Notices by AJ Sadauskas (ajsadauskas@social.vivaldi.net), page 3

@jalefkowit No, I don't want Microsoft watching everything I do in my browser in case I'm playing a game. And if I do ever play a game, to suggest tactics.

Seriously. If you know you fucked up when your surveillance tech makes the Google alternative the more privacy-respecting alternative.

I recently switched to @Vivaldi to get away from unwanted AI bloatware in Chrome.

This "feature" would make it *less* likely for me to choose Edge in the future.

@klausfiend @Alon @mekkaokereke @14mission The Boring Company was a different fever dream to hyperloop.

His claim was that cars would drive on to "skates" in parking spots.

The cars would then be lowered into a tunnel on the skates, where they would travel at 130 miles per hour.

He ended up building a prototype under the Las Vegas Convention Centre, except it's just human drivers driving Teslas in an endless loop from one end of the convention centre to the other.

@14mission @Alon @mekkaokereke The average in Australia is 1.1–1.2 passengers per car.

I haven't checked, but would imagine the average would be similar in the US.

So if you have a lift that carries 1 car per minute, that's just 60 cars per hour. Which means, on average, 66 – 72 passengers per hour.

For context, a single articulated bus seats around 75 passengers; Sydney's trams carry up to 400 passengers.

But it's worse than that.

Because in his future, he wants robotaxis, which potentially drop the passengers per car below 1.

So at, say, .9 average passengers per car (something that can't be achieved without robotaxis), 60 cars an hour turns into just 54 human passengers.

@fancysandwiches @mekkaokereke @ScottStarkey @MishaVanMollusq In an ideal world, Mastodon (and other Fedi apps) would be developed by a member-owned nonprofit with a democratically elected board.

You want to attend the AGM? You want a vote on how Mastodon is run?

Okay, that's, say, $5 per month.

Instance-level memberships and memberships from other Fedi projects cost more.

Second, the nonprofit has a commercial arm that offers managed instance hosting, and support.

The nonprofit would also raise funds through a grants, gifts-in-wills, events, regular donations over $5 per month, and large donations from major donors.

@MishaVanMollusq @mekkaokereke Do you mean me personally?

If that was my big concern, I would have been on X or Instagram these past 2+ years instead of here.

It's more that I'm disappointed that many people who I respect, some of whom were regular Mastodon users for a very long time, have recently stopped posting here.

They're now on BlueSky.

There was a real opportunity with Twitter imploding for the Fediverse to fill that void.

That means decentralised, open source, non-commercial social media based on open standards could have been the standard.

That window of opportunity is now nearly closed.

And honestly, I feel disappointed that's the case.

I think there is an opportunity for Mastodon to be the place for slower, more thoughtful, longer form conversations with a stronger community.

And maybe that's what Mastodon was better suited to all along?

@mistergibson @mekkaokereke There was a whole wave of Australian journalists and prominent #auspol Twitter users who moved to Mastodon when Elon first bought the bird app.

Some moved back to X, others moved on to Threads and BlueSky.

Many who tried Masto for a time ended up on BlueSky.

I think there's a few reasons why that happened.

The onboarding journey and the default app, especially two years ago but still today, just weren't great.

There have also been issues with moderation and harassment.

There's issues, like quotes, that were supported by other Fedi apps but not Mastodon.

With credit to the Mastodon developers, some of those issues have been fixed, just nig nearly fast enough.

I definitely think there's value in Mastodon and the Fediverse more broadly.

But I'm now a lot less sure that role will be "the new Twitter".

@mekkaokereke Sadly, I get the impression that the window of opportunity for Mastodon to be the great Twitter replacement might have closed.

It's just so quiet in here right now, especially compared with BlueSky.

That might change over time?

I think what a lot of people wanted was just a better moderated Twitter. And that's something Mastodon ultimately failed to deliver, particularly with the default apps.

I think perhaps it's time to focus on Mastodon better at being its own thing. A place for slower, more thoughtful, longer form conversations.

