I just mount a tablet in front of my radio and ignore all of the infotainment ‘features’. It’s just a bluetooth audio device.

Same thing with smartTVs, just ignore all of the ‘features’ trying to lure you into the data harvesting ecosystem and treat it as a dumb monitor.

Tabs are just bookmarks for people who can afford RAM.

He’s missing the sigh() function call at the start of the main body of the loop.

That is exactly what happens. Encryption on the protocol doesn’t do anything but hide what you’re downloading from your ISP. It doesn’t prevent someone from downloading the same torrent and matching your IP to it. That’s why people recommend that you use VPNs if you’re going to do this from your house.

Most of the time I just copy/paste the terminal output and say ‘it didn’t work’ and it’ll come back with ‘I’m sorry, I meant [new command]’.

It isn’t something that I’d trust to run unattended terminal commands (yet) but it is very good when you’re just like ‘Hey, I want to try to install pihole today, how do I install and configure it’, or ‘Here’s my IP Tables entry, why can’t I connect to this service’ … ‘Ok give me the commands to update the entry to do whatever it was you just said’.

pihole, wireguard, qbittorrent, sonarr/radarr, Jellyfin, syncthing, NFS.

I’ve considered Airsonic but I haven’t found a good client that looks good and doesn’t behave weirdly. I had one launch about 500 threads trying to transcode the same song which ate up my CPU time on my server resulting in a stern e-mailing from my host.

Chatgpt is a camp for just YOLOing off into some new software. Unless it is after the knowledge cutoff it’s pretty accurate about configurations and such. It makes mistakes but it’ll get you started a lost faster.

I have a question: Do you think we should be trying to compete for these users? In order to do that, wouldn’t this instance have to try to grow very large?

I don’t mean this instance or any single instance specifically. The idea of the ‘defederate Meta’ pact is to create a separate network of instances that have all blocked Meta services. That network of instances would have a tiny userbase compared to the network of instances that federated with Meta’s services. If a generic user is looking to create an account on an instance then they’d likely just default to the network that has 8 billion users rather than the one with 10 million.

I agree with the idea of smaller communities being more attractive but I think that a social network, like the Internet, works best when it is fully connected with as little friction as possible. Communities and instances can grow or limit themselves as much as they’d like but the entire network itself shouldn’t become fragmented.

I think Meta’s goal here isn’t to take over the Fediverse and own it like they own Facebook. They likely want to be like Google where they control none of the content (and all of the associated costs and legal issues) but provide the core services and ad networks that are so profitable. Google’s “content” is the entire web, they simply provide a useful service (search) and, because of that service, they have the ability to mine incredibly valuable data which they use to generate revenue through ad targeting. I think Meta is aiming for this kind of business model so that they can dump the headaches that come from hosting massive amounts of user data/content.

I’m imagining 10 years into the future where you would, instead of using Google’s Ad Sense, use Meta’s ad platform since it would provide more money from advertisements as the ad targeting is using information gathered from the ActivityPub extensions that Meta develops. Meta devotes tons developer hours to extending the social media protocols so that people use them and Meta profits from the data collection and other services (hosting instances, storing data, etc) that don’t require them to actually run a social media website directly. This makes Meta more like an aspiring symbiote rather than a hostile instance that wants to ‘take over’ the fediverse.

I think that, to combat this, people who are motiviated should be looking at ways to create a software ecosystem that counters Meta dominance. Instead people are looking at this like it’s just another instance that they don’t like. I think that’s a very short-sighted way of addressing the issue.

I’ve had old oximeters get readings without even being on a patient before.

It was just picking up the environment’s oxygen concentration! 🤓

Let me know if I’ve misunderstood.

You did not misunderstand.

I don’t think this is the purpose of federation. Threads exists and has a huge amount of users.

Meta will ensure that it grows rapidly and defederating them ensures that users looking to join the largest ActivityPub-based social media network will likely go in the direction of Meta’s services.

The way that instances win this battle is to offer better services and a better experience than Threads. We simply don’t have the userbase to kill Threads by defederating with them. When given a choice the average user will default to using Meta’s services… it will take time and interaction with them to convince them to leave.

Yeah, blocking is bad. It’s bad when Google does it and it would be bad if we did it.

I still use XMPP based chat services, Google’s move in this area doesn’t affect me at all because the protocol is open. ActivityPub is the same way… if Meta decides that they’re going to block all non-Meta instances then our instance isn’t affected. But as long as they’re federating with us then their users can freely switch to non-Meta services without losing access to their existing friends and communities. That would not be true if we defederated from Meta.

Beating Meta has to be done by providing a better service, not by taking a tiny percentage of their population and hiding in a bubble on the Fediverse. Meta already has the user base, they’re not worried about losing a few million users (especially ones who’re ideologically motivated to oppose them).

The best move at this point is to stay federated and to rapidly update ActivityPub to provide more features. We have to out-Extend them, we cannot prevent the ‘Embrace’ part of the strategy… the existing Fediverse userbase is too small compared to Meta’s users base.

I agree that Meta will attempt to EEE Fediverse. I don’t think that they’re a positive actor in this space at all.

But, the move to defeat them isn’t to try to implement a blockade. There simply isn’t any way to ensure that everyone would comply and the people that don’t block Meta services will have access to billions of more potential users while the instances that do block Meta will find themselves as a backwater part of the Fediverse that the majority of the people on the planet cannot access from their existing social media account.

