Docu-what now?

Seriously, if the average user needs to understand distributed systems to play in the fediverse pool, they are going to land back at Reddit. Just get people in the door (any door) and fight the technical debt that creates later.

Sure, it’s a shit plan. But, it’s the only way to really capitalise on the current moment. With both Twitter and Reddit blasting away at their own feet, there is a real opportunity for something better to step up. The fediverse can be that thing. But, not if people end up gatekeeping it. Less Stallman style, “RTFM!” And more, “hey, welcome. Let’s get you set up.”

Nature is cruel and teaches us nothing!

Don’t date robots!

An interesting intersection of firearms laws and the status of marijuana in State and Federal law.

While there is more going on than calories in/calories out, it does make for a good starting point for many people. Part of tracking that sort of diet tends to lead to recognizing that you can eat a lot more of the healthier foods within those calories then you get from highly processed foods. Also that you’re not burning off that big mac with normal exercise. It takes a lot of exercise to burn 1000 calories.

The result was a potent, experimental antibiotic called abaucin, which will need further tests before being used.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1217/

I have to wonder if part of the reason is that even the upgraded engine still struggles with physics at higher frame rates. Skyrim had issues with objects not playing well with higher FPS. 30fps may just be a sweet spot for the engine that it looks “good enough” and doesn’t struggle to keep objects settled in the ground.

I’d preface this by saying the idea is bad and the legislators passing such laws should be voted out.
That said, looking at it from purely a technology point of view, it’s going to be difficult to implement in a secure and privacy preserving fashion. At minimum, there needs to be some sort of third party trust site where an adult site operator can validate age requests. In order to preserve privacy, this will need to operate via hashes and challenges which prevent either the adult website operator or the trust provider from marrying up user and usage data.
To spitball it:

1. All internet users are required to register with third party trust site (Trust Site).
   1a. Because any sort of profit motive would make this site untrustworthy, this probably has to be a government run site.
   1b. By law, the site would be forbidden from collecting or retaining logs or metadata of requests.
   1c. By law the site would be exempt from all wiretap requests including by law enforcement and security agencies. Violations would need to be pursued and punished very harshly. Which is one reason this whole thing is a Bad Idea™. Enforcement would never happen.
2. When a user visits any website (not just adult websites), the site sends a random nonce to the browser.
   2a. The nonce would be tied to the session via a session cookie.
   2b. The nonce is purely random with no site identifying information.
3. The user’s web browser communicates this nonce to the Trust Site along with the user’s credentials.
   3a. Nothing else is ever transmitted to the Trust Site. Just the nonce and credentials.
4. The Trust Server validates the credentials, appends a single bit to the nonce (Response).
   4a. A 1 means “is adult” a 0 means “is not adult” (Adult Bit)
5. The Trust Server digitally signs the Response with its private key.
   5a. The Trust Site’s public key is publicly available and expected to be cached by all websites.
6. The Trust Server sends the Response back to the user’s browser.
7. The user’s browser sends the Response back to the website.
8. The website validates the digital signature on the Response.
9. The website provides/denies content based on the Adult Bit in the Response.

As I said, this is just a spitball and probably has holes/problems. But, it is an attempt to look at the issue constructively.

While the article is 9 years old, it’s incredibly relevant today. Towards the end is the paragraph:

As described, Reddit is an interesting example where people voluntarily fill the same community leader role that Aol’s volunteers did, although they do so with fewer restrictions and more agency. That said, while we don’t expect or believe that Reddit should be sued for back wages, it may suffer from the same problem as Aol: Reddit’s fanatical users may remain devoted only as long as the site still feels, as volunteers once described Aol, like a “community where people got together to get together.” Reddit has struggled to ratchet up revenues, likely because users would rebel against aggressive monetization.

This may be the moment we are living through now. Or not, I don’t think things have been fully decided yet. But what we have been seeing happen to Reddit really fits Cory Doctorow’s Enshitification framework. Reddit’s growth was based on providing users with a great way to interact. With the growth of the user base, it became desirable to monetize those users, and Reddit has been trying like mad to do so over the past several years. This isn’t necessarily bad. Running a popular website is expensive, and Reddit needs money to cover storage, processing and bandwidth costs. However, that monetization may be reaching the point where the users are noticing it and may be less willing to put up with it.

That said, Reddit probably has a lot of life left in it. It still has (and is generating) a lot of content people want. Right now, those of use who feel strongest about the enshitification of Reddit have made the jump to other places. The question remains, can we build a critical mass of content which starts to peel other users away from Reddit, who are less bothered by the commercialization going on? Only time will tell. There was a time where AOL’s position seemed unassailable, then MySpace was king for a time. Even FaceBook has been facing issues retaining users. And, of course, there is the slow moving train wreck which is Twitter. Large, successful social media platforms can fall. Perhaps this will be a repeat of The Great Digg Migration which fed Reddit. Or, maybe not. Maybe this will be another “Chairwoman Pao” moment on Reddit. Where users make a lot of noise for a little bit and then things go back to normal. Only time will tell.

Sounds like some Google exec recently discovered Adobe Flash and wants to relive the heyday of Newgrounds. I guess if it gets us a new Hedgehog Launch or Crush the Castle it won’t be all bad. Just have to wonder if the games will survive the inevitable closing down of the project in a couple years?

This feel like the sort of “<insert party> in disarray” articles which come out every few years. The last time these were rolling out about the GOP, they landed on Trump. While it’s difficult to see what lies beyond Trump, I wouldn’t doubt that there will be someone there to pick up the top hat and lead the circus. A quick look at recent history shows that voters are wiling to forgive just about anything. Nixon left office in disgrace in 1974. Regan was elected in 1981, winning the national popular vote by 9.7%. And even with the complete clusterfuck which was Trump’s Presidency, Biden only won the National Popular Vote by 4.5% and because of the Electoral College map, nearly still lost.

While it may not be easy to see whom the GOP will pivot to next, I have little doubt that they will find someone. Maybe it’s DeSantis, maybe it’s someone else. But, the US electorate has shown a willingness to keep going back to the GOP every few years.