Mars2k21

Mars2k21, 6 months ago

Glad Flipboard is expanding in the Fediverse, I've been following their various news accounts on Mastodon for a while now. It especially helps the fediverse feel more complete as a social media platform.

Sure, these don't really matter for Lemmy and Kbin, but they are a huge deal for microblogging platforms like mastodon or misskey.

Mars2k21, 6 months ago

Unfortunately, this is a problem that can't really be resolved. As long as there is a downvote button, it will always be viewed as a dislike button by some people (and I don't know if removing it is a good alternative for such a large social network). It's a problem that would eventually arrive here from Reddit as the community on the Fediverse grew.

There's really nothing we can do about it.

Mars2k21, 7 months ago

welp, another has joined the ranks

welcome

Mars2k21, 7 months ago

Glad to hear this was added! Probably the feature I've been waiting on the most, ghost magazine issue finally has a resolution.

Mars2k21, 7 months ago

I've been using it for a couple years now. It's been a good experience, and it works completely as a keyboard. Customization is great, and there are a lot of implemented features thay have made it my go-to Android keyboard.

I switched from Gboard since I wanted to use an open source alternative for something as simple as a keyboard. It works fine as a basic keyboard, although its a bit unpolished otherwise. Swipe typing is buggy and there hasn't been many updates recently. I don't expect a ton from an open source keyboard to begin with, but this one provides a lot and could be even better if it starts being developed often again. It feels unfinished in its current state.

It used to have text suggestions, but now they are gone for me. Not sure what happened. I'd have to check again, but I'm not sure if they were taken out a while back or something.

Flawed, but it its awesome to have an open source keyboard with this much capability.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

Building something this large completely as a volunteer service is commendable, honestly. Most people wouldn't think of taking up something like this.

This place is completely usable for me and bugs have become noticably less frequent. Most features I need are on here. You've done a good job, especially for so much of the work being done by a single person. I can only write a simple script of code, lol. In the future, just consider bringing in some people to help out on Kbin (especially with moderation).

If you need to take a break, delay some updates, or just step back, do so. Your personal matters need to be resolved first, and us random internet strangers can come later. You can stick to the deadline if you'd like, but I think it's more stress you don't need at the moment. It won't kill Kbin if some features took longer to come out.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

Only in Florida...

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

I use my laptop 55% of the time, phone 25%, and tablet 20% (don't have a desktop specifically). Whenever I'm at home I barely use my phone beyond listening to music and podcasts. I just like having a big screen, so I only really use my phone when I'm not home.

In terms of Kbin itself, I used Reddit half and half between mobile and PC but mostly scroll Kbin on desktop since there aren't any dedicated apps for it yet. Hoping the API comes out soon, the web interface on mobile is great but nothing is as cohesive as an installed app.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

CPU brand choice doesn't really matter a lot.

In general, I'd say go with AMD if you can afford it, but otherwise Intel is fine. Intel has caught up slightly the past couple of years, but AMD APUs are still at the top in terms of what you get for the money. If you can't get an AMD laptop because of low stock/price or see an Intel laptop with more features you like, just go for that instead. I have an Intel laptop and the CPU worked fine on Linux (running Windows right now since driver support for other parts of the laptop like speakers and the display were a little shoddy because of how new it was).

I don't know if this still remains true (if not, please correct me), but AMD will be marginally better for productivity and programming because of the multi core performance. They are also slightly more efficient than Intel in terms of power usage, although I'm sure any laptop besides a gaming laptop will give you solid battery life in 2023.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

Saying this as somebody just reading the post, I don't know the whole context.

Being somebody who is BIPOC, you're not doing us much of a favor either by having an outrage across multiple corners of the fediverse. Take a breather. Seriously, zoom out and just consider what you are writing right now.

Hatred of politics is a transphobic, sexist, and racist trope.

...what if I just don't like seeing news that only makes me feel angry or bad on my feed. People have different things they want to participate in and see. Just because you like it to discuss it doesn't mean you should jump to accusations when someone doesn't want to. Its a sensitive topic to begin with. I just come here to see tech, cars, and art.

I started out by attempting to educate them on what politics actually means.

This comes off very pretentious. Just let this one go bro.

Look, I don't know what's going on with this blahaj place's moderation or whatever and its not my business. Just based on what I see here, you may want to take a good proof read at what you are saying and spreading around before you lead yourself somewhere that you regret. If you don't like this blahaj server's rules or anything, just leave. Its just the internet. You might find somewhere better suited for you if you just move your account to another instance. If you want to voice concerns, spreading posts like these across multiple communities isn't the way to do it.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

This is the definition of politics (Merriam-Webster).

