Look at a lot of postings in the “insanepeoplefacebook” community. There are a lot of “sovereign citizens” who believe that when you’re born the government makes a corporation using the all caps version of your name. And that the case sensitivity of how your name appears on bills matters as they’re distinctly different people.
I keep meaning to grift the SovCits, with new and exciting producta. For example, license plates with yellow fringe on them to indicate they are actually seagoing vessels portaging overland between navigable waters. You just have to drive them to a boat ramp and let their wheels touch the water from time to time, to make them subject to maritime law. This allows you to use them even for commerce without needing to register them with the DMV.
Facebook still has that but they obscured it in favor of their dumb algorithm whipping up totally random things and ads.
To get to it click the 3 lines or ‘more’, then find ‘feeds’ and select that, then choose groups or friends or whatnot, and it’ll show you those posts sorted by most recent. No way to make this default.
But the algorithm is so dumb because it takes into account how long you pause on a post and seems to weigh that higher than other things - for example if you see an ad you hate, for like a slot machine game app, and you click ‘see less ads like this’, the amount of time you spend clicking through menu options while on that ad will make the algorithm give you more ads tangentially related to slot machine apps, despite you basically saying “I hate these kind of ads”. Really dumb algorithm. Even reporting some fly-by-night obvious scam ad impersonating a brand will lead you to see only those type of scam ads. Really really dumb.
Even you pausing over the post you did in order to take a screenshot, that’ll make you see more of those types of things
That isn't a win either. I have a number of distance friends that I wouldn't hear about outside of facebook. I don't live near my old high school, but it is nice to see what is going on. I wouldn't have found out about that Ed died in a motercycle accident if it wasn't for facebook, but it is nice to know. I wouldn't see all those cute back to school pictures - they would be happy to show me over lunch but we don't live close enough to have lunch together. Facebook has much usefulness for keeping connected to distant friends/family (close friends/family I will call)
I think the way to win is to understand the algorithm and juke it for good stuff. I saw an ad for THC gummies a while back, free sample, so I started reading the comments, clicked through to the site, backed out, read the comments again, then clicked back in and got a free sample. I spent so much time messing around with this random ad that the next thing I knew, every ad was for free THC gummies (just pay shipping but cheaper than actually buying from Cycling Frog or wherever). Eventually it reverts back towards a mean but if you see something cool you can def trick the whole algorithm to only hand you that cool stuff
It may be what you say, the algorithm being dumb. Or it may be deliberate: you’ve shown yourself willing to categorize these annoying ads so you will be sent more so that fb can collect more data on them.
Abandoning is the only option. It’s a dopamine casino now, full of flashing lights.
To get to it click the 3 lines or ‘more’, then find ‘feeds’ and select that
Oh, wow… I recently opened fb again and was just irritated that it didn’t show any posts by my friends. Turns out they weren’t inactive, fb just doesn’t show them by default. What a dumb waste of a platform… I mean, what is it good for if not that? Why would I watch an endless stream of ads and clickbait?
It is unbelievably awful, isn’t it? The worst bit is knowing that many of our older relatives use that shit for hours a day. This is the same generation that mocked millennials when we were using it 10 - 15 years ago but has since gotten themselves hooked on a far, far worse version. What a depressing thought.
And they don’t even realize that original Facebook experience that was useful for keeping friends closer when physically apart has slowly gone by the wayside.
I remember when Facebook changed everyone’s feeds from chronological to whatever they were calling their algorithm at the time. The use experience completely went to shit. Things friends posted would sometimes never show up, and you’d have to manually change your settings back to chronological sorting every few days or it would default back to their “smart feed”.
Now it’s just people reposting things they’re into or reposting echo chamber links to stuff they agree with no real target.
Pretty depressing how we’ve lost twitter and Facebook to this crap.
As much as everyone loves to shit on Facebook, it was an incredible service. When I was in the military I was able to keep up with my old friends and their lives. When I got out I was able to simply keep in touch with my old military buddies. Now it’s just dead. I’m genuinely sad that this has happened :(
They figured out that this kind of feed makes the most money from the most users. They don’t care if you like it, they care what the majority of users will stick around for. The longer total scrolling time they can get from their user base, the more ads they can cram in there. Ads make money.
