I like Jason but he completely missed the boat on this one.

The active migration away from social media networks that are owned, controlled by, and distorted by the richest men and most powerful companies in the world to a decentralized platform that is not owned and controlled by billionaires is one of the more hopeful things to happen in what has largely been a bleak year for the human internet as AI slop infects everything and billionaires put their thumbs on the scale of what we see on social media.

He says this and yet jumps to Bluesky, a platform created by Jack Dorsey and now owned and managed by a crypto bro? You don’t need powers of prophecy to see where Bluesky is headed.

I had to look up the vaguely Kurdistan-looking flag in the background — for anyone else wondering, it’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Êzîdxan_Protection_Force

And the other flag is of course the pre-revolution flag of Iran (which always reminds me of St. Mark’s Lion on the flag of the Venetian Republic)

I agree, but the problem is that the media (encouraged by tech companies) use the sci-fi definition, and the layman doesn’t know any better.

LLMs are AI in the same way that the lane assist on my car is AI. Tech companies, however, very carefully and deliberately play up LLMs as being AGI or close to it. See for example toe convenient fear-mongering over the “risks” of AI, as though ChatGPT will become Skynet.

It reads to me like “hey we’re still working on stuff here, please subscribe!”. If it were to be merged with Proton I’d expect silence and no changes.

I really hope as a Proton Unlimited subscriber I’ll have access to the full version of Standard Notes eventually,

I was hoping for the same, but this announcement makes me think that won’t happen.

Absolutely, I don’t trust them at all. There’s a reason I’m on Mastodon and not either of the corporate platforms. It is nice to at least be able to follow people there though, and interact with them.

AFAIK that’s still the case, yes. I don’t have a Bluesky (or Threads) account so I can’t confirm.

Bsky federates. I follow several people from my Mastodon profile.

Edit: I should add a caveat here. Federation doesn’t work as smoothly as Threads yet. You have to use a bridge service: https://fed.brid.gy/

I thought it was unsuccessful as xitter was already the preferred platform

It isn’t anymore, ad I expect that to accelerate. The Guardian just announced today that they will no longer use it, for example (although individual journalists may still choose to do so)

Does Ed ever miss? I suppose it must be possible, but I have yet to see it.

I think you meant to link to the “religion” section? Anyhow, I hate to defend BoJo, but there are worse role models than Pericles.

This is an old one

When I got to the punchline I realized you weren’t kidding.

He seemed like a genuinely OK guy, although he fell short on first nations and environmental issues.

I wonder if there’s a correlation between leftist politics and being a Trekkie. TNG is probably the thing that had the single biggest impact on my political views as a kid (and to this day).

He was never pro-Russia and sees himself as a defender of classical western virtues, so this isn’t surprising at all.

BRB, going to sell 1/8 lb burgers to take advantage of dumb Americans

I get this as part of my Ultimate plan and I must say that SimpleLogin has been the most pleasant surprise. It’s fantastic.

If anybody needed definitive proof that Elon`s purchase of Twitter was a deliberate political ploy to fuel the far right, here it is…

They’re obliterating entire cities, so yeah.

Given that most Palestinians are under the age of 14, this was to be expected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine