megane-kun

Looking at the pages for lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, lemmy.world, kbin.social, as well as lemm.ee paints an interesting, if expected, picture.

For one thing, lemmy.ml is categorized as "Games > Games - Other (In United States)" which made me scratch my head to the point of hurting my scalp. The rest are uncategorized (which is better than being miscategorized, imo).

Now, for the stats:

• ¹ -- reddit.com is included as a point of comparison
• ² -- lemmy.world didn't exist yet in May 2023

We can see that the larger instances are already performing well in comparison to reddit when it comes to "interaction" statistics. It's a surprise, however that kbin.social trounces everyone else it was compared to--even comparing favorably with lemmy.world in visit numbers. In comparison, lemmy.ml performed quite badly especially in bounce rate and average visit duration. Someone who's better equipped than me in analyzing these figures can perhaps do a better anaylsis, but from what I can see, we're not doing that bad here.

I've also added lemm.ee into the mix just for good measure (and perhaps as a proxy for smaller-ish instances), and it's doing quite good as well.

EDITS:

• Added lemmy.ca into the table as well.
• Added feddit.de into the table.

Fortunately, there's a modlog for communities here in Lemmy.

Looking at it (currently the third in the list for removed posts), an admin removed it with the reason of “bad news source”. Not saying whether or not it's justified though, but at least we would know who to blame and why.

There's this saying “a fish is caught through its mouth,” and this is an illustration of what it means. This pope might present this ‘cool’, ‘modern’ image to the public, but his words spoken in private amongst his peers reveals his real stance about these things.

Edit:‌ proofreading.

The following sums up my experience with Linux thus far: "It's never been easier for the newb to jump right in, but heavens help them if they ever stray from the straight path".

There's been a lot of effort to make things easier for a newb (used to Windows and all that shit) to do what they need to do in most cases. There's been all sorts of GUI-based stuff that means for the 'average' user, there's really no need for them to interact with the command line. That's all well and good until you need to do something that wasn't accounted for by the devs or contributors.

All of a sudden, you'd have not only to use the command line, you may also have to consult one of the following:

• Well-meaning, easy to understand, but ultimately unhelpfully shallow help pages (looking at you, Libre Office), or the opposite: deep, dense, and confusing (Arch) Wiki pages.
• One of the myriads of forum pages each telling the user to RTFM, "program the damned thing yourself", "go back to Windows", all of the above, or something else that delivers the same unhelpful message.
• Ultra-dense and technical man pages of a command that might possibly be of help.

And that's already assuming you've got a good idea of what the problem was, or what it is that you are to do. Trouble-shooting is another thing entirely. While it's true that Linux has tons of ways to make troubleshooting a lot easier, such as logs, reading through them is a skill a lot of us don't have, and can't be expected of some newb coming from Windows.

To be fair to Linux though, 90% of the time, things are well and good. 9% of the time, there's a problem here and there, but you're able to resolve it with a little bit of (online) help, despite how aggravating some of that "help" might be. 1% of the time, however, Linux will really test your patience, tolerance, and overall character.

Unfortunately, it's that 10% that gives Linux its "hard to use" reputation, and the 1% gives enough scary stories for people to share.

I think of the misery each individual must have experienced in order to come to the conclusion that death was better.

That someone not only have decided that death is better, but also have gone through all the steps to act on it is a measure of their resolve, if anything. And as you've said, they're still a rarity. On the spectrum of entertaining occasional thoughts to taking steps to actually doing it, the further you go, the less common it is!

That a lot of people have already gone this far, just how many more are mulling about it, questioning whether or not life is worth it, whether or not to do anything about it? And this "it gets better" mantra keeps some people from even speaking up! Why speak up when you're just going to be slapped with a thought-terminating-cliché? It makes it harder to know how many people are miserable enough to entertain "bad thoughts", and that the only objective measure we'd have is the number of people who've gone to the very end.

This will be a hot take for some but people opt out of a life that's pointless, miserable, painful, and hopeless. Preventing people from access to methods of opting out is but a palliative measure.

Sure, people can be dissuaded from making an attempt by making it difficult, but isn't it far better to address why people want to opt out in the first place? And of course, it's best to do both: prevent people from making attempts, and address any issues they might be having in their lives. Even better, provide "end-of-life" care for those who really have had it enough for whatever reason.