Algorithm leads to more scroll time per person leads to more ads per user leads to more income
I suspect it’s not an optimization to make every post you see interesting. For one thing, we tend to find intermittent rewards more fascinating and addictive than reliable ones. For another, if you have to scroll further you’ll see more ads. But if you make it too boring people won’t scroll at all. So the algorithm probably tries to make it just interesting enough to keep people scrolling, but no more.
Maybe people who hold power are all conniving bastards to some degree, and all of them should have their dirty laundry aired.
Makes me think lemmy tankies can’t admit even their saints are flawed humans, too, because that’d mean they could never become perfect and can’t bear ever being wrong.
Joking aside, I have two primary problems with Snowden.
His leaks were not just of the moral variety, but also exposed US spycraft. That’s… not great.
I would have been much more convinced of his idealism, even as a change of heart from his prior opinions, had he gone somewhere other than fucking Russia. You expect me to believe you’re too moral to stand by while the US spies on its own people, and then go and settle quietly under Putin’s regime? Moron, hypocrite, or actual authoritarian scumbag, it doesn’t matter to me at this point. I have no desire to see him jailed at this point, but he’s no hero to my eyes.
I’m pretty sure Snowden is very opposed to Putin and everything the Kremlin does. He knew he’d be safe there. It was a smart move, evidenced by the fact that over a decade later, the world’s richest government hasn’t arrested him. Do you agree with the politics of your country’s leaders? I certainly don’t, but that doesn’t make me immoral for living here.
I’m pretty sure Snowden is very opposed to Putin and everything the Kremlin does.
Ah, is that why he was pushing the “Ukrainian invasion is a Western psyop” line before February 24?
There are any number of countries without extradition treaties with the US, and many that have treaties and regularly refuse. Choosing the worst of them, a fascist state? Doesn’t look too good.
I’m not aware of that. Source? I was looking for something about this and all I found was an article saying he should speak up about the war. Which seems to ignore the difficult position he’s in where he can get murdered by the Kremlin easily. We know this happens in Russia all the time. Even despite that, from the article:
On February 16, 2022, Snowden wrote: “’Russia should not invade Ukraine’. The reason I don’t say it more is because it’s a non-statement: everybody agrees with it, even Russians. The only people who think slogans solve the problem are people who don’t understand the conflict.”
Also, you’re actually suggesting he was aligned with Russia from the beginning and that’s why he went there?
“’Russia should not invade Ukraine’. The reason I don’t say it more is because it’s a non-statement: everybody agrees with it, even Russians. The only people who think slogans solve the problem are people who don’t understand the conflict.”
…you just reposted the quote I gave you implying he doesn’t support that war and wishes he could actually say it more bluntly. And the first link I mostly read and found nothing like what you wrote about it being a “psyop”.
Fleeing life in prison or execution in a hurry doesn’t determine one’s principles. I find that a weird claim.
I will look at the other links but so far this has been…disappointing.
Snowden essentially sacrificed his freedom to show that the US government is spying on its citizens. If anything were to imply principles, that would be it.
…you just reposted the quote I gave you implying he doesn’t support that war and wishes he could actually say it more bluntly.
No, I highlighted the part of your quote in which he implied that the war was not imminent and that anyone who ‘understands the conflict’ at a time when America was warning of the oncoming invasion, would understand that Russia had no desire to invade Ukraine as a means of resolution of the ongoing political dispute.
From one of my other links
“So… if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3 a.m., I’m not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility,” the whistleblower said.
Fleeing life in prison or execution in a hurry doesn’t determine one’s principles. I find that a weird claim.
So if I expose, say, Britain’s wrongdoings in World War 2, and flee to Nazi Germany, do I have:
A. Principles
B. No Principles
Cowardice is not a principle.
Of course, that assumes a choice between two countries, as stated before, large swathes of the world don’t have extradition treaties with the US, yet he just happened to choose (with the help of Assange) the fascist state.
Very curious.
Snowden essentially sacrificed his freedom to show that the US government is spying on its citizens. If anything were to imply principles, that would be it.
“He did something I like, so he has principles”
He pissed off to a cushy position in Russia where he gets constant asspats from the terminally online while lending credibility to a fascist regime. Principles are not high on his list of priorities, quite apparently.
