Mars2k21

joined 1 year ago
[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Admittedly I've clicked on a handful of interesting Youtube ads but not one in the past 5 years, so I can't remember what they were. I just don't really see Youtube ads unless I'm on a mobile device or I turn them on to help a creator get revenue, as I use a pretty strong adblocker on my PC. Don't snitch to Google about that though.

I'm a bit more sympathetic to Youtube ads since they are a revenue source for some of my favorite creators, as much as I hate the way Youtube goes about it. Never clicked on any other ads besides these though.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You know, I'd feel happy about this but I hear a voice from the back of my head telling me "You know this driver isn't coming out for the next 20 years."

But seriously, I think its cool to see Nvidia actually making strides towards an open source driver (if they are actually serious about it, which I'm still skeptical about for no reason in particular beyond past history).

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 2 points 7 months ago

Debian for most of my machines, rock solid and works. I've had 0 problems with Debian on any computer its downloaded on. And I personally don't need very up to date packages.

On my main computer (currently Windows due to hardware compatibility issues on Linux), I've flip flopped between Pop and Fedora depending on how much I need 3D graphics applications.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Do you guys think Elon would let me take his SpaceX Starship in a time machine back to 2021 so I could fly to Mars and survive?

No, I do not have $4 billion to pay for this endeavor, I'll just take out a loan and tell the bank its for a scientific breakthrough.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I don't personally use Linkedin so I can't really comment on how a federated alternative would work or be useful for professionals and networking.

What I will say is that paid/business-related and the general fediverse culture/design seems like oil and water. Especially the paid part. It simply won't take off unless there is a mass exodus of people from Linkedin (very unlikely). And even then, having multiple instances for something as focused on Linkedin doesn't seem viable. It's probably better off centralized and disconnected from a large network like the Fediverse, in my opinion.

The closest the fediverse can get to this is professionals using Mastodon or something in the same way they used Twitter before it imploded. Interesting idea though.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I really don't understand why so many advocate for Linux, FOSS, and an overall open web while actively making Linux and other free software as complicated and "tech-y" as possible.

If Linux isn't growing, what's the point? If it remains stagnant, its getting closer to fading away. We've seen the impact of Linux becoming more mainstream and known to the general public through the Steam Deck, and it has done wonders for the platform. Why do people actively not want it to grow?

Helping it grow doesn't mean being annoying like Edge pop-ups, simply throwing out suggestions to try easy-to-use distros here and there. And let's be honest, the average internet user can use an easy distro like Ubuntu or Mint proficiently after 20-30 minutes of playing around with it. We need to make it seem accessible so that more people will actually be interested in the first place.

Really happy to see a post being made about this.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've watched a little over half of the show...it has some music, but much of it is pretty ambient. Maybe there is more music in the latter half.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Cyberpunk dystopia, main character who is constantly suffering, no music (only ambient sounds), pretty much no smiles

THE doomer anime.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

Looks like the hard work paid off. Congratulations!

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They look fine to me. Same as windmills creating a certain aesthetic in the places they are built.

It's much better than having a giant power plant blocking the view of the landscape.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Tech geeks and nerds (no offense, I'm one too) tend to be the first people to populate any sort of new online social network. Just the way of the internet.

While I do like Linux and talk about it pretty often on the fediverse, I do realize that 96% of internet users don't care about it and the lingo is...incomprehensible for most people. Even I get kind of sick of talking about Linux on here sometimes lol but unfortunately many of the things I wish I could build a community around simply don't have the fanbase needed on the fediverse to begin a community for the moment. While not impossible, building a community for relatively niche subjects on a small platform like this that is in direct competition with sites like Reddit is very difficult and easier said than done.

My advice is just try to search around and find things as close to your interests that have active people as possible. Looking for broad communities can help out here, for instance, just go to /c/art of whatever instance instead of trying to find a /c/painting. Also, for Mastodon especially, use hashtags if you haven't begun to already. Mastodon was wack until I started using hashtags extensively, they somewhat make up for the lack of a recommendation algorithm.