Why lock people into a miserable existence anyways? Someone might have been prevented from opting out, but if conditions don't change (and no, it doesn't always "get better"), you've got a person will just resent even being kept alive. What good does that do?

Now, for the trash take: I suspect suicide is a problem because suits can't make the line go up if people are killing themselves. The suits need people to consume and not kill themselves.

Because my day isn't shitty enough, I went over there to see what's the vibe. Sure enough, people are complaining. There's also a surprising amount of bootlickers who parrot the "argument" that people have been saying things have been going downhill, but Reddit still is popular so it can't be going downhill. As if shitty things can't be popular.

I've seen a couple of people who saw this as the last straw, which is better than nothing, but I feel that those remaining in that site, no matter how they kvetch about it, deserves to be frog stew (as in that boiling frog metaphor). I'd love to be proven wrong though.

I dabbled in a bit of neography (creating your own writing system) and a hint of conlanging (creating your own language). I think I've managed to create a fairly decent writing system for myself, but the conlang went nowhere fast as I underestimated the effort required to even get started with it. I also attempted making fantasy maps, but it was all in paper and quite a while ago.

That's it, I suppose: neography, conlanging, and fantasy mapping.

I also spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at maps and making virtual road trips via Google street view, but that's way more mainstream.

I bought a big pack of msg from the Asian supermarket and use it instead of normal salt for many things. My partner and I call it wonder salt.

I hear the voices of my ancestors cry in confusion.

But seriously speaking, I've never encountered MSG being used in place of salt. We use it here to give food more of that nondescript meaty taste (aka umami).

Personally, if I need both salty and umami tastes I'd reach for soy or fish sauce first (depending on what's being cooked). I'd only add MSG and/or salt if I really have to—usually to make minute adjustments.

"If I can't have you, no one will." -- China, apparently.

And as usual, no one will do something decisive about it because China is a huge bully and is using its reputation as the world's factory and its economic heft to intimidate anyone who thinks of doing anything about it.

What I'd love to see is news companies spinning up their own instances, for example, a CBC-owned Mastodon instance, with accounts such as journalistname@cbcnews. It'd work exactly like a company-assigned e-mail address, and would function as such. That each and every post on such an account would be seen as the journalist working under the company, and not their own personal views.

And if a journalist wants his own personal account, well, they can either spin up their own instance, or perhaps a union of journalists would spin up an instance, with journalists setting up their accounts that are not tied to any news agency or company.

Am I being too naive and optimistic here? Maybe. But do I want this to happen regardless, yes!

Upon reading the article more closely, this is what the BBC is doing. My bad!

I tried using both, in an effort to migrate from Discord. However, after a period of trying to figure out a good workflow and set-up in Matrix—finding an "instance" to set-up an accounts, configuring a private room for me and my SO to have a private chat in, and all that—we just gave up when the instance we had accounts in just folded.

I would have wanted to move to Matrix but I'm just too smooth-brained for it, and so in Discord I stay (keeping in mind that it's neither private nor safe to be there).

Unfortunately, in the same breath as that mention is them saying erasing that is the work of users. There's enough evidence to suggest it's the admin's handiwork. Some people elsewhere mentioned that those "random" dots do not have a user attached to it.

I don't use a shower, rather, I have a bucket (or two) of water and a dipper. I can ruminate and think about things while giving myself a thorough scrubbing, and not consume any water.

I can take as much time as I need (much to the irritation of people I live with) without consuming any more water.

Even if it were possible, I still would not prefer to have any kids.

First off, I haven't even been a "proper adult", and probably would never be. How can I be expected to raise a child with the care and love they deserve when I don't even have my life sorted out? Even if you argue that I'd have to change once having a child, I've also seen people fail to change even after having children they swore they loved even more than their own life.

Secondly, we've already got enough people that are unwanted and abandoned. Why not take better care of people we already have now?

Lastly, parenting is a huge commitment. It's not just about you and your "legacy", but another life that will suffer for your mistakes. For those who are up to the task and willingly take on the responsibility, thank you and best of luck!

Sad, yes. And I'm willing to admit that it would hurt the people who have nothing to do with Reddit.

But if it keeps those people away from Reddit, see Reddit as not the place to find information, see Reddit as a place that was, full of [deleted] comments, see Reddit as an awful dumpster fire, it is worth it.

