I've been using it differently than the article suggests I guess. So far I've only called people who blatantly use LLM instead of their own words on debate forums "clankers."
The forums are still very good platforms for automotive content and troubleshooting. I assume there are other fields where this is true. The etiquette there was always to lurk and learn before posting. Here, not so much.
There's still great places here and even on reddit to find information, the key is just to focus on finding places where people enjoy the subject of the forum XD
But yeah, lurk lurk lurk, unless you have something of value (or funny) to contribute.
The term "social media" is already toxic. When I started using the Internet, socialising and media were two separate things. Conflating the two implies that every time we say something, we are publishing an article and should care about how many views and likes we get, instead of making a genuine attempt at connection. And it suggests that every reply should be some kind of review of the post it replies to.
In the days of forums, people would just post what came into mind. They were more honest because there was no number next to your comment rating how good it was.
By nature and definition, social media is any platform that without users there would be no content. Vbulletin forums et al actually fall into that scope.
And gods do I miss them. Used to have a website i'd go for every niche discussion, and if there were points in the forum it was usually for gimmicky flash games or something and not for clout
Inside me there are two tech nerds. One is optimistic towards new tech and has the clanka pass. The other is kicking the dominos robot calling it a clanker
He calls me clanka, he calls the other kids clanka, he calls himself clanka. All the time. "Clanka this", "Clanka that", "Clanka, please", "Bitch clanka", "Clanka, have you lost your mind?", "Clanka, check that ho", "Clanka, you bullshit" and "Break yourself, clanka". He says it so much, I don't even notice it anymore. Last week in lunch, Optimus said to a classmate, "Can a clanka borrow a french fry?" And my first thought wasn't "Oh, my God. He said the word, uh, the C-word". It was now "How is a clanka gonna borrow a fry?" "Clanka, is you gonna give it back?" I'm telling you, my inside voice didn't talk like that before he got in my class.
Pure propaganda. "Make the people who don't believe in AI Genies sound like bigots, say they have slurs."
You can tell when boomer americans try to make up something "the internet is doing" because it always sounds like some 1900s huckster shit they saw on TV between paint chip snacks
I have seen absolutely nobody refer to the chatbots as "clanker". Notice how this so called 'criticism' of the AI future still accepts as true the same premise the AI fanatics are pushing, they just hold a flashlight under their chin and go, "and it's evil!!!!"
I don't think statistical word generator is as useful as all the investor types seem to think it is, and they're gearing us up for an unthinkably massive market correction in the near future. That's a real criticism of AI.
This DEFINITELY gunna get cꝏpted by rightshits (if it hasn't already)
Just sincere enough to not be obvious satire , peops outright saying they're gonna be "robophobic" (sadly don't think they're joking) , probably using mass AI panic to recruit peops rightward … writings on the wall
So many peops gonna be radicalised into ecofascism (if not just regular degular fascism) it's scary . Don't think this funny at all
È ormai un dato di fatto: Thom Yorke è un moderno re Mida della musica contemporanea, perchè tutto ciò su cui mette mano, anche se non è proprio barocco, sfarzoso e luccicante come l’oro, di sicuro è di grande valore musicale... Leggi e ascolta...
È ormai un dato di fatto: Thom Yorke è un moderno re Mida della musica contemporanea, perchè tutto ciò su cui mette mano, anche se non è proprio barocco, sfarzoso e luccicante come l’oro, di sicuro è di grande valore musicale. E Amok ne è l’ennesima conferma. Tutto questo nonostante Thom in questa tornata abbia assunto un ruolo piuttosto defilato nel processo creativo, che stando ai racconti dei componenti del gruppo è stato di una sorta di collettiva, mistica session che si è protratta quasi ininterrottamente per pochi ma intensi giorni... rocklab.it/2013/04/03/atoms-fo…
E anche se Amok non rivolta come un calzino l'attuale panorama musicale, è un album di ottima qualità, minimale e profondo allo stesso tempo; un'esperienza di ascolto decisamente unica, originale e appagante, che potrebbe esserlo anche per chi (a gra…
Privacy.sexy is an open-source privacy tool that helps users implement security and privacy best practices on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems1.
Key features include:
Hundreds of customizable privacy and security scripts
Free and transparent codebase
Reversible changes if issues occur
Web version requiring no software installation
Desktop version with additional direct script execution capabilities
Independent, portable scripts without cross-dependencies
The tool comes in two versions: 1. An online web version that runs without installing software 2. An offline desktop version with expanded functionality for running scripts directly1
The project is built using TypeScript and Vue.js, with the desktop application created using Electron2. All aspects of the application, including infrastructure and deployments, are open-source and automated through a system called "bump-everywhere"1.
This looks shady. Clearing your trash has nothing to do with enhancing your privacy and while some things are useful, like Firefox settings they are mixed with other useless things. And I also wouldn't recommend running random scripts from the internet.
If you open the page, you can also see and even edit the corresponding script in the window, there is nothing hidden. It's way more as only clearing trash, but naturally in Linux there isn't a lot of settings needed, like in Windows or Mac. Made in the UK, FOSS
In other words: It embraces the Data collection and various security liabilities of these OSs by implying Windows and McOS are viable Operating system for anything other than being spied on.
That at least Windows need to be by default debloated and customized to the root to be an reasonable private OS, is nothing new. It is possible but pretty difficult throug advanced settings, editing of the registry (risky) and diving through infinite menus. This is the reason why there are a lot apps which can do it in the safe way, like this one or others like the Hellzerg Optimizer, Shut-up10, etc.. Windows currently is an safe and stable OS, but with big issues in privacy, full of telemetries and bloatware. This in Linux naturally isn't a big problem and the few things are easy to fix-
I have to support a remote client that uses Starlink. It's a nightmare. We can deal with slow connections, we can deal with bad ping, but with Starlink what we get is the entire connection dropping every minute or so, and coming back up a short while later. It's unbelievably bad.
Good news is that it won't be from Starlink unless they decide to start moving them higher. LEO has atmospheric drag that slowly decays orbits that aren't actively maintained.
Ah yes, my comment clearly indicated Starlink was the sole cause an no additional satelites in various orbits will ever be needed, desired or will ever be launched by any other country because we are done and have all we need, forever.
You are clearly very smart. I am so happy you are here to protect us from saying something stupid. That would be embarassing.
but with Starlink what we get is the entire connection dropping every minute or so, and coming back up a short while later
I can almost guarantee that's because their terminal is in a shit location with too much of the sky obscured by trees or buildings. I had to set my parents up with it two years ago and if it can't see as much of the constellation as possible it's going to have periods of obstructed sattelite connectivity.
LEO satellites have a lot stronger signal and their phased array terminals have a surprisingly good SNR. This isn't your grandpa's Hughesnet.
I never have more than a second or two of interruptions out there even though heavy rainstorms. Thunderstorms directly overhead sometimes knock it out for a few minutes if they're dropping hail and lightning but I usually unplug my computer during those anyway. Its all about maximizing its view of the sky so it can always pick the strongest satellite at that time.. M
I hate musk too but the engineering quality in starlink is insane.
That’s not typical. Starlink is more stable than most. I monitor over 8 locations using multiple different services for internet access and Starlink is about as reliable as mpls.
The company, in a partnership with T-Mobile, is also expanding the constellation with larger, more powerful satellites to offer direct-to-cell text-messaging services, a line of business in which mobile phone users can send emergency text messages through the network in rural areas
SpaceX does launches and Starlink does satellite internet.
I think all the Musk hate here misses that moment - SpaceX does what it's intended to do which is amazingly cool all by itself, Tesla made electric cars more popular, and Starlink made satellite internet more popular.
Say you are dual-booting Debian and Arch and want to upgrade Debian oldstable to Debian stable. But you want to keep the old installation available as a fall-back option. And you also want to re-use your configuration files and dot files, but in a way that incompatible changes to your dot files in the new Debian or Arch version do never break the old program versions.
For my needs, the simplest way is to use an extra partition might be to keep it as a reserve to install the next Distribution release. So you go
partition A: Debian 12's root
Partition B: /home
Partition C: Debian 13's root
And swap A and C for the next upgrade. It is really nice to have a whole compatible fallback system.
Alternative 1: BTRFS Another possibly quicker way to do this is a larger BTRFS disk and create subvolumes from snapshots and mount these. When the subvolumes are no longer needed, they can be deleted like any folder.
Alternative 2: LVM One can also use LVM, the logical volume manager, for the same effect. It plays nicely with LUKS encryption for laptops. But I think BTRFS is simpler most times.
How to move all packages over
One can copy the system e.g. using a tar backup, fix the mount points by changing the volume label (which identifies the mount point), and do a dist upgrade then. I use "tar" here because it keeps all file attributes.
I guess that's the best way to do it on a server. But for desktop systems, I now think it is better to make a list of manually installed packages (there are tools which help with that), and to re-install the packages that are still needed from that list. This has two advantages:
One gets rid of cruft and experimental installs that are no longer needed, which is really important in the long term. (If you have ever worked in a shop where software, files and configurations were not upgraded for ten or twenty years, you might know what I am talking about: IT systems absolutely need clearing out old stuff, too, and that makes the whole concept of "stability" a lot less important).
Some systems (I am looking at you, GNOME) can break in an ugly way if doing an upgrade instead of a re-install. Very bad behaviour, but it can happen. (And this might answer the question whether Debian is more stable than Arch: Yes, as long as you don't upgrade GNOME).
keeping dot files, the copy-and-modify way
And one more thing I do for the dot files:
Say, my home folder is in /home/hvb . Then, I install Debian 13 and set /home/hvb/deb13 as my home folder (by editing /etc/passwd). I put my data in /home/hvb/Documents, /home/hvb/Photos/ and sym-link these folders into /home/hvb/deb13.
Now, default dot files are automatically created in /home/hvb/deb13 or /home/hvb/deb13/.config .
When I upgrade, I first create a new folder /home/hvb/deb14, copy my dot files from deb13, and install a new root partition with my home set to /home/hvb/deb14. Then, I again link my data folders , documents and media such as /home/hvb/Documents into /home/hvb/deb14 . The reason I do this is that new versions of programs can upgrade the dot files to a new syntax or features, but when I switch back to boot Debian 13, the old versions can't necessarily read the newer-version config files (the changes are mostly promised to be backward-compatible but not forward-compatible).
All in all this is a very conservative approach but it works for me with running Debian now for many years in a rather large desktop setup.
And the above also worked well for me with distro-hopping. Though nowadays, it is more recommended to install parallel dual-booted distros on another removable disk since such installs can also modify grub and EFI setup, early graphics drivers and so on, even if in theory dual-boot installs should be completely independent... but my experience is that is not any more always guaranteed (especially if you have an NVidia graphics card which needs extra support in EFI, but well ... in that case you asked for pain).
For the last reason, I now also run Arch in a VM managed by virt-manager - this also allows it to run both systems at once.
