I haven't done these in a while, but there hasn't happened much lately: #Traffic to @heiseonline from #Mastodon is stable, #Bluesky & #Threads combined bring in less. Facebook has lost much recently; #Flipboard is stable too.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/117434963703286230

It's unsurprising when people still use the term "bots" interchangeably for anything between search engine crawlers, automated accounts like the ones that post the weather every hour, automated accounts that pretend to be real people, real people who are paid to pretend to be other people, and real people they disagree with.

I often meet fellow cat owners who want to compare cat escapades, which usually leads to me saying "My cat is such 'a cat' that he made the international news"

And they laugh at this obvious exaggeration

Then stop laughing when I point out that it really isn't one

https://www.newsweek.com/case-poses-photo-house-window-problem-twitter-1834379

#Pickle

Remedy are sponsoring tonight’s IGDA Helsinki meetup. They put up these lovely posters 😍

For a week or more now, my instance (or maybe just my account?) has been having trouble loading pictures. It’s given me a renewed appreciation for alt text, and what the experience in general might be like using fedi when one has a vision condition.

Like, profile pictures often aren’t loading, so I depend on display names more to know who is who, and when those change, it can be hard to notice. And it’s just a very different experience encountering this platform only through text. Makes me glad I usually try to be consistent at least doing alt text that gets the point across, but makes me think about how I can do better for friends who use screen readers

Another discard from Tuscany.

📷️️ Pentax KX
🎞️ Fuji Superia X-tra 400
🔭 Pentax M 50mm/1.7
⚗️ Spieker Film Lab

#BelieveInFilm #FilmPhotography #AnalogPhotography #35mm

Wolf & coyote; California two-spot octopus; Dragon & gryphon; Tiger

Somebody reposted this interview from Conan O’Brien and I’m struck by an immutable truth: some of us feel better when we read Ecclesiastes, and some of us feel worse. (I’m in the former camp, and I guess Conan is too).

"AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer, says Palantir CTO"

Hey, sure, go for it. Go all out, guys.

I came across a user mentioning the .irish TLD is owned by American capitalists, but that’s only the tip of this iceberg. Since I went down this road of “who is my TLD operator” already, here’s a brief introduction to the Identity Digital / Donuts empire.

Using a country, region or populace is a valid objection to ICANN. The outdoor brand Patagonia wanted .patagonia, but Argentina filed an objection and the brand withdrew their application.

I don’t see a single objection to .irish in the 2014 public comments, which is unfortunate. But a lot of sketchy and questionable things snuck through back then—.zip anyone?

A corporation shouldn’t own a nationality or diaspora TLD.

Where was the ICANN’s GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee)? Well..

Identity Digital, who now operates .irish, is a mess of companies, ironically originally founded in Ireland in 1999, now “operating” in Bellevue, WA, US. It was acquired by Afilias (who then owned irish) and later Donuts. All backed by American PE, Ethos Capital. If that PE firm sounds familiar, they tried to gain private control of .org for $1B in 2021.

And the CEO of this PE firm? Here’s a screenshot of his own LinkedIn, where he was previously ICANN’s President.

Your TLD owner and operator matter. The political control and financial damage a misaligned corporation can inflict is worrisome. My best recommendation is to pursue well governed and protected ccTLDs. Or a non-profit with an aligned mission statement, like .meow.

#dns #icann #tld

Look at this guy sleeping without a worry in the world. He went out the other day before dinner, stayed out all night, came back at noon, dropped another dead rat on our balcony and then went straight for the couch.

#CatsOfMastodon

This is depressing. Perfectly good alternatives to all Adobe have existed for many years and are used at pro level, but someone hallucinates some code with claude (which I hear was trained on code of programs like gimp and inkscape) and suddenly everyone is raving about it being the end of Adobe, though the thing they praise is at best entry level stuff. But like other snake oil sellers, they claim it will get there, though their "in one month" is now "many months" #artcraft #foss

Blessed week family 😘.
#CatsOfMastodon #Cats

I think a big reason a lot of these people are going back to X and giving Mastodon shade is because Mastodon fosters mutual communication and connection in a much more natural way between people.

Those I follow and who follow me have a pretty good volume of interaction. I read the things they post and link. They read mine. We talk about it. I love checking in and catching up on my little online community. It’s nice! 😊

People return to X just want followers in the strictest sense of the word. Sycophants that will just click like and subscribe on their posts without calling them out on anything. Much like the companies they cover, they just want to see number go up.

I’ve said before “There is no hobby on earth that rich white men will not attempt to ruin”. Don’t let them yuck your yum. Just ignore them and let them fuck off back to the Nazi bar.

If you're using AI to make content you're saving time and money but you're making shitty content. If you can't see the shittyness of the content, it's all the more reason you shouldn't be doing it.