https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage?time=2017..latest

But, I’m starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta

This is an incorrect assumption, because

And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

I would be very interested to read this! There are definitely limits to my optimism here. I think Meta is a horrible company and I don’t expect them to act in the best interests of the Fediverse; I’m just not yet convinced that them giving up what is essentially free and ad-free API access to one of their platforms cannot be used to our advantage. Threads federation could absolutely be catastrophic, but it’s also possible that it’s a good opportunity; that’s all I’m saying.

They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can.

Right, unless they can’t, though. Ideally the Fediverse should be resistant to this kind of influence without resorting to defederation. I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.

We don’t need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true.

I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.

They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them?

I couldn’t care less about Meta itself. My interest begins and ends with Threads users. There are a ton of people that would never give the Fediverse a try for one silly reason or another—predominantly, I would argue, the fear of the unknown—and this seems like it could be an opportunity to overcome that obstacle if leveraged correctly. The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.

Again, maybe I’m wrong, but this whole thing is basically an experiment, isn’t it? I’d like to see what happens before reaching any conclusions.

Maybe I’m just being naive, but this seems like an argument in favor of federating with Threads. One of the reasons Facebook and Instagram are so effective at driving engagement is that users have basically no ability to curate, sort, or filter the content that they see, especially since third-party clients are banned. You can’t even view most things without logging in.

The implementation of ActivityPub in Threads is a strange departure in this context - (federated) Mastodon users can view all of the content Threads has to offer without subjecting themselves to Meta’s arguably predatory curation algorithms. It almost seems like an escape for people who want to use a Meta-sized platform without Meta getting its grubby little fingers all over your mental wellbeing.

If people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?

It didn’t seem that different from like… tree fruit juice, but based on some of the comments I’ve gotten, it doesn’t sound like it would be very pleasant.

Gross as in it tastes bad raw?

Netanyahu told Fox News Channel that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate.

Ngl I didn’t read the rest of your comment but, wow, what a weak argument. I bet the majority of the American public now wishes they would have, dummy!

[Trump] warned on Saturday that there will be a “bloodbath” for the auto industry if he doesn’t win the election this November.

Emphasis mine. Defending Trump is the last thing I’m interested in doing, but doesn’t this context change the meaning entirely? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think some MAGA asshats floated this title to make it look to potential conservatives as though liberals can’t be trusted to define words like “insurrection” and “incitement”.

Sure, as soon as you stop hating on e-bikes

There’s a conflict between the linguistic and practical implications here.

“kilo-“ means 1,000 everywhere. 1,000 is literally the definition of “kilo-“. In theory, it’s a good thing we created “kibi-“ to mean 2^10 (1024).

Why does everyone expect a kilobyte to be 1024 bytes, then? Because “kibi-“ didn’t exist yet, and some dumb fucking IBM(?) engineers decided that 1,000 was close enough to 1,024 and called it a day. That legacy carries over to today, where most people expect “kilo-“ to mean 1024 within the context of computing.

Since product terminology should generally match what the end-user expects it to mean, perhaps we should redefine “kilobyte” to mean 1024 bytes. That runs into another problem, though: if we change it now, when you look at a 512GB SSD, you’ll have to ask, “512 old gigabytes or 512 new gigabytes?”, arguably creating even more of a mess than we already have. That problem is why “kibi-“ was invented in the first place.

Does the Constitution apply to foreign companies? I thought it doesn’t even apply to non-residents that are not on U.S. soil.

The legality of foreign ownership should absolutely be bilateral. I don’t get why this wasn’t the policy from the start.

E-bikes can replace cars in far more situations than regular bicycles can.

I have a Class 3 (28mph), it’s actually not too bad. That assumes the brakes are well-maintained, though, and as we know there are no inspections for e-bikes. I’ve seen some terrifyingly bad brakes on normal bicycles, so I can’t imagine what some people’s e-bikes look like.

It should be mandatory for Class 2 and Class 3 e-bikes to have hydraulic disc brakes imo. I have mechanical disc brakes, and I have to tighten them at least once a month. It seems unwise to trust that the average person would also do that. Rim brakes are right out; they have nowhere near enough braking power for the speed and weight of most e-bikes.

Oh, they get way faster than that haha

-Guy who has no interest in seeing cars largely replaced with bikes in cities

It’s relatively common for a car to merge into you where I live. If you’re adjacent to the front wheel it’s safer to accelerate the rest of the way than it is to brake.

Edit: it’s also insane that they’re trying to do this with e-bikes before cars.

Since you’re still free to accelerate by pedaling like a normal bike user, that significantly reduces the amount of situations where the pedal assist would actually save you.

Bro e-bikes are like 3-6x heavier than normal bikes, manual pedaling sucks and you can’t accelerate for shit

Civil rights organizations and advocates for the disabled community opposed the measure and raised alarm bells in 2023 over a last-minute change to Proposition 1 that allows counties to use the bond money for “locked facilities,” where patients cannot voluntarily leave.

I don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, this seems like a clear violation of personal rights. On the other hand, without some sort of detainment mechanism, I don’t see how any program would help drug addicts who aren’t interested in recovery.

I don’t mind the idea of selling the company back.

Well, that is basically what happens in the U.S. government bailouts are loans, and if they default on the loan, the government takes control of the company and auctions off whatever it can to recoup costs.