Its pretty rough around here if your interests aren't related to tech/FOSS/linux, but that should make things a little better. Hopefully there will be more diversity in subjects on the fediverse in the future.

[–] Mars2k21@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 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.

 

I'm assuming most of us here want a large community. The reality is most people aren't into technology nearly as much as many of the people actually on the Fediverse. For other people who are into tech (like myself and a lot of people here), the federation technology itself being promoted as a core component of the appeal makes sense, but for your average person? They just don't care, and they shouldn't have to in order to experience the best things about the Fediverse.

Federation, ActivityPub, and even open source are like "buzzwords" to most people. Yet, when I've seen federated software recommended on other social media websites, every article and many times, we tell everyone about the underlying technology first and THEN about how they actually compare to Twitter/Reddit/etc., on a feature basis, as well as about the community of people actually here. It should be the other way around. Why are we telling people about the tech first over the actual social aspect?

This place can't rely solely on mass exoduses from Reddit and Twitter for new members. We've got to get out there and tell people why it's good. Right now, by many people, it's viewed at best as the "Next best thing" and at worst as "over-complicated social media".

People who do come here should learn about the underlying technology and its implications for them. If someone is willing to come here, by all means, tell them about the benefits and drawbacks of the underlying decentralized technology. Understanding how it works is pretty important anyway in the case they'd like to move their account to another instance or view posts from other instances. However, for someone who isn't here, the case can be made that it makes things seem less user-friendly to begin with. Countless times, I've seen people on the Fediverse who still barely understand how federation works. The paralyzing choice of picking an instance to join alone could make someone back away from Mastodon and just stick with Twitter.

Telling them about tech-related things that they don't know about or aren't really interested in doesn't help much. The local artist down the street likely doesn't care about having a deep understanding about federation works or the benefits of decentralized versus centralized social media. They just want somewhere to post their art for others to see and comment on others in their space.

All in all, this post is meant to target our methods of telling people about the Fediverse. We, as a community, have to be better at making this place more user-friendly. This isn't a post to criticize federation and ActivityPub themselves, but rather about how we tell people about the Fediverse through word of mouth.

 

Recently I've dove a little deeper into the Fediverse. I began with Mastodon like many others and I'm ready to move on. Mastodon as a software in comparison to similar services in the Fediverse like Calckey/Firefish, Friendica, Misskey, etc. just isn't as good and the only thing it has going for it is an established user base and simplicity/lack of feature creep I guess. I've also had major difficulty finding any sort of conversation or getting followers, although that could just be because of me just not being really active on social media in general and being disinterested in discussing the most popular topics like politics.

I've been looking at another microblogging/Twitter type service to switch over to since I just like the concept of the Fediverse (I credit Kbin for being a great 2nd impression) but its been a struggle. It seems like in the microblogging space of the Fediverse, there are just a bunch of different platforms that do the same thing while trying to one up each other in some aspect. I'm not sure if there are large features that separate them besides UI, but this is just how it appears. If there is, please let me know.

This fragmentation is making it difficult to choose a platform, and I can't imagine it'd be any easier for anyone new the Fediverse. Once I choose a platform, I have to choose an instance as well of course. I was going to join calckey.social/firefish.social but I'm a little hesitant now because mastodon.art defederated with it, and I follow multiple accounts from that instance. The drama that always surrounds defederation is a fundamental design flaw in the Fediverse, but I try to choose servers that don't have these issues as I would rather not self-host right now. The Mastodon instance I have an account on has a great admin that lets the users decide when it came to a large move such as defederating with Threads.

I'm really beginning to see how the Fediverse can be complicated for new users, even if they understand the underlying technology. Unfortunately, these seem to just be deep problems with the Fediverse in general rather than just things to adjust to.

Anyway, enough ranting and back the question: which of these microblogging platforms should I even choose? Its making my head spin. Seems like Calckey would be the best for my needs at the moment.

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