Imagine if instead of just reddit.com there was also reddit.org and reddit.co.uk and reddit.nl and reddit.social and (etc etc) all on a different server from each other and each with its own set of users and subreddits. But each user and each subreddit could be viewed and joined by any user from any server - that’s Lemmy.

So you’re on the piefed.social server (but on the fediverse servers are called ‘instances’) and I’m on the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance but we can both see, subscribe to and post to a community (the Lemmy name for subreddits) on an instance neither of us are members of - the asklemmy community on the lemmy.world instance.

Take a look at your screen (or app if you’re on mobile) and you’ll see ‘Local’, ‘Subscribed’ and ‘All’. If you select ‘Local’ you will see a list of posts from Communities that are on your home instance (which is piefed.social in your case). If you selected ‘Subscribed’ you’d see posts from all the Communities you chose to join/subscribe to across all instances. If you choose ‘All’ you’ll see posts from the entirety of Lemmy whether you subscribed to them or not. Whichever view you choose can be sorted by things like ‘new’, ‘active’, ‘hot’ etc.

To find Communities you’re interested in joining, use the Search function, type in a keyword and select ‘Communities’.

Cut, otherwise you do a line and you wake up in A&E.

Thunderbird Pro will apparently be:

This email thing plus Thunderbird Send (which is basically https://send.vis.ee/), Thunderbird Appointment - a scheduling tool and Thunderbird Assist, which is:

“…at least for now, being cautiously labeled as “an experiment” that will allow users to take advantage of AI features within their email. However, the goal is to be lightweight enough that the language models can be run locally on a user’s PC in the interest of privacy. This service is being developed in partnership with Flower AI, which leverages Nvidia’s confidential compute to provide private remote processing in the event a user’s PC isn’t powerful enough. Sipes emphasizes that any remote processing features attached to Thunderbird Assist will always be optional, in the interest of ensuring complete user privacy.”

So AI shit that nobody asked for or wants.

Archive link for anyone else for whom that article crashed their tab.

Fuck you, you evil genius ;)

I’m going to take a wide definition of the word ‘art’ here and apply it to all artistic methods.

Its not art. Art, almost by definition, partly reflects an emotional state the artist was in when creating the work. AI merely apes the output, not the necessary emotional connection. Its like the shitty music that used to play in lifts (elevators) in that it uses the output but is utterly soulless.

Its ethically way worse than piracy. If you pirate (for example) an ebook or music its more than likely because you want to escape DRM or some other type of controlling software designed to prevent you from actually having control over what you would otherwise have bought. LLM’s steal not just that but the whole creative process. Its more than pirating a movie or track or book, its more akin to stealing the thought process from an artists mind and trying to replicate the process automatically.

It is, to me, just another example of making the whole of our international artistic culture a bland homogenized cesspit of crapness. Its capitalism’s best way to profit from art as there’s no one to pay. But we end of with ever decreasing quality. AI based art becomes like humanity in the matrix - used then liquidised to feed the next iteration.

And then there’s also the environmental impact. The last thing the word needs right now is something else gobbling resources - especially when the end result is utter shit.

As others have said, money is most of it.

But I also remember that what seems to have prompted his last few years of total unhinged behaviour was his daughter turning her back on him. That seemed to be the point of no return for him.

So there is part of me that thinks he wants to have access to and control over data. The whole nazi salute wasn’t about money, it was about ideology and I think controlling data will allow him to go after communities of people as part his ideology.

“A balm? What are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him.”

Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Act IV, Scene 1

[Enter pirates]

First Pirate: Hold, villain!

That means the CSAM (its not ‘child porn’ its child abuse) remains on the server, which means the instance owner is legally liable. Don’t know about you but if I was an instance owner I wouldn’t want the shame and legal consequences of leaving CSAM up on a server I control.

I mean, why not go totally targeted? If there are people here who still have reddit accounts then tailor the graphic for the sub you post in. If its an lgbtqia+ sub, suggest Blahaj, if its a tech sub suggest programming.dev, if its a piracy or data hoarder sub db0 etc etc.

Thank you! We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing half the time - but to be honest, maybe thats a good thing. Super professional presentation does turn me off a bit.

I’m part of a podcast and we also do not have any adverts or sponsorship. We sell merch and we have a ko-fi account which we mention once per episode (if we remember to lol).

Subject matter is um…kind of niche though I suspect.

Spez: “Daddy Elon wants me to get rid of all the twitter critical and trans related subs. How can I do it without it being too obvious?”

Snoo Lackey: “Easy. What we’ll do is ban a load of morally grey subs like porn and drug related ones along with the twitter critical and trans ones. Then, when the predictable uproar kicks off, we’ll wait awhile then announce it was all a terrible mistake and we’ll reactivate all the porn ones. We just won’t reactivate the twitter critical or trans ones. Because lets be honest - no one really cares and as long as the simpletons have their wank bank back, they’ll neither notice nor care either!”

Spez: “Brilliant!”

The resistance will be federated.

Tuta, StartMail, Mailbox all have good reputations for privacy respecting services.

1. Do Not Go To War With The Demons Of Mazandaran by Lowen.
2. Erosion / Avulsion by Hidden Mothers
3. Bloom & Decay by Dawn Treader
4. Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation
5. Hellfenlic by The Infernal Sea

If you stick to the apps that are indicated as being well supported it’s good. The main reason I use it is because I’m part of a team that includes people not comfortable with the command line so having a web interface to manage a server means not everything falls on my shoulders.

Speaking as one, the majority are decent people but there is a minority who are openly fash and a sadly growing amount who tolerate fash bands cos the riffs are good.

If its open source and privacy respecting then I’ll use the app. If its not and I have to use the service then website