You’re really going to compare this Nazi Germany…? Yikes.
I have read and agreed with many things you’ve written but you’re just wrong about this one. Doesn’t seem you’re open to challenging your view though, so that’s fine.
You’re really going to compare this Nazi Germany…? Yikes.
… you’re really going to say modern Russia, a brutal totalitarian state, invading a neighboring sovereign state unprovoked and performing genocide isn’t comparable to Nazi Germany?
The war started in 2014, he went to Russia in 2013 and obviously hasn’t been in a position to leave. Hate me if you want but you’re just wrong about this.
I’m sorry, do I have to outline the numerous actions of Russia in and before 2013 that made it quite clear they were a fascist state? “He went to Nazi Germany before it invaded Czechoslovakia” is not the excuse you think it is.
“He went to Nazi Germany out of desperation, when he had numerous other choices that weren’t Nazi Germany” is a moral statement. Or rather, a statement of lack of morals.
I hated him much less before the Ukraine War started. I was willing to accept that he had just made a dumb decision, and that he was just a coward for lending credibility to the fascist government he was under. After his comments and constant dodges on the Ukrainian War? I interpret his motivations in a much more negative light.
You feel emptier after having read someone criticize someone you’ve never met for choosing to flee to a fascist regime, support that fascist regime’s talking points during an ongoing genocide, and still get hailed as a hero by some corners of the internet?
I think you’re taking this altogether too personally.
Okay second link is some author taunting Snowden about his tricky position in Russia which is essentially meaningless. Third link is a trash website pushing their app with basically only this content:
Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden on Tuesday doubted the veracity of reports of Russia’s alleged “invasion” of Ukraine and suggested that statements without evidence could provoke an escalation of the crisis.
“So… if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3 a.m., I’m not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility,” the whistleblower said
I actually find it baffling that essentially we have “at one point doubted an invasion would happen” and “exists in Russia” to hate a guy, especially who did what he did.
I believe now that I think about it, I do remember him backpedaling about the quote above and saying he was wrong.
Okay second link is some author taunting Snowden about his tricky position in Russia which is essentially meaningless.
Wow, it’s amazing that in the US he was a hero, but now that he’s in Russia it’s a ‘tricky situation’.
I actually find it baffling that essentially we have “at one point doubted an invasion would happen” and “exists in Russia” to hate a guy, especially who did what he did.
The US at the time came with receipts. It was blatantly obvious at the time. Snowden continued simping for the fascists. And he always will.
I believe now that I think about it, I do remember him backpedaling about the quote above and saying he was wrong.
Oh, okay, so it’s okay to call it a CIA psyop if, after it’s apparent that it’s not even to the staunchest defenders of the conspiracy, you admit that it’s not. Of course. Like denying that Nazi Germany is going to invade Czechoslovakia, and then admitting, once the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia, that they invaded Czechoslovakia. Quite clearly this means you are, deep down, a good fellow who definitely isn’t obfuscating in service of a fascist state. Or a useful idiot, if you feel generous about his motives.
Why are you so combative about this? I read three articles and in not one did he say anything overt (he can’t if he wants to live, and he can’t leave to somewhere where he can speak openly) or use language at all equivalent to a “CIA psyop”. Let’s just leave this conversation here. You obviously loathe a person I respect a great deal and this isn’t going anywhere good.
… Okay, but you’re still wrong. People have horrible political views and say stupid shit in their early twenties. And when they live in authoritarian countries they’d rather not live in, they can’t criticize their governments. Jesus fucking Christ.
People have horrible political views and say stupid shit in their early twenties.
Oh, okay, so if I brought proof that he was still a libertarian dipshit now, you’d believe me? Or is it “He was a libertarian dipshit then, but now he’s just saying the same things they are”?
And when they live in authoritarian countries they’d rather not live in,
When they flee to authoritarian countries with countless other options on the table, you mean.
they can’t criticize their governments.
Oh, okay, so risking punishment in the US was fine, but risking punishment in Russia is too far for him. Very convenient level of bravery, the perfect medium. There are ordinary Russians even now who continue to openly criticize the government, but I guess Snowden just isn’t as brave as them. Very very curious level of bravery.