(What I want to point out is that there is nothing which you can't do with running Debian as host compared to an Arch host and Debian in a VM. The differences are not really that large - Arch has just often newer software and can be nice if you want to participate in the FLOSS community and contribute packets).*
Since both Debian and Arch aren't atomic distros or offer rollback... The way I do it is connect my large external USB harddisk, do a backup and then upgrade. If there's something wrong, I restore the backup, but in reality I was always able to resolve issues with the updates.
On my server I do LVM snapshots, that's fairly easy to do. I avoid BTRFS since that messed up one of my filesystems a few years ago, but I heard it got better since and it's not supposed to do that any more.
having a second system that boots can be very handy if something breaks - for example one can chroot intp the other system and fix a missing grub install
when disk space becomes scarce, one csn mount it where it makes sense
1) Every single modern distro keeps multiple known-good previously running copies of the system to boot back into 2) The disk space argument is just insane. Having TWO versions of an OS takes TWICE as much space as having one. I don't even get what you mean. You can mount a disk anywhere at any time 3) No part of any installed Linux distro can get into a state where it cannot be accessed, unless you encrypt or delete your entire disk without thinking 4) BTRFS or ZFS can shift back time or keep snapshots, so none of your reasoning is needed at all. Same with immutable distros.
The team behind Maybe just released version v0.6.0, and with it announced a major shift: the project is officially moving away from open-source development and pivoting to a B2B-focused model.
From now on, Maybe will focus on enterprise-grade data analysis and scenario planning tools for businesses. As a result, there will be no further updates, maintenance, or community support
This marks the end of Maybe as a public, code-based personal finance tool.
If you’ve been using it personally, v0.6.0 is the final release. You can keep using it as-is, but don’t expect updates.
Farewell... Maybe 👋
TL;DR
Maybe is pivoting to B2B financial forecasting and scenario planning and as a company, will no longer be actively maintaining this repository. What this means:
This fina...
If I understand the license correctly: no, if they completely rewrite the code for thei new non-open source version and get rid of any line that were developed using AGPL license.
Thailand has ordered the urgent evacuation of four provinces bordering Cambodia after violent military clashes broke out at multiple locations, prompting fears of wider escalation.
Hey a double whammy of bigotry! Not a single Western journalist would pursue anything like this because it goes against the Western narrative of reality, and the only journalists who would pursue it you've already written off as liars. Pretty little cognitive defense system you've got there.
To be fair, some do end up listening over time. I've seen people listen, change their mind, and start reading theory and dropping the anti-communism. That doesn't change that some social fascists and radlibs will endlessly complain about Marxists like it's the 60s in the US Empire, but in my experience most of us Marxist-Leninists were at some point liberals, especially in the global north.
say anything even vaguely related to China without also saying how much you hate China and everything about it = tankie
Then inevitably one person will come along and say "haha tankie, opinion rejected" and another will try to change the topic entirely to why "China is bad" for some very loosely related reason.
I'm willing to listen to the answer to my question about North Korea from the other day, but I got nothing. Here, let me ask again:
There's nothing "leftist" about a strongman controlling the means of production, and they're definitely not advocating for a stateless society free of coercion. They also have a very strict heirarchy of power, so what exactly makes you think that the regime is leftist in any way? Those bedrock positions are the exact opposite from what one could expect from the left.
I wonder why you can't answer it as a "real leftist?"
There's nothing "leftist" about a strongman controlling the means of production, and they're definitely not advocating for a stateless society free of coercion. They also have a very strict heirarchy of power, so what exactly makes you think that the regime is leftist in any way? Those bedrock positions are the exact opposite from what one could expect from the left.
What is the difference between a "strongman" and a head of state? What makes one socialist system with a leader acceptable and leftist, and another not? Are all leaders inherently antithetical to leftism, in your views? If so, then that disqualifies the vast majority of Marxism.
When you hear Marxists talk about statelessness, there are two important factors. The first is that the state, in the eyes of Marxists, is distinct from administration, management, etc, the state is the instrument by which the ruling class, the one with firm control over the means of production, oppresses the other classes in society. The second is that the state can only disappear when class disappears, and class can only disappear when all production globally is collectivized. If any socialist state erased itself, its armies, its control over capital, etc, it would be invaded and collapsed immediately.
Hierarchy of power is more of an anarchist critique than a Marxist critique. Anarchists see hierarchy in general as bad (with some caveats), while Marxists critique class dynamics. A full, late-stage communist society would lack a state, but would still have managers, administrators, and hierarchy (though no class).
This doesn't exclusively apply to the DPRK, but any AES state. The biggest issue with your analysis is grafting anarchist ideals onto Marxists, when our analysis is entirely different in the final result. We may share a hatred of capitalism and a desire for a better world based on cooperation, but there are fundamental differences between anarchist horizontalism and decentralization, and Marxist collectivization and centralization.
What is the difference between a “strongman” and a head of state? What makes one socialist system with a leader acceptable and leftist, and another not? Are all leaders inherently antithetical to leftism, in your views? If so, then that disqualifies the vast majority of Marxism.
Good question! I'm not really sure the difference really matters. The leaders in a socialist or anarchist system are provisional and only serve at the pleasure of those they represent. This is in stark contrast to the NK system, where the lower classes have absolutely no say in their representation and next to no say in the economic sphere. How is this an improvement over even liberal capitalism?
When you hear Marxists talk about statelessness, there are two important factors. The first is that the state, in the eyes of Marxists, is distinct from administration, management, etc, the state is the instrument by which the ruling class, the one with firm control over the means of production, oppresses the other classes in society. The second is that the state can only disappear when class disappears, and class can only disappear when all production globally is collectivized. If any socialist state erased itself, its armies, its control over capital, etc, it would be invaded and collapsed immediately.
Another point that I largely agree with! The state is a means of consolidating power through all three avenues of control: sovereignty (exclusive use of force), secrecy (control of information), and charismatic competition for power (like the NK military). My issue is that North Korea is doing absolutely nothing to eliminate class distinctions; on the contrary, they use incredibly oppressive rule to prevent the lower classes from achieving anything approaching political or economic power.
Hierarchy of power is more of an anarchist critique than a Marxist critique. Anarchists see hierarchy in general as bad (with some caveats), while Marxists critique class dynamics. A full, late-stage communist society would lack a state, but would still have managers, administrators, and hierarchy (though no class).
An anarchistic society has managers, administrators, and voluntary hierarchy. It is about removing the means of oppression; it is a misconception that anarchism is against hierarchy in general (another point of agreement).
But this is all largely irrelevant to my larger point: what actually makes North Korea "leftist?" The oppressive state control, the violent oppression of the lower classes in favor of a ruling elite, the restriction of basic personal and economic freedoms, the intense control of information, control of movement, and oppressive violence are, again, what we would expect from a far-right dictatorship.
So again, what is actually leftist about North Korea? Even based in Marxism? Because a highly economically stratified society is not based on any definition of "leftist" I've ever heard. It looks like a right-wing dictatorship with a coat of red paint to me.
Who owns the means of production in North Korea? It sure doesn't look like the workers to me.
There are a large number of claims you've made here with no sources. Where are you getting your information from?
This is in stark contrast to the NK system, where the lower classes have absolutely no say in their representation and next to no say in the economic sphere.
First, property is near entirely state-owned. There are very controlled and minor elements of private property, like the Rason Special Economic Zone, but production is handled at the state level. The state isn't a class, and neither are administrators, but extensions of class. Saying "lower classes" doesn't really make any sense, here. There's also a good deal of collective decision making in the economy, since it's a centralized economy and everyone is pretty much a worker in the same system, this is a necessary implement for the economy to function.
My issue is that North Korea is doing absolutely nothing to eliminate class distinctions; on the contrary, they use incredibly oppressive rule to prevent the lower classes from achieving anything approaching political or economic power.
Again, I'm not sure you know what a class is. A class is a social relation to production. The only way to eliminate class is to collectivize all of production, globally, and the DPRK has a very collectivized economy. There are criticisms to be made of its economy, but certainly not along the ideas of class.
But this is all largely irrelevant to my larger point: what actually makes North Korea “leftist?” The oppressive state control, the violent oppression of the lower classes in favor of a ruling elite, the restriction of basic personal and economic freedoms, the intense control of information, control of movement, and oppressive violence are, again, what we would expect from a far-right dictatorship.
The DPRK is leftist because it has a collectivized, socialist economy. That doesn't mean it's a utopia, but on the other hand the people actually do support their system, because they are doing well when contextualizing the extreme violence they face through brutal sanctions and recovering from genocide at the hands of the US. There aren't "lower classes" and "higher classes," but stratification in society due to different roles in the collectivized system (outside areas like Rason, which have private property and engage in foreign trade). Far-right regimes rely on bourgeois property and systems run for the purpose of the profit motive, but the DPRK's system is a centralized economy run for fulfilling needs.
Who owns the means of production in North Korea? It sure doesn’t look like the workers to me.
The means of production are publicly owned.
Overall, I really think you need to do more research on the DPRK. I have my own criticisms with it, but ultimately they aren't an imperialist nation and are supportive of their system. It's up to them to chart their own course. My hope is that one day the ROK and DPRK can normalize relations, and the entire Korean people can be unified once more, progressing hand in hand to a better future. The fact that the US millitary illegalized the popularly supported pan-Korean state and split it in two against the will of the Korean people is a tragedy time hasn't healed yet.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), also known as People's Korea and incorrectly referred to...
I never said they were an imperialist system, just that the extreme economic stratification is counter to their claims to be a leftist country.
I also never claimed that the US didn't devastate that region.
I also never said that property was not state owned; my point was that the state exists to serve the Kim regime. You can clearly see how wealth and privilege are tied to loyalty to the regime. Like I said: workers have some economic freedom, but only so far as the regime allows. While the workers "own" the means on paper, they have very little say in the economic distribution of said production. In effect, the Kim regime owns the means of production.
You're making a claim that the North Koreans are happy with their situation, but like I said information is highly controlled there. Why is the regime so afraid of information getting in if that was a stable situation? Why is there a steady stream of defectors from the state (even under the threat of extreme violence)? Why is it illegal to collectively organize labor in North Korea? Isn't that a foundational principle of Marxism? How can the workers advocate for their own rights if the only arm to do so is controlled by the violent regime, with incentives that are at odds?
The economic strarification in the DPRK is among the lowest in the world. The DPRK is not a wealthy country, nor is the Kim family excessively wealthy. They have privledges above and beyond the average person, no doubt, but the function of the DPRK's economy fundamentally cannot reach the same levels of stratification that capitalist economies do. The DPRK is not really a market economy, it doesn't really engage in traditional commodity production outside of Rason and other areas, and because of that rhere aren't these extreme profits to give to the Kim family even if they wanted to.