Right now Lemmy is made up of motivated and ideological people who were willing to leave Reddit because of the way it was being run. Having this group isolated from the networks that Meta is connected to is a positive thing for Meta. You would have all of the people who would be motivated to work against Meta’s interests cut off in an isolated pocket of the Fediverse unable to affect Meta.

Open software doesn’t have the userbase to strong arm Meta in this manner. The way you win is you outrun the Extend portion of the plan by creating software extensions that operate better than what Meta offers and use that to lure users off of Meta’s services. This is made massively easier by them being part of the same federated network. You’re no longer working against the Network Effect… users are unwilling to swap to new platforms because they lose access to their existing friends and content that they follow. This doesn’t happen if your instance is federated with Meta services… users can freely swap if the experience is better.

“Darkly-PureBlack” + OLED blacks:

Don’t you see how that would make e-mail worse for everyone that uses e-mail?

Imagine having an e-mail address but you couldn’t send an e-mail to your friend because for whatever reason your e-mail server decided to not block Gmail. That makes e-mail worse for everyone.

It’s the same here, we’re trying to get away from social media silos and move towards a protocol that lets everyone participate. The kneejerk reaction here is to just create a new silo that has different owners instead of just being part of a network that shares a protocol.

I think a lot of the issue is the actual term. Defederation sounds like a lofty thing that we’re inflicting on a server. It’s just a block. Like you block a person or community on this instance, they still can type messages and they’re still on the instance but you can’t see them.

If I’m running an instance then defederation is basically me choosing inserting a user onto your personal block list. You may like a certain type of humor and I think it’s annoying. You may like Popping videos but I find them gross. I can choose, on my own to block those things and my blocking Popping videos or dead baby joke communities is my personal choice.

But if I chose to add those items to YOUR block list then suddenly I’m in the wrong. It isn’t up to me to say you can’t like Popping videos (even if I find them gross) and I can’t tell you that you can’t read those dead baby jokes that you really laugh at (even if I think they’re offensive).

So why even allow a feature like defederation? Because there is some content that we ALL wouldn’t mind having blocked. It’s unanimous that nobody wants spam in their feed no matter their position on Popping videos or dead baby jokes. People don’t want to see CSAM in their feed. Nobody wants to see random private data about people being posted in their feed. In THOSE, very limited, cases then the ability of the instance admin to add an item to your block list is a positive feature. You only need a small group of people (moderators and admins) to detect and block abusive material and their work is shared by every single person on the instance.

Instead we have people who are advocating that we use defederation to impose their personal (or their group’s) viewpoint on every other person on the same instance. This would be like me using my power to block spam instances in order to decide that you can’t watch those Popping videos that you love so much. Suddenly this formerly useful tool is now being by others to curate what you’re allowed to see on social media.

As far as Facebook, I imagine a lot of people would want to see content on Facebook via Lemmy. There will be instances that don’t de-federate and those instances will see most of the user growth because they offer users both Fediverse and Facebook content… any instances that block Facebook will simply have a slightly different Fediverse with less people and less content.

The average user simply doesn’t care about joining the battle against the corporate overlords, they’re looking for the app that lets them see funny videos the easiest. Having all of the motivated ideological users in their own isolated bubble will ensure that Meta’s section of the Fediverse can more easily be taken over by EEE. Meta will be the only developer developing features for the version of ActivityPub that is used in their network and so it will likely be adopted faster. Not having people developing FOSS-versions of ActivityPub extensions, apps and tools that are directly competing with Meta will create friction for people who want to transition away from Meta services and ensure their continued market dominance.

Federate with them, develop better tools and features, and then take their users away. Providing a better social media is how you beat Meta.

TL;DR

1. Federation isn’t the tool for this kind of ideological splintering and;

2. Not federating with Meta services will ensure that they get all of the benefit of having an open source protocol without any competition for their userbase.

It still doesn’t change the very basic math of Meta having billions of users and the existing Fediverse, across all services, still numbers in the millions.

A social network is only as strong as the size of a network. If you’re trying to get an average person to join an instance are they going to want to join an instance with access to a few million people or an instance that can contact most of the planet?

Cutting an instance off from the largest userbase of any service on the Internet is suicide for an instance.

There are guaranteed to be instances that do not de-federate with Meta and so users looking to escape Meta will move to those independently owned instances as it allows them to get off of Meta services without losing contact with users and groups that they were previously using.

It is disheartening to see how often de-federation is offered as a solution to any given problem or grievance. This mindset ensures that the network will be an ideologically fragmented mess instead of a single open social network.

If we could ensure 100% compliance with a meta-blockade then I’d be for it.

However, that isn’t going to happen and any instances that do federate with Meta will be the part of the Fediverse that exists to billions of people. Those instances will become the dominate instances on the Fediverse for people who want to get away from Meta but still access the Fediverse services. Lemmy, as it stands now, is only a few million people at most. We simply do not have the weight to throw around on this issue.

It is inevitable that commercial interests join the Fediverse and the conversation should be around how we deal with that inevitability rather than attempting to use de-federation as a tool to ‘fix’ every issue.

I don’t believe ECC uses noticeably more power

In the 20 years that I’ve been running a home server I’ve never had anything more than a failed disk in the array which didn’t cause any data loss.

I do have backups since it’s a good practice and also because it familiarizes me with the software and processes as they change and update so my skillset is always fresh for work purposes.