You haven’t brought that proof. He isn’t saying the same things they are. You would have zero way of knowing what his exact situation was and where he could go, he had literal minutes to make his plan, and I have no fucking clue what point you think you’re making by comparing a country he literally has no choice but to stay in, that everyone “falls out of windows” in all the time, to a country he could definitely leave, maybe make better, and had an idea how to escape from. Wtf ?
Also man, your tone is incredibly condescending. And since you’re a mod, I’m just waiting for you to ban me everywhere you can.
You’re so far only convinced me that A) you think a lot about how much you despise Snowden, someone I’ve considered a hero for a decade and B) you don’t respect me at all.
So awesome, great talk. If I’m not banned before I can hit submit.
You would have zero way of knowing what his exact situation was and where he could go, he had literal minutes to make his plan,
Minutes to make his plan.
Are you going to keep to this? Because I can give you quite the outline of Snowden’s actions leading up to him fleeing the country, and ‘minutes to make a plan’ is not included in that.
and I have no fucking clue what point you think you’re making by comparing a country he literally has no choice but to stay in, that everyone “falls out of windows” in all the time, to a country he could definitely leave, maybe make better, and had an idea how to escape from.
“He did something that was beneficial. This does not make him a good person. It does not make him brave. It certainly doesn’t make him wise. He’s a cowardly dipshit who is now supporting a fascist regime.”
Also man, your tone is incredibly condescending. And since you’re a mod, I’m just waiting for you to ban me everywhere you can.
I don’t ban people for disagreeing with me. And certainly not in any place they hadn’t broken the rules in.
You’re so far only convinced me that A) you think a lot about how much you despise Snowden, someone I’ve considered a hero for a decade
Yep, I reconsidered the issue in-depth after the Ukrainian War began.
B) you don’t respect me at all.
It’s the internet, man. You’re words on a screen putting forth shitty arguments. Tomorrow you may be putting forward good arguments; tomorrow you may be putting forth bad arguments. I take things as they come.
Yeah, it is quite clear that is how you’re treating this. Text, conveying awful evil ideas from a faceless enemy without feelings or a soul. I gotta go.
Yeah, I’m not here to discuss politics from the point of “How does the other person feel about my criticism of a third party whose behavior influences more people than you or I will ever even speak to?” but “Is this correct or incorrect? Is this moral or immoral? Is this a valid argument, or invalid?”
Man, if you feel I’m being vitriolic towards you, I can assure you, I don’t feel like you’re a bad person for holding the view that you do. You aren’t coming from a position of “Fascism is good, so Snowden is good”, you’re just denying what I see as a fairly plain interpretation of the events. I don’t think you’re a dipshit or a fascist like I think of some other people who’ve put forth bad arguments. I think you just hold a bad viewpoint on this particular issue. We all do sometimes.
I think that the issue of Snowden is a relatively important one. I do hold plenty of vitriol for Snowden, but he’s not here, in this conversation, so his feelings are a nonissue here even if you think they’re important. He’s not likely to be on Lemmy browsing neck-deep in a comment thread. He’ll live.
I honestly used to believe humanity had a chance. Between the trump era and seeing people behave poorly all the time, I just don’t have that hope anymore. I don’t know how to explain it, and it doesn’t seem like you’d care in any case, but this conversation is a not small part of increasing that hopelessness. For a year I’ve been reading your posts and comments and largely agreeing and feeling a sense of alignment. But the second there isn’t agreement, boom, a feeling of instant enemies.
You aren’t here to care about feelings… alright. Generally though I think society benefits if more people think humanity has a shot.
But the second there isn’t agreement, boom, a feeling of instant enemies.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t regard you as an enemy, and I can show receipts on the kind of vitriol I shower on people whom I actively dislike - it’s not like this. This was just a heated argument over an issue two people feel strongly about. They happen.
I appreciate you taking this feedback somewhat well. The way you wrote is like how I would write to a full on fascist. I would suggest reconsidering your tone in situations like this.
Well, I apologize. It’s not the first time my aggressive tone has been… more hostile than it’s meant. I like to hammer points hard to ensure there’s no ‘way out’ of the counter-argument that could be brushed off, like ambiguity or a lack of severity, but the bitterness and sarcasm employed sometimes makes it sound accusatory towards the arguer and not the point, though that’s not how it’s meant.
