Thank God.

Track 16, Black Winter Day, is one of my favorite rap songs. It tells a story, it’s sad, but also subtly uplifting, and has a pretty catchy hook.

Personally, I downvoted because lately I’ve been devoting almost all of my energy toward trying to develop software we can use to build a true democracy. That’s how I keep myself sane and believe I’m contributing to solutions. Others have their own ways.

And while I’m waiting for scripts to run, I do make the occasional political comment in places like this. But that’s a separate thing just to connect with people and unwind. I can’t speak for the others, but I was downvoting the assumption that just because someone shows outrage at an outrageous situation, that necessarily means they’re doing nothing to try to fix it. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, I thought he was out of control, but I wasn’t aware he had been slammed.

Yeah, there is a lot to miss about those days. Seems naive looking back to not have known that those early-net vibes could not last.

I subscribed to a writing magazine in the late 90s or so and they had a web forum. It was amazing to be able to post my writing online and get feedback from a community of people who were virtually always friendly (if sometimes blunt) and dedicated to the craft. I miss that genuine feeling of community, seeing the same pool of people around you so often that you notice when someone’s been gone a while.

It can’t be the same now for a lot of reasons, but I agree that Lemmy and its Fediverse counterparts (I’ve only been on Lemmy) are the closest thing we have now. And having recently looked in on the alternative, I just notice reddit getting worse and worse and Lemmy getting better and better.

We should enjoy this time when this world is small. And welcome the refugees as they arrive. Would love for the people to own the means of production, but at this point I will be thrilled if the people can at least come together and seize control of the means of meme production.

I am maybe misplaced in this conversation. I was born in 1990. I do feel a deep nostalgia for early chat rooms and IRC. So much so that I’m trying to build up a chat platform of my own.

In comparison to the time of asking people their A/S/L and just hanging out talking about how our lives are different, there are now maybe four (or five?) categories of potentially society-ending threats hanging around our cultural zeitgeist. All of them addressable, but it just hangs around every internet thread like a miasma now.

But I do think we’ll find ourselves nostalgic for this time in a similar way that we look back on the 80’s. In the same way it became possible in the mid 70’s to just buy some off-the-shelf components and assemble them into personal computers that can be sold en masse, it is every year more and more possible for a relative novice (such as myself) to do something like create their own chat room app. With some prior experience and the help of AI, I’ve got the bare bones of a shift-left style DevSecOps stack, and it feels really exciting. It feels like I’m a guy in the 70’s in his garage putting a prototype personal computer together, the way you can abstract your requirements from deployed resources in CI/CD. I envision a near future where corporate capitalistic social media becomes stale and increasingly awful (status quo) and the average consumer can have an idea for an app and have a fully hardened back end system to support it in the span of an afternoon. I’m looking forward to a new crop of communication technologies that we collectively develop as a people to tackle the overarching issues which affect us all. Imagine if we could all organize to efficiently locate ideal candidates for public office and democratically work out our differences in environments where peaceful debate and separate chill zones are both encouraged, rather than profit-driven systems where outrage is king. We can do so much better, and we are just now on the cusp of having all the tools to enable the average person to finally be able to help themselves.

I’m sorry for the tangent, and for polluting this thread with all of this. I know it’s not really on topic, I’m just waiting for tests to process and really pumped up about starting a revolution later, idk, maybe, I mean, like only if you feel like revolting.

I agree. I clicked into this one because it looked so different. I thought the first one of these posts was interesting but seeing the same style so many times started to feel excessive. But now I think I was wrong. Something new has emerged from the sameness. Good work, OP.

Yeah, somehow it looked AI before I clicked into it for the high res version, something about the way the guy’s face was drawn. And when I saw the high res, it was really obvious, because the pupils are askew in a way a true artist would not have chosen. And as you say, the stippling pattern is typical of AI. Weird that our brains seem to be some of the best competitors in the arms race between creating and identifying AI images.

Ah, the whole cast is here. Looking good as new, but they’re all seasoned veterans. How ironic.

And of course, the references in the top right of the canvas would be replaced with a copy of the original.

It’s a horse

Recently had to come to terms with the fact that when I was a kid I thought of George Costanza as “the fat bald guy on Seinfeld” but in present day I am now older and possibly also fatter than George was on the show.

The article says that the administration seems to be claiming the executive order where they changed the name of United States Digital Service to United States DOGE Service allows them to make the sweeping changes they are making. This is of course ludicrously beyond the pale when it comes to data security violations involved in taking control of data managed by other agencies and getting involved in their staffing. It’s a smokescreen for autocracy.

The claim in this particular instance is that they are saying the executive order redefined the reporting structure of the department. Where previously they reported to the Office of Management and Budget, where everything is subject to FOIA requests in the short term, they claim their USDS reports to the White House Chief of Staff and therefore is shielded from FOIA during the current administration. We can theoretically get the data later (I’m sure they’ll be very responsible with chain of custody on such important data 🙄) but it will be 4 years later, when no one cares because we’re in the trenches dealing with the long term consequences of what’s happening right now. So, it is subject to FOIA, yes. But they’re making up stories and betting the courts won’t dare to challenge them.

So it’s like if I bragged my house payment is only 100 bucks, but that’s only my electricity bill, I actually paid a million dollars cash for the house but let’s not count that.

Oh, so there’s six.

I spent about 20 minutes today trying to get Copilot on Word to tell me how to disable Copilot on Word. Worth every penny.

I also find USB to be limiting when it comes to range. I can go about 50 feet with a nice thick HDMI with copper wiring, but any further than 20 feet on USB necessitates fiber optics. Not an issue for everyone, but something I have been running into.

I’m actually building an app for this right now. It’s in early development, but I’m quite serious about it and it’s for exactly the purpose you’re describing - casual non-dating text chats. When it’s released, I’ll come find you.

I’m glad you’ve broken that dating barrier as well! It certainly is difficult to invite people in when life is cluttered, and I can imagine the added complication of the clutter not being your own made things especially tricky. I’m personally on the opposite end of the cannabis spectrum at the moment - I used it for many years, mainly to break down my emotions and get at the root causes of my anxieties. I’m at the point now where I’ve done a lot of self improvement, but the cannabis has become more of a hindrance. I was dependent on it and definitely seeing some side effects from long term usage. I think it did serve a purpose, but it’s become time for me to stop using it as a crutch. Just a minor heads up to use with moderation if possible. I’m happy you’ve found someone though, and that your life is heading in a good direction. Wishing you all kinds of success in your relationship and life!

Well, the best thing that happened to me was meeting my girlfriend. Just happened a month ago, but we already feel like we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together and this is after me not dating at all for almost fifteen years.

So, the second best thing has to be several months ago when my family caught on to the fact that I was depressed and overwhelmed with clutter from stuff I was hoarding because I felt too guilty about throwing things away. They helped me sort through it all so it wasn’t so overwhelming. My living space is nice and tidy now and that’s what allowed me the confidence to go meet a partner who is perfect for me in almost every way.