Mostly harmless
According to the developer of Wipr, from what I understand Youtube is using A/B testing for their "ad blocker blocker” and that the dev is working on adapting the app for Youtube latest efforts.
In the meantime, I just stopped going to Youtube. I find I now have a lot of time to read.
I wouldn’t mind if Youtube placed and ad. But when a video has 4-5 ads that awkwardly break up the flow of the video I just don’t have the patience.
I have always been an avid Mac user, so currently Ventura. That said, I did build a frankenbox when I wasn’t sure what would happen with gaming on my Mac (I don’t have major requirements, quite content with my little corner of MMORPG and the occasion Steam games), and that has Windows 11.
I have worked cross-platform for many years, and frankly I liked the version of Windows where the window art was translucent? Was that Windows 7? I liked that. I really did not like when Microsoft made their OS look like their phone (and yes I am cranky Apple made their desktop OS look similar to their phone).
I have not dabbled in Linux, but that is mostly because I am that most dangerous of users: the one who has partial knowledge and too much curiosity. I’m the person who thought you could upgrade Windows by simply replacing the io subsystem on a desktop with the one from more recent version on a laptop (back in that day, you could take the new system folder off a Mac and put it on a Mac with an oiler version and it would upgrade). It took 2 weeks to rebuild that PC, the entire machine needed to be wiped clean, we had to dig up the install floppies to get the CD to work to be able to use the system CDs to install a fresh copy of the OS. I am a menace to technology. ;-)
I used to prefer contacts, but I am an idiot, and kept forgetting to blink (yeah, that’s a thing), so I would get dry-eyes. So I told my eye doctor I am too stupid to wear contacts, and I have been using glasses ever since. While I miss the freedom contacts affords, I do not miss dry-eyes and the related fatigue.
I miss:
r/abrathatfits - those folks took it to 11 for helping people find the best fitting bras - no matter your shape, size or orientation.
r/makeupaddiction - as someone who constantly feels like they’re putting on greasepaint and not makeup, the sub was great for helping people get their cosmetics game on
r/skincareaddiction. - a great sub for anyone struggling with skin issues
r/haircarescience - another great sub to help people with all their hair struggles
r/loseit, r/cico, r/1200isplenty, and the more discrete offshoots - great for helping me structure dietary goals.
r/hysterectomy, r/diabetes - because support groups matter (and I didn’t find the Hystersisters very supportive when I first went there, years ago).
r/volumeeating, r/eatcheaply and healthfully - lovely food “hacks”
r/criticalrole (I do hope that we regenerate with Lemmy.world as I believe there is a community of Critters there).
r/aquariums - I used to have an aquarium when I was younger. I always wanted one as an adult, but I have to suffice by living vicariously through other enthusiasts.
r/superbowls - because: owls and because it’s fun to watch the American football enthusiasts get “lost" in January.
There are others (I subscribed to almost 250 subreddits), but I can’t remember them off-hand.
I would respectfully disagree. There is an entire system for tracking tips: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tip-income-is-taxable-and-must-be-reported and https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tip-recordkeeping-and-reporting. For another, the whole tipping process was discovered by wealthy Americans:
Wealthy Americans in the 1850s and 1860s discovered the tradition, which had originated in medieval times as a master-serf custom wherein a servant would receive extra money for having performed superbly well, on vacations in Europe. Wanting to seem aristocratic, these individuals began tipping in the United States upon their return. https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurants-civil-war/
In an ideal world, service industry workers would be paid a living wage, and there would be no tips required. That’s how it should be.
Ultimately, tips are a way for “owners" to avoid paying fair wages, using the customer base to subsidize the employee’s wages. I won’t even go into instances where the owners steal tips from their staff.
Do some people under-report tips? Probably. But will most service workers, who can barely afford to survive in this country, incur the risk of being audited by the IRS if they don’t report tips and get penalized thousands of dollars for their meager hundreds? I very much doubt it. And yes, the IRS does go after the little guy - a lot. It’s cheaper than going after rich people with lawyers.
I would say to breathe deep and take your time. Lemmy is not a clone of Reddit, and it shouldn’t be viewed as, say you would compare functionality between 2 third-party Reddit apps.
Think of it as coming in to a new MMO after having played the old one for many years. Some things will be familiar, and some things will be different. Some mechanics may feel like a “step backwards” while others are cool additions.
Lemmy isn’t new, but it’s getting fresh eyes on its user experience and that is a good thing. And unlike Reddit, each community/server/whathaveyou can be far more responsive to their users feedback. That said, not every response will be a “yes” but you don’t have requests filtering through various levels of technological red tape, which I understand has been a challenge for the Reddit moderators, who still do not have the necessary tools to effectively moderate their subreddits.
