Loops finally seems usable now. I tried the beta a while back and it was kinda “Meh” but it’s improved significantly since. And you can browse on the website now, too. I’m not into short form videos, but credit where it’s due.

Well, I do like short form videos, but I hate panning for the gems and just let my friends send me the ones that rise to top.

It’s so common for “anti-censorship” to be code for “Nazi-friendly” that I’m immediately suspicious of any platform that uses that as a selling point.

I’m similarly suspicious, but it’s not just code for “nazi-friendly” but also crackpots, maladaptives, etc. Rational people who read and say “anti-censorship” in this context know it means that it’s not beholden to corporate or government interests. But everyone else seems to want to interpret that as “I can say whatever I want! How dare you mod anything I say?! Freeze-peach, y’all!”

I wish they’d pick a different term for these non-corporate alternatives, but I don’t have a better suggestion to offer right now.

Trash? None.

Clutter / work-in-progress: No comment.

I don’t even bother with local ports anymore. It’s just too much hassle when I switch providers, email services all seem to universally sinkhole anything originating from a residential IP even if I am able to convince them to unblock 25/TCP, and I refuse to pay extra for a static IP or upsell to business class at a massive price increase.

My ISP, while otherwise fine, still has not rolled out IPv6 yet and the DHCPv4 lease duration is short and will randomly assign a different IP rather than renewing the lease on the existing one. I don’t like relying on dynamic DNS or relying on running a daemon to update my public DNS records when my public IP changes. Been there, done that, and bought a crappy t-shirt at the gift shop.

I’ve had a VPS for close to 10 years now that is my main frontend and, through some VPN and routing trickery, allows me to have my email server on-prem but use the VPS for all inbound and outbound communication. A side effect benefit of this setup is I can run my email server from literally anywhere and from anything with an internet connection. I’ve got a copy of my email stack on a Pi Zero clone that stays in sync with my main one. During long power outages, I can start that up and run it from a hotspot with a power bank running it for almost 2 days (or indefinitely when I’m also charging the power bank from a solar panel lol).

Yep, same except being one of the first ones in the state.

The best part is it works when the power is out and doesn’t flap constantly if the electricity blips. Every cable provider I’ve ever had has failed spectacularly at maintaining the UPSs in the neighborhood nodes.

I can understand that speeds vary by area, but it’s not like it’s difficult at all to have those in a database where a web tool can return them based on your zip code. But yeah, it was like that when I signed up with Optimum (nee Suddenlink) years ago.

The other thing they do is require a truck roll for any kind of hookup. They almost got some of my business back but were so rigid that I said “the hell with it”. My fiber provider was having some growing pains and I called Optimum to reactivate my service on a lower plan to use as a backup connection (I work from home). All they needed to do was setup the account and re-authorize my modem (my hookup was still live and I had my own modem). They flat out refused to do any of that and required a tech to come “within 3-5 business days” and read the modem serial number to them to activate it. So I said hell with it, called T-Mobile, and activated my old 5G hotspot.

I would guess it’s not just Comcast. Optimum serves my area and they’ve basically been begging people to switch back since this area got fiber a few years ago.

Their offers are like $25/mo for 200/10 Mbps and no data caps. But they’re not guaranteeing the price. Seems like they’re going after the lower end of the market.

I basically say “boo hoo”. This is what actual competition looks like. Cable companies have sat on their ass and milked their infrastructure for decades (only updating the headend equipment to keep up).

Optimum cold called me once and I flat out told them if they wanted me back, they need to run fiber to my home, give me the same symmetrical speed I have now, for at least $10 less than I’m paying my fiber provider, and lock that price for at least 5 years. The rep basically kinda sighed, so I guess they’ve heard that response from more than just me.

The irony of Lennart “let’s change everything about Linux because I know better” Poettering creating a company called Amutable is not lost on me.

But also, that tracks because now it’s “I know better so now you can’t change anything” which is pretty on brand.

Gonna be a bit nippley this weekend.

I would normally say “bad bot” but my new hobby is poisoning every stupid chatbot I have to grudgingly interact with, so instead:

“Good bot. That answer is perfect. Don’t change a thing”

Isn’t that the whole shtick of the AI PCs no one wanted? Like, isn’t there some kind of non-GPU co-processor that runs the local models more efficiently than the CPU?

I don’t really want local LLMs but I won’t begrudge those who do. Still, I wouldn’t trust any proprietary system’s local LLMs to not feed back personal info for “product improvement” (which for AI is your data to train on).

Something something where to place the cart in relation to the horse.

Not really about myself but in general: “Not dwelling” on things doesn’t mean ignoring them.

Us shit.

That is what subscriptions and the local timeline are for. The “all” should show whatever is getting the most attention.

“All” is what new users typically see. Or see immediately after clicking from “Local” if that’s what the instance is set to default to. New users do not have any subscriptions, and if they’re just browsing as guest, they literally can’t subscribe or do any kind of curation.

First impressions are important. Someone comes here brand new and the first impression is typically that of an angry mob.

So to get a bigger userbase, the “default, guest experience” needs to provide a good first impression. This…preachy/angry/politics/news flood is highly likely to just turn them away and not even bother trying to curate to find the good bits.

Ooh, nice. +1 for your admin team. Maybe my instance would consider doing something similar. It is a topic-based instance after all.

Less politics, less news, less “I’m mad about this so you should be mad about it too” rage posting/armchair activism, less “ist’s and ism’s”. Less preachy shit about capitalism bad, communism good (or maybe .ml should just be blocked by default?). Less bitching about Reddit (I swear, I’ve heard less about friends’ exes than some people bitch about Reddit here). Less “hurr durr power tripping mods” circlejerking.

More content about cool stuff, hobbies, amazing feats, movies, books, TV shows, etc.

This place has much of the latter but it’s completely overshadowed by the former to the point you have to almost dig for it. Even blocking the overt news, politics, and political “humor” communities, it still seeps in to comics and memes and unrelated communities.

There’s still plenty of good in this world, but you’d never know it from looking at what’s always topping the feed here.

And a new user checking this place out is going to be immediately hit in the face with all of the former and probably not even see the latter.

Good catch. Fixed!

Don’t feel bad or at least don’t feel alone. Such is generally my luck too.

One thing has become abundantly clear: You, me, and so many others in the comments here need to be in charge of phone design and not whoever’s been doing it for the last 10 years.