Unattributed 𓂃✍︎

@ Unattributed @feddit.online

Posts

111
Comments

221
Joined

9 mo. ago

I'm a former IT Infrastructure Architect, now spending my time reading, writing and getting into too many hobbies.
If you wish to support my efforts, please send me a tip on Ko-fi
I am participating in FediWriMo this year. Click here for my BearTrack Profile / Stats.

Moderating

FediWriMo feddit.online

My only question is: Did they post the comment too?

1mo ago

‘Unflattering’ Photo Yanked After Karoline Leavitt Meltdown

Perfect example of the Streisand Effect. I would never have seen this photo if it weren't for this article.

1mo ago

What's the last new (to you) band you got really into?

I assumed the image was a joke since everything about it is wrong... Most likely it was AI generated.

1mo ago

What's the last new (to you) band you got really into?

I'm just starting to get into Angine de Poitrine.

1mo ago

Subscriber-counting is wildly broken in Piefed

Fountain Pens @lemmy.world

I think it is - I was the originator of the issue... I brought it up because it was getting difficult to sort out the bots from real subscribers to my community.

Here was the issue: Bot Counts in Community Stats - And it was implemented in the 1.4 release.

1mo ago

What's Next?

You can export from Fossil to git, but you can't go the other way, IIRC. And, in the process you would lose the history, and things like the wiki and issues tracker would likely not track.

I was thinking it was an either/or situation: if you want to stay local first use Fossil and have direct syncing, so each participant has a local copy of the repository. If you are okay with a hosted repository, Codeberg would be the better choice.

A third option would be hosting a Fossil repository and have the participants sync to the hosted repository. (If you wanted to go that route there is Chisel. If you want to be more secure while hosting a Fossil Repository, it is possible to encrypt it.)

Personally I'm not a fan of the other solutions as there is too much that isn't within my control. Even Codeberg is something I wouldn't be comfortable with, seeing as it is hosted on third party servers. But I do get where you are coming from, most writers are not into the technology all that much, so setting up something liek Fossil might be a pretty big ask.

1mo ago

Something Strange Is Happening With Books. It Could Reshape Literary Culture.

I don't think this is anything new, and it isn't just in the Romantasy genre.

I recall listening to writing podcasts 10+ years ago where the writers were saying that what sells is first person stories. That most of the publishers weren't interested in a book if it wasn't in first person. This included genre's like Mystery and Action / Adventure. The origin of this preference for first-person narratives seems to have been building for quite some time, and is now just being elevated by the current trends in publishing.

The long and short is that many readers these days are more interested in self-insert type of escapism than they are in actually reading a novel.

I am afraid that the actual art of reading has been, to a large degree, actually lost. What I mean by the "art of reading" is not the type of reading that determines if a person is literate -- able to extract information from the text. No, I am talking about the higher levels of reading. The kind of reading that requires understanding the context of the work, the ability to read with the idea that literature is about more than the immediate aspects of the text, but is about perspectives and world-view, and how those fit into our understanding of the world.

But, this is the kind of reading that used to be obtained through study. The kind of study that typically required years of work to obtain Masters and Doctorates.

As t3rmit3@beehaw.org rightly points out, the trend towards "blockbuster" novels, and all the imitators of those novels has greatly watered down the publishing world to chasing the emerging trends that readers want.

1mo ago

What's Next?

Another random thought: if you used something like Codeberg, you could use a git plugin for Obsidian, and replicate a whole vault to a private repository.

1mo ago

What's Next?

It's an interesting idea...but I would say that it would take a lot of work. There would be a need for the group to come up with a plot outline, and all the characters, settings etc. in order to have a coherent story.

My suggestion for something like this would be to think about using a private repository on a versioning system. Something like Codeberg...you could use the wiki for notes, and the issue tracker to keep track of each other's progress. You could write the story in plain-text (markdown) and check-in / check-out the files as you work on them.

Another option if you don't want to use a hosted solution would be Fossil It's a version control system, with a wiki, that can be peer-to-peer replicated. That way all copies of the repository could be locally hosted.

1mo ago

privacy made me way more honest in my journal

So, I'm the opposite of you. I used to journal on my computer, in an encrypted system. No one could (theoretically) access the files without having the digital key that I have under my control (I won't go into details, but there's a bit more security involved).

However, sitting at the computer and writing whatever I was thinking generally ended up in me expounding on projects that I wanted / needed to work on, or something that I wanted to research, or some other random thing that really had nothing to do with how I was feeling or anything that I needed to get on the screen.

The best change for me was getting a fountain pen. I started with a fountain pen as a winter hobby, that it would be fun to sit down and work on improving my penmanship. I figured it was something that I could do even if they power went out here during a storm (which still sometimes happens). This also seemed like a good idea to help with fine motor skills which can deteriorate with age.

Then I started writing a journal as an experiment, and I quickly found that I was writing down things that I had never written in my computer journal. It seemed that I was more free to write on paper than I was on the computer -- or at least there wasn't the distractions that I encounter all the time.

Also, something else shifted: intentionality. Writing with a pen and paper has an intentionality to it that writing on the computer doesn't have... It's too easy to go back and edit what I've put on the screen with a computer, it's not as easy to do that with pen and paper.

There is something else about this, there have been studies that show that different regions of the mind are engaged when writing with a pen vs. a computer... However, those studies have been narrowly focused, and there is still quite a bit of debate around them.

