Notices by SlightlyCyberpunk (admin@mastodon.slightlycyberpunk.com)

@mekkaokereke While people here argue if "welcome packs" are OK, other people here have been putting such packs together for years already. @FediTips lists several on their website. I think a bunch of my initial follows came from https://fedi.directory/, they've been around for a while. The problem is not that we lack these things; the "problem" for a lot of people is that they are decentralized, and that means they require the new user to make some choices and seek things out.

And for a lot of people, that's an improvement. That's why we're here. To not have $15M in VC funding pushing its preferred content into our faces. But hey if you want the welcome packs they're right there, go use 'em.

@seachanger I dunno. It's tempting to say that Mastodon is too focused on not repeating the mistakes of other social media that they aren't replicating the good things either, while Bluesky is so focused on replicating the experience of other networks that they're repeating a lot of the same mistake too.

But that cash issue is not just a cash issue. It's an exploitation issue. As far as I can tell, "trust and safety" on other platforms simply cannot be done without mass abuse and exploitation, *even with* millions in VC money to burn. They have such "good" moderation by giving impoverished people PTSD every day in exchange for a one dollar wage. The secret isn't an algorithm, it's sweatshops full of people watching children get abused all day long. There is no tried and true solution Mastodon can use here. There is nothing they can learn from other networks. "Fuck that, we're not doing that here" is absolutely the best thing that can be learned from how other platforms handle content moderation.

Could Mastodon Gmbh do more experimentation to try to find a better solution? Sure. Always. Could other people who think they have a great solution just implement it themselves? Also yes. Several are actively doing that, with varying degrees of success. I kinda prefer that, personally. Especially considering that I have yet to see any solution that is not a centralized system. Mastodon is centralized enough already, but at least we can have multiple centers for multiple tasks instead the entire damn thing under one single company for most users.

But it is a Very Fucking Hard Problem.

@br00t4c Fun thing about this is you can put any word or phrase you want in place of "private equity" there, the answer is still no.

@w3c @evan @tomcoates @mallory Uhh...so why does the footer of that site link to Twitter and Meta but NOT to any Fediverse profile? How the hell does this org expect to be taken seriously talking about "increasing use of the fediverse" when they don't even use it themselves?

Please don't promote these kinds of scams, W3C...

@aral am I missing something? The "terrorist attack" you mention is the pager bombs from this week, right? But the quote you give is is from about two months ago, not after this particular attack (although there were certainly plenty of other Israeli war crimes happening at that time)

(not saying her ads aren't a fucking scam either, just want a clear timeline of her bullshit)

@VisualStuart You know...Libertarian types sometimes like to talk about how "the free market" could better ensure safety by having some kind of system of private competing inspection companies...and I think this incident alone is enough to prove how insane that it.

First of all if the government cert isn't worth a damn, there seems to be a market for competitors anyway...so where are they?

But even if we accept that the government monopoly drives down demand...where's the competitors advertising that their facilities don't have these problems? Heck they too could have submitted a FOIA request for those same reports at any time. They could have been advertising about these reports for months, if not years. But clearly safety and sanitation don't sell. More profitable if everyone agrees to look the other way...

@MediaActivist As someone using an Android install that never had Play Store to begin with I wish they'd do this another way...I've hit a number of apps that don't work because I don't have Play Services, even when I manage to get them installed without it...this change won't let you avoid Google at all, it just means you need Google *and* the other thing.

@IzzyOnDroid @starlabssystems @aral that comment made me check 'em out too and DAMNIT this StarLite looks decent, why did nobody inform me of this company when I was looking for tablets?? Lmao...maybe I'll get one though, @aral let me know how whatever you got works for ya? :)

I mean I do love my shitbucket but still...
https://mastodon.slightlycyberpunk.com/@admin/112553824781595582

Fucking fuck, I've finally been convinced/coerced to join LinkedIn.

Mostly because I'm looking for a new job...does it actually help for that? I hope so...I need to get out of this fucking place like yesterday....

So my father passed away about a year ago.
My mother is still finding random charges to her credit cards from his old Amazon account.
Amazon was notified that he had passed. His credit cards were cancelled. He was never an authorized user on my mom's cards, and Amazon was never authorized to bill his subscriptions to her cards.
The bank apparently says this happens a lot, it's a well known issue.

It's a well known issue.
That Amazon regularly commits credit card fraud.

Christ I am so glad I no longer do business with those crooks.

