cabbage
@cabbage@piefed.social
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 4 days ago:
rude disgruntled noises
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 4 days ago:
Large userbases, and the “somebody is wrong on the internet” effect. If we like something we see we’ll possibly like/upvote it and move on with our life, if we see a problem we’re far more likely to jump on and interact. So a hundred people might read something and be neutral towards it, and it’s enough to have one asshole react poorly to ruin the mood completely.
The same dynamic works for reply guys, and sadly the fediverse is in no way immune. But hopefully there are more people on here who are aware that it’s a community building exercise, and who make an effort to leave a positive footprint. :)
- Comment on With regards to cutlery, do you prefer a spoon or a fork for eating cake? 4 days ago:
I moved to Denmark a few years ago, and have been picking up a line of cutlery whenever I see stuff I need in red cross stores. I have small tea spoons, big tea spoons, and one tiny cake fork.
I prefer the smaller tea spoons not only for ice cream cake, but anything served with ice cream. So typically that’s also a lot of pies. The fork is better for dry crumbly cakes, but the spoons are better for creamy cakes. I wouldn’t eat a tiramisu with a fork if I have a spoon available.
The bigger tea spoons I mostly only use for yogurt and stuff like that.
- Comment on 'Icky and heartbreaking': The $2 per hour worker behind the OnlyFans boom 6 days ago:
404media had an interesting inteview with a Kenyan "data labeller". He talks about his jobs working with AI companies, and how he had to pretend being all kinds of things. He’d work at least 18 hours a day, constantly switching between roleplaying different characters of different genders to people who thought they were talking to AI.
So even people who think they are talking to robots might be sexting some underpaid guy in Kenya.
- Comment on Firefox's beta feature "Smart Window" shared browsing and search history to AI models without prompting 6 days ago:
Yeah, it’s tricky. I donated to Mozilla in the past, will look into making some donations to Servo moving forwards as I really think that’s the way things are headed for me. I keep trying to use GNOME Web which is WebKit based and it keeps getting better, but it’s not quite there yet for me.
- Comment on 'Icky and heartbreaking': The $2 per hour worker behind the OnlyFans boom 6 days ago:
A lot to unpack here.
She said the people she chatted to often seemed “really nice” but were obviously lonely, making the whole process feel sad, especially as she was not the person she was pretending to be.
I feel like this summarizes the time we’re living in. Some poor bastard somewhere sitting on his computer chatting with some lady he believes he is paying for attention, but in fact he is just being pitied by some unnamed underpaid worker in the Philippines. Meanwhile they’re both filling the accounts of an online influencer and some onlyfans tech bro, both of whom are surely completely miserable in their own right.
- Comment on Firefox's beta feature "Smart Window" shared browsing and search history to AI models without prompting 6 days ago:
Yeah, I returned to FireFox after the latest release because of the kill switch. Still I’m uncomfortable with using software that’s full of stuff that I hate, even if it’s disabled. This is not really rational I guess, just me being weird.
- Comment on Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam 6 days ago:
I was thinking the same thing when I read this:
A small but determined team is stepping up to rebuild with a completely reimagined angle of attack. Positioning Digg as simply an alternative to incumbents wasn’t imaginative enough. That’s a race we were never going to win. What comes next needs to be genuinely different.
Small team, completely reimagined, not simply an alternative, genuinely different… They are describing a federated instance.
- Comment on Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam 1 week ago:
Oooh, neat community! Joined!
I guess that’s one benefit of a smaller site - if you put down the effort in it, it stands out more.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
You’d think this was a safe prediction, yet here we are.
- Comment on Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam 1 week ago:
That’s interesting and I missed that post, thanks!
It can be easy to lose track of how successful the fediverse already is, as the number of users will remain negligible compared to mainstream platforms for a really long time and possibly forever. Seeing how it easily outperforms a major player like Digg trying to re-establish themselves puts things into perspective.
- Comment on Firefox's beta feature "Smart Window" shared browsing and search history to AI models without prompting 1 week ago:
I tried Librewolf for a while and found it to be a bit too much for me when all I really want is Firefox without AI. The privacy options are probably great but not for me.
Just installed waterfox. First impression is that I am super happy to be bock to the previous Firefox theme - it takes less space and looks nicer in my opinion. Seems promising. Thanks for the recommendation! :)
- Comment on Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam 1 week ago:
Did it have niche communities that had successfully moved over, but that were not featured on the front page?
- Comment on Digg’s open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam 1 week ago:
How was it? Did it feel lively?
I just checked the front page a couple of times out of curiosity, but I never bothered really checking it out too much. I was always surprised how dead it looked from the outside, but that might have been the wrong impression.