You're taking it way out of context. If I tell somebody we should go for a walk its not anything beyond just socializing. Please stop jumping to conclusions.

I'll just leave it there. Not really here to go back and forth.

Mars2k21, 9 months ago

I always love to see attempts to see people making the Fediverse more friendly and open for all, but I can't see this one working.

I'm not really a huge fan of the name Mastodon personally, but I don't have any other better ideas. The branding right now works, there just isn't enough people actually hearing about what Mastodon is to begin with. We need to push Mastodon, the name that people may have heard of before but never bothered to look into. Changing it now won't really do a whole lot. If they wanted to get the name out there, I feel this could be done through other ways like a massive update or something.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

I'm for this idea. Large sports communities could bring multiple new instances and also just a flood of active users in other communities. If we were to pick a specific community to come join, these guys and people in tech communities should be the first choices.

Communities centered around sports teams like r/chelseafc or r/lakers could warrant an entire Lemmy or Kbin instance with separate communities about that particular team (trade/signing rumors, live games, social media posts, etc). For them, federation actually has some huge benefits.

Plus as a side note, I'd love to have the regular diehard sports bickering on the Fediverse. Seriously. They'll be quite the counter to the current culture of the Fediverse, however. Arguing about Mbappé's longevity or whether the current NBA champions will win again would drown out the politics anyway, which is a massive plus in my book.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

It is social media that allows privacy and stops Corps selling your data is its USP.
If the person you are talking to does not care about the above, they have no reason to move.

Seems like the Fediverse' existence is trying to to send a message at the end of the day. If I were telling somebody about it and stopped as soon as they said the good old "I have nothing to hide" it would be kind of pointless to begin with. Might as well give the whole spill since that phrase likely is to be a given anyway.

The problem is that in all other aspects of social media: ease of use, userbase etc the various flavours of federated social media are last.

I do agree, they are behind the centralized social media. However, I don't think it would help federated social media's case if we didn't at least try to simplify it somewhat and show the appeal.

Personally, I am a bit sceptical about the long term sustainability and scalability of data storage for data intensive (images and video) federated services.

For images, I suspect that something like this would only be a major issue for federated platforms (besides Pixelfed) in the case of a massive influx of users from another platform all at once. Otherwise, the infrastructure would likely catch up eventually. Kbin, for instance, eventually scaled despite at one point being run by a single person on software absolutely not meant for that many people. Video, on the other hand, I do also feel skeptical about on the Fediverse unless a massive organization were to host an instance.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Honestly one of the most well written posts I've read. Thanks a lot, helped me understand all of this networking stuff involved with self-hosting since I literally just bought a PC to function as my home server like 2 days ago.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Going great. Got a coffee and Starbucks made my order right this time. Sat on a park bench and just relaxed there for 45 minutes. Can't complain about anything really, it's Friday.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Was literally just coming here to post about this. Ghost magazines with inactive owners and mods seems to be a real issue after the initial hype died down, and a Reddit request-esque service could really help.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Not sure if the list is supposed to only be accounts that moved from another service to the Fediverse completely, but some other notable accounts/organizations on the Fediverse that I can think of off the top of my head:

• The BBC's Mastodon instance, social.bbc
• Ars Technica
• George Takei
• Flipboard (has multiple accounts)
• Wikipedia

Mars2k21, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Honestly questioning why I even mentioned the instance name, I should've saw this coming

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

/c/masterhacker owner pictured

Linux memes are only funny if they are shitting on Arch anyway

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

That's a pretty huge move right there, hopefully this is the first of many migrations of apps to Activity Pub software (besides Threads).

Also...the name NERV kind of threw me off for a second. Tell the anime crowd on Twitter that NERV moved to Mastodon full time and we'll probably get an extra 2 million people in the Fediverse.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I actually joined Tildes before the API changes, back in February of this year. Before that, I had been a lurker on the site since 2020, so nearly 3 years.

Tildes is...interesting compared to any other social media. Its completely its own thing and there is a heavy focus on the philosophy of the site and the Tildes docs, which is basically the constitution of the website. Long form discussion is encouraged, posting images isn't even an option, and its very focused on providing for its users a great, streamlined experience. The interface is my favorite of all the Reddit cousins, its simple and it loads extremely fast. The software is great, no bugs at all and the interface is simple and lighting fast and the voting system is really well designed in regards to maintaining activity on threads that can be days or even weeks old. The people there are friendly and I've never even seen a bad interaction on Tildes.