@ryanc As a software engineer, I see a potentially much simpler solution here -- just remove it from the output. Is the government going to refuse to let you board a flight if the database says you're male but you're wearing a dress? Are they periodically checking your genitals to ensure they match what is stored in the database? Is there any situation where they actually need to USE that information? Take it off any outputs so nobody can see what's in there, then they can have all the time they need to update the backend accordingly.

@babe oh shit, I missed mine! Sorry keyboard!

...anyone know how to get a Javascript console on a modern Firefox on Android, or am I just gonna have to spam alert() boxes? All the answers I'm finding seem to be out of date...

And no, plugging the phone into my computer is not a valid answer. The phone is already a computer. I shouldn't need two to accomplish basic tasks.

alert( JSON.stringify() ) cannot seriously be the best debugging tools we have available in 20-fucking-23, right???

@anarchopunk_girl @AnCuRuadh @kayeluvian Eh, the US system is heavily centralized in its own way. Shit we have individual insurance companies that have more clients than the entire population of England. And all these massive companies tend to move in unison, because they're driven by the same goal -- maximizing profits. If this care is easier to get, it only means it's more profitable. They're not doing it because they think it's important or even because they think people want it -- most Americans have no choice in who their provider is or what services are covered anyway (side note: the whole thing of not being able to quit your job or you'll lose your healthcare really sucks too). Which I guess is about the same as the NHS, except at least your vote presumably influences the NHS a bit?

@anarchopunk_girl @AnCuRuadh @kayeluvian No worries. But yeah choosing between being able to pay absurd prices for some semblance of gender affirming care or actually being able to get cancer treatment for example ain't a good choice on either side. When you decide to go to America for easier access to hormones and end up with a gunshot wound, how's the heathcare experience gonna be for THAT? Or when you end up in the hospital far more often because our food is fucking toxic. Or when you discover mental health care basically doesn't exist in huge parts of the country...

Good to point out the flaws in both systems, but doesn't seem fair or reasonable to say one is better based only on one specific flaw in the other. Fight for change in the NHS, absolutely...but I can't accept anyone saying the US system on the whole is better because of that lol

@anarchopunk_girl @AnCuRuadh @kayeluvian wait did somebody delete a post here or something? Because I SWEAR the post I replied to specifically said something along the lines of at least you can get care in the US system as long as you are able to pay for. And my point was merely that even if you can pay for it, you'll get *something* but it might not really qualify as healthcare. Similar conclusion to yours -- both systems suck. Just trying to dispel this myth that people who can afford it do get good care here. I suppose billionaires might, but nobody else does.

(On an unrelated note. Thanks to whoever reported me to myself and called me a "stupid cissie shit", glad you think that's something which deserves a ban, but good luck getting me banned from my own server xD)

@AnCuRuadh @anarchopunk_girl @kayeluvian Dafuq? In America I have trouble getting any treatment at all regardless of how much I pay! Can't even get a simple flu test without a NINE MONTH WAIT (I have literally been told that by doctors as though that makes ANY sense at all); I go to appointments and can't get even five minutes with the doctor, can't get anything other than hastily prescribed pills that typically don't even work and pay hundreds of dollars even with decent insurance going back over and over again to try to find something that will because they'd rather throw twenty prescriptions at you than spend five minutes getting the information required to make sure they're treating the right thing...shit half the time the doctor tells you while they're writing out the prescription that they don't think it will help but they want you to take it anyway (probably so they get a cut next time the drug reps come around)...

I mean yeah I guess if you just want pills you can get pills, just be careful because they most likely won't be the right pills and will often make the situation worse...last time I *trusted* a doctor here I went from a sore throat to coughing up blood because of the crazy cocktail of drugs they blindly threw at me in the hopes that one of them might do something...

You ain't a patient in the US, you're a petri dish. And you'll pay obscene amounts to be that.

IS THIS HOW I USE YOUR API?!?
*spews garbage data at the webserver*
AM I DOING IT RIGHT??
*webserver has no idea wtf I'm talking about*
LET ME INNNNNN

So last week I was sitting in on an interview with this Java dev who answered every question pretty much perfectly, including a particularly clever use of XOR that took the three of us in the interview a good five to ten minutes to even understand. After the interview our team lead is all "she seemed pretty good but i think she was getting help"

Meanwhile today I'm helping the last motherfucker they hired who is currently struggling to copy and paste, having trouble deleting a file, having trouble saving a text file...ugggg