It's too easy to see Reddit as the Library of Alexandria, but it isn't. It was a place where people willingly shared information to other people, sure, but it now isn't, and it's more important for people to be made aware of that: It is no longer a place for sharing information.

EDIT: Typos and shit.

Well, to be “fair,” a significant portion of homophobes believe an invisible man in the sky said it was bad…

If it weren't for that, I would imagine it'd be advantageous for straight guys for there to be a gay guys: there'd be less competition for the women!

I use Arch. I use the command-line to update, I am very glad that I can do the updates when I do want them. Of course, going over the update list is my responsibility, but such is the power my OS grants me—I can make or break things.

Otherwise, yeah, it's the customization it offers me. I can make it as janky as I want it to be, or rice it to my heart's content.

I was too young to use it in any serious context, but I kinda dig how WordPerfect does formatting. It is hidden by default, but you can show them and manipulate them as needed.

It might already be a thing, but I am imagining a LaTeX-based standard for document formatting would do well with a WYSIWYG editor that would hide the complexity by default, but is available for those who need to manipulate it.

Some QoL stuff my good friend set-up for me.

# ALIASES -- EXA
alias ls='exa --group-directories-first --color=auto -h -aa -l --git'

# ALIASES -- YAY
alias yy='yay -Y --needed --norebuild --nocleanafter --nodiffmenu --noredownload --nocleanmenu --removemake --sudoloop'
alias ya='yay -S --needed --norebuild --nocleanafter --nodiffmenu --noredownload --nocleanmenu --removemake --sudoloop'
alias yu='yay -R --recursive --nosave'

# ALIASES -- CP
alias cp="cp --reflink=auto -i"

And then there's a bunch of stuff from the output of alias, most of them are git aliases. Those which aren't git-related are listed below:

-='cd -'
...=../..
....=../../..
.....=../../../..
......=../../../../..
1='cd -1'
2='cd -2'
3='cd -3'
4='cd -4'
5='cd -5'
6='cd -6'
7='cd -7'
8='cd -8'
9='cd -9'
_='sudo '
cp='cp --reflink=auto -i'
egrep='grep -E --color=auto --exclude-dir={.bzr,CVS,.git,.hg,.svn,.idea,.tox}'
fgrep='grep -F --color=auto --exclude-dir={.bzr,CVS,.git,.hg,.svn,.idea,.tox}'
history=omz_history
l='ls -lah'
la='ls -lAh'
ll='ls -lh'
ls='exa --group-directories-first --color=auto -h -aa -l --git'
lsa='ls -lah'
md='mkdir -p'
rd=rmdir
run-help=man
which-command=whence

I'm setting aside the question of whether it is illegal, but I think it is legally murky anyways.

The more interesting question is whether or not it is ethical to sell one's Reddit account.

I, for one, won't be selling mine. Why?

I think selling accounts contribute to the problem of trust in sites such as Reddit and Lemmy. Why would anyone buy a Reddit account anyways? To appear trustworthy, right? Because karma points and account age has been used as a proxy measure for an account's trustworthiness. An old account, with a fair amount of karma points is a valuable thing for misinformation and/or campaigns. Even if I hate Reddit to the point of wanting to see them literally burn, I still can't support misinformation and advertisements.

Another thing to consider is giving up control of your account. I'm one of those who scrubbed and deleted my Reddit posts and comments. Selling my accounts would mean that if Reddit undeletes my posts and comments, I no longer can do anything about it. Worse, someone else is in control. That's no good for me.

To add to this, artificial engagement is disingenuous. It's akin to corporate-owned comment sections inviting people to "speak their mind" which, of course, no one does.

It's a balance that should be kept: being willing to contribute, but not feeling forced to contribute. Quality begets quality, and if we compromise on quality chasing quantity, we would end up copying the worst of Reddit.

Because why not? I'm alive by default, and I'm too lazy to change that.

It is likely that in this case, leaving would be giving that town, which likely hates librarians and libraries anyways, what they want.

My SO‌ already has my files, encrypted or not, on their NAS (part of an arrangement where I keep my backup on their NAS, and they'd keep their backup on my NAS--once I manage to have one). I doubt they even gave it a look.

Eh, I deserve some reward/treat after going through that!

If ever there is a "stereotypical OG Lemmy user" bingo card you'd probably be pretty close to winning.