You also keep repeating the idea that there's very little democratic input, but that just isn't the case. The system requires worker input to function, it isn't a capitalist economy that can rely on markets to sort distribution. There's money, for sure, and some limited private property, but fundamentally the system cannot exist without those running society being able to have a say. The Kim family couldn't possibly run everything by themselves even if they wanted to. Labor is collectively organized, society-wide.
As far as control of information is concerned, that's a very standard measure proposed by Marx in the manifesto itself, it's very easy for outside influences to overwhelm the information sphere for their own gain. The US has been known to do that, especially with tools like Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, etc. Defectors were far more common in the past, during the Arduous March when the Soviet Union dissolved and natural disasters led to famine. There are even defectors that risk their lives going back to the DPRK.
All in all, you seem extremely confident in your view of the DPRK for someone who has done no research whatsoever. If you haven't, then make it a point to learn. The Black Panther Party were such big fans of the DPRK that after visiting they adopted Juche into their practice. Again, I have my own criticisms, but it's hard to have a conversation with someone who hasn't done any research and doesn't seem to be interested in sources I bring to the table either.
Kim is the leader of the regime. Your argument sounds like capitalists who say "billionaires aren't that wealthy, since their assets aren't liquid." Economic control is worth a hell of a lot more than currency.
You say that there is little economic stratification, but where were the deaths occuring during the famines of the 90s? How many of the Kims succumbed to starvation?
Yes, the US controls information and puts out propaganda as an imperialist regime. Controlling information is still a means of oppression, even when done by North Korea.
And again, the labor is "organized" by the regime. It's shocking to me that you find this controversial. This arrangement would be akin to having a union managed by HR in a capitalist structure: a cover to control labor.
The website of the Korean Friendship Association states that "(The GFTUK) conducts ideological education to ensure its members fully understand the Juche idea and gets them to take part in socialist construction and the management of the socialist economy with the attitude befitting masters. It has its organizations in different branches of industry." However, the North Korea Handbook states that the GFTUK is not designed to serve its members but the WPK. GFTUK is directly controlled by the Central Committee of the WPK.
Are you saying that the Kim regime doesn't control the WPK?
Kim Jong-Un is the head of the WPK, the main (but not only) political party in the DPRK. If my argument sounds like "billionaires aren't wealthy because they don't have much liquid," then you need to study Marxist economics more. Kim Jong-Un isn't performing an M-C...P...C'-M' circuit, production in the DPRK isn't funneled to him. They have a planned economy.
Secondly, most of the starvation happened in the rural areas, which were even more underdeveloped. One of Kim Jong-Un's major campaign goals is to bring the rural development more in line with the urban development. Social stratification exists in all socialist states, the USSR for example had a difference of about 10 times from the top to the bottom on average, but in capitalist systems this number is in the hundreds to millions to even billions. Equality is not the goal of Marxism, satisfying the needs of everyone and planning production more coherently is the goal.
As for labor organizing, yes, it's done by the WPK. Marxism has no basis in pushing for labor organizing outside the state, in a centrally planned economy this kind of organization leads to some areas having undue privledge. This was found early on in the USSR, that's why the Soviet system took over the factory committee style that was more localized and worked against the broader planned economy.
Again, I have my criticisms, but the DPRK should he able to chart their own course. I think you should read up on Marxism a bit more, without a firm analysis of capitalism it can be difficult to understand why public ownership and planning is so different from private ownership and markets. Not saying you need to read Capital yet, but just some good research at first.
It's evident to me that this is not the case so long as the Kim regime is in charge.
My biggest disagreement is that we don't really know what kind of wealth the regime controls; they aren't exactly forthcoming with that information. From the outside though, they resemble the economic distribution of many other dictatorships propped up as client states by empires.
This was a pleasant conversation though; a nice break from telling fascists to get fucked.
I think you should use this as an opportunity to get to learn the political structure of the DPRK a bit more. The Kims are beloved, but not all-powerful, the WPK isn't even the only party in government, but a coalition.
Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle said that while the nonprofit organization has always functioned as a library, this new designation makes it easier to work with the other federal depository libraries. That, he said, is a service to everyone.
“ I think there is a great deal of excitement to have an organization such as the Internet Archive, which has physical collections of materials, but is really known mostly for being accessible as part of the internet,” Kahle said. “And helping integrate these materials into things like Wikipedia, so that the whole internet ecosystem gets stronger as digital learners get closer access into the government materials.”
The Internet Archive, thanks to its designation by California Sen. Alex Padilla, joins a network of over 1,100 libraries that make government documents accessible to the public.
Sure, but "bunch" is the operative word here. People in government don't agree with each other, kinda by design.
In this particular case this is a thing any one member of Congress can do unilaterally and a democrat senator from California just decided to do it. That particular fucking loser probably doesn't agree with a bunch of the other fucking losers on a bunch of stuff, including this one.
Nothing. I read what the article below the title says, then I check it somewhere else for good measure.
You really don't need to take a hard stance every time you see two words somewhere. It is allowed to withhold judgement until you figure out what the hell you're looking at.
How so? As far as I can tell all this means is they're added to a list of official places storing public documents. Beyond the slight bragging rights, slightly increased sense of legitimacy in upcoming lawsuits and... I guess the server costs? this seems pretty neutral. I don't even think you need the official designation to actually store the documents in question.
I'm not saying Trump wouldn't try to take such a thing, but this doesn't give him any more ability to do so than he had before. Obviously he's willing to be a fascist, so he doesn't need any change in an organization's designation to do something undemocratic toward them. He has exactly as much control as he had before. This doesn't change anything.
Trump has exactly as much control over it now as he did before: none. It literally just means that all official government documents go to them for archiving. This is cool and neat and raises the profile of the Internet Archive, but other than that it doesn't really mean anything. Trump can of course do some undemocratic shenanigans to them, but no more or less than he could before this designation.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Manus is a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions. It excels at various tasks in work and life, getting everything done while you rest.
The Sapienza computer scientists say Wi-Fi signals offer superior surveillance potential compared to cameras because they're not affected by light conditions, can penetrate walls and other obstacles, and they're more privacy-preserving than visual images.
[…] The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture.
The tracking happens even with a big reflector/scatterer on your head, but as long as you dont wear it regularly, the system would have difficulty identifying you from wave propagation alone
I've seen some article recently that the patterns of Wi-Fi/Bluetooth (don't remember which one) interference with brainwaves can be scanned to reconstruct brainwave signature remotely, meaning that it might be possible to scan anyone's EEG from Wi-Fi/Bluetooth distance. And there are some AI advancements for reconstructing inner monologue from EEG. So maybe we're not so far from actual remote mind-reading.
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Well they can identify you are the same person but not your identity.. So it's like a disenbodied fingerprint.
I suppose they could potentially make some database and train an AI on it someday to match to actual identities, but usefulness would be pretty limited at only 95% accuracy. That's a false reading 1/20 times, so I suspect it would fail bigly to accurately recognize people from large data sets.
Never said that it wasn’t easy, it’s just harder than with facial recognition. In theory you could do it correctly in a way that it isn’t indentifiable.
Also this works in places where faces are protected
I'd imagine it's like online advertisers: they convert your fingerprint to a token to try to sell you shit, but they allegedly don't know who exactly you are or where you go. So visiting animatedllamaporn.com is still your little secret...
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You'd need fabric with continuous metallic threads that form a complete mesh to actually block the 2.4/5GHz signals - most DIY foil approaches leave gaps that WiFi can still penetrate thru.
I feel like you’re overthinking this. There are people who buy crystal-infused drinking cups to reset their personal feng shui. (Spoiler: it’s just glitter.)
I really wish I didn’t have morals. It’s so easy to make money if you’re willing to fleece people.
I'm generally pro research, but occasionally I come across a body of research and wish I could just shut down what they're doing and rewind the clock to before that started.
There is no benefit of this for the common person. There is no end user need or product for being able to identify individuals based on their interactions with WiFi signals. The only people that benefit from this are large corporations and governments and that's from them turning it on you.
Continued research will ease widespread surveillance and mass tracking. That's not a good thing.
If all you need is presence detection then a motion sensor would be vastly more efficient.
If you actually need identity detection, then maybe, but you'll still have to have a camera or detailed access logs to associate the interference signature with a known entity and at that point you may as well just put an RFID reader under the bowl you throw your keys into or use facial or gait detection.
This kind of thing relies on the fact that the emitter and environments are static, impacting the propagation of the signals in a predictable way and that each person, having a unique physique, consistently interferes with that propagation in the same way. It's a tool that reports "the interference in this room looks like the same interference observed in these past cases."
Search and rescue is a very dynamic environment, with no opportunity to establish a local baseline, and with a high likelihood that the physiological signal you are looking for has been altered (such as by broken or severed limbs).
There are some other WiFi sniffing technologies that might be more useful for S&R such as movement detection, but I'm not sure if that will work as well when the broadcaster is outside the environment (as the more rubble between the emitter and the target the weaker your signal from reflections against the rubble).
Don't think of this as being able to see through walls like with a futuristic camera, think of this as AI assisted anomaly detection in signal processing (which is exactly what the researchers are doing).
Microwave based ground penetrating radar is actually different from WiFi. Also the technology referenced in the link is a motion based body locator, not an identity recognition device.
This is different technology doing different things than what the original article was talking about.
I mean I don't understand this as a lay person, so if it doesn't work then fair enough, but if wifi signals can identify human beings, and pets, when a building collapses better than other methods, or even augment the capabilities already used, then at least there is some benefit from this technique. It's not going to disappear, Genie is out of the bottle now, so why not at least put it to a good use instead of keeping it only being abused by the billionaires and other evil entities.
It's too late now to stop that and I hate that they can do this.
Please don't mistake me trying to find a silver lining as anything other than trying to find a reason that this isn't just another way we are fucked but the science is what it is so out it to better use. It's an interesting capability regardless of how it can be abused, and since we aren't going to stop using the technology we should really understand exactly how this works by using it and making it was beneficial as possible.. Until we were ready to ban the tech, which I have no faith that we will ever.
A bespoke device made to do this, not just your wifi router at home, might as well study it for good praises, or we may if only be abused with little defence against our collective abusers
WiFi uses a subset of the significantly wider microwave band. Ground Penetrating Radar also uses a subset of the microwave band. While there can be some overlap, the frequencies desired for GPR will very broadly based on what you are looking for, what you are looking in, and how deep you are looking for that thing. The wattage supplied can also differ.
WiFi and Microwaves in general are most definitely not the same thing and I will absolutely encourage you to not set up a 1kW 3GHz jamming antenna for your WiFi needs.
Could you use WiFi for search and rescue? Maybe for a narrow set of circumstances, but in almost all situations a dedicated GPR option will be better.
This also won't identify a victim, only revealing that one exists.
First - someone comes up with this. Next, privacy researchers and black/white/grey hat techies come up with methods to defeat it.
Better for surveillance tech research like this to be published out in the open than developed in some secret lab. I figure these researchers are doing more positive than negative by publishing their findings. It's not like if they didn't publish, someone else wouldn't come up with this and possibly use it clandestinely.
