I think there is a good number of people who are interested, it’s just harder to get involved in it as a hobby without having time/money to throw around.

Also this is my first post on Lemmy, so I’m sorry if this is out of place here.

Nope you’re good, and welcome :)

Donald Trump’s administration has declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.

Which country isn’t considered a threat to american “national security” at this point

I’d love it if platforms would implement a toggle to switch from infinite scroll to pagination

Unfortunately these statistics include lawmakers that are standing up to the powerful.

I imagine a lot of this violence is directed towards those who oppose the powerful, rather than those who are in support of them / already powerful. Powerful people don’t care as much about illegal intimidation and violence.

For example, all the death threats directed at doctors and lawmakers during the pandemic

It feels like being back on the playground

“nuh uh, my laser is 1000% more powerful”

“oh yea, mine is googleplex googolplex percent more powerful”

It won’t fix everything, but I think it would be very helpful if platforms would add

• a toggle for pagination instead of infinite scroll
• disabling autoplay

I find it odd, but a lot of newer users on Reddit go with the default suggested username and those follow the word-word-0000 template.

At the same time, it might be better for privacy to do that since it’s less likely that someone can track you across platforms if you use the generator built into each platform.

I had to double-check what Deflock was for:

DeFlock’s mission is simple: to shine a light on the widespread use of ALPR technology, raise awareness about the threats it poses to personal privacy and civil liberties, and empower the public to take action.

This app makes it easy to view and report AI powered surveillance cameras, automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), and other surveillance infrastructure near you.

Sharing information about where cameras are located is terrorism now?

🙄

Pretty much, that’s what I understood it to mean anyway

I assume the phrase has been used in other contexts too

I understood “making it” as accomplishing what you were pretending to be, often in the context of self-confidence

• someone is scared of public speaking and thinks they’re no good at it
• they pretend that they are someone who is good at it, in order to get through situations where they need to do public speaking
• they eventually just get good at it

Whoops, I meant to say “only downside”. Edited it

There are lots of positive differences

Unless I misunderstood, it will eventually dry up? Investors aren’t going to be willing to give money with no returns indefinitely

The only difference downside really is the occasional extension that needs a manual install.

I’ve been trying out VSIX Manager for my extensions so that I can keep track of which ones I want to install on each machine. This can make it easier to install the weird extensions that you can’t install otherwise

https://open-vsx.org/extension/zokugun/vsix-manager

It’s hard to tell what was wrong with that post without seeing it. At the same time, we’re not a hive mind. People will disagree from time to time :)

or they need a third party APP

I’ve seen this complaint from other new users. Is there something wrong with a lack of an official app? Would it be an ok compromise for the official project to recommend some third party apps?

A lot of these projects don’t have the capacity (yet) to develop an official app on top of the main platform.

As for the recommendations

• Pixelfed is a good alternative to Instagram
• Mastodon and similar platforms are good alternatives to Twitter/X

These are harder, or there’s not as much motivation for them. The projects are still going, but they’re slower:

• Facebook: a lot of people dropped Facebook completely without replacing it with anything. The only real value is private groups and buy/sell tools, of which the first can be replaced with chat platforms and the second already has a patchwork of proprietary alternatives depending on where you are

• LinkedIn: network effect is extreme with this one since it depends on where everyone else in your field of work is hanging out. Some fields don’t use LinkedIn at all already

• Amazon: I don’t see the benefit of having a fediverse version of this? Building tools that independent stores can use to stay competitive might be better

• Spotify: Funkwhale exists, but there are some concerns around piracy. Other options are self hosting or using one of the many other proprietary streaming platforms

• Cloud storage: there are a number of alternatives https://ca.purchasewithpurpose.io/category/file-storage/

For those that haven’t read the link

A company or “yellow” union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article 2).1 They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2),2 due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

A company or “yellow” union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article 2).1 They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2),2 due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

I also didn’t know this:

Japan

Main article: Labor unions in Japan

Company unions are a mainstay of labor organization in Japan, viewed with much less animosity than in Europe or the United States. Unaffiliated with RENGO (the largest Japanese trade union federation), company unions appeal to both the lack of class consciousness in Japanese society and the drive for social status, which is often characterized by loyalty to one’s employer.25

I found this

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/openai-could-reportedly-run-out-of-cash-by-mid-2027-nyt-analyst-paints-grim-picture-after-examining-companys-finances

Being a former heroin addict doesn’t make someone a bad source of information, especially if they’ve turned their lives around.

But I agree otherwise

The problem is that the algorithms optimize for this kind of content. The people seeing this LLM avatar wouldn’t start seeing the “good” LLM avatars. Instead, content in the “good” spaces will become watered down with low quality/ rage-bait-y slop

If anyone else is curious, here is what I found on the link

https://docs.hollo.social/intro/

Hollo is a simple, single-user microblogging tool that lets you run your own little corner of the internet. Think of it as your personal Mastodon instance, but stripped down to the essentials.

Voyager works, although I don’t think it’s intended for Desktop use