However, this comes because the whole site is heavily moderated and controlled by the admins and mods. Long form discussion just isn't really my thing when it comes to online discussions, so I don't talk there much. I don't really like writing a paragraph or more in response to every question online versus having a long in-person discussion or on a real-time messenger like Discord (I'm doing it now of course, but I don't like doing it for every post). I would if every topic there interested me, but that's just not the case and that won't be the case on any site. My last post was 2 months ago, and I've just been very inactive there since making my account. I like reading on there occasionally, but not contributing much. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the site. Like another poster said, its very tightly controlled. While that prevents many trolls from appearing despite the few moderators that are actually on the site and encourages long form discussion, it also hampers the diversity of the people there. Sometimes I criticize the whole "We don't want people from Reddit or other social media" take when it comes to Kbin/Lemmy's growth, but its much worse on Tildes because the site actively wants a certain type of individual. No image support on purpose already filters out a lot of people who could bring great content to the site, and the lack of an ability for users to create topics affects it more. You can't make a topic on Tildes like you can on Kbin or Lemmy, there are strictly defined ones created for you, and they are quite general. You won't see much OC as you will just links and random conversation topics, and that kind of just makes for a lukewarm experience in my opinion. If you want to talk about a specific niche, you're out of luck. Kbin/Lemmy/the Fediverse and Reddit have that, and its a large part of the appeal for me. The lack of user diversity in interests also just makes the experience a little worse. For example, I like space and anime, and the space and anime communities on there aren't the most active, maybe a post weekly or biweekly. I'm also interested in tech, and you can imagine that community is booming 24/7. Compare the ~space community to /m/space, and you'll see the difference. This issue went away somewhat while the Reddit migration was in full effect, but now its returned as activity on the site has dwindled down a bit.

Tildes cares about the users, no doubt, but it doesn't really give them much power over the site. I wish it were less controlled.

I highly suggest you just take a look at it and lurk for a few days on there. What you see is what you get. Its not ultra politically focused like you said Raddle was (I have 0 experience with any of these sites other than Tildes, Kbin and Lemmy), its has equal activity in most of the communities. However, there are only 20 or 30 to actually choose from, and if you want something niche you'll just have to post in one of the communities and see if someone knows about it. If you don't like it, I wouldn't be expecting it to change much, the site culture isn't dynamic like the Fediverse or Reddit for instance. The conversation there is unparalleled by any other platform though. You can find some truly inspiring and deep conversations on there. Its not for me, but you may like it a lot. Its a flawed approach, but the site fulfills what it intends to do very well. For me, Lemmy and Kbin, while not perfect, are the best alternative to Reddit. Tildes is open source and anybody could make an instance of it, but it hasn't happened yet as far as I know.

Ironically, that's the longest thing I've ever typed on Kbin.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

I live in a major US city, and yes they are still everywhere and being used. Here they have an actual use since walkability isn't the best, and at worse are just a nuisance with the way they block parts of the sidewalk and can be left anywhere with little consequence.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Glad more research into asteroid mining is being done, the benefits it can bring to civilization are massive. Also wonder what we could learn about asteroids from Psyche.

Although, what are you even supposed to do with $10,000 quadrillion dollars? Buy an entire continent? Things will get interesting once asteroid mining becomes available to the private sector as well.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Debian >>>>>>

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Would I be able to participate even though I'm on Kbin? OP on the announcement post says there is an authentication process.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Dang. Hopefully support for other accounts does end up being added at some point.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Still have my account and use it for finding reviews and answer to questions (e.g. Question site:reddit.com). But I don't post, comment, or participate by upvoting/downvoting anymore. Without the third party app I used, I just don't really find a point in using Reddit as a social website anymore.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Honestly, while I love the ideology behind the Fediverse and Activity Pub, it seems like fragmentation is just getting worse and worse as it grows. The defederation drama and the forks upon forks of Misskey for instance is getting a little nuts. Maybe its just a transition period especially with the implosion of Reddit and Twitter, but its a concerning trend that is holding the system back in my opinion. I agree about the fediverse being more like internet as it should be though.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I actually use trunks on android, had no idea there was a web client as well. Might try it out before dropping Mastodon to see if I like it more.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I'm pretty sure most of the people who will come here as a result of Reddit are already here. All the new Reddit refugees are probably getting over the hype with Lemmy/Kbin and are finally not pouring so much time into the platforms. And as a result, slowing growth numbers and tapering engagement. Its pretty natural and nothing to be worried about. There's still plenty of engagement here (just look at what happened to Threads a couple weeks after it came out).