When anyone or anything says that their product works "up to x%" I always presume it doesn't really work at all. Christ, 1% is included in that "up to 95.5%" vague bullshit statement.
I believe the reason they had to say "up to" is because the "signatute" will vary day to day ever so slightly (natural weight fluctuation), and if you gain or lose weight it can change dramatically, so the AI would have to constantly consider that and adjust it's records.
Honestly, unpopular opinion, but as long as it isn't very short wavelength RF and they allow for self-hosted/open-source alternatives, I do find it a bit more privacy respecting than cameras, of course they have to say they are using the technology in public places.
It also has it's ways of fooling it, instead of wearing a wig and a false nose, you could wear a carbon-infused silicone fat suit to change the way you interact with RF.
I know people, funded, building WiFi scanners, but for the industry. They are cheap and can scan big stuff but they are quite imprecise, I wonder if you have like to stand in a specific pose on a specific spot for it to work?
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I can imagine this being initially an accidental discovery like oh every time so and so’s body interacts with the WiFi signal it’s the same pattern… until someone starts exploring this further… and then some engineer or their manager started looking for applications for this. In my experience engineering researchers especially are very good with coming up with use cases for whatever tech they’re working with, with little ethical consideration.
I doubt it. You'd need to be looking really closely at the waveforms to notice this, so they were likely already doing something similar, like that research that can pinpoint where people are in a house based on their WiFi. They were probably already doing something creepy before they noticed that this was more straightforward than they expected.
Once you start playing with radiowaves and antenna you start noticing the intricate ways it plays with and around bags of water like bodies. I'm sure the original research on location/movement tracking was due to scientists trying not to get interference, later once they figured it out it was natural to see how much data they could get out of a radio interference profile.
I remember the original tech was going to be marketed as a way to tell if your old person (parent etc) had fallen down and stopped moving. Not the best use case, and then the privacy implications became clear. Once that happens the race begins to exploit the tech.
...But the eventuality here is something like a Star Trek tricorder that can take multiple vitals and detect irregularities from across the waiting room. Sensors that remember who was in a room and what settings they had. Etc. Some cool thing besides the bad stuff (microtarget those ads).
Well I heard about this and thought "this will be great for home automation", but I also know that someone was equally excited about using this to rob people of basic freedoms or being a fucking creep or both.
Cameras require light, while radio waves works almost as well in darkness.
A motion sensor is an extra device that needs to be connected, have power and so on.
There are already radio wave motion- and room occupancy sensors where you can specify zones and so on, but if I could have personalized on top of that I'd take it.
Finally, using a thing for something useful other than its intended purpose is kinda fun.
People willingly provide enough tracking of themselves already
While this could have military applications, the need to generate a profile of the person you want to track makes this less of a concern for your average “carries a phone everywhere” person
Tech companies are always foaming at the mouth to get more data. Yes they know who you are but what do you think, how do you feel, how do you move? The only way to go is to get richer data. This satisfies that addiction. You really think mark Zuckerberg won’t use this against you if he can?
The resulting image must just basically look like a shadow, I can't imagine that they're going to get much internal detail with Wi-Fi considering that my router's signal practically gets blocked by a piece of cardboard.
This research essentially amounts to, humans can be individually identified with nothing more than low quality x-rays. Well yeah, so what, you can also use visible light and in any situation where you're going to use Wi-Fi to detect someone, it's got to be easier to buy a cheap CCTV camera.
First of all: cardboard does NOT block electromagnetic waves. You need a Faraday Cage for that. And even then, it has to have holes of a certain size to block specific wavelengths/frequencies. It’s why you have a mesh on the door of your microwave for example.
Secondly: they’re not attempting to photograph you. Just identifying your unique signature once would allow them to track your location anywhere where they have the gear installed.
EDIT: I suppose your comment is written in a way that it's not clear whether you're saying certain frequencies absolutely require meshes of a certain size to be blocked or if you're just adding that extra detail about the design of Faraday cages for the hell of it. But...
Original comment: It doesn't have to have holes to block radiation. A continuous sheet blocks all frequencies. A mesh is just nice so we can see through the cage or allow air to pass etc.
From the page you linked: "A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material." "... if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the radiation."
My bad, a Farady Shield works just as well and it doesn’t need holes. But I was thinking about ways to combat this while posting and a solution involving conductive fabric was going through my head during that moment.
They explicitly went into the advantages over cameras: - Any light condition (of course IR lighting with IR cameras are the gold standard so this can argueably be met otherwise) - The ability to cover multiple rooms through walls with a device. A sub-10 GHz signal can penetrate most interior walls. People could be tracked without even being able to see a camera and by extension not knowing where to mess with to defeat surveillance.
So perhaps a building takes a picture of everyone as they come in the front door and also establishes a 'WhoFi' profile for that person. They could keep track of their movement through the building while maintaining an actionable correlation to a photo.
You know, this, and the using wifi to see through walls stuff to me just immediately seemed to fall into "don't research this, it can only be used for evil".
I don't get why we bother studying these types of things.
Yeah, like, why learn how to split the atom if all we can do is splode stuff. It's not like we can cure cancer or power things without emitting planet killing gasses or anything.
And this here folks is the true ending. No one there is going to stop it as always.
Congratulations! You are now fully fucked!
There is the draft dodger, he is located in building #52556 in this city, info updated 125 milliseconds ago. He left his phone at his house 5 states away, go get him.
It was very much not even far fetched at that point. 1984 wrote about the same kind of surveillance, and at that time it would have been pretty far fetched. It was published in 1949; the video camera was only 24 years old at that point.
Привет! Хотелось бы узнать, кто из вас уже пробовал использовать Manus - китайский искусственный интеллект? Если вы уже пользовались этой ИИ, расскажите, пожалуйста, каков ваш опыт разработки приложений для компьютера с её помощью? Насколько удобно и эффективно оказалось использовать Manus для таких задач?
Manus is a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions. It excels at various tasks in work and life, getting everything done while you rest.
È ovviamente ironico ma, anche per via del mio nuovo Papiellify che mi sta tenendo letteralmente le mani occupate, adesso sto scrivendo meno papielli della roba mia qui sopra… peccato. Ma va bene, suppongo ci sia comunque tempo per scrivere un piccolo aggiornamento, prima di andare a letto… tanto, se già ieri sera ho ampiamente […]
ripaperamento delle pigne nintendiche per mezzo del cartatore (aggiornamenti Papiellify e usi pratici)
È ovviamente ironico ma, anche per via del mio nuovo Papiellify che mi sta tenendo letteralmente le mani occupate, adesso sto scrivendo meno papielli della roba mia qui sopra… peccato. Ma va bene, suppongo ci sia comunque tempo per scrivere un piccolo aggiornamento, prima di andare a letto… tanto, se già ieri sera ho ampiamente ritardato il sonno perché ho come al solito perso la cognizione del tempo a programmare, e la sera prima ugualmente perché dovevo fare gli ultimissimi ritocchi al progetto per l’esame del giorno dopo (…che manco sono serviti, maremma cara), allora stasera posso fare lo stesso dopo essermi liberata dal giogo della carta. 👍
In mezzo a questa tale mia disperazione, almeno, c’è qualcosa di buono da vedersi in come, piano piano, tutti i miei strumenti lavorino sempre meglio tra di loro, e come io quindi mi stia avvicinando in modo sempre più comodo ed efficace ai miei piani finali (purtroppo, appunto, a scapito del sonno, ma vabbé). Avendo solo dal giorno prima fatto pace con la creazione di fogli sfiziosi grazie alla previa creazione di Papiellify, infatti, sono potuta tornare qualche attimo a Pignio; che, tra i tanti motivi, come accennai, è stato creato anche per permettermi di raccogliere materiale relativo a schifezze da stampare, oltre ai meme da ospedale psichiatrico… 🦫
E quindi, ieri sera, in un attimo (…talmente tanto “attimo” da avermi fatta andata a mimir un’ora più tardi del normale, e il mio normale è già tardissimo), ho implementato una cosa che avevo stranamente dimenticato dall’inizio, cioè il listino di singole directory del file system… e, lasciando stare che pure stavolta mi sono accorta solo la mattina in produzione di un piccolo difetto nella app (e ormai, con questo progetto, questo schemino è una certezza, sigh), oggi ho potuto godere meglio di quelle 91 immagini che ieri ho caricato in blocco sulla piattaforma, appunto in una cartella apposita: tutte (?) le carte da lettera di Nintendo Swapdoodle, rigorosamente ottenute tramite screenshot a manina dalla app sul mio 3DS e qui ricaricate violando il copyright (di software oggi non più ufficialmente distribuito)!!! 😍 Quindi, mi sono poi nuovamente messa all’opera sul fronte cartaceo mediato digitalmente, adoperandomi nel tentativo di trasformare una a caso di queste carte da lettera (di cui una gran parte onestamente molto belle e interessanti, e ne godo che ora siano preservate sul mio Pignio) in dei normali fogli per appunti — a dimensione ISO A6, anziché il quadrato di 250×230 pixel che Nintendo ci ha (in)gentilmente concesso, ma per A4 o altro vale lo stesso — e ci sono riuscita. Ho dovuto implementare ancora qualche altra robetta nel fogliatore per farlo, con non poca fatica (e non ho ancora finito…), ma ce l’ho fatta, e trovo sia incredibilmente magico vedere fianco a fianco l’originale immaginetta di dimensioni micragnose e il mio riadattamento — fatto col taglia e cuci, ma pulito, senza stretching… e soprattutto semi-automatico. 😋
E si, stavolta la questione è davvero tutta qui, scusate se è poco; non sto banalmente cacciando fuori magie, bensì sto poco a poco riuscendo attivamente a combattere il principio di Murphy per cui non si può mai fare niente senza che qualcos’altro vada fatto prima. Comunque sia, i nuovi piccoli aggiornamenti che insomma ho fatto a Papiellify (assieme ai tanti ancora non discussi per il Pignio, ma vabbé) sono già online… e ho aggiunto pure il modello creato stavolta alla raccolta dei file: memos.octt.eu.org/m/gnwNvbS4zv… (dovrebbe essere l’ultimo in lista). Quindi ora, forse, posso dormire… ma domani c’è da rilegare questi 10 fogli in un quadernino da 40 pagine, quindi il grind per me non finisce mai. 😵
With the passing of Chuck Mangione at age 84 today, I’m dedicating this week’s Throwback Thursday to the time I played a Mangione chat, Legend of the One Eyed Sailor, with the Jim Ott Brass Ensemble at the 2015 Drum Corps International World Championships
With the passing of Chuck Mangione at age 84 today, I’m dedicating this week’s Throwback Thursday to the time I played a Mangione chat, Legend of the One Eyed Sailor, with the Jim Ott Brass Ensemble at the 2015 Drum Corps International World Championships Semifinals.
