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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 4th, 2023

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  • This is an angle I’ve never considered before, with regards to a future dystopia with a corrupt AI running the show. AI might never advance beyond what it is in 2025, but because people believe it’s a supergodbrain, we start putting way too much faith in its flawed output, and it’s our own credulity that dismantles civilisation rather than a runaway LLM with designs of its own. Misinformation unwittingly codified and sanctified by ourselves via ChatGeppetto.

    The call is coming from inside the house mechanical Turk!





  • Analogue clocks, particularly clock towers in towns, but also just basic clocks on the wall in your home. With smart devices everywhere, it seems like they’re not needed and probably old-fashioned. The circular 12-hour clock face probably feels like the floppy disk icon or the rotary telephone, in terms of how ‘of another era’ it is, but it’s still a fantastic and resilient form factor for the purpose of visualising the passage of time. Digital is great, but analogue will be with us for the foreseeable future (and I’m including in that the representation of analogue in a digital form, e.g. on smartwatches that provide a classic clock face graphic).





  • If you’re in debt and it’s affecting your mental health and making you contemplate ending it all, don’t worry, there is a way to get your life back again. The following info is about the UK and N. Ireland, but it is highly likely similar info is available wherever you happen to be:

    StepsChange is a charity that acts as a middleman between you and your debtors. The charity will negotiate reasonable and specially-tailored monthly payments for your debtors, which - depending on your income and savings and all that - will not cripple you every month. You can pay off what you owe and still have money left to live your fuckin’ life. Yes it’s a charity, but they don’t give you free money, you pay your own debts, but you just do it in a way that isn’t ruining you.

    I’ve seen this work with multiple family members, so I can 100% vouch for StepsChange and the dream-like positive change it made in their lives. It takes what amounted to many hundreds of pounds a month and reduces it to like 30. It’s insane how much they can help you. Please contact them if you’re in financial trouble.

    Similar charities must exist elsewhere, so look into it if you’re not from these parts. There is always hope.



  • 58008@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlLinux, openSUSE ready for Everyday Users
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    5 months ago

    I love that Linux exists, but I really don’t appreciate the bullshit PR speak about how regular users can switch from Windows with little-to-no friction. The second something doesn’t work as expected, even a minor thing, they’ll be at a complete loss about how to even investigate the issue, let alone correct it. Windows competency doesn’t transfer to Linux for even the most basic under-the-hood stuff. The less honest you are about that, the fewer people will try Linux a second time, and the more people will write off the entire endeavour as being the domain of computer experts/enthusiasts.



  • It’s the path of least resistance to achieve Musklessness. The second two of the positives you listed are actually negatives to the average Joe. Choice paralysis, overwhelming number of apps and servers, these are things that put people off even trying, especially if there are easier-to-use alternatives that are familiar and instant.

    Mastodon is great, but it’s not quite there yet in terms of convenience. Too much copying and pasting and clicking through to different instances in order to read old posts etc. It needs to be more cohesive in a way that doesn’t require constantly leaving your timeline or going into the settings.

    It’s also the case that the Twitter diaspora who are famous tend to choose BlueSky, and that brings a lot of people along with them.

    And it’s also the case that Mastodon doesn’t have much of a marketing campaign outside of word-of-mouth, whereas BlueSky does.



  • As in real life, it’s pretty sound advice to ignore, block or otherwise disengage from trolls and other forms of belligerents. Even in the '90s when I first started using the internet, the phrase of the day was “don’t feed the trolls”. But people just can’t help themselves. They will even reply saying “I know you’re a troll, but…”.

    The Steam forums are a great example, where every other thread is a fake “is this game woke??” screed. The fact that you can be rewarded for being a cunt there with jesters (which translate into points that can be spent to buy profile items) just makes it a thousand times worse. You get ‘paid’ to be a troll on Steam. It’s insanity.

    The only anti-troll weapon that works or is needed is oblivion. Let their steaming turd of a post curdle in solitude. Don’t even downvote it. Being downvoted is a victory for them, an acknowledgement that they exist and that they’ve gotten your attention and that they’ve annoyed you. Shadowban them from your mind. Block them so that no future posts of theirs will infect your screen. Report them so mods can remove/ban them. Just don’t engage directly with the post or the user. Don’t say “blocked and reported” in the troll’s thread/post. Just do it silently.





  • Lose the ‘infinite growth’ promise to shareholders (in fact, lose the whole shareholder thing entirely). That’s the root of all evil right there. It’s the cause of all woes suffered by gamers, devs and even the very sociopathic CEOs who think Epic exclusivity is a sound financial strategy. We all suffer for it, and all to benefit shareholders who, in 2024, still believe the lie that next year’s profits will exceed this year’s. It’s delusional, and even if it weren’t, it would quite literally be cancerous. Cancer is just a board of shareholders in a biological system.