Tangential but figure eyes are probably on here:

Any good guides or discussions for setting up and running Matrix in a VPS? Been thinking on and off I should do that for a few months now (and lack of account migration means I either start with my own domain or forever use a generic).

It also causes the problem that no fix is searchable. All fixes require a community member to respond.

Incorrect. While I find the search capabilities of Discord (and the Discord/Teams likes) to be… bad, it isn’t THAT much worse than a phpbb in a lot of ways.

What you lose out on is the ability for search engines and, increasingly a concern, LLMs from being able to index it. I shouldn’t have to explain why that might be a “pro” as far as the folk actually doing support are concerned.

As for delays? If it is a well supported bit of kit, a quick search and a skim of the FAQ (Discord is actually really nice for having a way to aggregate questions like that in an almost ticketing like system) is going to cover the major stuff. And my experience (on both sides) with Slack et al is that users are generally glad to help out.

It does suck because, unless it is a super common issue, you need to actually ask a question and interact with a human. But it also tends to mean that people are a lot faster to have you run a few tests rather than respond once a day to a thread.

For the support people, they have to answer the same questions over and over and over because there is no way for users to search for and solve their own problems.

Tell me you’ve never provided support without telling me you’ve never provided support, heh.

So… they wouldn’t be raw dogging stack overflow? Because raw dogging the code you get from a rando off stack overflow is a bad idea?

Because you can just as easily use generative AI as a component in test driven development. But the people pushing to “make coders more efficient” are looking at firing people. And they continue to not want to add the guard rails that would mean they fire 1 engineer instead of 5.

It is if your software goes anywhere near infrastructure or safety.

Which is literally what musk and the oligarchs were arguing as a way to “fix” Air Traffic Control. And that is far from the first time tech charlatans have wanted to “disrupt” an industry.

How much of that is the chat bot itself versus humans just being horrible at self reporting symptoms?

That is why “bedside manner” is so important. Connect the dots and ask follow up questions for clarifications or just look at a person and assume they are wrong. Obviously there are some BIG problems with that (ask any black woman, for example) but… humans are horrible at reporting symptoms.

Which gets back to how “AI” is actually an incredible tool (especially in this case when it is mostly a human language interface to a search engine) but you still need domain experts in the loop to understand what questions to ask and whether the resulting answer makes any sense at all.

Yet, instead, people do the equivalent of just raw dogging whatever the first response on stack overflow is.

There are layers to this.

Persistent chat rooms are here to stay.

As a user? I dislike this. I am sure you do too.

As a developer who gives a shit about the users? The number of times I have had to spend sometimes upwards of a dozen back and forth emails trying to explain to someone that I am not lying to them and the answer they found on the forums are for a bug that was fixed 5 years ago… Let alone having to, politely, tell a greybeard to shut the fuck up because they keep telling people to search instead of ask for help…

Whereas a more ephemeral approach that actually encourages people to ask questions? Yes, it does cause long term issues when someone is trying to debug a project that has been on life support for years. But, by and large, just checking the current FAQ and then asking in a chatroom results in a better experience for the users, the devs, and the community managers trying to bridge the gap.

And that isn’t going to change. So they’ll either stick with discord or use something MUCH less stable… like Matrix.

This is bad.

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Its the least they deserve for continuing to be the iron fist of the christofacists.

Can never rule out the christofacists being stupid on a completely unfathomable level but:

1. Other documents have raised question over whether the ligature markings on his neck even match the noose he was found in. This strongly suggests a real-ish autopsy was conducted rather than a fake one. And, contrary to what Swordfish taught us, it is REALLY hard to make a body double that would stand up to that level of scrutiny 2.epstein’s entire schtick was power and manipulation of some of the most influential people on the planet. He would not be quietly sitting in a hotel room in an embassy or whatever for years
2. Much like with all the “trump stole the election” conspiracy theories, NOTHING has actually leaked out regarding this. Which violates the first rule of conspiracies.
3. epstein was, allegedly, killed to silence him. And all the people who would be involved in a secret extraction to this level are the kind of people who would likely have wanted to silence epstein in the first place. Why keep him alive? ESPECIALLY if his legion of rapeable children aren’t around?

Odds are VERY good he was murdered. At most, one could maybe argue that he was spirited away only to be killed elsewhere so he wouldn’t talk. But at that point… why not just kill him in his cell?

