@packbat ahhh ok cool! that makes a lot of sense, thank you

@tasket yep. i'm with you on this one tbh

@packbat please, explain! i love learning about things from you :3

"the car burns gas" is, ofc, the original phrase that inspired this whole thing; in the context of fedi, it's "websites are text that comes from other people's computers". more generally, it's the idea that every operation is copying; this helps people understand a lot of security things, why DRM can't work, etc.

for setting the e-brake, there are a few analogues, but the big one i think about is backups. people hate being told they should make backups, and talking about 3-2-1 and what counts as a backup always feels like pedantry, despite being really important.

@ghostcatte oh yeah, i definitely intend for it to imply that; most people think about it that way, even though you and i know it's likely not true.

@matt I don't think it's that broad; the common sentiment is along the lines of "if you know about computers, your opinion on whether or not software is good/usable isn't worth considering," and so forth. Like the knowledge of how computers work makes us unable to see how "normal" people are affected by them. It's *sometimes* true, certainly...

@matt Certainly not to the same extent, but, yes absolutely

I posted this elsewhere, but I thought it was worth bringing here.

there's a common sentiment in some communities i'm in that people who understand computers at more than the most surface level can't really be trusted. and, yk, i get it; it's an inscrutable, esoteric, yet deeply powerful art, and the people who practice it are often quite disconnected from society by financial privilege or simple introversion. it's one of many reasons i call what i do wizardry, which is meant in the AD&D, swords and sorcery, Forbidden Tower sense - but, at the same time, it isn't actually magic; it's a complicated tower of social conventions baked, in part, into sophisticated patterns of metal on glass.

lots of folks in my little pocket of the 'net, myself included, use the term "computer toucher" broadly and with only a little irony to mean programmers, hackers, system administrators, computer engineers, and the like - but that's silly, right? if we're talking via the Fediverse, we're touching computers; if we're talking via Discord, we're touching computers; by definition, anyone reading this post in its original medium is a "computer toucher" in its literal sense.

i certainly don't believe it's incumbent upon everyone to understand "how computer work" in any detailed sense. i have four years of formal education and a decade of autodidactism behind my knowledge of things like the syntax and semantics of programming languages, the operation of network protocols, and the conventions behind USB device communication. i have an entire bookshelf full of titles like Linux Kernel Development and Rust Atomics and Locks. you do not and should not need to understand all this nonsense to live in the world. that said, i do think there is a basic level of competency that it's reasonable to expect from people who use computers on a daily basis, and the more i see companies like Apple and Google try to erode computer education, the more important i think it is to make sure people get some.

to analogize: i drive a car (i know, i hate it too lol.) i am not a "car person"; i know some people who are, which is great, because i can ask them for help with things like changing my oil. i don't really understand why i have to change the oil; does it like, get hot and chemically change? does it get contaminated with dust? i haven't found the time to look into it. i don't know how my car works; i understand that it's got an engine and a transmission (though i'm not totally sure what that is). and that's okay.

but can you imagine if i tried to drive a car without ever learning that cars use gasoline? if i tried to get a license without learning the difference between the accelerator and the brake? if i got angry and shut down the conversation when i said i didn't want to set my e-brake on a steep hill and someone tried to tell me that it's unsafe? that's absurd.

that's how i feel about computers. no, people shouldn't have to know what a kernel is to use Discord, and indeed they do not. but you do have to know that the car burns gas. you are on the hook for understanding the basic operating principle of the thing you're operating - the thing that runs every nook and cranny of the society you live in.

I posted this elsewhere, but I thought it was worth bringing here.

there's a common sentiment in some communities i'm in that people who understand computers at more than the most surface level can't really be trusted. and, yk, i get it; it's an inscrutable, esoteric, yet deeply powerful art, and the people who practice it are often quite disconnected from society by financial privilege or simple introversion. it's one of many reasons i call what i do wizardry, which is meant in the AD&D, swords and sorcery, Forbidden Tower sense - but, at the same time, it isn't actually magic; it's a complicated tower of social conventions baked, in part, into sophisticated patterns of metal on glass.

lots of folks in my little pocket of the 'net, myself included, use the term "computer toucher" broadly and with only a little irony to mean programmers, hackers, system administrators, computer engineers, and the like - but that's silly, right? if we're talking via the League, we're touching computers; if we're talking via Discord, we're touching computers; by definition, anyone reading this post in its original medium is a "computer toucher" in its literal sense.

i certainly don't believe it's incumbent upon everyone to understand "how computer work" in any detailed sense. i have four years of formal education and a decade of autodidactism behind my knowledge of things like the syntax and semantics of programming languages, the operation of network protocols, and the conventions behind USB device communication. i have an entire bookshelf full of titles like Linux Kernel Development and Rust Atomics and Locks. you do not and should not need to understand all this nonsense to live in the world. that said, i do think there is a basic level of competency that it's reasonable to expect from people who use computers on a daily basis, and the more i see companies like Apple and Google try to erode computer education, the more important i think it is to make sure people get some.

