford comma) is an optional comma used before the last item in a list. For example, "bread, butter, and tax evasion" uses a serial comma, whereas "bread, butter and tax evasion" does not....
What are you reading right now? ( kbin.social )
What the title says. What books are you reading? Or if not books, what are some interesting articles you've read lately?...
Google Update Reveals AI Will Read All Your Private Messages ( www.forbes.com )
New warning as AI suddenly targets billions of private messages on smartphones…
What's something cool that you've started doing lately? ( kbin.social )
Requirements:...
Lemmy interoperability with Mastodon
As of right now, you can follow either Lemmy accounts directly or follow Lemmy communities from Mastodon relatively easily if you know what you are searching for....
Fediverse link-aggregator PieFed launches in beta test ( fediversereport.com )
We now have another thread aggregator to join Lemmy and Kbin on the fediverse!...
How social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit ( www.theguardian.com )
A mass user protest six months ago over technical tweaks had big downstream effects, and now the ‘front page of the internet’ is changed for ever
What are your thoughts on Kbin now that it's 2024? ( kbin.social )
It's a new year — about 6 months since that Reddit migration occurred — and Kbin progressed a ton in 2023. What are your thoughts on it? How much value have you gotten out of it, and what would you like to see in the future?
The free fediverses should emphasize networked communities ( privacy.thenexus.today )
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7193618...
What communities do you miss from Reddit that wish existed here? ( kbin.social )
Don't miss one, I want to hear it all.
The State of the Federation, with Mastodon's Eugen Rochko ( flipboard.video )
From the description:...
Why is kbin so full of empty stuff? ( kbin.social )
I'm not asking to be snarky or anything... I'm subbed to plenty of magazines that I enjoy reading....
A take on an "ideal" fediverse ( kbin.social )
For-profit tech companies like #Threads and #Flipboard are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, and that's been causing a lot of chaos lately. Thus, I've found it helpful to take a step back, consider what it is about the fediverse that I value, and think about whether federation with these large platforms will bring us closer...
A take on an "ideal" fediverse
For-profit tech companies like #Threads and #Flipboard are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, and that's been causing a lot of chaos lately. Thus, I've found it helpful to take a step back, consider what it is about the fediverse that I value, and think about whether federation with these large platforms will bring us closer...
How do we feel about Flipboard federating? ( kbin.social )
Flipboard has recently begun federation, starting with 25 accounts. These accounts can be viewed from Kbin with their posts showing up as microblog posts....