To be brutally honest, mastodon isn’t appealing to average people. Picking a server and client is too complicated, it’s mostly full of FOSS and Linux nerds, and the lack of a good discovery algorithm prevents them from finding content they are interested in.

Unfortunately, average people don’t care about federation. They get confused when they click a link from a different mastodon instance and it’s not the same website. Why aren’t they logged in anymore? They don’t know. Website must be broken. They don’t know or care about the differences between instances and clients and protocols. It’s just an app that they download and don’t see any of their friends or content they care about, so they stop using it.

Is Bluesky prone to enshittification? I don’t know much about the AT protocol, but it seems like it works relatively similar to ActivityPub. Is it open source?

My state doesn’t do daylight savings, so I get to avoid these useless shenanigans twice a year

I really hope he has a good plan to pass the reigns to someone with the same integrity and philosophy.

I’m going to go drop off my ballot and sit back and wait for the results. There is nothing more I can do so there’s no sense in worrying about it. Focus on things you can actually change.

When you get home from work, sometimes it’s nice to decompress for a few minutes before going in to start on chores/dinner/whatever. Especially if you have roommates or children that will immediately require your attention when you go inside.

I’m saying I’d just turn the PC into a headless server and get an Apple TV or something and plug it into the TV. The apps on a streaming box are going to be optimized for couch use, and then she can use the YouTube app with her algorithm if she wants.

That’s essentially what I have, a Plex server in my office and Apple TVs on each of the TVs around the house. Whether you like Apple or not, their 4K box is powerful enough to decode any media I’ve thrown at it and it supports pretty much all codecs without issue. The remote control is nice as well, but you need an Apple account to set it up.

How are you controlling Kodi from the couch? Do you have a remote control, or a mouse and keyboard or something? Having to use traditional PC controls in the living room is probably enough friction to turn most people away. You can have the best of both worlds if you get a “normie” streaming stick/box and connect it to your offline media server.

Oh, I thought you had the actual PC plugged into the TV and your wife was struggling with that.

Use the HTPC as a Plex or Jellyfin server and plug an Apple TV or something in over HDMI. Much more user friendly

Glocks have three separate safety devices, but they do not have a toggleable safety switch on the outside of the gun, commonly referred to as a “thumb safety”.

You will not be able to make a Glock fire unless you put your finger in the trigger and pull it. They are 100% drop-safe, meaning even if you have the gun loaded and it falls off a table, etc., it will not fire a round (unlike guns in the movies).

This makes Glocks a very appealing self-defense handgun. In a real self-defense shooting scenario, it is unlikely that you will have the time or dexterity to disengage the thumb safety before firing. Assuming you remember to do it at all.

There’s something called the rule of threes in self defense shootings: most encounters happen at 3 yards, last 3 seconds, and 3 rounds are fired. If someone is sprinting at you from 9 feet away, the extra split second of fumbling around with the gun to turn the safety off could make a big difference. Concealed carry instructors will commonly tell students to submerge their hands in a bowl of ice water for a full minute, then attempt to handle their (unloaded) gun and operate the action and thumb safety. It’s nearly impossible. That’s the amount of dexterity you will have in an actual life threatening situation due to the sudden rush of adrenaline.

When carrying a handgun for self defense, we use other factors to mitigate a negligent discharge. For example, your holster must completely cover the trigger when the gun is seated so it cannot be fired when holstered.

I carry a Glock daily for self defense and have never had an issue with the lack of a thumb safety, because I follow the rules of gun safety very strictly.

Fuck Nintendo, all my homies hate Nintendo

Judge him all you want but he tells it like it is

There are several factors to consider when choosing materials in a nuclear plant. For things that aren’t in direct proximity to the reactor core, neutron activation (becoming radioactive) is less of a concern. Aluminum produces hydrogen gas when exposed to boric acid, which presents an explosion risk. Certain chemical compounds can cause corrosion to plant equipment, even a Sharpie marker could corrode a valve or pipe and cause issues over the 50 year life span of a plant.

Half-Life 2

I’m too young to have played the original as a kid, but I have fond memories of coming home from school to play HL2 on my shitty laptop.

Why not?

I can think of much better things to do, like keeping a flathead screwdriver handy for stabbing speakers (in Minecraft)

We’ve had them here in Phoenix since before the pandemic. They operate just like Uber, except they’re cheaper and there’s no driver. You can sit in any seat besides the driver seat, and store items in the trunk of the vehicle. You can pair your phone with the car and play your own music on the speakers. Pretty good experience all things considered. The cars are pretty good at finding a place to stop and load/unload passengers, but sometimes they will drive right past you when finding a place to park and you have to walk 10-15 feet to the car.

Join a Discord server for your city if it has one. Make casual conversation with the people there, attend/plan meetups, and suddenly you have real-life friends.

I met most of my closest friends through my school’s Discord server while I was in college.

(It doesn’t have to be Discord, it can be a Facebook/Reddit/etc. community too. Discord is just the most common option for younger people.)

ED25519 keys are what I use. Some people are wary of them because the NSA made some contributions to the algorithm’s development, but I don’t personally see it as an issue. If it bothers you, there are other popular ciphers that are still more secure than RSA.

something something RSA keys aren’t as secure as the more modern cyphers