I’ll also add on: epstein’s death is one of those focal points for this “scandal”. It is also the safest to manufacture easily refutable conspiracy over. So be very careful of over-fixating. I mean… just look at 9-11. All the idiots insist “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams!” and we all mock them for it. But it did a great job of distracting the public as a whole from questions of how preventable it was and who actually bankrolled it.

Why does any social media (including this…)?

People, rightfully, point out that the only reason we know about probably 80% of the horrors in the world is because of social media. It is the closest thing there is to an actual vessel for free, minimally censored, speech and it is the only way to broadcast information that The News Media (for whatever reasons) isn’t covering.

Then those people are mostly ignored in favor of adults who are addicted insisting that it shouldn’t change and to maybe put a warning label on it.

And then the marketing firms and Brands mostly just smile and realize they don’t have to say anything.

Eh, sort of.

For a particularly meaningful chant? Yeah, they’ll halt things to let it breathe (and get the footage).

But in this case? The referee (Bryce Remsburg) has openly stated he intentionally delayed the match to let the chant keep going. And the commentators stopped themselves mid conversation to also let it breathe.

And “being anti-ice” is not really part of either wrestler’s gimmick. Nathan Blauvelt (Brody King) is a hardcore punk musician and came out in an “abolish ice” shirt once but not a big deal was made out of it. And MJF is one of the most obnoxious (and talented) heels in the history of wrestling who pretty regularly will break character on social media only to call out bigots.

So, based on that info: The chant was likely in support of Brody. MJF in particular seemed to want to mug it up and draw attention without any prompting. Bryce, the referee, may have been given instruction to let it breathe from the back (so Tony Khan and the rest of creative) or he did it of his own initiative. It is likely the announcers (Tony Schiavonne and Excalibur) were given guidance from creative to do so as well.

A good chunk of me suggests that is the real point.

Q1? Get rid of concentrated juice. Q2? Get rid of “never from concentrate”. Q3? Sell made from concentrate juice.

Which, to be clear, is not actually an inherently bad product. But it is definitely cheaper.

If people know? Maybe

If the outcome of election night is “The results have been disputed. People are just too stupid to fill out a ballot” then the vast majority will lose interest. And then the complicit oligarch owned news media just won’t talk about how fuckface and the christofacists picked the results.

I mean, it is the fundamental problem of art/science/knowledge.

It costs money/stability to create. That money often comes from either the wealthy or the state.The wealthy CAN be good but means you are catering to a specific audience and the problems can range from “We aren’t going to talk about the BDS movement because our fans like xboxes” to “We aren’t going to talk about the multiple wars and genocides facebook have supported because zuckface pays for our electricity”.

As for the state? Under a just government, that is awesome. Moving on.

As for us individually? Probably the biggest thing we, as individuals, can do is to actually permit-list websites that we like/trust on the adblocker. Ads are a genuinely awesome way to generate “passive” income which goes a long way towards keeping said lights on.

But also? If you have the cash, consider actually subscribing to news/media outlets you like. Get a newspaper subscription. Look at the independent media outlets and pay for a month or three every so often. Because the broader the subscriber/patron base, the less temptation/need there is to cater to the whales.

The former Vice crew (404, Remap, probably others) have talked about this in their various podcasts and blog posts and so forth:

My take is that there are two big, but linked, problems:

The first is… there is a reason all these news media outlets are shuttering. People don’t want to read. They also don’t want to watch a documentary that isn’t over-dramatized trash. And any form of monetization model mostly just antagonizes the audience who were never going to consume it in the first place but will GLADLY derail every single discussion to say how much they hate a paywall. So you become VERY dependent on your hardcore subscribers and that is an incredibly dangerous tightrope to walk. Do you prioritize your coverage based off what your patrons (because that is what they are) would want? Do you NOT cover something because it might make subscriptions go down? What do you drink when you realize you are literally the person who fired you a year back?

And the other is that legal representation costs a lot of money. Last Week Tonight have covered SLAPP Suits a few times over the years but that is also the reality of it. Any form of investigative journalism pretty much guarantees you are getting, at the very least, a C&D. If not a full blown lawsuit. A good lawyer can make the vast majority go away but… a good lawyer costs money.

