I thought it was just me and my old iPhone, but I’ve also been having a lot of trouble connecting for the last few months. Since May, really.

I’m no dev, so I can’t speak to the codebase or mod tools, but I honestly don’t think it’s going to get much better than this right now. Lemmy has its issues for sure, but the community has been surprisingly stable, with little growth spurts here and there, and more healthy engagement than I expected. I get frustrated every so often, and there are accounts that make me want to scream, but that’s normal in any place where strangers interact.

I’m curious what other folks have to say, because if there’s a better alternative that I haven’t heard of, then I’m all in, but it’s been pretty hard to keep Lemmy as active as it is. It sounds like you might be a dev? If so, would you be willing to build the tools you want to see for the services you mentioned? It’d be awesome if folks with skills worked to improve existing open source stuff like Lemmy rather than building whole new ones that don’t have any active communities.

Voyager has this, it’s a super useful feature.

Nope seems like you understand it perfectly. It’s completely detached from reality. It’s like saying “we know of no rigorous study showing that accurate weather forecasts produced a tangible increase in the number of people who like bagels.” Like, okay, sure, but no one thought there was.

That article really rubbed me the wrong way. It was a bunch of marketing people basically saying “privacy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be because it doesn’t make poor people rich” and “you’ll ruin the ability of small businesses to thrive if you don’t allow them to base their businesses on intrusive mass surveillance.”

The arrogance is astounding. If you can’t start a business without invading my privacy, you should rethink your business model. Just because surveillance marketing makes finding customers easier, doesn’t make it right. This part in particular is absurd:

Privacy can be, in some sense, a problem of the privileged. We know of no rigorous study showing that toughened digital marketing privacy policies produced tangible economic benefits for anyone, let alone lower-income consumers.

No, privacy is a problem for all of us, not just the privileged. To suggest otherwise is a deflection. It’s not always just about economics, even the working class have other things we value.

Wow, props to Castellucci for being a stand up person and not using their discovery to control or mess with tens of thousands of people’s power supply. And props to GivEnergy for not turning around and suing them after they reported finding the issue.

This could have gone badly in either direction, but we lucked out that this Castellucci seems to be an excellent and conscientious citizen.

Haven’t we always known this? It’s the same concept as a Stingray device, which is used to spy on people because their devices connect to it automatically, assuming it’s a normal cell tower. People don’t know what tower they’re connected to, so if you connect to a “fake” or exploited tower, you’ve basically handed over the keys. This is essentially the same thing, but on a 5g network, which is presumably made up of even more nodes/towers.

The justice system doesn’t apply to corporations, even though they’re people. And since the corporations are run by billionaires, the most peopliest people there are, the justice system definitely doesn’t apply to them. Money = speech, and these corporations have the most money, therefore they get the most speech, meaning they have more rights than us normal people, and can get away with breaking the same laws that would get any of us thrown in jail.

/s but not really…

We’re doomed.

I was in second grade when the school district started thinking about providing internet access for a few computers. You could just add a period at the end of a URL to get around the filters. No idea how or why it worked, but I told everyone. Those were the days.

Thirding this. I went for two of their pricey all-metal tabletop fans. Definitely a luxury purchase, but they’re built like tanks with sleek retro styling. These things will last the rest of my life.

They’re surprisingly quiet on low and medium, and sound pretty typical on high.

I had no idea about this, and I’ve been here for just over a year. Also, keep in mind which community this is.

It sounds like she has some personality issues, but as someone who has lived in a bunch of different countries, I can attest that sometimes I forget how to pronounce certain words, and something weird can come out every once in a while. It’s rare, but some close friends and family have noticed and rightfully made fun of me for it. I really wouldn’t have noticed unless they pointed it out.

And don’t get me started on spelling…living in the UK for a while totally ruined my confidence with English spelling and turns of phrase. I also still say ‘cheers’ in lieu of ‘thanks’ more than I’d like to admit, and I’ve been back in the US for almost 8 years…

So yeah, your coworker sounds like a trip, but language is so goddamn confusing it’s totally possible that she has no idea how she sounds. Could also just be looking for attention, as others have suggested.

My whole team and I work remotely, so it’s not the exact same situation as you, but I made a concerted effort from day one to set social boundaries with my colleagues. First week on the job my manager found out I’m single and offered to set me up with people. I acted very weird about it, purposefully exaggerating how uncomfortable the offer made me, and she got the hint. We have a very friendly and cordial working relationship, but she no longer pries into my personal life unless I volunteer information. Been happily working under her for four years now.

That work/life separation quickly filtered down to the rest of my colleagues, to the point where now they act a little weird when a company call starts to get personal. Mission accomplished.

I think the key thing is that you’ll never get through to people if they can’t read social cues. Sounds like your workplace cliques are filled with those types of oblivious folks, so you might just need to be completely explicit about keeping things fully professional. I’m lucky that my manager is emotionally intelligent, but that’s pretty rare these days.

Good luck!!

Edit: queues to cues

This is the only answer I’m okay with. Keeping government away from it would be a challenge, but an easier challenge to handle than our current cesspool of for-profit media companies.

Same with elections, they should be fully funded by taxpayers, and not a single cent of private money should enter the equation. Depending on the office and the size of its constituency, every candidate gets the exact same amount. You accept a dollar from a corp? You’re automatically disqualified. Imagine how much harder candidates would have to work for their votes.

They say it works without an internet connection, and if that’s true this could be pretty awesome. I’m always skeptical about interacting with chatbots that run in the cloud, but if I can put this behind a firewall so I know there’s no telemetry, I’m on board.

“Testing” for allergies or nutritional deficiencies by holding a sample up to your forehead and then applying downward pressure to your outstretched arms to “determine” sensitivity. Weird stuff like that.

Edit: I believe it’s called Applied Kinesiology, but that just makes it sound legit. Which it’s not.

Indeed. I’ve got a chiropractor in my family, and I actively avoid talking to them about their work because I’ve always been convinced that it causes more harm than good. I think they finally got the hint after the 1000th time I refused their offer of an adjustment. They do some genuinely bizarre stuff beyond the standard adjustments, and talk about it like it’s proven science.

Bummer. That’s some weak and feckless megacorp bullshit. Just like something Stewart would cover, which is why this show was such a great power move. And yet? Infinite profit over all else, so never mind.

Look at John Oliver, he talks shit about HBO constantly. Do they care? Nope, because he has more Emmys than anyone could know what to do with. Respect your talent and reap the rewards. Pretty basic stuff, Apple.