- Comment on ‘Happy (and safe) shooting!’ AI chatbots helped teen users plan violence in hundreds of tests 1 week ago:
Managed to refuse… In more than half of the cases. That does not look good. By any reasonable standard failing in one of a thousand would be disasterous.
- Comment on Mastodon.social is not a good way to join Mastodon. If you’re already on it, you might want to move your account to a different Mastodon server. | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the F 1 week ago:
Yeah, I find that the point is rarely well made and it’s often because the whole argument is a bit confused. People want to present it as being easier than it is.
Open registrations on the fediverse is a problem in general. Trolls abuse it to make accounts specifically to harass specific users. Those not being harassed will not notice this - before the “fetch all replies” feature was introduced they wouldn’t even see the replies. And because it seems so much better than other platforms unless you’re actively being targeted, you’ll have minority women or whatever raising the problem and a bunch of white men will respond that they have no idea what they’re talking about and that there is no problem and that they should just block the trolls. Blocking the trolls is just not efficient if they keep popping up all over the place.
One way to avoid this as a server admin is to defederate instances with open registrations that are being used in this way. But Mastodon.social is too big for this strategy to really be viable.
Of course, open registrations is also key to people bothering signing up in the first place. People are not used to resistance, and they don’t want to write a letter of motivation to sign up for social media. So the issue is not easily solved. Mastodon is working on better moderation tools. Hopefully they’ll manage to address it that way.
- Comment on Valve Sued By The Performing Rights Society Over Music Rights in Games Valve Doesn’t Make or Own 1 week ago:
relies on the supplier being truthful with their documentation for their production
So the supermarket needs documentation and to take precautions, because they are to a certain extent responsible for the legality of the stuff they are selling.
In the real world supermarkets don’t just pick up carrots from some random guy showing up with a trailer full of them. In online markets, this is closer to how it works. Those running and profiting off online platforms should be accountable for what they sell. If Amazon lists electrical products that don’t meet fire safety standards on their website they should be held accountable for selling these products, even if they only act as middle men.
If companies can just take the money without any responsibility we’re fucked.
- Comment on Valve Sued By The Performing Rights Society Over Music Rights in Games Valve Doesn’t Make or Own 1 week ago:
I think it would be reasonable if this was a problem of small indie titles that do not have a publisher and basically wouldn’t exist without Steam. If Valve allows for content on their platform they have an obligation to ensure this content is legal. If a supermarket cooperates with a local farmer to sell their produce directly without middle men, it’s partly their responsible if the produce is made using illegal pesticides.
However, it seems unreasonable when it’s about stuff like Forza and FIFA. Then sue Microsoft and EA, for fucks sake. These games have publishers.
- Comment on Lenovo’s New ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability— Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo's new T-series laptops 2 weeks ago:
My most recent ThinkPad also overheated an insane amount at whatever use I could put it through, and the fan was constantly running full speed. It was like that from day one, and there was no dust or anything, it was just a terrible machine.
- Comment on Lenovo’s New ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability— Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo's new T-series laptops 2 weeks ago:
In six years I have burnt through two Lenovo ThinkPads. In the first the USB C charging port malfunctioned, and it turns out the charging port is soldered directly to the motherboard so they had to replace the whole thing. Ever since I got it back from repairs it enters into kernel panics all the time, no matter which distro I install.
I was in the middle of writing my thesis so I had no time for repairs when it broke, so I ordered mysef a new ThinkPad. I had to choose between pre-assembled models, and I wanted a high resolution display, a good processor, and some other things. I got one with not quite as much RAM as I really needed, and found out when I wanted to upgrade that they had rendered upgrading RAM completely impossible in that model of ThinkPad. It wasn’t even one of the new slim ones, but a traditional bulky one. Complete bullshit.
Both of these laptops are recent enough that had they not sucked I would still be using them years from now. I’m happy Lenovo appear to be changing their ways, but I wouldn’t touch another ThinkPad with a stick after my experiences with them.
Currently I’m using a Framework 13. Hopefully it’ll last me decades.
- Comment on https://www.androidauthority.com/desktop-mode-march-pixel-drop-3646069/ 2 weeks ago:
And every Ubuntu Touch device with support for external monitors for the last ten years or so. Here’s a demonstration running on a Fairphone 4.
- Comment on Tech Publications Lost 58% of Google Traffic Since 2024 2 weeks ago:
I don’t even mind subscribing to 404media, as I feel like their operation makes sense. But there’s no way I’m going to pay to read some sponsored content on a page riddled with trackers.
