astronaut_sloth

@astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is the Fediverse stalling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Just from a quick look at https://fediverse.observer/, it looks like the Fediverse is mostly steady at 1-1.25 million monthly users (give or take) over the past two years with a slight decreasing trend. I think there are some reasons for this that are not entirely in our control.

  There seems to be a global sentiment of disconnecting from social media and the internet in general. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if ever platform is seeing a decaying user base. Anecdotally, among the people I see in real life, there is a general sense of exhaustion with online spaces. Whether it’s from corporate-own, enshittified platforms to even places on the Fediverse, the people with whom I interact tend to find the entire thing hollow. They’ve trimmed down to one or two platforms (if that). In fact, I’ve even started to get that way. In the past, if someone were wrong and arguing against a point I made, I’d engage, especially if it’s in something that I have expertise. Now, why bother? There’s no use arguing; people have little interest in admitting fault or engaging in good faith (again anecdotally). That said, I’ll concede that the Fediverse is a bit better on that front, but not by much.

  Then there’s the alternative nature of the Fediverse. It’s been rehashed over and over about how “difficult” it is to get on and use. It’s not actually that hard, but the barrier to entry is an extra step. That small extra step frightens people away from even joining. The only time that barrier gets broken is when a “legacy” social media platform does something anti-user. Then there is a refugee wave that comes in and goes out leading to a modest durable increase in users. Recently, there just hasn’t been a major controversy on a major platform that leads people here.

  Now, my final thought on this is to ask: Is a small and steady-ish population (despite modest decay) actually bad? In my view, I don’t think it is. Being smaller and with a smallish barrier to entry means that we exclude a sizable number of the low-effort population. So, there’s less (no zero) slop here. Plus, discussions, when had in good faith, can be much deeper and less filled with stupid low-effort jokes. Overall, I’m not too concerned with the number of people on the Fediverse. Growth isn’t necessarily the best thing. Even so, with the way most mainstream platforms are going, it’s inevitable that they will do something stupid that drives more people to the Fediverse at least for a time.

  TL;DR: The monthly population is mostly steady with a modest decay. Most social media is likely seeing similar trends. I don’t think the smaller userbase is that bad of a thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  this “cameras for everything!” idiocy.

  That’s why I’m so impressed with how well it’s actually working. When they get off that really weird self-imposed restriction, it could be an interesting technology.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Not great performance at all.

  That’s better than I was expecting to be perfectly honest.

  I’m pretty impressed with the technology, but clearly it’s not ready for field use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘An Overwhelmingly Negative And Demoralizing Force’: What It’s Like Working For A Company That’s Forcing AI On Its Developers - Aftermath⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I see both points. You’re totally right that for a company, it’s just the result that matters. However, to Bradley’s, since he’s specifically talking about art direction, the journey is important in so much as getting a passable result. I’ve only dabbled with 2D and 3D art, but converting to 3D requires an understanding of the geometries of things and how they look from different angles. Some things look cool from one angle and really bad from another. Doing the real work allows you to figure that out and abandon a design before too much work is put in or modify it so it works better.

  When it comes to software, though, I’m kinda on the fence. I like to use AI for small bits of code and knocking out boilerplate so that I can focus on making the “real” part of the code good. I hope the real, creative, and hard parts of a project aren’t being LLM’d away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a mandate from some MBA.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It do be like that⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been doing some thinking about this recently, and I think it comes from two places. One is the easily spotted malice toward workers and stepping on them (à la Elon). The other for managers and the like who are not straight up sociopaths is that a lot of these people have no meaning in their lives and have never really done anything they really believe in (or bleed for that matter). So, they try to derive meaning from their relatively boring, unimportant job, and try to get others into it like they are. They’re starved for camaraderie by the very job they’ve invested their entire lives in. It’s sad really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gmail alternative: good idea to use personal domain+hosting?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Rolling your own email is a pain. That said, I use a VPS and host my own server with domain name and site for $5/month. Setting it up was a pain, but once you get all the records right so you’re not considered spam, it works really well. That said, I haven’t done anything with webmail; I strictly use IMAP and SMTP.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Harvard Scientists Uncover How Gut Bacteria Fuel Inflammation and Depression⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was reading something similar a few months ago about how the American obesity epidemic came out of nowhere and exploded in the 20th and 21st centuries, and places with the highest antibiotic use also has a correlated obesity rate.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of our modern chronic issues that seemed to come from nowhere (not that they didn’t exist before but just became much more prevalent) will be traced in some way back to effects from messing with the human microbiome.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Stars of Star Trek: Section 31 Know Why You're Nervous About the Movie⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what Section 31 is supposed to be. Sloan wasn’t a good guy. 31 actively tried to commit genocide.

  The idea behind them is that arguments of ends justifying the means and “getting dirty” to preserve higher ideals is morally, philosophically, and practically bankrupt. The Federation didn’t need 31 to win the war, and in fact, their methods would have made it much worse. Section 31 as a plot device exists to show us that there will always be those looking to use higher ideals to support terrible actions, and we must be constantly vigilant against them.

  It truly pains me how that message has been twisted, and people think Section 31 are not only good guys but also cool.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Living in a walkable city is nice.

  This is so true! I was telling my family about that a few years ago when I was living in a semi-walkable place, and then they started grilling me about how long it takes me to do things. I had to concede that it does take longer to walk in some cases than drive, BUT the travel to and from is actually nice, and I look forward to the walk as time for looking around and enjoying my time. They didn’t understand, but they also will get in their car to drive a mile, so…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baidu CEO warns AI is just an inevitable bubble — 99% of AI companies are at risk of failing when the bubble bursts⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes! “AI” defined as only LLMs and the party trick applications is a bubble. AI in general has been around for decades and will only continue to grow.