muddle 🥣

@emilymbender@dair-community.social I disagree in part. I think that you're trying to make two points that probably require separate posts. On the one hand, I understand what you're saying about respect for the other person and doing even a basic bit of fact-checking before you wade in with something to say. Or, checking whether the person speaking is qualified. I don't fault that side of things because I've seen the sorts of comments your posts attract and there are a lot of uninformed replies. So I agree The other thing is that you seem to be throwing up a sort of is/ought problem. You're defining terms for what social media ought to be, including a dichotomy that treats threads differently whether you started it or something else. Sure, maybe there ought to be consideration of someone's time and maybe even a degree of respect for authority (as in, on a topic) but in the real world this isn't how social media works. If you really want to defend a theory of social media, then I think it's best to deal with it as a separate topic. And I don't think you'll succeed in making anyone agree with you on that side of things. edited to add: I mean, get a bunch of people together and get them to come up with a theory of social media and you'll never come up with a consensus view.

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online @cstross@wandering.shop that's one of the things that makes it interesting to consider how Charlie (I hope he doesn't mind me switching to first name terms) thinks about it. I think that he views one of the three as being essentially conforming/orthodox (but twisted) while the other two are really offensive to the Christian mind. I'm an atheist as well, as it happens, but I do find the debate around the various forms of Christianity to be quite interesting (maybe in the James's sense with The Variety of Religious Experience in mind).

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk There is https://www.odroid.co.uk/ who are resellers of hardkernel's odroid machines. I've never dealt with them, though. It might be a bit more expensive than ordering from Korea direct but at least it's more convenient. The x86 processors are Intel, though. Not sure if you meant amd64 as meaning generic 64-bit or AMD-only brand.

@rightsprung@c.im @samlitzinger@journa.host "triumphalist" arch, then?

@cstross@wandering.shop I still can't figure out what the heresies are. I was thinking "false gods" but that's a commandment. Probably counts as a heresy, too, though. Looks like I should look up what the acronym stands for again. Probably clusters of them map to Christian though in obvious ways...

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online @cstross@wandering.shop Interesting interpretations. And, yeah, they align. I don't think they're quite the things that Charlie was talking about, though. He called them "heresies" and I think that mapping at least the first two aren't heretical as such... more like reinterpretation? I'm not privy to what he thinks about it, but if he's calling one of them a "rebranding" (what I referred to as a reinterpretation) then I think the other two should really be more transgressive rather than rebranded semi-orthodoxy. Maybe he'll give us more insight, but for now, it's an interesting puzzle/thought experiment.

I like the old system of air-traffic control before everything was digitised. I read an article about it so I have an opinion on one aspect about it. The old system had a way of holding routing slips or whatever they were called. Part of the job of ATC is to hand over planes from one zone of responsibility to another. The way this was done in the manual system was for the person handing over a flight to place the token (whatever it's called) to one side of the person who will next have responsibility for it. The system worked well because incoming tokens could be picked up in a person's peripheral vision, but it wouldn't need to distract them from the task straight ahead of them. When they had time (of their choosing), they could glance at the token to pick up the vital statistics about it, then get back to either tasks that were in their central field of view (most pressing/urgent and most in need of attention), or they could manually move tokens from their peripheral vision closer to the central field as mandated by the urgency/ordering. This is about designing systems that work around humans in a way that doesn't require them to be hyper-vigilant at all times. Again, I just read one article, so I am definitely not an expert on this. I just found it cool.

@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange I think that "sleep paralysis" might be an example of this or something similar?

@autolycos@beige.party I don't know which part you're asking about.

Anyway, the EFF seems to be compromised in the same way that Gloria Steinem was. #PsyOps #TonePolicing #AcceptableDiscourse

@2legged@mastodon.ie and one with a penchant for using the word "notwithstanding" in laws...

@2legged@mastodon.ie assuming you don't know... (first search result) https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art33.html Basically, it give the Canadian government the ability to say "look, we know this stuff isn't legal, but..."

@2legged@mastodon.ie They can, that.

@cdarwin@c.im Putin targets phantom limb... again.

I'm still waiting for that deal with the devil at the crossroads. I'd even learn to play the banjo...

