> I largely agree, but it is odd to write that column and not mention Mastodon/ActivityPub.
Is that an omission, or is that because Mastodon is already in the process of "establishing a new legal home for Mastodon and transferring ownership and stewardship"¹, and because ActivityPub was published as a W3C Recommendation back in 2018?
Mastadon is too complicated for your average, non-technical user. There is also the issue that your account is tied to a specific server and migration means you lose your followers. Discovery and server DDoS on a viral post are also challenges for the way ActivityPub was architected.
ATProto is still young, even compared to ActivityPub. It will continue to evolve and improve. It certainly has the momentum compared to ActivityPub
It's really not complicated, that article is just being excessively verbose for clarity. The UI itself explains it very well, it takes just a couple of minutes to log into both servers and set up the transfer.
> Mastadon is too complicated for your average, non-technical user.
The only headache is picking the server. If I pick one for them it's pretty smooth sailing from there.
If someone can't handle the basic interface, there's a really really high chance he doesn't have much of value to say.
The problem isn't that it's "complicated". It's that they have no incentive to sign up.
As much as the HN crowd hates it, ads and marketing work. People went to Bluesky not because it's easier but because several famous people talked about it loudly and everyone knows the people behind the original Twitter are behind it.
The problem I've heard others bring up is that you pick a server, then later the moderation policies of the admins changes. You can either deal with it or start over again on another server. Losing all your followers is why people put up with bad social media overlords.
ATProto removes the switching cost. This is a significant difference from ActivityPub
> The problem I've heard others bring up is that you pick a server, then later the moderation policies of the admins changes.
Moderation policies change even with the big ones (Twitter, etc).
I suspect you're referring to the confusion due to different servers having different moderation policies, and that could effectively make you invisible to others or vice versa merely by being on a given server.
First, my guess is that this is a problem with a tiny percentage of servers. I've not had to deal with this even once.
Second, when you say you "heard others bring it up", my guess is these others are highly technical folks. Not a single "average" person stayed away from Mastodon due to this. I suspect perhaps 99% of active Mastodon users are not even aware of this.
These are valid criticisms of Mastodon. But they're not the reason people didn't sign up for it. Name recognition is.
> You can either deal with it or start over again on another server. Losing all your followers is why people put up with bad social media overlords.
FYI, for quite a while now you can switch servers, and have the followers automatically follow your new account.
Level of de-centralization Bluesky has is somewhere between the old Twitter and Ethereum, neither of which have strong resistance against central decision making.
The problem discussed here is that Mastodon is not simply de-centralized, but its superstructure upholds a segregation policy and loves to ostracize admins based on, ahem, preferences. This in turn encourage admins to join a virtue signaling zeitgeist, and towards assuming more divisive and dismissive stances, out of fear. As a second order effect, regular non-admin users and their ability to communicate would be not only at whim of the server owner but also that of the inner group cast towards the admin.
Bluesky doesn't have this type of problem, precisely because it's not too decentralized. Either you individually get banned or not, based on levels of value alignment between you and the corpo outsourced moderators. There are also blocklist feature as well as third party voluntarily applicable moderation framework in Bluesky, but personally I can't imagine majority of users using it, or dividing the network into fragmented subgroups, and are non-factors in the grand scheme of things.
(By the way, I sometimes wonder how moderator value alignment is going to inevitably drift over time; as I understand it, social media content moderation is partially automated and exploitatively outsourced to workers from low income regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa. This phenomenon is almost exclusively discussed in context of human rights and fair worker treatment, but I think this also means a lot of people with minimal prior exposure to media, let alone the anaerobic layer of the Internet, are being trained to develop preferences on such content and especially the more flaggable yet less hateful and flaggable-but-less-flag-deserving content. i.e. stimulative but not blood and gore. If anyone is reading down to this line, you know what I mean.)
Subscribing to a labeller is as easy as following any other account. I use several 3rd party moderation services. The bar to adoption is much lower than I think you anticipate
Bluesky has an initial PDS anyone can run, available on their github. Last I checked they said not to host more than 10 accounts during the beta testing. You can absolutely migrate your account and still use the Bluesky app. The custom server is an option at login
Nice! Crossing avalanche terrain (eg: backcountry skiing) is a low chance/high consequence activity. It is easy to learn the wrong thing: I did this before and it was fine, therefore it is safe.
You counter that with observations, forecasts and incident reports, but intuition based on personal experience leads you astray.
A game is much better because you can fail and you just have to restart the game. Make an RDR2 mod.
(edit: more intuitive anyway. It might not be easy to accurately show different snow conditions while also being fun to play)
It doesn't seem wildly unlikely: there is a fundamental shift in how office spaces work.
But the other side is possible too: even if the loans had a guaranteed long term value (like SVB's bonds), they could be an issue in the short term. More so if getting the value out of the loan requires both time and effort (eg: legal costs).
> [Helium helps to] maintain pressure so that the propellant remains liquid.
IANA rocket scientist, but this doesn't ring true to me. Vaporization of LH2 is related to the partial pressure of Hydrogen, not the absolute pressure of the gaseous phase. You're going to lose ≈PV/RT of hydrogen molecules to the gas phase regardless (P being the vapor pressure of Hydrogen at the tank's temperature and V the volume of the tank).
You still need the absolute pressure for structural stability. He has ≈twice the molar mass of H2, so H2 is better for the dry mass in the rocket equation anyway: what is left in the tank isn't wasted, but used for rigidity.
You just need Helium because it won't have phase transitions: it's always a gas so it is easier to regulate pressure.
Just to add the terms: a "grid following" matches the grid's voltage/frequency, so it only works when connected to the grid. A "grid forming" system can set its voltage/frequency independently and can only work off-grid
It sounds like mauvehaus is talking about a hybrid system that has both grid following and grid forming capabilities: switching to grid-forming as it disconnects. But that means that you can't power your neighbors.
AFAIK, nobody has added the weather to Stellarium, but it does show sky at various times and places on Earth, with toggles for the ground and atmosphere. Web version:
Does anybody show real time cloud coverage via API to even pull this in? Obviously, it would have to be day time for your real time location. It would also be a view from outside the sphere so you'd have to do whatever inverting to see it the right way from inside the sphere.
After all of that, I have to ask why would one want this anyways? If it's cloudy outside so I can't see the sky, I don't want a tool to show me the same no sky view either.
Because I specifically asked if anyone offers a real time, and you reply back with a twice a day response like that was helpful. How do I get a useful response from yours?
On one hand, it is another alternative if Bluesky falls, but on the other hand I feel like the algorithm makes it a different sort of community.