“The family of Chuck Mangione is deeply saddened to share that Chuck peacefully passed away in his sleep at his home in Rochester, New York on July 22, 2025."
Open up developer console (F12) network tab and reload page/play audio. In the list of network requests, look for something that looks like the resource you want (e.g. in this case, filename: "mp3", initiator: "media", type: "mpeg"), right-click and "save response as". This doesn't work on every site, but works on yours!
Fancier sites do not serve media files directly but fetch encoded chunks of data and recombine them using javascript. To get the whole file back you need to re-implement the javascript, which is what yt-dlp does, but only works for sites it knows how to handle.
For this website, it seems the only way is by fetching the MP3 URL from the network tab (or a random JavaScript file) and passing it into yt-dlp like so:
As the other comment said, if you inspect page html source (ctrl-U) and ctrl-F search for "mp3", the URL of the embedded audio file is also right there in plaintext in the middle of javascript code, but it's merely good fortune that the developer left it easily visible and not renamed or obfuscated in some way. Saving from the network tab works in more cases in general.
You don't need to use yt-dlp to fetch files 😁. It will let itself be used as wget, sure, but the browser is already capable of saving files - that's it's job! Paste the link into the address bar.
Thanks for helping me get this far but now I'm stuck. Neither yt-dlp nor pasting the url into the browser works. The latter gets me the image below, yt-dlp says it's not a valid url
Edit: I got it to work with yt-dlp. I forgot the quotes around the url
Yep! The "save response as" works in more cases because it already includes all the correct cookies/referrers that sites use to protect against hotlinking.
One other thing to try: addons.mozilla.org/firefox/add… (presumably also available for other browsers). Then hold shift while you reload the page, and play the media. Chances are extremely good the addon will catch it and start dancing in your toolbar. Open the addon, click the file you want to download, and it should just download.
Israel is paying to have MAGA social media influencers, with millions of followers, visit Israel to learn how to keep US youth supporting Israel, ignoring Gaza.
The App Store is designed to be a safe and trusted place for all ages, including children. The age rating system for apps and games has been updated in order to provide people with more granular age ratings.
(Originally posted in response to @how's announced ultimatum wrt the future of SocialHub.)
Unless a community team steps up, SocialHub will cease to be ..
@how is urgently asking members of this community to brainstorm and consider options to keep this community not only alive, but make it thrive as one of the grassroots developer centers that help evolve the fediverse. SocialHub Community Values Policy
Now there’s a deadline: the activitypub.eu domain that hosts this community’s email service expires on September 10, 2025 [..]
So, either way the change is coming. I’d rather have it come in a structured way.
In 2019 @how and Petites Singularités graciously took custodianship of SocialHub, and I for one am very thankful for that! I am sure many in the fediverse developer landscape share that gratitude too.
For people reading this and considering community involvement.. when does P.S. plan to give public announcement / responsible disclosure of SocialHub winding down?
Perhaps it can be hosted in read-only mode for another year or two? That would be nice.
I believe there are ways to export the forum and turn it into a static html site, which could be hosted permanently to keep the information archive intact and accessible. silverpill:
Most developers have already left, so I think shutting the forum down is not a bad idea.
Did they leave or is the forum federated? @strypey did step up, and some time ago there was also interest of other people. Let's see where things go.
Another option is that W3C SocialCG takes over the custodianship role in addition to the activitypub.rocks website, if they are willing.
On a recent episode of the Dot Social podcast, John O’Nolan of Ghost said; “For the size of the group [working on federating long form articles], which as you say is not large, man, we are spread across Mastodon DMs sometimes, an email thread other …
Most developers have already left, so I think shutting the forum down is not a bad idea.
If they've all gone somewhere else, then SH has been replaced. In that case, I would agree it makes sense to convert it onto a read-only archive.
OTOH If they've just scattered to the four winds, and there's no replacement, then this is a collective action problem to be solved. Potentially by a community-driven reboot of SH. aschrijver:
Another option is that W3C SocialCG takes over the custodianship role in addition to the activitypub.rocks website, if they are willing.
That would make sense, given SH sits under a domain they are now managing. I'd be happy to work with SocialCG on this.
Most developers have already left, so I think shutting the forum down is not a bad idea.
If they’ve all gone somewhere else, then SH has been replaced. In that case, I would agree it makes sense to convert it onto a read-only archive.
OTOH If they’ve just scattered to the four winds, and there’s no replacement, then this is a collective action problem to be solved. Potentially by a community-driven reboot of SH.
It seems contentious to claim that "most developers have left" when the forum continues to show activity. In the past month, 44 topics have new posts, the majority of which are not federated topics. Who are these developers, have they really left, and does their leaving justify shutting down the forum? What is the alternative venue or forum for discussing ActivityPub-related topics, community, software, standards, etc? Does such an alternative (if it exists) provide a better experience for discussing these things?
If the answer is "they're on fedi now", then this is what I would categorize as "scattered to the four winds, and there's no replacement". The value of SocialHub is that it is a gathering place for these discussions, and it allows for those discussions to be long-form. There is a world of difference between a forum thread and a chain of replies in 500 characters or less. This has been previously discussed as well: aschrijver:
silverpill:
Most developers have already left, so I think shutting the forum down is not a bad idea.
The value of this SocialHub forum is in bringing people together to discuss things, and the introduction of federation in its current form has been arguably counterproductive to this end. Quite simply, if the discussions about ActivityPub are spread all over random pockets of microblogging, then this is an inferior experience to a proper forum with an actual social context. You can aggregate a bunch of microblog posts, but that's not the same -- the focus just isn't there in the same way that a real thread would remain mostly focused on the same topic. Replying to something is not the same as having a directed discussion. Every new reply is a chance for the topic to drift away from where it started, and if all you have is a reply tree, then you can't recognize these shifts.
What then? Do we converge on the w3c/activitypub issue tracker, or on the SocialCG mailing list? Or is the discussion around ActivityPub dead, and all that's left to do is have ad-hoc communications between various devs without any sort of coordination or commonplace? Maybe that's fine for the developers who have supposedly already left, because what's the point of having conversations when all you're trying to do is fix a one-off incompatibility between two projects? I don't think it's conducive to any sort of broad alignment, though.
At the end of the day, if the financial and organizational sponsor wants to back out, then we can't really do anything to force them to continue, but I think it's more worthwhile to consider the reboot rather than the shutdown. We can't easily fold the scope of this place into the issue tracker, because issue trackers are not general discussion forums. We can't easily fold the scope of this place into the mailing list, because this place was started to avoid flooding the entire SocialCG with ActivityPub-specific matters. So ideally something ought to occupy this niche.
On a recent episode of the Dot Social podcast, John O’Nolan of Ghost said; “For the size of the group [working on federating long form articles], which as you say is not large, man, we are spread across Mastodon DMs sometimes, an email thread other …
The various observations @trwnh makes are spot on. trwnh:
Quite simply, if the discussions about ActivityPub are spread all over random pockets of microblogging, then this is an inferior experience to a proper forum with an actual social context.
"Scattered to the winds" is also my observation. Anyone noted the new HTTP Signatures proposal to the ActivityPub community? Maybe by coincidence or by having a good 'following' collection. Or maybe because I created a cross-reference as a commons janitor. It means now at least there's archive that it happened, though the content of the discussion may already be gone, link-rotted as happens on microblog timelines.
What does it mean to be federated as a forum? That is what I mused about in the fragmentation discussion, and I formulated a Need:
Support the communication and cocreation of all participants in the ActivityPub ecosystem to help foster healthy growth and evolution of the Fediverse.
Note there is not the word "community" here. It is the vaguest term when it is just dropped casually. What is the "FOSS community" for instance? I claim it doesn't exist unless you use "community" in most handwavy terms. Long ago as facilitator I came to the conclusion that SocialHub was not a community, but just a discussion forum. And that though that is a shame, that still is valuable. These discussions are in the archives of this forum.
What should we do?
In order to be able to talk about "community" it has to be well defined what that entails ..
Collect problems that hold the AP dev community back from collaborating and evolve the foundational technologies that the dev ecosystem of the fediverse relies on.
Collect the challenges SocialHub faces to address these problems.
Refine the Need above, breakdown into more granular needs and find other requirements for a prolongation of SocialHub on a healthy trajectory.
Let people and groups thereof, like @strypey before (please boost his call to action), step up and announce themselves
I propose everyone to step up to prepare a Community Plan consisting of ..
Wiki post (such that it bumps the list upon edits) with a summary of the plan.
Separate discussion topic referenced from the wiki post, to discuss details of the plan.
Objective: Convince @how that responsible custodianship is taken care of, and it is responsible to hand over these tasks to the new community custodians.
---
Listing some needs and requirements that SocialHub always had, or for a long time already ..
Reach the AP dev community, connect people for focused discussion.
Provide insight in ongoing discussions such that others can chime in in real-time.
Keep record and archive that can be searched, quoted and cross-referenced.
Provide entry point to the ecosystem where newcomers can discover, onboard themselves.
Become native to the fediverse. SocialHub is to be part of the fediverse via federation.
Be a helpful tool to allow the FEP Process to fulfill its custodianship role for FEP's.
On diversity @jdp23 I would add that point 5 equates to the diversity of the fediverse itself (iff 'federation-done-well') and that point 6 acknowledges the need for a decentralized developer environment, where there can be many independent dev hubs furthering AS/AP et al. This notion promotes diversity in itself, and SocialHub in this setup does not take an authoritative position nor gatekeeper position.
The diversity problem + challenges then boil down to 1) the diversity that the microbloggoverse fedi and its moderation processes gives, and 2) how forum federation / threadiverse is able to forge community on top of that (as a well-defined concept) using the fediverse social graph where ecosystem participants and prospects (newcomer onboarding) engage.
And that brings this to a mighty interesting applied research area, on the basis of which alone a SocialHub reboot might be a very worthy undertaking. As mentioned above both @strypey and me in that fragmentation discussion were wondering:
What does it mean when we say that a Discussion forum has become "part of the fediverse"?
If I might give this a shot to formulate a definition ..
Federated discussion forums are like collaborative gardening centers where a group of fedizens gathers together around a theme and fosters a curated garden of relevant information and connections to other groups and people to interact with, have insightful discussions and deepen relationships, and to enrich the collective knowledge base together.
From a more technical perspective you might consider Federated discussion forum software to constitute a collaborative / multi-user ActivityPub client with dedicated management features for content curation, aggregation and moderation.
You don’t need to be willing to volunteer for anything other than being on the call. I’m just looking for indications that people still think SH is (or could be) a useful community service, and worth rebooting.
Any discussion and volunteer efforts to collect that information is welcome of course. But as I see it (interpreting @how's ultimatum) there's a stark choice within 4 weeks time of:
Either a community team steps up with a Community Plan that @how feels comfortable transferring custodianship to, before stepping away from that role with P.S.
Or there is no viable plan and team, and @how with P.S. is tasked with responsible shutdown.