And to keep chipping away at the moderation and other issues that have held it back.

I certainly think there's merit in better federation between the Fedi and BlueSky.

But these are just a few disjointed thoughts...

@timrichards @skinnylatte @mekkaokereke Here's a quick explainer for our American friends on how payments work in Australia.

Let's say I've set up a bank account. When I do, I can link my phone number or email address to my bank account.

Now, let's Imagine you need to pay me $20, but you use a different bank to me.

What you would do is open your bank's app and go to the payments tab.

Then enter my phone number or email and tap transfer.

That's it.

No third party payment app needed.

You don't need to even know which bank I'm with.

This has been baked into the Australian banking system for the past 6 years now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Payments_Platform

Before that?

You could still transfer funds from your account to mine using your bank's app.

You just needed to know either:

a) My account number and my bank's unique ID number (called a BSB number), or
b) If I'm a commercial business, my unique payment ID number (called a BPay number).

Again, all this is a standard part of the banking system here.

Plenty of posts recently questioning whether BlueSky is actually a decentralised, federated social network like the Fediverse.

(Yes, the following description of ATproto is a gross oversimplification. I realise this. Bear with me a moment.)

Basically, under BlueSky's AT Protocol, you can opt to have your data hosted on your own personal data server (PDS). But these servers all need to connect to a central relay, and at present the only central relay is BlueSky.

Any account that follows Bridgy Fed @bsky.brid.gy also gets federated into the Fedi.

Now.

Let me introduce you to WhiteWind. https://whtwnd.com/

What's WhiteWind?

It's a longform blogging platform, where all your blog posts are saved to your BlueSky PDS.

So right now, today, you can set up your own PDS. Allow BSky access and store your BSky posts in it. And also grant WhiteWind access and allow WhiteWind to store its files there.

And any BlueSky posts replying to your WhiteWind blogs are visible — on WhiteWind.

So potentially, in the future, you could be storing data from multiple social networks and apps — including photos and videos — in your PDS.

In effect, federating across multiple networks doesn't happen at the level of BlueSky. It happens at the level of your account.

#Fediverse #BlueSky #ATproto #ActivityPub #BSky

@loops How do we sign up?

Now here's an experiment.

Let's add 950 billion tons of toxic carbon pollution. To the air we breathe.

Then let's add another 40 billion tons. Every. Single. Year.

What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.caryinstitute.org/news-insights/blog-translational-ecology/unextractable-fossil-fuels

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #CarbonDioxide @green #Pollution

@tiesselune Let's put most of the offices in glass towers in a central business district, or in suburban office parks that are largely inaccessible to anyone not in a car.

Now, let's put the workers in single-use-zoned residential suburbs well out of walking distance of the office.

If they're lucky, they're walking distance to good public transport. If not, they're driving.

Let's make everyone be at their desks at 9am.

Let's let them out at 5pm.

Let's make them all try to commute at the same time. If they're driving, that means maximising traffic — and air pollution.

Let's externalise the cost of those roads and public transport systems to taxpayers.

Let's not count the time they commute to and from work in their work hours.

That means we won't pay them for commute time.

When we say "productivity", we'll also exclude commute time from the equation.

So we'll look at what the underlings do during the 8 hours they're in the office, and not the full 9–10 hours (or more!) they were away from home.

Of course, we won't actually measure productivity at home vs the office. It's more of a gut feeling.

Isn't returning to the office grand?

@dansup Wait — what happened with Nextcloud?!

"For soon, the ambitious Paris agreement limit turned out to be not much of a limit at all. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC, the world’s foremost body of climate experts) lent its authority to the 1.5°C temperature target with its 2018 special report, something odd transpired.

"Nearly all modelled pathways for limiting global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels involved temporarily transgressing this target. Each still arrived back at 1.5°C eventually (the deadline being the random end point of 2100), but not before first shooting past it.