Regardless, we should focus on making Lemmy/Kbin a fully fleshed out platform and draw in users the natural way rather than relying on Reddit falling off for new users. At this point in time, the Reddit blackout is pretty much over.

Might as well throw in my rant here, as I'm against this sentiment of not wanting Lemmy/Kbin to grow more and possibly even get mainstream. I get keeping out the undesirables of Reddit and other social media to prevent an Eternal September situation, but I also want more people of different backgrounds and interests rather than the same Reddit critic/tech enthusiast type of crowd. The great thing about federation is that if you want a smaller and more tight knit/topic centered community, there are smaller servers to join (not so much for Lemmy/Kbin at the moment since they are new, but it should get better over time). We can't seriously want Lemmy/Kbin to develop well if we voice desires to keep people out and rebuild echo chambers. Lots of smaller communities and topics have little activity because there's really only one group of people here right now.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

Its a terrible rebrand that pretty much comes because of Elon's impulses, or in other words, for shits and giggles. Regardless of this hilarious trashing of such a powerful brand, I'll have fun calling tweets "xeets" for a good week.

Mars2k21, 10 months ago

FLCL is one of my favorite animes of all time. It only ever needed the original. None of the remakes have stacked up in story or animation. I'm all for making something different, but when the past 2 have been mid at best they probably should just nix the rest. There's so much better content that could be shown in the limited time Toonami has every Saturday night than this.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago

Kay-bin seems like the only correct way. Cabin or K'bin just feels wrong for no particular reason. The name honestly just makes me think of KDE.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago

Pretty shocking that one person can maintain an instance after a mass migration from another platform while also developing the software among other things in his life. Need time management tips from him, lol.

Huge kudos to Ernest for maintaining such a great site, completely as a volunteer service at that.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Agreed, and honestly this is why I don't think these federated platforms will ever truly get to a large scale. The amount of disconnection on a service that is meant for connecting people together. Unless its changed, the fediverse will be only for the group of people who are quite comfortable with technology (beyond just downloading an app and creating an account). The complexity needs to be hidden.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago

Meta has already tried it with Instagram stories after the success of Snapchat. The possibility of them attempting it with federated platforms after what appears to be two migrations to the Fediverse (one from Twitter and the other from Reddit) is definitely there, especially given Meta's reputation.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago

Impracticality and Instagramability >>> Functionality /s

Seriously, can't we just focus on the food rather than fancy excuses for plates?

Mars2k21, 1 year ago

I mean, if you don't like Ubuntu much and you can also use the terminal, maybe try out Debian? Packages are a little dated but if you are willing to live with it, it's a great experience. I have some unstable repos added to my install for newer packages, and its been a good experience with 0 issues so far. I mainly use the GUI and its also been easy to use and super stable, although I suppose Pop and Mint would still be easier.

It's not exactly Ubuntu based, but its worth a shot.

Mars2k21, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

I was trying to screenshot a picture on my Pixel in the YouTube app, but a recurring bug just completely froze my phone. I tried multiple ways of turning it off (I didn't know about the forced restart at the time, which is done by holding the power button down for 30 seconds ) and eventually it accidentally called emergency services. The problem is that I couldn't tell them it was a false alarm because...well, my phone was frozen. Was very embarrassing when the dispatcher arrived suddenly, although he was very understanding about it.

After restarting my phone, I immediately turned off the shortcut. Never again.

Mars2k21, 1 year ago

Probably because of the endorsement of Lemmy by subreddits, which has been far greater than the endorsement of Kbin. Lemmy's also just been around far longer than Kbin. Those server issues that Kbin encountered during the whole explosion of users also likely slowed down growth a bit. Even with Lemmy's bot problem I think these have made it grow faster anyway.

Mars2k21, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

14:1 upvote to comment ratio on this post as of this comment...um....

Mars2k21, 1 year ago

Not sure about others, but I feel that the bird would be better for bringing in new users who made not be as tech inclined versus the folder. The name "kbin" already has some tech connotations to begin with. For the average user, thinking of a bird when they see the app would probably be better versus the windows file explorer or some MS office/development app. The folder icon doesn't have to be trashed though, as stated, they can coexist.