Spelling out all the potential consequences of an unknown party accessing your DNA is impossible, because scientists’ understanding of the genome is still evolving.

Honestly, this is something that I hadn’t actually considered before. I’m almost embarrassed, since I like to think of myself as someone who is always thinking about how my data can be misused, haha.

It’s not just about data that can currently be used unethically; there’s also the fact that someone may figure out a way in the future to use today’s data unethically. This is definitely true with something like your DNA, which is so complex that there are infinite things to learn from it. But it can be true of more simple things, too. There’s no way to predict what someone will be able to extrapolate from seemingly harmless information today.

It’s a reference to Paul, from the Bible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle#Names). He was known as Saul when he was Jewish, and then later went by Paul after he converted to Christianity. The phrase “Saul to Paul” is often used to refer to someone who converted to Christianity, as opposed to being born a Christian. But it is also sometimes used more generally to mean something that turned around or improved. Like, if you want to say “glow up” but you also want to make it clear that you think Christians are better than Jews.

Ironically, the person who said it was Mormon, and most Christians do not consider Mormons to count as Christian.

I once heard someone use the phrase “Saul to Paul” in front of one of my Jewish neighbors and I wanted to just shrink down to the size of a molecule so that I could float away.

Slightly. Not in a terrible, life-altering kind of way, but just enough to make me think, “Oh, that’s what that’s like.”

I live in condo building and the average resident here is very old, very religious, and very conservative. No joke, several Lyft drivers have asked me, “So, is this a retirement home? I always thought this was a retirement home.” When I moved in as a 26 year old guy with long hair and a ponytail, I did not fit the vibe.

I was changing my bicycle tire in the parking garage and a woman stormed up to me, absolutely convinced that I did not belong there. She said that I needed to be a resident to be in there (so, assuming I wasn’t one), then started grilling me about what unit I lived in, how long I’d been there, etc. She must have thought I was stealing the bike, but taking a few minutes to change the tire first; you know, as one does.

It was an irritating but short exchange, and she left quickly. But it still put me in a mood for like half an hour afterwards. And it got me thinking: if you’re a minority, you probably get that all the time. Like, you don’t even have time to cool down from the last exchange before someone does it to you again.

The Princess Bride, with In Bruges being a fairly close second. But I think The Princess Bride stays permanently at number 1 for me.

You need some kind of special coin – no, I’m not sure where to get one – and then you go to this hotel right here. Then you go to the bar and ask.

I’ve been loving RFF the last few months, it might be my favorite new thing I’ve found since I switched from Twitter to Mastodon. It also always shows you the artists’ fediverse usernames so you can follow them, and they usually have a Bandcamp link if you want to buy an album.

They recently said that they could use some volunteer help. I haven’t been able to check out what they need yet, but their matrix channel is #radioFreeFedi:matrix.org, I think that’s where they organize things.

Two reasons:

1. I live in Utah, where the Mormons are, and they get very offended by swearing. Although there are some ways in which I will definitely not accommodate their religious beliefs, I also think it’s healthy to meet other people at their comfort level (if it’s reasonable to do so). On the one hand, I understand the idea that we shouldn’t have to change who we are in order to make other people comfortable. On the other hand, I do think that if you take that idea too far, it can be a kind of antisocial behavior. When in Rome, as they say.
2. It has more impact if you don’t do it often. Think about a Quentin Tarantino movie. By the time Samuel L. Jackson has said “fuck” for the 157th time, you’re just used to it. The word doesn’t even stand out anymore. But now consider the end of The Princess Bride, which has one swear word in the entire movie: “I want my father back you son of a bitch.” WHA-BAM! Hits like a freight train every time!

For the follow-up questions, kind of the same answer to both of them. I feel like not swearing – or, swearing less – requires me to be more precise when I’m criticizing something. Instead of just saying that something was “like shit”, I have to give a more specific criticism. So that’s the change that it has made, and no, it hasn’t stopped me from expressing something.

“What schools are nearby?”

“Is the walk in humidor full or partial?”

“Can the windows be taken out for moving in large furniture? I own Salvador Dali’s favorite piano.”

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I’ve found that, currently, this kind of works and kind of doesn’t. I’ve boosted a few lemmy and mbin comments from my Mastodon account, and it shows up in feeds just like you would expect it to. Unfortunately, the parent post of the thread only shows as a link to the lemmy/mbin thread, rather than showing the full text of the original post. So it’s hard for people to see the context of the comment.

Mastodon appears to see lemmyverse comments the same way it sees Mastodon comments, but the top-level post that started the thread is somehow different.

I’m hoping that this will “just work” when Mastodon gets quite-posting. You could take a Mastodon post, and then quote-post it into a community by mentioning that community’s name.

This would create a separate thread of replies, which is good. A person shouldn’t be able to suddenly thrust a bunch of community replies onto someone else’s post. So basically it’s what quote-posting is for, but sharing it with a community instead of just your own followers.

I think it’s worth as a long-term goal for the Fediverse to entirely separate the “view” aspect from the “content” aspect of platforms where reasonably possible

This perfectly describes my ideal fediverse, too. Pretty much everything we’re doing here is posting text; it can be a comment on someone else’s text, or a comment on a video, or a top-level post in a community, or a top-level post on your microblog (which is basically your own community where you’re the only top-level poster). IMO the type of fediverse server you choose should be based on which one has the best UI for the viewing and posting you’ll be doing most often, but they should all be able to show everyone else’s content as much as possible.