"From some corners of the scientific literature came the assertion that this was nothing more than fantasy. A new study published in Nature has now confirmed this critique. It found that humanity’s ability to restore Earth’s temperature below 1.5°C of warming, after overshooting it, cannot be guaranteed. Many impacts of climate change are essentially irreversible."

#climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

https://theconversation.com/how-mainstream-climate-science-endorsed-the-fantasy-of-a-global-warming-time-machine-225597?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic%2Fclimatechange

@GreenSkyOverMe @mcc More importantly than all that, you also have access to the magic cave!

You know, the magic cave! The one where all the delicious things are, like chicken and tuna and salmon! 🍗🐟😻

I don't know about your babies, but one of our babies can be sleeping peacefully on the balcony.

But. As soon as my partner or I open up the magic cave, he's right there at our feet with hungry eyes 😻

Within seconds.

"Yay! Extwa bweakfast time! 😸"

@mekkaokereke Oh fuck yeah there's racist white women out there, and lots of 'em.

Both in the US and down here.

Often, the bigots are hiding in plain sight.

As in, there's a stereotype of what a racist looks like. The shaved head, the MAGA hat, the fascist tatts, the white robe...

Yet many racists are perfectly pleasant to other white people. They're normal looking, everyday white people.

They're quite reasonable in white company, as long as no-one mentions race.

They often genuinely don't think of themselves as racist.

They even mouth the right platitudes at the right times.

It's just (and these are actual examples I've come across)...

The woman from Columbia is the most qualified candidate, but they have concerns about hiring her because of her accent.

They're celebrating International Women's Day, and every single woman in the video is white.

They couldn't find any non-white women to speak at their charity fundraising event.

They pull aside a South Asian woman, and tell her they had an Indian colleague at work who complained about racism in Australia, "and I told her if you don't like it, leave".

Someone mentions the Jews, and they start sharing what they really think.

Or they get angry at someone who's not white, and they morph from Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulking White Supremacist. (1/2)

@mekkaokereke Here's the crucial thing about the type of racist white people I've just described.

If you're white, and you don't discuss race, then it's entirely possible for you to not even notice that you're in the company of a racist.

And if you're oblivious to many such people, then it's entirely possible (if you're white) to grossly underestimate how prevalent white women like that are.

Because chances are there are many in your workplace, or your social circle, or your family, and you're completely unaware of it.

(And I speak from experience on that last point: There were a few in my life who didn't make themselves known until I started dating my current partner. So I'm definitely not immune to the underestimating!)

Remember: Not all racists wear MAGA hats. (2/2)

@BeAware @ajsadauskas.bsky.social @Vivaldi Okay, something peculiar I just noticed.

It's not just my account it's happening on.

I tried following @snarfed.org (that's @snarfed.org's BlueSky account) and the button changes to follow.

But.

When I go back to that profile afterwards, it says "follow requested". Screenshots below.

I tried following a different account from the web version, snd the same thing happens...

@BeAware @ajsadauskas.bsky.social That's the peculiar thing.

Below is a screenshot of a search for BlueSky Bridgy accounts on @Vivaldi. They work fine... 🧐

A few very quick questions on something I'm troubleshooting.

I'm trying to use @bsky.brid.gy to make my BlueSky account visible from the Fediverse, and also make this Mastodon account visible on BlueSky.

Here's the link to my BlueSky account on the Fediverse: @ajsadauskas.bsky.social

Unfortunately, at least from @Vivaldi Social, I'm having a couple of issues. Namely, only a couple of posts are visible, and I seem to be unable to follow that account.

So just a few questions for people (especially on other Mastodon instances):

1) Can you view @ajsadauskas.bsky.social?

2) If so, roughly how many posts are visible?

3) Can you follow that account?

4) If you click follow, go to another page and come back, does it still say following?

Thanks in advance for your help with troubleshooting this, I appreciate it 💖

#Fedihelp #Fediverse #Bridgy #BlueSky @snarfed.org #Bridge #Mastodon