Schadrach

Only insofar as some instances block communication from some other instances. Not mine though, that’s actually one of the reasons I picked it. That and it being by an org that’s older than the web and runs a public unix server and a bunch of retrocomputing type services as well as fediverse stuff. They started out as a dialup anime BBS.

Less a brand name because multiple companies can make parmigiano reggiano, but it’s a combination of requirements designed to protect local industry - for example, for it to be parmigiano reggiano cheese it has to be made with one of two lists of three ingredients, the milk has to come from cows from a specific region of Italy, a certain percentage of the feed for those cows must come from a specific region of Italy, is aged for a certain minimum time, etc, etc. It’s an entire set of industries protected by a legal definition of a cheese.

When you see “parmesan” instead of “parmigiano reggiano” it’s a similar sort of cheese that isn’t made within the legally protected definition. Most often it’s just not made in the one specific part of Italy with milk from cows from that part of Italy fed by feed from that part of Italy, it’s made somewhere else using dairy that doesn’t have to be imported. Or it’s aged “enough” for the flavors to develop but not the full time required. Or both.

There are a whole array of product designations in the EU that basically exist to protect individual agricultural industries from competition by requiring that products be made in a certain place, or using products from a certain place in order to prevent outsiders from duplicating the product, increasing supply and driving down prices.

Basically the same logic as “if it’s not from the Champagne wine region in France it’s just sparkling white wine.” Also the same reason why “real” balsamic vinegar costs a fucking fortune.

I once tried to install Linux around then, not long after ISA cards with Plug n Play became a thing.

Linux: So now to even pretend to get the card to work you have to download and run a tool to generate a config file to feed to another tool so you can then install the driver and get basic functionality from the card (which is all that’s available on Linux). Except the first tool doesn’t generate a working config file - it generates a file containing every possible configuration your hardware supports hypothetically having and requires you to find and uncomment the one you want to actually use. Requiring you to manually configure the card and thus kinda defeating the point of Plug n Play (though I guess that configuration was in software, not by setting jumpers).

Same card in Windows at the time: Install card, boot Windows. Card is automatically identified and given a valid configuration, built in drivers provide basic functionality. Can download software from manufacturer for more advanced functionality.

That soured me on Linux for a long time. Might try it again sometime soon just to see what it’s like if nothing else. ProtonDB doesn’t have the most positive things to say about my Steam collection, and I imagine odds are worse for stuff not available on Steam.

As commander in chief, communicating with the military is definitely a core duty and absolutely immune. So is writing pardons. So you just order the military to crime in your name and pardon them afterward.

Which when you try to say it as written sounds like some degenerate version of “lick nuts” which is possibly not intended?

Oh, boy. Back to the old Reddit patterns. How long before they start using bots to preemptively ban anyone who has ever posted on certain communities regardless of context as a time saving measure, because that was a thing on Reddit as well?

Any idea which subs are banning like that already?

and suggestions that ‘any instance is fine’, although true in a technical sense - is a little misleading

I’d say more than a little. I always suggest they look at the instance rules and also who the instance blocks to make sure they’re OK following those rules and being blocked from that content before picking. Part of why I picked SDF was that they block no other servers.

I think the blurring of the lines between developers of the Lemmy open source project, and admins of the lemmy.ml instance is a self-sabotaging and tone-deaf reflection on the site, and hurts chances of wider adoption.

Why? They explicitly haven’t baked any of their moderation/administration preferences into the code and have rejected suggestions that they should bake things along those lines into the code. If they decide to, that sounds like an awfully good reason for a fork. You don’t have to love the devs and their politics to use the software they developed, though you should probably be on board if you want to use the instance that they run.

The easiest way to explain it is to compare it to email.

You know how you might have a gmail address, your friend might have a protonmail address and your parents might still have their old aol email address? But you can all still freely talk to each other anyways?

Lemmy is like doing that, but for something like Reddit. If you notice, usernames have an @servername on the end and just like an email address that’s the server that person is connecting through. For example, I’m Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org.

Which means I log in to lemmy.sdf.org and use their servers to read Lemmy, but I can read, post and comment on communities on any other Lemmy server that is federated with lemmy.sdf.org just like they’re on lemmy.sdf.org just like you can send an email to someone using a different email service and it makes no difference on your end.

Communities work the same way - so for example politics@lemmy.ml, politics@beehaw.org and politics@lemmy.world are all different communities hosted on different servers with their own separate posts, subscribers, mods etc. And users on any Lemmy server federated with the server that community is on can read, comment, post, etc (mod action notwithstanding).

This federation thing I keep mentioning is just which servers are willing to talk to which other servers - again you can compare to email. Sometimes email servers pop up to send massive amounts of spam, and when they do mail providers blacklist them and simply ignore all messages from that source. Defederating is the same idea. You use lemmy.world according to your username, so if lemmy.world defederates lemmy.ml then you will no longer be able to see any communities @lemmy.ml or read any posts or comments posted by someone @lemmy.ml - to you it will be like lemmy.ml just doesn’t exist.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a link labeled “Instances”, which will give you a list of which servers lemmy.world talks to and which ones they’ve specifically blocked. Lemmy.world has a pretty long list of blocked instances.

