I decided to take a long (at least a week, probably longer) break from fedi.

The reason for this is simple, I know the world sucks, you know the world sucks, we all know the world sucks, and social media is honestly not helping me. Where commercial platforms are definitely more toxic, fedi just makes me read every single detail of why the world sucks, over and over and over again, and honestly it's not good for my mental health. Sure, it's good to be informed, but getting bashed over the head with every little detail of what the fash-AI-tech people are doing, or about all the other horrific things on this planet is paralysing and is not helping me make either my life, or anyone else's life better. Especially considering that a huge percentage of those details are just things I then know, and can't use besides knowing even more that the world is shit.

So yeah, I need a break from it, and when I'll come back, I'll have to figure out a way to keep my timeline less of a firehose of horrible, inactionable stuff, while still letting the stuff I can do something about seep through. Any suggestions on how to achieve that would be very welcome.

But for now I'm signing off, may the world be better (no matter how unlikely that is) when I come back.

Agreed, public transit should be free and the “profit” it should make comes from the economical benefit of having people get to their locations timely, safely, and without clogging up the streets, adding to noise pollution, air pollution, accidentally murdering people, etc, etc. @xgranade https://wandering.shop/@xgranade/117170148069517161

I hope Tim Curry finally escaped to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism...

So, I've been asked to DM small introductory TTRPG campaigns of like 2.5 hours. It's for the Berlin improv community, and a D&D campaign is definitely desired, but other systems are not frowned upon. I've never done this short format before, but I have some ideas.

• I want to alternate between rules-heavy, and rules-light systems, probably using "kids on bikes" as the rules light system at first.
• Considering everybody there will have some improv comedy background, I will focus more on RP, and how the dice affect their improvisational instincts. In D&D's case, I will probably do one roleplay sections and one battle.
• I'm probably just going to accept that there will be no real ending, as these will be new players and 2.5 hours just doesn't seem enough to get people used to it while also having a meaningful ending. A cliffhanger or "to be continued" seems like it might be the best option.
• I will create character sheets for the players, but will leave a lot of the RP stuff relatively empty.

That's what I have so far, but I would love to hear suggestions of game masters that are more experienced.

#TTRPG #DungeonsAndDragons #DnD #KidsOnBikes

My Star Trek Strange: New Worlds unpopular opinion is that I can't view it like a Star Trek show anymore, and have started to view it as a Star Trek themed show. For the last two seasons, It feels like the writers just want to write anything else in a Star Trek skin. That doesn't mean that the episodes aren't fun, or that I don't enjoy them, but it just feels very off from a Trek POV, and if I watched it as Star Trek, I'd be much harsher in my opinion of the show.

#StarTrek #StrangeNewWorlds #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds

Fuck Apple for making this, fuck the fanboy sites for not being critical of having cameras in your headphones, and fuck the entire industry for attempting to shape the zeitgeist into one where making such a thing is remotely acceptable.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/17/camera-equipped-airpods-macos-26-7/

It's 2026, the front pages of news sites are filled with reports of rivers drying up, unprecedented heat waves, and other climate emergencies. In the meanwhile, the tech industry is discussing if generating mid-at-best code is worth insanely increasing our fossil fuel use.

#genAI #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

Every time I have to look through LLM generated code, I'm amazed that anybody would prefer fixing that than just writing it themselves.

Hey Berlin bubble, where would I be able to physically buy ISO 12312-2 glasses (the ones you can watch the eclipse with). I'd rather not order online and hope that things get delivered on time.

#Berlin #Eclipse

Hey Americans of Fedi,

Can you update my knowledge of your culture? How do you pay rent and receive wages these days? And with this mean the method of how the money is transferred. As in, do you use direct bank transfer, or something else?

Thanks for the answer. :)

:boost_requested:

But... that's like the vast majority of the posts there...

https://infosec.exchange/@josephcox/117009429413344965

Fedi, do you think YAML would be improved if it forced you to quote string values, instead of allowing strings to be unquoted values.

In favour of quoted strings: It would make it explicit when something is a string, and you wouldn't accidentally input another type, expecting to be a string.
Against quoted strings: Quoting is clumsy when inputting code/regexes as values.

:boost_requested:

#YAML

When I first saw "the Matrix", it referred to 1999 as the pinnacle of human civilisation. Little did I know then just how accurate that was.

Wanting to take down capitalism, and improving the current conditions we live in under capitalism are not mutually exclusive. One is a long term goal, the other is short term harm reduction.

You could make a case that capitalism has to get as bad as it possibly can get so that people are more likely to overthrow the system, and while I understand the logic in that, it will also hurt a lot of people, and the vast majority of the people hurt will be the weak and unprivileged. And who are you to judge that that sacrifice will be worth it to them?

"Interior minister Dobrindt says incident being treated as 'Islamist terrorist attack'"

So we're focusing on the Islam part and not on the homophobia part, eh? Not surprising, but still frustrating.

I didn't feel great yesterday, so I chose not to go to to CSD here in Berlin. Something I regretted for the entire day, as I love the parade, and the people it attracts. The only time I didn't regret it was after some arsehole decided to drive his van into the CSD crowd.

It both angers and saddens me that this happened, and while the current suspect is said to have "islamist" connections, let's not forget that the current government has not been great at encouraging a queer friendly attitude either, and I'm wondering what will win out with them in this case, their queerphobia, or their racism.

So let's not let up, pride in both the celebration, and the riot, is needed more now than it has been for quite a while.

Also, the constant use of motor vehicles in terror attacks is yet another reason why we really should cut down on unneeded cars in our cities.

#Berlin #CSD #Pride

This is beyond cartoonishly evil:

1. AI companies buy rare books from bookstores, because they're free from slop.
2. Books get fed to the slopmachine, destroying the books in the process.
3. AI companies don't publish digital books, potentially removing the book from society forever.
4. Society gets more information that's only accessible via the slop extruding device.

Fuck everything about this, this is happening internationally, with millions of books.

https://www.404media.co/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-books-because-theyre-free-of-ai-slop/
#LLM #AI #slop

:stopslop:

Saying that it's useless to have a "no genAI code" policy because it's hard to detect said code is like saying that it's useless to promise fidelity in your marriage because it's hard to detect cheating.

I love how all these open source projects are accepting LLM generated stuff, and when called out on it, they will quickly mention that "this is not the place to debate the ethics of AI".

So my question for everyone saying that is... if not now, when? When will we discuss if the source of the thing you're trying to ram through our throats is acceptable? When will we discuss if you normalising the damage the LLM companies are doing to create these tools is acceptable?

Or are we just going to ignore all the bullshit because it is (according to you) "useful"?

I bet people thought labour from kids sent to the mines was useful... Or that the results from inhumane studies were also useful...

So, I ask of you again, when IS the time and place to discuss the ethical ramifications of you using these things? Because it never seems to be the time for it somehow, isn't that interesting?

As someone who wrote a lot of python in a previous life, this is sad.

But seeing how pervasive it is, it makes me wonder how it will react to slopping up stuff becoming unaffordable, and/or the sloplords going out of business.

https://social.treehouse.systems/@mgorny/116922216150959614