When I first joined Beehaw, and saw, originally, a “lack” of diverse subreddits (including my mainstays) I was a bit disappointed, but then I thought to myself: “damn the torpedoes, I’m just gonna wing it” and subscribed to a bunch of communities that looked promising.
I’ve been on Lemmy since the disastrous AMA and have not looked back. I’ve even engaged more in these last 5 days on Lemmy/Beehaw than in the last year on Reddit. And while I still miss my 250+ subreddits (including r/superbowl and the subreddits I collected as part of a Reddit gestalt (r/inthesoulstone, the subreddit for Purple button pushers, r/buddhistasfuck (created as a lark, someone posted it wouldn’t last a day and I stayed to prove them wrong, and while it was a quiet subreddit, every once in a while someone would post something they thought was “extremely” buddhist)) the Lemmy communities have provided more meaningful interactions. Plus, Lemmy will create its own gestalts, and I’ll have new ways to experience the never-ending stream of random data tidbits I have grown to crave.
Who is that spooky undead axe midget?
That’s Durotan’s crotch.
I don’t believe Lemmy’s architecture and structure needs to replace Reddit, or clone it. The appeal and strength of Reddit was in the discrete packets of common interest Reddit offered to the user.
When I first joined Reddit, after the initial confusion, I unsubbed from every subreddit you got by default and slowly added back subreddits of interest. The end result was between 250-279 subreddits, many of which had overlapping subject matter, which was further curated into “mega” subreddits. For me, the only difference between Reddit and Lemmy is that I don’t have to purge a pre-defined set.
I would say the current delta would be the quality of life improvements Reddit has - such as an easier way to locate communities of interest, and a better way to organize multiple communities. And personally, I can see a disconnect if you follow a link “off server” and then can’t join because you’re not logged in there. Lemmy could take a page from Mastodon here, and provide feedback to explain how to add that particular community to yours.
Ultimately, Lemmy doesn’t need to replicate Reddit. It really juts needs more active engagement, and an easier way to identify which subreddits and which communities align, especially amongst the more heavily engaged subreddits. If people can feel like they can pick up on Lemmy where they left off on Reddit, the rest will work itself out.
I won’t complain about Lemmings.
I’ll abide by the consensus. But I do think “lemmings” is a strong contender.
IIRC, Apple licensed Codeweaver’s source and is extending it privately. My take is that this code, along with Game Mode is basically “Rosetta” for Windows, optimized for games. That would mean that you would launch a windows game on an M-chip Mac and it would launch without having to kick off an emulation mode. Folks playing FFXIV on Mac would have the feel.
I do think that PC devs will need to do something, I don’t think executables will work. Rather Apple is subsidizing the investment that the consumer and the developer needs to invoke to have a more prolific gaming experience.
While I am on board with the idea, I don’t think it should be a programmatic solution at the community level. Rather, either the third party app or the server (let’s say Beehaw for an example) should allow for the option to create collections based on community identifiers. It would be more of a display function.
The reason I think this needs to be done at the user level is because everyone has their own organization models. At one point, I had all my subreddits aggregated by Library of Congress Categories (since may home library is organized that way). Some people may want to put c/Beatles in a Music category, while others may want Bands or even others by genre.
What would be nice is if the communities had tags to identify their subject matter. For instance, c/Beatles could be #britishinvasion #music #beatles #band #60srock etc. That way people could look by tag and aggregate that way (plus it would make it easier to find c/GeorgeHarrison c/PaulMcCartney c/JohnLennon c/RingoStarr ;-) )
The way I would see this play out is that the user would have to option to create a “Super Community” and give it a name. Then there would be a search by name, tag, subject etc. and the results would have a toggle that would add, or subscribe and add, that community to the super community.
A solution like this would preserve the sovereignty and integrity of each of the servers. All the servers are offering are possible some more discrete identifiers (should they choose) to make themselves more findable. The control is placed on the user to organize and curate their selections.
I don’t mind responding to different communities with similar subjects. I did it all the time on Reddit. But it would be nice to, say, focus on my “Apple” super community or my “Worldbuilding” super community. When you have eclectic interests that span a vast array of topics, being able to aggregate “like topics” is a boon.
I kind of see Mastodon as a Twitter replacement and Lemmy as a Reddit replacement. Each has specific use cases. I can see both platforms having value in my online engagement.
Queen ’39
https://youtu.be/kE8kGMfXaFU
"In the year of ’39
Came a ship in from the blue
The Volunteers came home that day, and they bring good news
Of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weight
For the Earth is old and grey
Little darling, we’ll away but my love this cannot be
For so many years are gone
Though I’m older but a year
Your mother’s eyes from your eyes cry to me”
The reality of deep space travel.