One of the reasons I picked SDF’s lemmy instance was because they don’t block **any **instances - as far as SDF is concerned it’s up to the end user what they want to see. Also SDF is kinda a cool entity - they’re a non-profit best known for maintaining public access unix servers and a bunch of retrocomputing stuff (like dial up internet and a gopher server) that has been around since 1987 (the name is literally an old anime reference because they started out as an anime BBS).

I don’t know how to best deal with such indoctrination chambers. Their members become completely divorced from reality and there’s no way to pull them back from the brink because anything you could say to that effect gets moderator-deleted. Yet vice versa, they can freely spread their propaganda and engage in “raids” on other instances.

This is essentially the same problem Reddit has (mods/admins can control what is discussed on their boards), stems from the same place (mods/admins have essentially unlimited power over their boards/instances), and has the same basic solution - let the echo chamber echo chamber and create alternative communities that don’t have that problem. And on the upside, since this is a federated space you can just have whatever@otherserver.net instead of r/truewhatever7alpha.

It’s just more noticeable here because the censorious leftward fringe is both more extreme and more aggressive about it.

At least we haven’t started getting mods running bots to auto-ban anyone who has ever interacted with other specific communities yet.

Really no different than Reddit in that regard. At least we don’t have people automatically banning you for having ever interacted with specific other communities yet, at least I don’t think we do yet.

EDIT: Shit, somehow I forgot the don’t. Teach me not to proofread.

That would be accurate. But it would fuck with your ability to open it by just double clicking it, which less savvy users would see as fucking the file.

Sure sure, but we’re talking ease of use for a typical end user. Also, Firefox isn’t mandatory for the other app, so you technically don’t need to add that step even if getting away from Chromium in general and Edge in particular is a good idea as regards avoiding advertising.

Maybe, but Windows has the advantage of being preinstalled on the hardware most people are buying (meaning they get to skip the install the OS step for Windows).

You underestimate what “downhill” can do to that equation. I recommend looking at some roads in WV like route 60 to the east of Gauley Bridge, Mount Alpha Road in Kanawha City, or Goff Mountain road that connects Institute to Cross Lanes, on the end near Institute. That last one has a hill steep enough that just sitting in neutral will get you up to 60MPH before you reach the bottom without heavy breaking.

I used to claim my state didn’t have any bad drivers, because there are too many places where if you fuck up you’re going to fall a.couple of stories and get impaled on a tree.

So, companies will create Threads accounts and use them to post ads as regular Threads posts, then? Because that’s what the block button is for.

There’s also nothing that stops any company from doing exactly this in any instance that currently exists, including spinning up their own instance.

If we’re talking ads that Threads will be inserting into the feeds on their site, what does it matter? Either they are a user making a regular post treated like any other user or they are something that Threads can only push on their own site.

but it will be a sanitised corporate safe space for advertisers

Posts on threads might be, but they can’t force their standards onto posts or users on other servers. That’s kinda the point of federation.

So, posts from Threads users will have to meet Threads “safe space” rules (because they are Threads users and Threads can require whatever it wants of them), but this means nothing for your posts on any other server. Worst case, Threads blocks you from visibility on Threads.

and ads sprinkled throughout.

Threads has no power to push their ads onto any federated server. They can show whatever ads they want on Threads, but those ads don’t appear to anyone else and likewise they couldn’t do anything to artificially make their content show up higher on any other server.

Alright, fair enough, but why would anyone allow meta even an inch of space into a ‘free’ platform?

It’s an open protocol, they can join if they want. That’s kinda the point of being an open protocol, anyone willing to implement it just can.

I imagine that if tomorrow Meta decides to run a free email service ala Hotmail or Gmail you’d be demanding that they will destroy email everywhere if they aren’t put on every black hole list immediately?

threatening to harvest our conversations without our fucking permission,

Public posts on social media are well public. There’s literally nothing that stops them from reading your posts without federation, and federation does very little to change that in a meaningful way.

or using Microsoft’s tactic of “embrace and extend” to destroy the competition

By what, adding features to Threads that make users prefer it over other ActivityPub implementations? The worst case here is that Meta federates, then does something that breaks federation and their users don’t jump ship to another instance but stick with the Meta product?

Anyone can implement ActivityPub. We have no problem with that.

So long as they aren’t a giant corp you personally see as especially evil, then if they implement ActivityPub they need to be blocked as globally as possible?

I find it bizarre you think the mere possibility of users from a big corporate service being able to communicate with the fediverse is akin to wolves attacking sheep.

If you really need your echo chamber to be free of people who use Meta servers, you could just block them as a user without mandating everyone else do so too.

That’s a terrible analogy. That’s like saying that Google running an email service ruined your email and the only solution is for everyone to block all emails from accounts hosted by Google.

Threads federation doesn’t change anything about the rest of Lemmy or Mastodon.

The absolute worst case is that it brings a ton more users into the fold, eternal September style.