If I need to, I’ll create separate accounts for separate interests, like one for games and one for professional things. But I’d like to use the same account for following indie game developers (on Mastodon) and gaming communities (on Lemmy) and commenting on game review videos (on Peertube).

I also want interoperability between microblogging and threaded services, but unfortunately I’m a little skeptical about the account mirroring concept. Or, at least, I’d like more details about it.

Do users need to opt-in to have their accounts mirrored, like how they do with brid.gy right now? If there are a bunch of users with Bluesky accounts that don’t have Frontpage accounts, that would mess with the ability to have all comments showing up between the two services, and it would prevent some people from posting a comment on someone else’s comment if one of the commenters has not opted-in to have their account mirrored. Or, can a plain Bluesky account comment on Frontpage threads, but not start a thread?

I like the idea of being able to quote-post link aggregator threads to your Bluesky account, but I think ideally this would only require one account. Which would mean you could also use your Bluesky account to start a thread on Frontpage.

I don’t know, unfortunately. This reminded me that I used to occasionally read product reviews on epinions.com, which was apparently was taken offline in 2018. It was basically what you’re describing. Another proprietary website bites the dust and loses all content. :(

I heard about neodb.social recently, which is for entertainment media and is popular in China (although you can post in any language). Seems like we need something like that, but without specific product types in mind.

Yep, that’s basically all of it. ActivityPub allows a reader to send messages back to the original poster. Those messages can be a comment, or a like, an upvote, a downvote, or a many others. That’s what ActivityPub unlocks compared to RSS.

RSS only goes one way: the reader can read messages from the poster, but not send any messages to the poster.

edit: if anyone is curious about what the “many other” messages can be, the list is here, under Verbs: https://github.com/activitystreams/activity-schema/blob/master/activity-schema.md#verbs

Technically, that is part of ActivityStreams, not ActivityPub. But there is a lot of overlap there, and ActivityStreams is a necessary addition. For example, downvotes on Lemmy are not part of AP, but you’ll find them in AS, called “dislike.”

I remember seeing this on the news a few years ago. If I remember right, they were interviewing a design firm that does interior design for fast food and fast casual restaurants, and they were talking about all of this. I was really surprised at how candid they were being, since you would think that they would want this to be an industry secret.

The high stools with no back, the music that is too loud, the lights that are a little too bright and kind of hanging down in your field of view: all intentional, so that you’re just ever so slightly uncomfortable and you leave a few minutes sooner.

I’m certainly close right now. I bought a laptop from System76 in December (the Pangolin). It has not, any any point, worked acceptably. First the USB ports would frequently disconnect and reconnect. Then the trackpad started freaking out, registering constant false clicks and not letting the cursor move.

The first time I sent it in, they shipped me back someone else’s computer.

When I did get my own laptop back, I found that the trackpad issue hadn’t been fixed. Then it stopped waking up after being suspended.

So I sent it in again, and got no updates from them for 30 days. They said their usual turnaround time was 7-10 days. And the first time I sent it in, it took them about a week to send it back. Well, to send a computer back. So something was wrong here.

On top of that, the support ticket has a “Last Updated” timestamp, and it kept changing every couple of days. I asked them for details, and only received generic “sorry this is taking a while, we’re working on it” responses. I specifically wanted to know why the “last updated” timestamp was changing every few days, because of course I’m imagining that they’ve shipped my computer to someone else.

I finally responded in all caps, asking where my computer was for that unexplained month, and why the timestamp kept changing. The support agent replied:

Your computer was at our warehouse waiting to be worked on.

Bless up,

(Support agent name)

Bless up? Fucking asshole.

I always want to be patient with those working in customer support. It’s difficult and often thankless job. I know how unfair it is when a customer blows up at someone in customer service, not to mention how unhelpful it is. And usually the customer is yelling at someone with no power to fix the situation. But this System76 thing is getting ridiculous. They’re literally just not responding to emails and dodging questions when they do respond.

If it’s a new book and one that I think other people may be interested in borrowing, I’ll get the hardcover for the extra protection.

However, there’s a used paperback store down the street from me that has a whole bunch of heavily used paperbacks for like $1 each, and those have definitely been dominating my collection lately. Sometimes I’ll just pick up a dozen of them. That little store is one of those treasure troves of unexpected things, even though when you find one of those treasures, you might need to flip the pages carefully to prevent it from falling apart.

A couple of atheism/philosophy channels that helped me focus on the positive aspects of my secular worldview, instead of merely being not theistic:

• Genetically Modified Skeptic
• Alex O’Connor

Made major improvements to my home cooking routine:

• Adam Ragusea. His podcast, which he stopped doing this year, is also worth a listen.
• Rainbow Plant Life. Vegan.
• Derek Sarno. Also vegan.

Culture & current events:

• Joan Westenberg. She just started a YouTube channel a couple days ago, but I’ve been subscribing to her newsletter for a few months and it’s great. Give her a follow on Mastodon, too: https://mastodon.social/@Daojoan
• Maggie Mae Fish Only just found this one, but seems well thought-out.
• Tara Mooknee Same here.