@JustinH@twit.social
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

JustinH

@JustinH@twit.social

Optimistic but realistic. I write http://www.StayGrounded.online, a newsletter about establishing healthy boundaries with the digital world.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

parismarx, (edited ) to random
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

💥 THE BATTLE BEGINS! 💥

2023 is winding down, so it’s time to choose the WORST PERSON IN TECH!

🗳️ ROUND 1 VOTING OPEN NOW: https://forms.gle/xqcDPSXB98gA4udn9

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@db0 @parismarx

On the other hand, Facebook did support genocide...

molly0xfff, to random
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

“Google Is Paying Reddit $60 Million for Fucksmith to Tell Its Users to Eat Glue”
“If Kevin Roose Was ChatGPT With A Spray-On Beard, Could Anyone Tell?

thank you to these new independent media companies like @404mediaco and Defector for giving us the headlines we deserve

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@molly0xfff @404mediaco 404 is strong evidence that the problem with tech journalism for so many years was its reliance on catering to social media algorithms in exchange for views. Like, is it just me or does it seem like the quality of journalism is in an inverse relationship with the quality of Twitter? Once everyone was forced to stop pretending it was a town square, we started seeing much better media!

JustinH, to reddit
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"Reddit is a Dying Mall" (by me!)

I predict that what will happen to is the same thing that is happening to Twitter and has already happened to Facebook and frankly, actual shopping malls. The business side of things will churn along divorced from the content which will become ever more generic and culturally irrelevant.

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/reddit-is-a-dying-mall

mattsheffield, to random
@mattsheffield@mastodon.social avatar

The whole "let's replace Joe Biden with an invisible pink unicorn at the convention" thing is nothing but a fantasy that is apparently entertaining to some political and media types, but it is a delusion.

The time to get Biden not to run for reelection was late 2021. Which would have also destroyed his ability to get big progressive wins like the Inflation Reduction Act.

The politics of replacing Biden at this juncture are disastrous and no one should pretend otherwise: https://www.playtyperguy.com/p/ezra-kleins-plan-for-replacing-joe

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@mattsheffield Even if you agree with Ezra's case, it still upsets me that someone with his audience is dedicating yet more air time to something other than the face eating leopards trying to eat all of our faces.

I'm just saying there are leopards that want to eat our faces and I think maybe the responsible thing to do is to raise awareness about them

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"According to the Hollywood Reporter, ahead of its decision to end The Problem, Apple approached Stewart directly and expressed its need for the host and his team to be “aligned” with the company’s views on topics discussed. Rather than falling in line when Apple threatened to cancel the show, Stewart reportedly decided to walk."

Shocked that Apple would behave this way /s
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23924549/jon-stewart-apple-ai-china-cancel

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Just discovered this awesome cookbook by Leanne Brown, called "Good & Cheap" for people with very tight budgets (designed around SNAP) that she gives away online for totally free:

https://www.leannebrown.com/all-about-good-and-cheap/

The .pdf is here

https://books.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf

It's also a fantastic intro to home cooking basics in general, I wish I had this book when I was in my early 20s!

willoremus, to random
@willoremus@mastodon.social avatar

Bluesky opens to the public today and is taking a step toward federation. I talked with CEO Jay Graber about how it’s taking on the company that spawned it—and how its approach differs from Mastodon’s. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/bluesky-launch-public-jay-graber/

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@willoremus The approach is different than Mastodon's by not actually being decentralized. Remember: Jay Graber comes from the world of cryptocurrency.

eloquence, to random
@eloquence@social.coop avatar

Seeing more and more Mastodon logos on major sites and it makes me really happy every time :). Sometimes next to the bird, sometimes no bird at all.

(Where do you get a cool logo for your site, you ask? There are many copies, but I tend to use https://fontawesome.com/icons/mastodon?f=brands&s=solid)

And yes, I know fedi > Mastodon. I'll take the win :)

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@eloquence I'm consistently surprised you don't see more brands setting up mastodon instances just for themselves and/or employees. It's minimal overhead, minimal moderation, fully accessible, people wouldn't even need a Mastodon account to follow their content. They could just paste the same stuff they're posting to Twitter/Insta/etc.

JustinH, to threads
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"Threads is a New Mall" (by me!)

Now that is here, I have a strong feeling we're going to be seeing more attempts to paint Mastodon as "uncool". When corporations can't fight something with money, their only hope is to discourage it via culture. The Fediverse is an existential threat to Meta and they know it. Remember Google's "No Moat" memo? "Open source is eating our lunch".

