• 9 Posts
  • 200 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • I always hated the sound of kids crying and wanted this kid to be different in that respect but I still hate it and my blood starts to boil the longer he cries (again, I’m not going to hurt this kid. I’m not a violent person).

    I had similar feelings. There were a few times where I wasn’t in a good place emotionally, so I made sure the screaming kid was safe, closed the door, and took five to calm down. Then I opened the door and did what I could to help the baby.

    I didn’t think I was a person who got angry/frustrated that easily, but yeah, a screaming kid can have that effect.


  • They go through a bunch of phases in the first three years:

    • houseplant (need to be watered and fed, don’t interact much),
    • blind kitten (need to be fed, not in control of movements, don’t really interact, can move)
    • kitten - can move and interact, not really in control of actions.
    • Puppy - can interact, likes playing, not in control of emotions, can move
    • drunk troll - likes moving, vaguely understands what’s happening, gets upset for weird reasons, starting to express love towards you, destroys things for fun/frustration

    And then they start getting more like people. It’s easier to interact with them. As they get closer to creatures we understand, it will be easier to love them.

    Good luck. It gets easier and better.





  • Let’s fucking go

    The Facebook Files made – and provided evidence for – multiple allegations, including that Facebook was well aware of how toxic Instagram was for many teen girls; that Facebook has a “secret elite” list of people for whom Facebook’s rules don’t apply; that Facebook knew its revised algorithm was fueling rage; and that Facebook didn’t do enough to stop anti-vax propaganda during Covid-19. Most damningly of all, The Facebook Files reported that all of these things were well known to senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg.

    It’s clear which side Sorkin is taking. “I blame Facebook for January 6,” he said last year. “Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase engagement … There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. It’s just growth.”










  • I miss the techno-utopianism of the 90s. I think it was built on naivete - we had no idea how capitalism worked, and the absolute hunger investors have for new markets.

    One of the original sins of that utopianism was saying everything should be free (as in have no cost). So many of our current problems stem from how we refused to pay for stuff. News is a great example:

    • journalists must be paid to do good work;
    • so “free” news sites get their money from nefarious sources.

    To be fair, part of that was because we had a hard time figuring out how to charge users for stuff. Newspapers gave their content away because they didn’t have the technical acumen to set up a reasonably billing service. But I digress.

    When we pushed the techno-utopia, we kind of forgot that people need to eat, and we pushed pushed pushed the idea that services shouldn’t have a cost. And here we are: real journalism is hard to come by, while agenda-based drek is the default.





  • Will people start caring for their privacy if most of the links posted were tracking free?

    No. Most people won’t notice, and the sites they’re visiting have other tracking mechanisms.

    I advocated for getting news from tracking free websites/ non-profits, people don’t seem to change.

    Yes. Those sites fill a need/role. Non profits typically don’t have the same content factories that for-profit orgs do.

    Will people on the long-term change or is it a lost cause?

    Legislative change is the only way forward. You have a threat model that involves privacy, but most people don’t. Instead of trying to change everybody, focus on legislation that would improve privacy regulations for all.