Someone had a thread about songs that appear in films, but weren't made for those films? I've got a couple of examples of songs that match movie titles but have (apparently) no connection to the films themselves... Things to Do in Denver When You're DeadWerewolves of London (both with a Warren Zevon connection; probably a coincidence)

and that might also require first setting a safe distance.

The Republic of Ireland soccer team has the perfect opportunity to repudiate genocide. The momentum is on the side of those who are revolted at Israel's anti-human acts. https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2026/0921/1592439-israel-fa-hit-out-at-hallgrimssons-genocide-comments/ #Zionism #Genocide #COYBIG #MoralArc

@emilymbender@dair-community.social The reason that I picked that track is that you've already picked me out as part of "the problem."

[ [ 0, 1 ] [ 1, 0 ] ] ... for when the number you have dialled is imaginary?

Domino Theory...

Random thought... we're always (or should, to at least a low level) thinking "what's his/her angle?" Or, less judgementally, "where's he/she coming from?" I think that for the vast majority of people, we're not coming from anywhere. We're all just voices in an eternal wilderness. Sometimes we're looking for meaning. Sometimes we're just popping off whatever it is that's just come up in our heads, bicamerally separated or not. Most of the times, there is no angle. Most of the times, we're not confronted with existential dread. There is no "not-a-waiter" posing as a real waiter. Sometimes we do feel the disconnect, though. Sticking with the Sartre theme, sometimes we are crossing a park at night, high on mushrooms, senses heightened to the fucking urgency of life, wanting for it to mean something. That's the real paradox. The significance of everything and nothing, both at once. #BeginnersMind #Nausea

In my personal life, I've sometimes had to cut off ties with people or at least limit how I interact with them. Sometimes this has been over disagreements over basic facts or behaviour. On a few occasions, I've told a person that eventually I'll be vindicated as I did so. It's easy, when you're eventually proven right to say "I told you so." While technically true, it's better to soften the blow with "I did try to warn you." Better for you (because you're not clinging onto being right for its own sake) and better for the other person because it makes reconciliation easier.

@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie A lot of this is indeed like CIA counter-intelligence, destabilisation or infiltration operations but they've never been the only ones in that game. Corporations and entire industries have had access to the same sort of, shall we say, "capabilities" for quite some time. Maybe we're seeing more of a shift from centralised (but at arm's length) application to a more mercenary style problem these days? It's the tail (corporations, like Thiel's) wagging the dog (CIA, others), it seem. No ideology apart from making the world safe for billionaires...

@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie No need to shout! I do know what you mean, and basically, I'm as radicalised as anyone can get. I think you started off in this thread (or maybe another?) with a call to action? Without incriminating ourselves, what should we be looking to do in terms of collective action? I have ideas but not really the chance to work through them with other people. I've alienated/been alienated from pretty much everyone I'd liked to have called on to be an ally at this stage. (it's a them problem, but obviously I can be difficult to work with)

@linuxandyarn@hachyderm.io @michael_w_busch@mastodon.online @cstross@wandering.shop That tallies with my understanding, having been brought up as a Catholic in Ireland.

@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie well that's us fucked, then.

@dangillmor@mastodon.social Eh. It is. Not "looks like." If you're a reporter, do your job.

An idea for a "reaction" feature for managing responses in a thread... based on vectors. I'm thinking of two vectors: one for time and one for logical agreement. And use fuzzy maths. The fuzzy part comes in by having a value somewhere in the range [0,1], with the midpoint 0.5 representing a "neutral" stance. The timewise vector would be how important you rate it to spend time on the tagged toot (we'll say it's done at toot level, but maybe could be threaded or refer to hashtags or whatever). For the sake of convenience, we'll say 0 means "I have absolutely no time for this", 1 meaning "yes, this is something I should find/would have time for." Values in between would lie somewhere between those two, with 0.5 indicating "neutrality" Level of agreement could be another vector, with much the same meaning as above (0 = no agreement and so on). Reactions like this could be private by default, or they could be made public, perhaps selectively so. Of course, people would be free to not use the feature if they don't like it, or if it just isn't useful to them. Anyway, by using two vectors you can code for 16 different basic truth values relating to each tagged item, considering 0, 0.5, 1 and not-present for each of the two vectors. The biggest problem about this might be that it's an attractive source of data for scrapers to do "sentiment analysis" and more nefarious stuff involving feedback loops (cybernetics stuff). That angle would definitely need consideration. Another variation on this theme would be to make the reaction represent a spatial address. This could be related to, say, a mindmap. The spatial address could be efficiently encoded in a single base-7 number to represent a location in a recursively-constructed hexagonal space (see "spiral honeycomb mosaic" for that). An potential of linking a simple number to a position/location on a mindmap could be useful for directing the author of a reply to a place on the map that you've already thought about and would like to suggest as your reply. A way of avoiding too many redundant conversations, perhaps? If anyone's interested, I'd be happy to get feedback on these ideas. Thanks. #FediFeature

@lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com so true!

What's the matter here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m39DWVFK-Bw #NormalisedAbuse

people can find a way to talk ... at a respectful distance.

@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie Aided, no doubt, by wargamers in the Santa Fe Institute... There was an article in (I think) the Guardian describing modelling they do to best exploit all the oilfields out there. I have no doubt that they are advising the US government and oil industry about how best to maximise profits out of this.

@Haste@mastodon.social @dangillmor@mastodon.social not if he's got his journalist hat on, it's not.

@mcnado@mstdn.social hang on... are we back to MIHOP/LIHOP/NOHOP? (people may laugh, but it's a valid question ... and framing device)

"Official?" Really? I hope so... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oa5IynWmAU

I feel like writing something atm, but idk. So here's ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Old_Bullshit

Someone owns desiderata.com. It is ever thus. https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online @linuxandyarn@hachyderm.io @cstross@wandering.shop I'm not Jewish and I'm not very well up on Jewish tradition, but I'm a bit surprised by the claim that the Sermon on the Mount is antithetical to "Jewishness." It seems like a rather novel interpretation to me. I would imagine that a common Jewish view of that Sermon would be more or less in keeping with the idea of the "New Covenant" in the Old Testament...

@emilymbender@dair-community.social If you're talking about me, I'm sorry if I came across that way. I'm the only one talking about models of social media, I think. If it was me, I'm sorry that you feel besieged, but it's not by me. I do sympathise with you for all the junk that I've seen in your replies. I don't wish to add to that so I'm not going to say anything further. There's no need to reply to this, by the way. Sorry for taking up your time.

@tomgauld.bsky.social Not the adventure I would have chosen for myself, but fair.

@autolycos@beige.party check my feed. I've made comments on both. It shouldn't be hard to find the bits that I'm referencing. Simple greps should do.

The Communists have the music! Righty-Tighty ... Lefty Loosey!

@Fionnbharr@mastodon.ie He's hit on a great analogy there.

Random thought that struck me when getting back into reading Nerd Reich. So much of the shit is sci-fi infused, so as an alternative vision, "AI" as "unstable planets" in Dark Star. It's our job to not only be like a Luddite resistance to it and destroy the big data centres, we have to also destroy the means of rebuilding it, so no local models either, which require all the same externalities. #DarkStar #NerdReich #DataCenters #NedLudd

@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie First I've heard of "integrity initiative." I'm not surprised, though. I'm usually pretty good at reading newspaper reports and "grass-roots" organisations' web pages and stuff and figuring out possible agendas. There's a lot of it out there. I've always been a nobody in terms of access to see what goes on behind closed doors but I have been able to figure out a lot just from background reading and some direct observation/interaction. People will always try to dismiss you when you try to explain "what's really going on." There is no shadowy cabal running the show. It's not aliens. It's not Jewish bankers. It's just a whole bunch of people looking to gain and keep power. Capitalism has worked well for them so far, but I think now we're beginning to see the limits of that and they're getting scared and nasty. Anyway, as I said, I'm not into conspiracies as such. I think I might have been slightly inoculated by reading things like the Illuminati trilogy and the Cosmic Trigger books.

Someone suggested that Fediverse should have more nuanced (not their word) tools to deal with criticism without resorting to crude blocks. I think that's a good idea. I'd like to be able to tag accounts as being pro-AI and carving out some sort of "ethical-use" derogation for themselves. I'd call them "responsible AI" people. Sometimes what they say is useful. Sometimes it's even true. I'd just like to be like an air traffic controller and assign them a space that I'm comfortable watching them from a distance. Not interacting, but quietly judging them from the sideline. It's a nice feature for which to ask.