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/threads-is-a-new-mall-but-still-a

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

For anyone wondering, there are a few ways to install Windows 11 without creating a Microsoft account.

Probably the simplest — and one that I tested when I needed to do that — was just to give an invalid e-mail address when "creating" that Microsoft account; "elon@test.example" works well, because "example." is a well-known TLD that will never work, so the e-mail is guaranteed to be invalid.

Of course then the problem is that you still end up with Windows 11.

:blobcatcoffee:

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@rysiek

video/mp4

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@rysiek I have to assume they're building a profile of you even if you use a fake email. That said, if you use Rufus to make your installer, it will give the option to skip the requirement for a Microsoft account:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Apparently I am seething with malaise and disdain for Silicon Valley, and that's distasteful or something. :blobcateyes:

Well, SV has been causing malaise (ask the parents whom Zuck was just apologizing to) for and showed disdain (ask the Rohingya) towards pretty much everyone else. And made a killing doing so.

OpenAI said outright it's impossible for them to compensate authors of works they use as "training data". Implying their business model is more important than somebody's livelihood. 🤔

JustinH,
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@rysiek Well said, this is the first post I've ever made to my newsletter:

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/social-media-6c99e7b6c557

JustinH, to fediverse
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

New post up on Stay Grounded:

"Instead of paying human moderators or otherwise not growing too-big-to-moderate, social media companies use imperfect automated tools to remove enough of the Nazi stuff so as to not to give off “Nazi site” vibes while hoping users will put up with least some Nazis. They are hoping that you will sit at their table and tolerate some Nazis."

(Special thanks to @rysiek)

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/a-billion-nazis-at-the-table

JustinH, to fediverse
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"We Need To Rewild The Internet"
An absolutely excellent read (and great analogy) by @mariafarrell and @robin Probably the best piece I've read all year.

I often struggle to think of a term for "appearing messy from a distance is often, on a human scale, healthy actually." Comparing the social web to an ecosystem is exactly it.

https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/

@fediverse

JustinH, to twitter
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Another otherwise great piece by (one of my favorite writers) @chaykak about the decline of , but STILL doesn't mention or the (he does mention and ??)

WHY.

C'MON.

(still a good read tho)

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-internet-isnt-fun-anymore

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

When tech bros say "AI will work for us" they mean that in a literal way, it will work for THEM. Everyone else however, is working for the AI:

https://www.404media.co/bad-amazon-bosses-wayne/

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

I literally just wrote about the likelihood of this happening in my most recent piece, funny to see some confirmation. As AI gets better than humans at appeasing "The Algorithm" it will completely take them over.

https://www.404media.co/facebooks-algorithm-is-boosting-ai-spam-that-links-to-ai-generated-ad-laden-click-farms/

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"An LLM is not outputting based on what is true, or even based on an internal model of what it believes to be true. It’s outputting what you are most likely to perceive as plausible, which is often, but not always, the same thing. A scarier-sounding way to phrase it is this: GPT’s function is to generate the inputs least likely to set off your brains’ bullshit filters."

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/how-chatgpt-makes-the-statue-of-liberty

JustinH, to foss
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

@pluralistic Is one of my favorite authors, and has a Humble Bundle going on right now to support The @eff

(If you're into the politics of I recommend "Walkaway"!)

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar
JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Friendly reminder that if you're encountering Nazis on a social media platform (that aren't banned within a few hours) it means one of two things:

  • The owners are ok with Nazis being there
  • The owners are unable to effectively moderate

In either case, you should question if you really want to be contributing your efforts to a place like that.

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Remember when the major complaint about Instagram was how so many people posted pictures of their food? When Instagram’s biggest annoyance was that people were being too authentic?

https://www.staygrounded.online/p/dont-trust-everything-you-see-online

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

"Instead of finding new ways to power the internet besides “clout,” we’ve decided to power everything on internet attention. At the start of the social web we assumed content would get better. Platforms would get better. We, ourselves, would get better. And I simply do not think digital media literacy can reverse where we’ve found ourselves now."

From this week's above-average issue of Garbage Day by @ryanbroderick

https://www.garbageday.email/p/clout-world

JustinH, to random
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Sounds like @davidpierce read my AIR Method!

http://www.airmethod.net

JustinH, to fediverse
@JustinH@twit.social avatar

Two great reads on why is so bad now and why it can't get better.

https://countercraft.substack.com/p/goodreads-has-no-incentive-to-be

https://janefriedman.com/i-would-rather-see-my-books-pirated/

If you're looking for an alternative, check out BookWyrm: https://bookwyrm.social

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