to analogize: i drive a car (i know, i hate it too lol.) i am not a "car person"; i know some people who are, which is great, because i can ask them for help with things like changing my oil. i don't really understand why i have to change the oil; does it like, get hot and chemically change? does it get contaminated with dust? i haven't found the time to look into it. i don't know how my car works; i understand that it's got an engine and a transmission (though i'm not totally sure what that is). and that's okay.

but can you imagine if i tried to drive a car without ever learning that cars use gasoline? if i tried to get a license without learning the difference between the accelerator and the brake? if i got angry and shut down the conversation when i said i didn't want to set my e-brake on a steep hill and someone tried to tell me that it's unsafe? that's absurd.

that's how i feel about computers. no, people shouldn't have to know what a kernel is to use Discord, and indeed they do not. but you do have to know that the car burns gas. you are on the hook for understanding the basic operating principle of the thing you're operating - the thing that runs every nook and cranny of the society you live in.

For any of my followers who also use Bluesky via their own PDSes: what value do you find in hosting your own? I'm working on a blog post about the relative value propositions of decentralization in the AP and ATProto ecosystems.

@u2764 @jdp23 I don't think we really disagree here? Like, it's bad to fund genocide because genocide is bad, but *also*, the usual excuse of "well we have to do the bad thing for the election" doesn't apply; even the Dems' own justifications fail here. That's why I brought it up in my post attempting to preempt the use of those justifications.

@u2764 Oh, absolutely. They should either have been pumping Harris up since inauguration day, or have found someone else to promote. Waiting it out and coasting along on Biden was a mistake.

I've been saying this, including in letters to the Dems that represent me, since 2021. I know they don't listen to shit like that but that doesn't make it acceptable for them to completely fumble a ball they keep telling us is so important

It's the Democratic Party's fault this election is anything but a landslide btw

I don't want to hear anyone blaming the minority of the week or whatever. The Dems knew what they were doing, made their policy decisions, and are acting :surprised_pikachu: about the consequences in low youth turnout.

Open registration instances are a scourge on the fediverse

@LoganFive I didn't; that's Nora Reed, of nora.zone

We are in a webring together though

@MindmeshLink i mean. *i* woujld never do such a thing

If someone who uses social media extensively says something about social media that you think is clearly wrong, before you go off about how wrong and evil they are, please consider that maybe you just use social media differently one from another.

Examples include:
- putting things in the "content warning" field that you think don't deserve the term "warning"
- thinking of posts as ephemeral
- having lots of accounts

And please, don't take this to mean I think we should forgive the Fediverse its failures. ActivityPub has plenty of issues; Mastodon has plenty of issues; the cultures of the Western Fediverse have plenty of issues.

Just, please, be as harsh on the VC-funded billionaire pet project as you are on the volunteer-run network, yeah?

I'm honestly still pretty troubled by the discourse around Bluesky and the Fediverse. I've had several conversations with people I very much respect which boiled down to them evaluating the Fediverse on its merits and Bluesky on its promises, and then acting like I was being unfair when I pointed out the issues with Bluesky's implementation and operation.

If that's where the discourse stays, I fear for our ability to have any meaningful conversations at all about operational openness.

I'm sad to see the Matrix team repeating the lie that Bluesky is decentralized in their recent post [1]. When you look at the distinction between the two, it’s clear as day that we either need to stop calling Bluesky decentralized, or choose a new word for things that actually promote a network without megainstances and centralization.

Running a single Synapse server is enough to chat with your friends, completely in isolation. Two groups running Synapse can talk to each other without any interference from a third party, and you can self-host sydent or ma1sd or what have you for the identity API, too. You store and transmit the data required for conversations you participate in.

Running a Bluesky PDS, on the other hand, gives you control over your own data, to an extent, but Bluesky-the-company, or some other large entity, must be involved in order for you to talk to anyone else, because running a relay is expensive and legally risky. While you can argue this is technically “decentralized”, it’s qualitatively different from the way that things like Matrix and ActivityPub work.

Twitter has a single center. ATProto is designed to facilitate a network with a few centers rather than one, and views megarelays like bluesky.network as a success; a relay that isn’t enormous is a failure. Matrix, ActivityPub, and so forth are designed for a network with thousands of small “centers”, none of which need a complete view of the network, and the community tends to view mega-instances like mastodon.social, matrix.im, etc. as failures of the system.

https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/

@tim_lavoie They have very different featuresets and their communities have packaged different sets of things; I tried going full GuixSD only but it didn't work out.