The former Vice crew were pretty much all in a special case. 404 came out of Motherboard which was pretty much one of the most trusted and respected “tech” news sites out there. Aftermath has some of the Motherboard crew and but also is basically a who’s who of games media as a whole (arguably everyone who was keeping Kotaku alive). And Remap is mostly the people who were at Waypoint until Vice realized they were still getting paid and that audience is one of the most rabid and faithful out there when it comes to subscribing to content we love.

Whereas most outlets actively try to prevent people from getting enough popularity/notoriety that they could get their own funding for a new start. Like… think about who the big names in traditional news are? MAYBE you remember whatsherface’s name from PBS? But it is almost entirely going to be the anchors/commentators like Anderson Cooper because they are the ones you see night after night and they are the ones who present the stories written by the “normal” journalists. And zero shade to Mr Cooper, but that is very much intentional. Because if some third party wanted to pay him to spin up a new outlet? That’s great, but they ALSO need to hire like three or four more journalists to have anything for him to say.

As opposed to a Jason Schreier who, with sufficient lawyers and a contracted editor, can be more or less a one person show.

…

Yes, the reason multiple people accused you of being gullible is because they are bots.

And if you don’t think there are backdoors then I have a bridge to sell you.

The best you can hope for in any case is increased friction. Because if you have pissed off a government org to the point they declare you an actual national security threat… you start realizing why israel et al tend to be known to have tools that can crack a few generations back.

Which is why journalists, when they talk about stuff like this, are pretty adamant that they don’t trust those devices at all. One of the more common tactics is to have completely separate devices for sensitive communication that are kept physically isolated from any of their personal devices… and preferably in a place that a trusted associate knows about. If someone gets taken away in a black van? Someone else goes for a walk with a power drill for no apparent reason at all.

This is one of those weird flashpoint issues.

There are two layers to this. One that is a major problem, and one that… isn’t.

The former is exactly what you identified. The door latches are all purely electric. This leads to the very regular occurrence where someone’s swasticar updates while they are inside of it on a hot day. And their only choice is to sit and roast or to rip open their trim to try to find the manual release. THIS should be 500% illegal but basically no countries actually care.

The other is the flush door handles. Some fatalities have been attributed to them. But the reality is? A door that just got slammed into by a giant pick-up truck ain’t opening. And you gots to be a mother rescuing her baby to get a firm grip on most door handles when the car is on fire.

Yes, flush door handles are a deeply stupid idea and always will be. But the reality is that people REALLY need to keep window smashers in their cars. Like, easily accessible by the front and back seat occupants.

Because if that car is on fire? You ain’t getting a grip on that handle one way or the other. You MIGHT be able to smash a window and drag someone out. Same with a car that is rapidly submerging in water. Even with mechanical handles, NOBODY has the strength to open that door after a shockingly small amount of water. So you are either sitting there waiting for pressure to equalize or you are smashing that window and getting the hell out.

At which point? Flush door handles are still idiotic design. And electric only door controls SHOULD be illegal. But if you actually care about emergencies? Get a god damned hammer for like 30 bucks. Or even just tape a spark plug to your keys.

reddit has very minimal bot protection and a lot of systems designed to benefit those who pay to play, as it were.

Lemmy doesn’t even have that. And it is trivial to make multiple accounts across multiple instances. Whether that is to role play some nonsense or to do the old “the first two or three downdoots set the tone” trick people try to pretend isn’t a thing. And spend a bit of time shitposting/reading the timestamps and… some of them are REAL obvious.

And this is very apparent in the various political threads. LOTS of people pushing agendas (the gun nut lobby being particularly alarming). Let alone the “official” lemmy instance being blocked by most people because it is infested with lead dev sanctioned tankies who are largely indistinguishable from chuds when it comes to pushing putin et al’s policies.

Much like in the good old days: Open, minimally invasive, social media is fun (yes. IRC and Usenet were social media). It is also infested with bad actors and manipulators.

The chuds are happy for this.

The ones who really need to be told this are the ones who STILL insist that Biden would have been worse for Palestine than trump is so that is why they couldn’t vote for such an uncharismatic candidate as Kamala. They don’t support genocide, period.

And they don’t watch fox news. They watch tankie nonsense like hasan. So they feel genuinely righteous as they are either so stupid as to not realize they are pushing an accelerationist agenda or figure it will turn out good for them because they are the best socialist so they will have the most money and power after The Revolution.

And… we are REALLY fucking stupid in the US. But you EU and rest of the world folk might want to pay attention to what is going on domestically too because a lot of y’all ain’t THAT far behind us on the way to the drain.