Security for the pen & paper approach is fairly simple: there are fire and waterproof lock boxes that you can get for about $50-$100 USD. Assuming you can trust people to not steal your key, that's a more secure way to keep your journals than anything digital is.

Just to be clear on something: any device that connects to the internet is not secure. Yes, you can take efforts to make things more secure, but if there is any chance that it can be accessed externally it isn't secure. My system with encryption keys is one of the better security systems for digital information, but it's still not 100 percent. My offline, paper notebooks, stored in lock box in a fireproof safe are more secure than anything on my computer.

FediWriMo @feddit.online

1mo ago

What's Next?

1mo ago

Eversharp Skylines

Fountain Pens @lemmy.world

Maybe for the one that's stuck you could use a heat gun or hair dryer to warm it up a bit? Might loosen things up a bit.

Fountain Pens @lemmy.world

2mo ago

Wordsworth and Black Royal Blue and Racing Green Inks

2mo ago

Testing Fountain Pen Inks

2mo ago

X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts

My thinking is similar - that there are an overwhelming majority that are state actors. But, my guess is that in the non-state actor accounts it wouldn't just be some accounts that got "swept up" as a side effect. I would be there would likely be some very noticeable targeting of certain types of accounts (ie, those that have social values that are more left leaning, or those that are trying to promote verifiable information that flies in the face of conservative narratives).

2mo ago

X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts

I would love to see an independent research team go through all the data from these 800m accounts, and determine which ones were actually state actors, and which were just accounts that Musk personally disagrees with.

2mo ago

Paste a spreadsheet table and convert it to a markdown table

The problem here is that you are showing an example of a simple table with static information. Spreadsheets are often a lot more: formulas, lookup data, pivot tables, etc. This type of spreadsheet information doesn't translate into Markdown. Additionally, tables can have a lot more information than will render nicely using Markdown.

I've used the convert to image functionality on other platforms (Mastodon / GotoSocial), and it was, IMO, the best choice at the time as ti took dynamic information from a spreadsheet, and created a static image that was accurate.

I don't have an issue with the idea of doing a Markdown based table, I'm just thinking that it might be better / more appropriate to support both Markdown and static images.

2mo ago

"Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Department of War — as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens

That's not the argument at all. The argument is that there have been warning signs, big flashing warning signs, about the dangers of using AI for years now. Most technology, in general doesn't come with anywhere near as many warnings.

And, it's been a known fact that people using AI are also training in the AI. That's an active choice that people that signed up for accounts are making.

So yes, users of this technology are taking an active role in the training of the technology, that makes them complicit.

That is a far cry from data brokers going out and harvesting public records, or companies tracking your spending habits and feeding that into a database. If those companies then turned around and made a weapon, no I wouldn't point the finger at people whose information got scraped. OTOH - if you continued to use a platform that you know is using you to gather information (aka, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc.) and let them do it, then yeah...you have some level of complicity.

2mo ago

"Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Department of War — as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens

Making a mistake is one thing. Ignoring the BIG FLASHING WARNING SIGNS is another. There have been massive warning signs around AI for several years. If you looked at the warning signs and proceeded anyway, you deserve what you get.

2mo ago

"Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Department of War — as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens

That's no judgment on me. I don't use AI. I tried it one night 3-4 years ago, realized that it wasn't ready for widespread adoption, and haven't touched it since.

2mo ago

"Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Department of War — as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens

Yes, there are applications that can be used for good or evil. But being super reductive and claiming the whole internet has tons of negative uses is ridiculous. The internet itself is a series of protocols running on communications hardware.

It is up to the users of the applications to judge whether the application is inherently positive or negative, or whether the use of the technology is being handled in a positive and/or ethical manner. And more so, it's up to the user to judge wether the technology aligns with their personal values.

Social networks: Xitter, Farcebook, Instawhore, TikTok, Reddit... all of them have proven they are platforms of manipulation, so I walked away. In fact, most of them I walked away from before it was shown how just how bad they were.

Cryptocurrencies: had the opportunity to be good, but grifters set in on them, so I never got involved.

NFTs: the next generation of CryptoGrifters, stayed away.

AI: has never been ready to be a public application / platform. That has been apparent for the last 3-5 years. If you didn't read and pay attention to the signs and still signed up for an account despite all the warnings being out there, then yes, you have aided and abetted in the use of the technology in manners that are going to have a severely negative impact on the world.

Here's the thing: we have a long, long history with technology. We know that it can be used for both good and bad. However, we also should have evolved in our thinking over the past 6-7 decades in terms of how technologies are being applied.

Nuclear reactors: Mostly good with negative side effects. Judgment on this needed longer terms study to understand it's implication. Nuclear bombs? Clearly evil.

Cassette recorders, VCRs, CD Recorders: predominantly good, but open to bad uses (i.e., piracy). The balance: mostly good, minimal negative effects

AI? Potentially good, but immediately threw up huge red flags in terms of negative uses (deep fakes, revenge porn, etc.). Even AI researchers have expressed concerns over the direction of the research.

The thing is, technology is something that we've lived with since the industrial revolution. Every single technological invention since that time has had major implications for it's impact on society. We can choose, on an individual basis, how that impact is shaped. If you chose to use a technology, then you are better that it's uses will align with your values. Don't cry when it's used in ways that don't align with your values, or is used against you.

2mo ago

"Cancel ChatGPT" movement goes mainstream after OpenAI closes deal with U.S. Department of War — as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens