Notices by Jürgen Hubert (juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe), page 2

@carlysagan @cstross He is a sexist social media embarrassment who gets to shape American government policy and plunder billions, and promotes fascism around the world. I can't help but notice that he is promoting the main German fascist party just before our federal elections, for instance.

Like with the Nazis of the 1920s and 1930s: Just because he is pathetic it doesn't mean he isn't dangerous.

Some parties go on for far longer than anyone intended.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory @germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ghostly-wedding-52009306

@FlashMobOfOne It's now early morning around here.

I have plenty of ghost stories, so if this question is still relevant you will have to narrow it down a bit. ;)

Trying to abduct even the most benevolent of spirits is never a good idea.

#Italy #folktale #folklore @italy @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/salige-maidens-101245001

I just had a Thought. Obviously, we can't simply pass a law banning #X specifically from operating in the #EuropeanUnion . It would set a terrible precedent, likely wouldn't pass the courts, and wouldn't be very effective since X could just rebrand itself or something.

But we _could_ introduce, say, the "Social Media Transparency Act" which would require all social media systems operating in the European Union to either use a strict timeline, _or_ publish the precise algorithm they use to show content to their users. And if there are any variables specific to the user, their profile, their region and so forth, then users must be able to request the values of these parameters as they apply to them at any time.

And if any social media companies in the European unions do not comply... well _then_ we can fine and/or ban them!

Does this sound like a plan?

#SocialMedia #Fediverse

@skinnylatte My weirdest experience of seasons was when I did a bicycle trip in Norway in August.

It was too late for the midnight sun, but dusk melded seamlessly into dawn. It never truly got dark.

2/ I googled local locksmith emergency services, and called the first number I can find at 16:20.

"There will be someone at your place in 20-30 minutes!"

I called them again at 17:55 and asked them how long I would have to wait. "Oh, the locksmith canceled. Didn't you get a message? No, now it's too late and we can't send anyone else to you - you will have to call some other service." Assholes.

Then I looked up another service and called him, and _he_ showed up within 15 minutes. He charged €95 because this was after hours, which was reasonable, but I gave him a €5 tip and a good Google review because I was so pissed at the other service.

Today marks the official start of my vacation as I visit my father in Erlangen for two weeks (and I _definitely_ left my work notebook back at my apartment!). But when I took the bus to the train station, I saw in the train travel app that a train had an accident while moving around a station, and thus the route between Oldenburg and Bremen was blocked...

After some deliberations, I decided to take a route via Leer instead - going west instead of east. This will add more than three hours to my travels, but I am not in a hurry - and it's better than waiting around the train station for hours and then trying to squeeze into the first train into the direction of Bremen together with all the other passengers.

Let's see if this week throws any _further_ curveballs at me...

3/ I will arrive at the final train station in a few minutes. The rest of the trip fortunately was without further incident.

@cstross @vkc I use a fairly specialized #TeXLaTeX setup which allows me to generate both PDFs (for the print version) and EPUB versions from the same source files.

It was rather fiddly to set up, but fairly useful since I send a monthly "Master Volume" with all my translations to my Patreon subscribers.

@cstross @vkc ... I have used vi in the past, but I'll stick to Notepad++ for my own books, thanks.

1/ Let me tell you about my week.

I am a bid manager by trade. And while I _largely_ like my job, one of the downside is that potential customers and the planners who organize their tenders tend to put deadlines right before the holiday season. Which makes organizing the bids far more stressful than it needs to be, since all the co-workers with technical knowledge whose input I require are also extremely busy with their projects so that they can generate revenue.

And we had to submit a seven-figure bid yesterday, before noon. And one of the things that made this bid especially aggravating is that the planner not only made it mandatory to fill out a price sheet that required proprietary software to fill, but _also_ required that we fill out a 67 page PDF with manually placed text boxes with the prices and technical information - by my estimates, I must have placed around 400 of these text boxes.

And this was by no means the only work I had to do to finish this bid - I had to collect supplementary documents and even write some product descriptions based on product handbooks.

Thursday was the worst - I started working on 5 am and ceased working at 11 pm.

We finished on time, and submitted it at 9:15 am (by no means the closest finish before the deadline).

But I was (and still am) so utterly exhausted that when I put on a new pair of trousers in the afternoon, I forgot to put my keys into my pockets - and for the first time in my life, I had to call a locksmith because I had locked myself out of my apartment...

@stuart @WetHat @mastodonmigration

I disagree. He leveraged Twitter/X to get privileged access to the second Trump administration. This is _extremely_ profitable, easily worth more than the purchase price.

@mastodonmigration I would love to believe that #Bluesky will be different and can escape the #Enshittification trap.

But I have been burned by commercial social media systems twice - first Google-, and then Twitter. With #Mastodon at least I have the confidence that it will get better in the long run, which I don't have for Bluesky.

@GottaLaff It's not the first time he has promoted the German fascists, either.

8/ To sum it up, this is why I think that the #Fediverse as it is now is far more oligarchy-proof than #Bluesky - which, due to the current rise of #fascism around the world, is of extreme importance to me. If human civilization is to have a chance of survival in the long run, we _must_ learn how to circumvent the systems the oligarchs have control over.

And right now, the #Fediverse seems to have the best chance of doing that as far as I am concerned. So whatever we can to make it more attractive and increase its userbase, we should do.

And if you want to understand the technical details better, read @cwebber 's article which explains it far better than I ever could.

https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/

7/ In contrast, the #Fediverse (including #Mastodon ) uses a "Distributed" approach. Each node is more or less equal in function, and even if one or more of the major nodes goes down, the rest could still go on without any interruption.

(For example, I currently follow 3496 accounts, of which 555 are on Mastodon.social, the biggest instance. So losing my connection to Mastodon.social _would_ be painful, but I would still be able to maintain my connections to 85% of all the accounts I am following.)

6/ #Bluesky uses a "Decentralized" approach. In theory, it could survive without any single central hub - but it will always require strong "backbone" hubs which only large organizations will be able to maintain. And this makes them vulnerable to attacks or influence by the oligarchs and other class enemies.

5/ #Twitter / #X, #Facebook , #TikTok , etc. are all firmly "Centralized" social media systems. They are all firmly in the hands of the oligarchs who can and do manipulate them to suit their political and personal agendas. Elon #Musk aiding and abetting the #fascist takeover of the USA is the most blatant example, but it is by no means the only example of the major harm done by this approach.

4/ @cwebber cited the "On Distributed Communications" paper by Paul Baran, which is well worth a look. It has an image showcasing three different types of networks:

(A) Centralized
(B) Decentralized
(C) Distributed

3/ This requirement must still be fulfilled if any single node is down due to maintenance - after all, accidents can and do happen, and you don't want cascading blackouts.

And this same requirement is also important for other networks, including the Internet - and social media.