What is a viable plan, what is a viable community then? Well, again my opinion, but there is no need at all to be broadly interesting, relevant to a large group, or targeting the entire dev ecosystem. A community team may choose any niche area to focus on. It is up to them. Viable in my book means first of all:
There is a team willing to take the commitment, and @how approves on the (transition) plan.
After that happens then I think it is important that the new team has free reign to do whatever they want to forge healthy community in whatever direction, scope and audience they want to serve/explore. They should be able to revitalize, reposition and foster the community as they think is best. They are now sole custodians of that, the ones making the fresh start. The "Why?" and "What to do about it?" may not be all that relevant against their new direction, the mission and vision of this new team.
I'd personally definitely reposition, and can imagine many different directions that might be interesting for a community to explore..
"We want to focus on improving the developer experience for newcomers that is still deplorable to this day. We will dedicate on lowering barriers to entry of the fediverse as much as possible."
"We focus on bringing the qualities and benefits of linked data to the forefront, in ways that still appeals to JSON-only crowds. We'll bridge gaps with other linked data standards."
"We focus on becoming a portal that collects feedback from fedizens, whose voices are insufficiently heard, in the developer-oriented release processes of individual apps."
"We will focus on collecting all the highly innovative ideas around decentralized networking, and give space for people to think out of the box, be creative and unrestricted by what's currently possible."
"We want to emphasize the 'social' in social hub, and give minority group a stronger voice in the developer community. We will actively reach out to developers other than those 'from the West' who dominate the scene."
"We will focus on the C2S side of the fediverse, which we consider to be the path to future of social networking."
"We think it is currently fine as it is, and will gladly support that from now on."
" ... [ add your dream community plan here ] ... "
Thus far 2 people have stepped forward. @strypey and @lullis how do you like the idea to outline thoughts, ideas and plans for the reboot of this community in a separate topic? As a means to excite and attract other people.
It seems contentious to claim that “most developers have left” when the forum continues to show activity. In the past month, 44 topics have new posts, the majority of which are not federated topics.
Great point @trwnh. Here's a recent example of how SH has been used. @claire, a member of the Mastodon team, came here to consult with devs from other projects about plans for federated Quote Posts in Mastodon, with an eye to documenting their approach through the FEP process (created here). The topic was created in Feb this year and constructive discussion is ongoing 5 months later. To me, this alone demonstrates that SH is useful, and worth saving. aschrijver:
do you like the idea to outline thoughts, ideas and plans for the reboot of this community in a separate topic?
Sounds great. I really like all the aspirations you lay out above, although it does make me realise that SH has a potentially huge brief. So it's hardly surprising the forum has only realised a fraction of its potential so far.
Oh and I know @jdp23 and I have a tendency to butt heads (most recently on the SocialMusic forum). But they make some fair points in this thread, and ask a good question here; jdp23:
If you wait until after the new community team is set up, how do you know that you haven’t already replicated the current problems in ways that will be hard or even impossible to fix later?
To me, this is not a 'one and done' process. The nature and infrastructure of SH has been negotiated and altered before, and no doubt will be again.
What we're trying to do right now, under urgency, is to put together a transitional team that can keep the lights on until at least the end of the calendar year. While we figure out more permanent solutions for;
hosting: both admin work and funding for any upstream costs
community management: moderation, outreach, conflict resolution, etc
governance: active stewardship to ensure that both of the above continue to be taken care of. In ways that facilitate the SH mission; being neutral ground for devs to parlay about pan-fediverse concerns
Once we've made arrangements to keep SH from blinking out of existence, I'd really like to see us put together a survey to send out to all fediverse devs. Past and present, of servers, clients and other tools. To find out if they've used SH, whether they still do, what they consider useful about the way it's been operated, and what would make it more attractive as a place for them to interact with other devs.
Hi! As you may be aware, Quote Posts are an often-requested feature for Mastodon, but this is something we are careful to implement properly, offering a proper framework for users to consent to being quoted.
Sounds great. I really like all the aspirations you lay out above, although it does make me realise that SH has a potentially huge brief. So it’s hardly surprising the forum has only realised a fraction of its potential so far.
These are not aspirations for one community, certainly not of SH (though opinions vary here), but ideas for different directions. SocialHub started out in a great position as literally the tool that SocialCG used for communications between the dev community regarding ActivityPub standardization. Then SocialCG went dormant and SH was the only active hub for a time.
From my time and experience as founder of Humane Tech Community I learned that having too large a scope and audience means you can only have a discussion forum run by staff, and not what you can meaningfully call a "community". At SocialHub I made various calls and put much effort into having people state their level of commitment and interest, and the outcomes were very clear: SH for a long time was just a discussion forum, where devs can conveniently read stuff on their subject of interest, and reply to them. That's it. No community at all. And in itself this is a perfect raison d'être for SH to exist. But we should be fair about it then, and accept SH for what it really is.
Later on, if anything, the custodianship of the FEP process is the only well-scoped true 'community-level activity', and that role might be further established (i.e. the "guarantee open ecosystem" mission and "bottom-up standardization process" vision), if there are folks interested in doing so. Yet here @silverpill - the currently only real active FEP facilitator - does not see merit, and is open to do everything in the codeberg issue tracker of the FEP (which I doubt is a good idea, but that's a different discussion).
In any case, in follow-up to @trwnh, looking at the #standards:fep category, a decent amount of good discussion takes place on SocialHub. And it is feedback we can still consult and respond to, contrary to all the FEP communication that shifted to the microblog timelines, where that feedback is all lost unless explicitly linked to. This makes the FEP more of a "do whatever you want" thing for any dev to spec just enough features for their own app, without much rigorous scrutiny from the dev community at large wrt improving general interop in the ecosystem. trwnh:
That’s quite a lot of things and generally enough to justify the forum’s continued existence rather than shutting it down. Of course, that doesn’t solve the (potential?) sponsorship issue being posed here that is necessary to answer for that continued existence.
Generally I'd define viable community as:
A viable community is where enough of its members care enough for its continued existence.
And with that care are committed to step up and help guarantee that existence. Very often this boils down to more or less the 90-9-1 rule, where one percent of members takes that responsibility seriously.
Currently in separate thread(s) and wiki post(s) we can gather what it takes to continue as-is, what problems are that led to current need for a reboot, and what ideas exist for fresh new directions. I'd advise using wiki post to summarize stuff (this thread for example is already 23 posts long and only TLDR's others). And it'd be great if @how could assign forum moderator or even forum admin privilege to some people so they are enabled to organize and steer this thing along efficiently.
Cross-referencing to social.coop discussion on Loomio, where @strypey had the great idea to raise awareness on this topic, and asked if members are interested to help and/or the cooperative to consider taking custodianship. I just added to that discussion myself:
A Fediverse instance for people interested in cooperative and collective projects. If you are interested in joining our community, please apply at https://join.social.coop/registration-form.html.
> I answered this on the forum, but your and mine mastodon thread does not show that
The federation of replies from SH into Mastodon might take some time. Due either to the generally slow performance of Mastodon, or to the issues you've raised with the impacts of AP federation of the SH Discourse instance;
Admittedly I'm only a hobbyist ActivityPub developer, I've been toying with a little implementation on nights and weekends for a few months, but I wanted to chime in on the "None of the developers want this, they've all moved on" sentiment and say:
As a lurker, I've found this forum incredibly useful, and would hate to see it go away.
I know community building is under appreciated, difficult, work. So if you haven't heard it enough, thank you to those of you involved in making this place run.
I'd pitch in what effort I can to keep it around, but acknowledge that I can't offer much.
Thank you @Hanse00, and it is great to hear you get value from SocialHub.
(Generally speaking it matters a lot when people speak out their appreciation for a commons based initiative they benefit from. There's an imbalance in our fediverse culture I think where people, often from the sidelines, are ready to pounce with unconstructive criticism. Leaving little room where fertile seedling can mature into strong trees. I regularly say it leads to an environment where "we divide ourselves to be conquered". We need a more forgiving culture, where there is acceptance that not everyone is as perfectly principled and valued yet, and there are shades of grey through which people can be guided gently into the light.) Hanse00:
I’d pitch in what effort I can to keep it around, but acknowledge that I can’t offer much.
Great! That is three people on the list already.
In a community there are many different tasks that can be where you shine, and also take personal interest in. Despite the challenges and sometimes frustrations being discussed above, there is a lot of rewarding and uplifting experiences too, which make it all worth it. And there's opportunity to learn useful skills that are much in need not just in social impact movements, but anywhere in modern society where we alienate ever further from each other.
I talked to a handful of ActivityPub developers about this over the weekend in Vancouver. All of them turned out to be in the "Most developers have already left" category that @silverpill was talking about above. I don't want to name names -- they can stand up for themselves if they want to -- but I got a bunch of views on why SocialHub has had little net-benefit for them and what they are working on.
I believe it's also true to say that while there are developers new to ActivityPub all the time, who want to build and are building stuff, they generally don't end up as regulars here.
For me, the question of "who administers the server" and "who pays the bills" are minor questions that can be solved without much difficulty. I'd be happy to contribute, too.
However, the real question is: how do we (for some value of "we") meet the needs of our "customers" (for some value of "customers"), so they value it and engage and come back and contribute. Because if the customers leave, clearly the value isn't there -- and to be frank and consistent with what I heard, I don't have the impression that this goal is at the top of mind of too many people here. Some other goals appear to be, and is fine, but we should not be surprised at the above consequences.
From my perspective, I want as many developers as possible build as much open social web software as possible, consistent with the values, and to do that, we need to treat potential developers as customers and understand what they want and need, and address that. Ideally, this would include -- in an nicely designed integrated whole:
An ActivityPub landing page for developers (e.g. a revamped activitypub.rocks -- in progress)
Extensive, maintained, consistent reference material and examples (currently all over the place, hard to use as a new developer)
Places where to ask questions and discuss (e.g. a forum and/or a chat group)
Online and in-person seminars with "howto" demonstrations or discussions of particular issues
Development tools (e.g. debugging, testing) -- some of this exists, also all over the place in various states
The ability to easily find developers of other applications to resolve interop problems with specific other applications.
Beyond that, for "advanced" developers, we also need debate of extensions and mechanisms (FEPs and the process around them) to further the state of the art.
I believe this is the time to design such a "developer journey" to get them to great interoperating software as directly as possible, and I'd be quite willing to help with that. It doesn't make much sense to me to look at the Socialhub forum in isolation and I would not know how to "fix" it in isolation.
Thanks heaps to @lullis and @melvincarvalho for the admin offers. @how said PS want to see 4 admins volunteer before they're willing to pass the torch, so we need 2 more. @nightpool are you still active on admin duty here? Would you be keen to join a new admin team? j12t:
talked to a handful of ActivityPub developers about this over the weekend in Vancouver. All of them turned out to be in the “Most developers have already left” category
Thanks for asking around @j12t. Your point about the need for a more integrated network of dev spaces and tools is well made. It gels with many of @aschrijver's sentiments about social coding design, and to some degree with my push for more forum federation
But that's a much larger issue that needs it's own topic (or several). SH can't be part of any integrated effort if it vanishes beneath the waves in September.