This is true, I concur. However, I won't last for however as long as extroverts being with other people continuously. Give me some time to breathe every once in a while, even if for short periods.

As an aside, this is also part of why I kept my smoking habit. I know it's frowned upon by people, and I've got to stay away from other people to do my thing. The nice side effect is that it gives me a good five minutes or so of alone time, which in social situations, can mean the difference of me suddenly spacing out, and being able to last the entire ordeal. I haven't really found a good replacement for this, unfortunately—of course, this might just be my addiction speaking.

The majority aren't dissatisfied enough to do anything about it, despite complaints. However, I'm hoping that some future action from Huffman will affect them adversely enough that it'd push them over that threshold and decide to do something about it—quit that site. I doubt a lot of them will make their way over here, so just them quitting is good enough for me.

It seems it has already made it to All (TopDay).

Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, and that one fan-made sequel, Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes.

I'm not so sure about what my brain considers "combat readiness drills".

I've had nightmares where I was woefully unprepared for an exam that I went to school, running late, without any pants nor underwear on. And as I sat for the exam, I felt so nervous I wanted to pee. And so I did, right in my seat. Thankfully, I was able to wake up before I peed in my bed.

And then I've had a recurring nightmare where I was exploring an endless staircase, with a team of like-minded people. We kept going down and down, as some of our teammates eventually succumbed to fatigue, and then thirst as our supplies dwindled. In some versions, we ended up in the same place we began. In another version, we ended up at some large underground facility, totally dark except for the staircase where we came from.

The only nightmare I could ever consider "combat readiness drill" is a nightmare where I found myself to be a civilian caught in a crossfire inside an abandoned factory, much like what you'd see in action films. How I ended up there, I have no idea, but I eventually got shot as I was trying to escape, and died.

And this is true for a whole lot other things, to varying extent: icons on a smartphone home screen, desktop icons/files on a PC/laptop, digital file organization, physical file/book/notes (dis)organization, to name a few.

We all might agree on a need to keep things organized, but whether or not it's okay to mix pencils and pens together, whether or not to store them with the write-y bit up, or down, whether or not it's okay to store sign pens alongside ballpoint pens, and whether they should be write-y bit up, down, or laid to its side. Whether or not it's okay to just store shirts randomly interspersed with pants, so long as they're all clean....

I can go on and on, but the point is that we may agree on the general principles, but there will always be one detail of organization that I'd find horrifyingly wrong, and you are perfectly fine with it.

There's one important distinction to be made here:

• Youtube, the company, removed dislikes.
• Reddit users, individually, out of their own volition, removed their comments.

You're free to leave your own comments over there, no one's forcing you to delete them. Youtube, on the other hand, forced their decision on others, regardless of whether they wanted it or not.

To be fair, I'd understand if someone don't want to be close friends with someone with depression. In my worst days (depression and other stuff on top of it), I don't want to be in the company of anyone either. It would be very taxing to someone wanting to be close friends with me, so yeah, I'd understand why they'd just opt out of it and stay away.

The intent's great, but I agree with the sentiment that if a beginner has to ask which distro is good for them, that questionnaire only cause them more trouble through choice paralysis.

I answered it in the mindset I had when I was just first installing my first Linux daily-driver, and I‌ got a lot of results, with Linux Mint, Zorin OS and Elementary OS being the top three. Haven't really gone through the distro-hopping phase (nor do I think I'd have the patience to), but I'm intrigued with the other two. It also says something about me who uses Arch, btw, but "gravitating" towards Ubuntu-based distros (or at least, that's what the results seems to be telling me).

This is what I recommend for Linux newbs. And they can stay with it if they're happy with it. It's also a decently competent Linux distribution which is a hell of a bonus.

Thanks for that mental image of a girl using a turkey baster as a dildo and jizz as lube of some sort.

I admittedly know nothing about Ska, and music genres more generally, and whatever little searching I did upon reading this post have given me nothing that I can digest.

However, I've read a discussion about hate for ska coming from cultural appropriation and being liked by teenage boys. Can someone walk me through this?

I've always thought it's something to do with how you can customize fried rice to your heart's content, and the overall versatility of rice in general.

But given that it is offensive, what is the closest alternative that gives a similar, if not the same nuance without the offense? What do we mean when we say ‘rice’/‘ricing’ in desktop environment customization anyway?