I mean, more hostile than it’s meant towards someone I’m not trying to be hostile towards. Obviously I cut the brakes when I want to be hostile because I’m dealing with a fascist or like cretin.
You’re probably joking, but in case you don’t know: LPT stands for Line Printer Terminal, and LPT1, LPT2, LPT3… referred to parallel ports which were typically (though not exclusively) used to connect a printer.
The thing is, a lot of the legacy backwards compatible stuff that’s in Linux is because a lot of things in Unix were actually pretty well thought out from the get go, unlike many of the ugly hacks that went into MSDOS and later Windows and overstayed their welcome.
Things like: long case sensitive file names from the beginning instead of forced uppercase 8.3 , a hierarchical filesystem instead of drive letters, “everything is a file” concept, a notion of multiple users and permissions, pre-emptive multitasking, proper virtual memory management instead of a “640k is enough” + XMS + EMS, and so on.
Unix was designed for mainframes, qdos/msdos was designed to be a cpm knockoff the local nerd could use to play commander keen and do his taxes. It’s actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.
Unix was never for mainframes. It was for 16-bit minicomputers that sat below mainframes, but yes they were more advanced than the first personal computers.
It’s actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.
Absolutely, but you have to admit that it’s a less solid foundation to build a modern operating system on.
In the 80s, there were several Unices for PC too btw: AT&T, SCO, even Microsoft’s own Xenix. Most of them were prohibitively expensive though.
It still amazes me how well thought out unix was for the era when computing was in its infancy. But I guess that is what you get with computer science nerds from Universities and a budget for development based on making a product the goal, not quarterly profit the goal.
It’s what you get when you design an OS for a mainframe computer that is accessed by many users sharing its resources.
DOS was designed for single-user PC’s with very limited processing power, memory and storage, and no access to networked drives. Lots of its hacks and limitations saved a few hundred bytes of memory, which was crucial at the time.
So, I blocked the instance about a week ago, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
I only wonder how the people/government of Mali feel about them using their country’s top-level domain for… Whatever it is they’re using it for.
I dunno enough about Mali to really say, but I’m pretty sure that Lemmy.ml has nothing to do with that country… For them the ML means… Something else entirely.
Yep. It happens a lot. Most of the time it’s benign, fairly neutral websites.
As the other commenter mentioned, youtu.be is another example.
I don’t have a problem with people using TLDs for other countries or anything, my curiosity is whether Mali cares that it’s essentially a site glorifying Marxism–Leninism owned and operated by people who don’t live there, and apart from their glorified ideologies sharing an innitialism with the country code, the two don’t necessarily have any overlap…
Just seems like a PR problem if people take to using your country code TLD to spread propaganda that you disagree with, because your country will be regularly mentioned when discussing the site.
I don’t think anyone here will conflate Lemmy.ml with the people, beliefs or properties of the people of Mali, but all it takes is for one extremist tied to that site, to do something horrible, have a spotlight shined on lemmy.ml, and one over-enthusiastic journalist to mention that .ml is the country specific domain for Mali, and all of a sudden, otherwise ignorant common folk are associating acts of terrorism and violence with your country.
The government of Mali and specifically the department that runs the TLD, has the power to revoke their domain registration… I’m just saying.
I’ve been assuming that their user engagement is down. Fifteen years ago when I was fresh out of university I had several hundred friends and could spend hours every day going through posts from dozens of different people. Now it feels like I can spend ten or fifteen minutes to see everything and mostly it’s from the same half-dozen people, and I’ve realized most of them are people I don’t really know as well and frankly am not as interested in seeing. At first I thought it was because they were the most prolific posters and I’d inadvertently trained the algorithm to show me more from them by interacting with them the most.
But over the past year I’ve noticed if I actually click on someone else’s profile, maybe having seen their name on a memory or just randomly think of an old friend, most of them only make a few posts a year or haven’t posted anything at all in years. Their accounts still exist, but they’re not using them.
If your feed was only this, a few posts a day from a few people, you’d have no reason to be on Facebook much. So they fill it in with junk from other places that will hopefully engage you. If it doesn’t they’ll try other posts. Whatever it takes to keep you browsing longer.
lemmy.world
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