Coming back to the sentiment that SH isn't currently scratching the itch for some devs, there are some insightful examples in @devnull's topic on FediCon. Including;
Thanks, @j12t and @indieterminacy for your help and feedback! strypey:
Thanks for asking around @j12t. Your point about the need for a more integrated network of dev spaces and tools is well made. It gels with many of @aschrijver’s sentiments about social coding design, and to some degree with my push for more forum federation
Generally speaking it is easy to come up with lists of things that would be helpful to the dev ecosystem. Much harder it is to get people to collab and connect their otherwise independent initiatives, and still harder it is to find people doing the chores to maintain that.
As an example is the need for having comprehensive developer documentation. On SocialHub is still a pinned wiki post with an attempt to crowdsource enough notes for such an artifact. Another example is when @gabek started fedidocs crowdsourcing attempt, and I posted about the need for cohesion in Cohesion of FediDevs with other fediverse initiatives. Fedidocs stalled, migrated orgs, became fedidevs and then stalled again (I think). Why? People don't like to write techdocs in the best of times, and are happy when they have things well in order on their own project. Even less people want to arrange the crowdsourcing process, and editing/publishing chores.
Generally speaking one should not fool oneself talking about "community" when there isn't one. The AP ecosystem is characterized by fiercely independent people who opportunistically come together to talk about subjects of shared interest.
The general tendency in this thread is that SocialHub better offer a broad range of services to become a relevant community again. And I think people underestimate how hard that is, in this environment of individuals.
Positioning advice: Choose between 'community' and 'cohesion'.
My strong advice to any community team stepping up is to first choose between 2 options:
Wanna be a community? Better cover only a comprehensive niche then, with a well-defined audience and scope. See my list with some quickly brainstormed topics as examples. Then foster community.
Otherwise best be a loose collective. Fit for a grassroots environment. On any broader scopes + audiences forget "community", it herding cats lost cause. Find ways where people while working on their own initiatives still combine that into a larger, more valuable whole. Then foster cohesion.
“Any decentralized [ecosystem] requires a centralized substrate, and the more decentralized the approach is the more important it is that you can count on the underlying system.”
when does P.S. plan to give public announcement / responsible disclosure of SocialHub winding down?
We are not planning anything. We've been announcing that we'd like this community to self-manage for years. We're now 'giving an ultimatum' as a last resort because supporting work does not seem to be taken into account as long as things run.
I've read elsewhere that I am "dropping". This is not the case. But if you've been here a long time you must have seen that my participation here has faded away, so I want other people to take over before you're all left with a down server and nobody to turn it on again. trwnh:
Why does the forum need to shut down just because an email domain expires?
It doesn't. But notifications and registration confirmations go through the activitypub.eu domain since we could not get access to the activitypub.rocks domain to manage email there. So if there's now control on activitypub.rocks domain, we could as well move the email there for consistency. aschrijver:
I consider it to be a matter of custodianship responsibility for P.S. to manage the shutdown in a responsible manner.
We're not shutting down. We want other people to take over. If other people do not take over, then it means nobody wants to take responsibility for it, then it should die. aschrijver:
mho it would be better to be open for any proposals
No: there is something very political in the way the SocialHub was organized, that fosters collective work and limits to what is acceptable for a community. If fascists want to take over, or people who do not care about privilege and solidarity, then you'll be left with a backup and we'll go away for good. That's the deal IMO. We don't work for years to let this community fall into preying hands. trwnh:
The value of this SocialHub forum is in bringing people together to discuss things, and the introduction of federation in its current form has been arguably counterproductive to this end. Quite simply, if the discussions about ActivityPub are spread all over random pockets of microblogging, then this is an inferior experience to a proper forum with an actual social context.
aschrijver:
Collect problems that hold the AP dev community back from collaborating and evolve the foundational technologies that the dev ecosystem of the fediverse relies on.
If fedi devs are scattered to the winds, then they did not realize that the SocialHub has been part of the Fediverse for some time, and they should be reminded. aschrijver:
Objective: Convince @how that responsible custodianship is taken care of, and it is responsible to hand over these tasks to the new community custodians.
I'll be convinced when:
I'm not the only one keeping the server up-to-date
We're clear about X, Fakebooz (including threads), and other centralized surveillance systems that the Fediverse is not aligned with them, and strives for other forms of online social relationships not based on domination, nudging nor abuse.
The keys are yours. aschrijver:
Become native to the fediverse. SocialHub is to be part of the fediverse via federation.
Most of it is part of the Fediverse. The #software category is lacking fediversity because software owners didn't federate! lullis:
I’d also volunteer to host this server if needed.
It's not a hosting issue, and it's not an individual issue. Handling the hosting from a non-profit organization to an individual would not make sense. But thank you for volunteering. strypey:
@how can you please confirm that we’re understanding this correctly, or correct us if we’re not, so we’re all clear on what the situation is.
I hope this answer is clarifying my position. In other words: either there is a community here, and the community is taking the engagement to take care for itself, and we're good; or there's no community, and this forum is just a drag on my back, and you can do without, so I can shut it down.
The way the community is taking over, is up to you, but my preference would be as stated so far. jdp23:
On both the “why?” and “what to do about it?”, getting the perspectives of people who aren’t currently here seems key.
We need to federate more, and include the SH groups in the interesting fedi discussions, so that they can be archived here, and not lost in the Fediverse. SH is an archipel, a navigation tool: not a centralizing place. It's easy to add @fep@socialhub.activitypub.rocks to a federated discussion and have a topic created here that includes the ongoing discussion (and there are more AP actors!) aschrijver:
A viable community is where enough of its members care enough for its continued existence.
aschrijver:
And it’d be great if @how could assign forum moderator or even forum admin privilege to some people so they are enabled to organize and steer this thing along efficiently.
Oh yes, that would be great. aschrijver:
Yes, the #fediversity::category channel is where one might ponder if it doesn’t make the audience of the community too broad.
I'm very surprised to read this. I really do not understand why the audience would be too broad. I mean, really. Why? aschrijver:
It is nice to offer dedicated forum space, but most FOSS projects don’t use it.
Indeed. With more people invested in it, they would use it, either from here, or from the Fediverse. strypey1:
that Loomio thread too.
Isn't Loomio federated? Then why is it not common? silverpill:
I doubt that things can be improved if the forum changes ownership (the opposite seems more likely)
Can you elaborate on this @silverpill? strypey:
Given how often PS admins have been incommunicado when thing need fixing or tweaking, and doing facepalm-inducing stuff like threatening to delete most SH accounts
I really do not appreciate your simplification of the situation here @stripey. I find it unfair and quite disrespectful actually. I have been calling for help for years and had to change teams several times over because people actually did not help at all. So putting this on either me or my organization is simply not acceptable. melvincarvalho:
CPU and RAM requirements. Perhaps someone could tell us the spec of the current server?
For me, the question of “who administers the server” and “who pays the bills” are minor questions that can be solved without much difficulty.
Well, I tried solving these questions collectively since 2019, so I'm very open to concrete steps now
I skipped the last two posts because tl;dr, and had to catch up on the whole discussion at once. Sorry for that. BTW, thank you @aschrijver for standing up again and making this discussion happen.
The refutation is way earlier… You can read the whole development in Policy Proposal: SocialHub Community Values. It was a long and hard discussion. And the conclusions are here: So you see, even I did not remember that @kaniini finally agreed.
SocialHub admins can federate categories, making categories accessible in the fediverse. This is an overview of current ActivityPub actors that you can follow and participate in from the Fediverse.
|SocialHub Category | ActivityPub Actor @socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Settings||--- | --- | ---||#activitypub | @protocol@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes||#activitypub:s2s | @proto-s2s@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes||#activitypub:c2s | @proto-c2s@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes||#standards:fep | @feps@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes||#community | @community@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes||#fediversity | @fediversity@socialhub.activitypub.rocks | Full topic as Notes|
You may find federation information in each federated category on the tools line:
Continuing the discussion from SocialCG should consult SocialHub before appropriating tasks: I’m a bit behind on how AP federation works between forums, so I’m not sure what this means.
I doubt that things can be improved if the forum changes ownership (the opposite seems more likely)
Can you elaborate on this @silverpill?
That's because I don't know anyone who is both interested in running this forum, and is qualified to do that.
First of all, I think it shouldn't be handed to someone who is not an active forum participant.
But in this thread? Many share a strange patronizing attitude towards developers. Like we're sheep incapable of self-organizing that must be herded to some website in order to be educated by wise community managers and spoonfed with linked data slop. Thanks but no. This attitude is absolutely the last thing we need on a developer forum.
In theory, the place can be run by developers themselves, but nowadays most of us use our own software, and we can talk to each other directly without SocialHub in the middle, or via other forums and groups.
At this point I am fairly convinced that shutting down the forum and publishing a static archive is the best option.
we can talk to each other directly without SocialHub in the middle
The SocialHub is not exactly in the middle: it's part of the Fediverse. So it would only be normal that discussions relevant to everyone would be archived here, since they would be transmitted here as well.
But most discussions about fediverse development elsewhere on the fediverse aren't transmitted to SocialHub as well. There's a lot that factors into this, including:
technology limitations. Kudos to the work that @devnull et al are doing on that front, and there's steady progress, but are there any forum-based spaces that are well-integrated in this way with the broader microblogging fediverse today?
awareness; some devs don't know that they can tag communities here to create a thread on SocialHub, others know in principle but (since it requires an extra step they don't do on most posts) just don't remember to do it in situations where it would make sense.
on topics other than FEPs, it's not clear what the value is -- and there are also costs to take into account
One way to look at this is that the initial attempts at SocialHub federation were a prototype that wasn't as broadly useful as hoped but has succeeded in revealing issues that need to be addressed. In another thread you mentioned that right now SocialHub "feels like a failure" because it hasn't able to keep a stable and growing and rotating team of responsible people in general, although the FEP team is going well ... looking at it as a prototype, though, it's not a failure: it's identified a use case that's a good match for the current state of the prototype, as well as a big challenge to address to extend to other use cases.
In terms of the overall reboot or shutdown question ... those aren't the only two options. Another possibility is to take a hiatus, putting the community into read-only mode for a while; or, narrowing of focus, at least in the short term, for example keeping the FEP discussions going and shifting other stuff into read-only for the time being (if that's possible in Discourse). Both of these keep open the option of moving SocialHub forward (potentially in a different form). They also create an opportunity to see what alternatives evolve on their own -- and the space to come up with proposals and plans for moving forward that identify and address the underlying challenges.