- Comment on Tech Publications Lost 58% of Google Traffic Since 2024 2 weeks ago:
Yeah. Sites like CNET and TechRadar seems completely uninteresting at this point. Wired and the Verge seems to have done a better job at transitioning into reporting on how tech affects society, which is much more interesting. 404media seems to be doing well in that business.
If a tech site does their job these days their readers will not be using Google any more at all.
- Comment on Motorola confirms GrapheneOS support for a future phone, bringing over features 2 weeks ago:
Gaël Duval, the lead developer behind /e/OS, has been recommending an app called Zettle on his blog. It at least work on degoogled /e/OS, probably GrapheneOS as well. I have no personal experience as I prefer sticking to cards.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 2 weeks ago:
I just remembered this amazing book: Why Not Socialism by Gerald A. Cohen.
Super nice and easy read, fantastic introduction. It has been years and years since I read it but I highly recommend it as an introduction.
- Comment on Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more 3 weeks ago:
This is probably a much more efficient “mention of the fediverse” than if the journalist had started trying to explain that there is this federated network of independent social media sites bla bla bla.
The people reading this are looking for something they can understand. I expect naming Mastodon and leaving it to them to check it out will convert more people than if they started trying to explain what it is.
I’m a bit weirded out by all the attention given to w-social.eu by mainstream media, though. First of all it doesn’t exist yet, second we have no reason to believe it will actually be decent, third we have good reason to believe it won’t be.
- Comment on Instagram says it will notify parents if teens ‘repeatedly’ search for terms related to suicide 3 weeks ago:
The neat thing about algorithmic social media is that content relating to suicide and self-harm inspires a lot of interaction among teenagers, causing it to be shoved in their faces whether they search for it or not.
Suicidal teenagers are not searching for suicide material on Instagram; Instagram is feeding suicide material to regular teenagers for ad views.
- Comment on UK fines Reddit $19 million for using children’s data unlawfully 3 weeks ago:
The kids would be the ones answering as well, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
I know a lot of people here come from Reddit, but I’m sure I’m not the only one here who grew up using old school phpBB forums to talk to other kids about random stuff online after school. My favorite forum was not in English and probably had fewer than 100 active members, and its by far the best experience I’ve had online. I didn’t bother much with other public social media before Mastodon.
I think at least some of us are dreaming of recreating that type of safe and fun online space, where it’s possible to create more close-knit (but nevertheless anonymous) communities. Reddit isn’t it, and I agree that it’s not good for children (or anyone) to be on there.
Whether the Fediverse could provide it remains an open question. It certainly comes with huge moderation challenges.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 3 weeks ago:
I’m a bit sceptical of people who are too into “socialism as a government type” - they tend to develop fundamentalist ideas about what the perfect society should look like, and which means are justified in order to get there. Usually all means will be. To me socialism is at its best as a critique, allowing us to understand what’s going on in the world and how to fight it piece by piece instead of trying to construct some ideal society based on a feeble understanding of reality.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 3 weeks ago:
I guess what is considered easy is very subjective. I seriously think Marx’ Manifesto of the Communist Party is not a bad place to start. It’s everything Capital is not: short, easy to read, somewhat superficial.
I’d say the historical analysis is at the core of marxism as much as the economic one, and it’s summarized perfectly right from the start:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Make sure to take a second to reflect on this and the Soviet Union and the failure of Marxist-Leninism. It was not the end of history, but another common ruin. Which brings me to the biggest problem of studying socialist theory: The line between theory and propaganda is often blurred. The Manifesto of the Communist Party itself, thought-provoking as it is, is a pamphlet made for wide circulation, and more propaganda than academic work. Marx’ understanding of history revolves around how proletarian revolts such as the Soviet Union go wrong and end up reproducing existing power structures. Yet many of today’s self-proclaimed Marxists are somehow blind to this and end up tricking themselves with all sorts of mind games.
That’s why I think it’s important to start with Marx himself. Understand his view of history and his criticism of the economy, and reflect on what it means for what you see in history since it was written. It still holds, though the theory itself has become weaponized in the very historical and economical dynamics he is describing. If you understand this independently you’re less likely to become a sucker who falls for propaganda.
And of course, Marx wasn’t a god, and he didn’t get it all right. I personally think the main problem is his understanding of history as having an “end” (a teleological account) - Marx believed every class revolt would lead us slightly closer to a classless society, and that eventually we would get there. This builds on Hegel, who had a similar understanding of history rooted in religion rather than communism. I think this is plain wrong - things very well might just get worse, and there is no end of history. But that’s me.
Of course one shouldn’t focus only on Marx, but I feel like he’s important enough that it’s worth taking him seriously. And with all the stupid takes people have on his work, I think it’s a good idea to go straight to the source.