Notices by Greg Pak (gregpak@mastodon.social)

Getting closer to the election! Feeling nervous? Here's something you can do! Toss a few bucks at Asian Americans for Democracy to help grassroots AANHPI groups get out the AANHPI vote in key swing states!

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gp-aafd?refcode=gregpakforaa4d

I'm sick of all the bigotry, racism, and transphobia, so I set up an ActBlue page to help Allred, Mucarsel-Powell, and Tester win their races in TX, FL, and MT and hold the US Senate! Feel similarly? Feel free to toss a few bucks at this! https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gregpak

May is both Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. I first went to therapy at the age of 52 at the height of anti-Asian violence in 2021. One of the best things I've ever done. Sending good vibes and encouragement to anyone considering it.

Friends in NYC! Please use these forms from our public libraries to tell the mayor not to cut NYC library budgets! Pick your borough and fill out the form!

Bronx/Manhattan/Staten Island: https://www.nypl.org/speakout
Brooklyn: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/standup/contact
Queens: https://queenslibrary.org/support/take-action

BIG UPDATE: Brandon Kraft at Automattic very helpfully responded to me on Mastodon and said the company has NOT already sold Wordpress posts to "A.I." companies for model training via Jetpack/Firehose! A relief. But the company's still planning to sell Wordpress.com & Tumblr posts, so opting out seems smart to me! I've updated the original post to reflect this new info: https://gregpak.net/2024/03/03/the-wordpress-jetpack-tumblr-automattic-a-i-feed-and-firehose-debacle-and-how-ive-tried-to-opt-out-as-best-as-i-think-i-can-at-this-point/

I wrote about the WordPress/Jetpack/Tumblr/Automattic “A.I.” feed and Firehose debacle and how I’ve tried to opt out as best as I think I can https://gregpak.net/2024/03/03/the-wordpress-jetpack-tumblr-automattic-a-i-feed-and-firehose-debacle-and-how-ive-tried-to-opt-out-as-best-as-i-think-i-can-at-this-point/

@kraft @jimw Thank you for being open about this, Brandon. Can you elaborate a bit - does this mean that up until now, sites built with the Wordpress.org installation but running Jetpack have had their posts fed into AI companies' databanks via this firehose? Will we be notified which companies took our data? Will our data be deleted when the firehose closes? This is deeply concerning.

@kraft @jimw This is HUGE news and I appreciate your getting back to me so much! I will update the post I made on my site about this accordingly! One follow up -- can you confirm that that also applies to all other sources of Firehose data, including Wordpress.com posts? So Wordpress.com material was also not authorized for LLM AI use via Firehose? Thank you so much!

Big news! I'm writing a huge anniversary special for THE PHANTOM MENACE drawn by Will Sliny, in stores this May!

"Explore the earliest days and secret inner life of ANAKIN SKYWALKER with never-before-seen, revelatory stories set before, after and between the scenes of the classic movie!"

#StarWars #DarthVader #comics #ComicBooks #marvel

For real: the #BelieveInFilm, #FensterFreitag, #SilentSunday, #BloomScrolling, and similar hashtags on Mastodon genuinely make my life better. Thanks to everyone who started them and everyone who sustains them.

@pfefferle Thanks so much for the response! Is deleting of the account something that will be enabled eventually?

@pfefferle Greetings and thanks for your work on the ActivityPub plugin for Wordpress! I had a question, if you don't mind. I tried it months ago but stopped because it seemed to create a profile that I couldn't edit and I wasn't able to delete posts or the profile itself. Just curious if that's changed and if there's any way to delete/edit posts and the profile itself? Thanks!

@Gargron The #BelieveInFilm community is literally the best thing about Mastodon for me.

Remember I said I had a lot of people to thank for MECH CADETS? I did my best in this post! So many amazing people made the comics & show possible. Hugely appreciate all of you so much, and much love to everyone reading and watching! https://gregpak.com/mech-cadets-hits-the-top-ten-list-on-netflix/ #MechCadets #MechCadetYu

Tech question that's #ActivityPub and #Threads related... just trying to figure out how this will actually work once Threads joins ActivityPub...

If I migrated a Threads account to Mastodon, would all my Threads followers end up automatically following me on Mastodon? And my Mastodon posts would show up in their Threads app?

I thiiink that's what it sounds like, but I'm honestly not sure!

so yeah threads is bad

Possibly or even probably, once people are following enough friends, the algorithmic feed may calm down enough to feel worthwhile, showing you just enough of your actual friends' posts to keep you visiting. But I feel like in these early minutes, we're looking into its soul, into its true function, into what it wants and needs us to do when we're there, and it feels bad.

Basically I'm saying it feels like it was created without any care for the actual users. We're just enticed in to be fleeced. It feels entirely extractive.

Fundamentally, the awful algorithmic feed packed with people I don't know talking nonsense feels like I've been shoved against my will into a giant party where a bunch of strangers are shouting at me for my attention. I'm just looking for my friends, who periodically flash by, but I have to wade through throngs to see them for even an instant. And when I get out, I find out my wallet and keys have been stolen with my ID and all my private info.

@stevelieber @kissane It's interesting because my onboarding experience with Mastodon -- back in 2017! -- was pretty smooth, and when I really started using it more than any other social network this year, the Elk and Ivory interfaces made it feel pretty great. But at the same time, this year I've really become aware of how tedious it can be to do something as simple as to follow people.