Then again, sometime the takeaway from a prototype -- even one with valuable learning -- is that this isn't a direction you see as practical to pursue given the overall constraints. If SocialHub shuts down, people who see value in some or all of what happens here will start up other mechanisms; to the extent that there's currently a community here, it can migrate. As long as there's an archive, or the site's available in read-only mode, history isn't lost; and everything here is CC-SA-4.0 so new sites can take whatever subset is useful. All of that's true whether or not you officially pass the torch to somebody else.
But in this thread? Many share a strange patronizing attitude towards developers. Like we’re sheep incapable of self-organizing that must be herded to some website in order to be educated by wise community managers and spoonfed with linked data slop. Thanks but no. This attitude is absolutely the last thing we need on a developer forum.
Where are you seeing this? From what I'm seeing, the discussion is not about any of those things, so this is quite the bizarre statement. I also don't think this is strictly a "developer forum", as there are several different sections dedicated to software, spec work, interest gathering, and so on -- and participation is welcomed by anyone. silverpill:
In theory, the place can be run by developers themselves, but nowadays most of us use our own software, and we can talk to each other directly without SocialHub in the middle, or via other forums and groups.
If there are "other forums and groups", then no one is being made broadly aware of them. If the answer is "we can talk to each other directly", then this is essentially abdicating any sort of collective communication -- if you don't follow a bunch of the people involved, you won't see the conversations.
As it stands, SocialHub is the most prominent place to go if you want to see discussions about ActivityPub and related topics. I'm not aware of any more prominent venues. This isn't to say that anyone is being "herded to some website" or that SocialHub must be "in the middle", but it is generally valuable if the discussions end up being collected somewhere in aggregate, and it is generally convenient if the discussions can be carried out long-form with all the creature comforts of forums and none of the limitations of microblogging. What's the alternative being posed here? Where do people go for this stuff?
> I also don't think this is strictly a "developer forum", as there are several different sections dedicated to software, spec work, interest gathering, and so on -- and participation is welcomed by anyone.
Fair, there is space for all of these discussions, but considering that of a given set of ActivityPub developers, only a small subset of those developers contribute to SocialHub.
That may be a signal that either the existing space is not suitable for AP implementors, or a new space may be a welcome addition.
of a given set of ActivityPub developers, only a small subset of those developers contribute to SocialHub.
That may be a signal that either the existing space is not suitable for AP implementors, or a new space may be a welcome addition.
I would pose this question in two parts:
What are developers doing that could be brought to a forum like SocialHub?
What makes SocialHub specifically not suitable for bringing those topics here?
The existence of any forum implies an opportunity for collaborative participation rather than a mandate. It would be helpful to have explicitly identified examples of discussions that could be brought to a forum, and explicitly identified sentiments of why those discussions weren't brought to this forum.
So far, the most clearly articulated objection seems to be advocating for bypassing forums in favor of ad-hoc communications or backchannels. Perhaps this is adequate for fixing one-off bugs as compared to creating a topic in that software's category. Perhaps that bug was filed on a project's issue tracker instead. But for having sustained conversations over the course of days or weeks or months or even years about meatier topics, I can't imagine much effectiveness in a scattered diffuse set of posts only living on people's profiles if you scroll back far enough.
Personally, I bring such conversations here because I don't want them to be lost to the timeline and I don't want character limits or a lack of blockquotes to impair my communications. I also know that there is an audience here for ActivityPub-related special interest topics, whereas there is no such expectation for my hangout spot where i go to check in on what some friends are doing. the context matters a lot.
Great questions @trwnh, relevant not to just SocialHub but also to alternatives. trwnh:
What are developers doing that could be brought to a forum like SocialHub?
Here's some examples of some of the conversations happening now or over the last couple of weeks that fit in SocialHub's scope (as I understand it) and seem relevant to developers (they all relate to limitations and/or potential improvements in the software).
the Dropsitenews report about Meta's scraping
starter packs and consent (sparked by the Mastodon announcement)
A New Social's post on crossposting vs bridging that also led to discussion of federation in the client
Fedi clients (sparked by a request from Laurens and a couple of discussions in Fediverse Report)
the Online Services Act / EU and Australia age verification and their implications
the "verify your account" spam/scam
Ghost's ActivityPub support (including their currently-proprietary client)
trwnh:
What makes SocialHub specifically not suitable for bringing those topics here?
In a nutshell:
people who are active on SocialHub don't bring those topics here when they see them, presumably because they don't see value in doing so. You mentioned that you personally bring conversations here because you know there's an audience here for the ActivityPub topics you focus on, but that's not necessarily true for topics like these. You also cited character limits and a lack of blockquotes but other than vanilla Mastodon most fedi software supports that pretty well, so again that's not relevant for a lot of people.
people who aren't active on SocialHub generally have no incentive to bring discussions here
even if people who don't have accounts here want to bring discussions here, it's not in general obvious how. I experimented with trying to bring the bridging / crossposting / federation in the client post here. The first dilemma was not knowing what account to tag for a given post; even once I found the list, should it be fediversity, software, or ... ? I chose Fediversity, and replied to the thread tagging the category actor ... but nothing showed up here. So I started a new thread, tagging the category actor ... but once again, nothing showed up here.
Of course these aren't only challenges for SocialHub. A few of these discussions are on piefed.social/c/fediverse and lemmy.world/c/fediverse but most aren't. That said, I do think the specific dynamics of who's currently active on SocialHub and what they're interested accentuate the problems. A reboot could offer opportunities to make progress on those, but if it's being driven by the people who are currently active here I'm not sure how likely that is.
itch.io is a simple way to find, download and distribute indie games online. Whether you're a developer looking to upload your game or just someone looking for something new to play itch.io has you covered.
(In a discussion on SocialHub, @trwnh asked what kinds of developer-focused discussions were happening elsewhere on fedi and what the barriers were to bringing them to SocialHub. This is certainly a good example! So, as an experiment, I'm going to try tagging @ fediversity @ socialhub.activitypub.rocks to see how that works.*)
I certainly agree about the connections and (where feasible) interop across networks/protocols as being critical. From a terminology perspective it might be better to come up with another term that includes server-based federation (via a same protocol), cross-protocol adapters (server-side connect across protocols), and cross-posting with client support for merging discussions.
* EDIT: it didn't work. In fact it may well. have caused a load spike on SocialHub that made SocialHub unavailable for a few minutes, although it's possible that was just coincidence. In any case I edited this post to remove the tag to keep anybody else from unintentionally also temporarily crashing SocialHub!
It goes both ways. There are a lot of interesting discussions started here and not elsewhere. It all contributes to the grassroots ecosystem at large and helps evolve the fediverse. The AP dev community has a broad range of opinions, ideologies, values, things they find important. And all across the ecosystem there are various independent initiatives where people can find their peers, and join groups they feel most comfortable to be with. It is a good thing, that. It helps stimulate the overall diversity of the ecosystem, and resilience of the fedi movement as a whole. If there's sustained custodianship of SocialHub, and a dedicated community team, then SocialHub is viable.
Damn what's with the crazy Corbyn hate boner? The one politician trying to stand up for the people but instead everyone wants to slobber off Keir Starmer.
Jeremy Corbyn has just announced he is launching a brand new left-wing party – but it already sounds very similar to the Green Party’s proposals.
Together with fellow former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, the ex-Labour leader promised a “new kind of political party” which “belongs to you”.
They said they would call for a wealth tax, champion an NHS which is free from privatisation, stand up for Palestine and challenge the fossil fuel giants “putting their profits before our planet”.
These policies are not dissimilar to those backed by the Green Party, which many former Labour supporters, now disillusioned, have flocked to over the last year.
That could therefore put the two parties at odds with one another.
Zack Polanski, the frontrunner in the ongoing Greens’ leadership race and the party’s current deputy, told HuffPost UK shortly after Corbyn’s announcement it is clear the parties have plenty in common.
He noted: “I’ve read the statement and I can’t see a single thing in there that’s not Green Party policy or doesn’t align already with the Green Party.”
He said: “I really like Jeremy and Zarah both as people and also as politicians. I’m supportive of anything they’re setting up.”
But the London Assembly member also made it clear they would be “welcome” in the Greens, which he called a “movement for change”.
He said: “I think it’s a positive thing that they’ve recognised that the Labour Party as a vehicle of progressive change that utterly collapsed, and it’s time to abandon it. They’ve not left the Labour Party, but Labour Party has left them.”
However, he noted that – unlike Corbyn’s new group – the Greens do not need to have a conference in the autumn to decide their name.
“Maybe that conference should decide actually, the Green party exists and is doing really well,” Polanski said, pointing to the nearly two million votes they secured in the general election. “It kind of makes sense to join the Green Party.”
Bit of a bummer about Ozzy, but not exactly a shocker. Hulk Hogan was a celebrity? He starred in one of the 3 Ninjas movies, but that's the only time I've ever heard of the guy.
Secondo Capasa, Presidente di Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, lo sfruttamento nella moda è un fenomeno limitato.
Ad ora sono stati indagati:
• Alviero Martini
• Armani operations
• Dior Manufactures
• Valentino Bags
• Loro Piana
Fenomeni isolati o sistema strutturale?
Si tratta davvero di fenomeni isolati? Oppure la moda è totalmente nella mani della finanza, dei grandi fondi - del lusso (LVMH, Kering, Richemont) e del fast fashion (Shein, Zara, H&M) - espressione del capitalismo puro?
Spazi di resistenza:
🔴 Slow fashion, piccoli brand indipendenti.
🔴 Comunità che rifiutano il consumismo (es. DIY, swap parties).
La domanda vera è: Possiamo immaginare una moda davvero libera dal capitalismo? O è un’utopia?
Decifrare le antiche iscrizioni romane con l'AI è possibile
Google DeepMind, il laboratorio di ricerca sull'AI di Google, ha presentato Aeneas, un modello progettato specificamente per aiutare gli studiosi a comprendere, attribuire e persino ricostruire i testi antichi.
Decifrare le antiche iscrizioni romane con l'AI è possibile
Google DeepMind, il laboratorio di ricerca sull'AI di Google, ha presentato Aeneas, un modello progettato specificamente per aiutare gli studiosi a comprendere, attribuire e persino ricostruire i testi antichi.
The games were mentioned in a 2024 report and are now part of a new lawsuit in which a 11 year old girl was allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted after meeting a stranger on Roblox.
![[Top panel] OpenAI/GPT says: I apologize for the mistake. There is only **one** R in the word "strawberry." [Bottom panel] The commander of a US submarine says: A $40 million computer tells you there is one "R" in strawberry, but you don't believe it, and you come up with this on your own?](https://poliverso.org/photo/preview/640/54038613 "[Top panel] OpenAI/GPT says: I apologize for the mistake. There is only **one** R in the word \"strawberry.\" [Bottom panel] The commander of a US submarine says: A $40 million computer tells you there is one \"R\" in strawberry, but you don't believe it, and you come up with this on your own?")
MintyFresh
in reply to frithwyn • • •