I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about.

This article—which I haven't read—has a screenshot of mobile Google Chrome tab grouping. Hopefully this'll help.

I already played at least two :^) Thanks for reminding me

It's dangerous to tell people "shit's fucked and there's nothing you can do about it" because they might believe you and do nothing.

Which is why I'm not doing that.

P.S. I'm not advocating for doom here, I just wish more people understood that Americans buying cheap Chinese electric cars won't save the people living nearby the mine in Africa where the cobalt for those batteries was extracted.

I don't think you disagree with the parts where I say people will suffer.

With respect, I think you're projecting a discussion with a different person onto this article.

I don't think so? My comment is generally aimed at "the situation is grim, but tech just got awesome, so let's save the planet people!" optimism-filled pieces, much like this one. Forgive me if I come across as affronted when, as temperatures reach new and dangerous heights in certain regions, I am put out seeing someone say market forces are on the cusp of saving us.

For what it's worth, I hope you're right.

Discoverability is a huge barrier to entry in the Fediverse, and they're not helping.

It's hard for me to judge them too harshly, though. Fediverse devs do things I disagree with all the time, and users too. Maybe, in a different world, something else could've taken Mastodon's place... but its forks stick close, Pleroma has the charm of a brick, Misskey is too 日本, and Misskey forks got Messy, and—

...Oh. That's it, isn't it? Mastodon is the best that ActivityPub has to offer most microblogging fans.

Thank you.

Whenever using this trick, I'd suggest using DDG instead of Bing if possible.

Is this the official Mozilla connect survey? I believe the question order and groupings were randomized, and that may have been a (IMO bad) control question.

The subtle ways having a toxic community affects unconscious design decisions. It's a message.

...joking, to be clear. Could be a raindrop.

I believe that's incorrect. The reporter who started this rumor either misunderstood the meaning of the chart or was lying through his teeth. I'll find the original source and share it here later.

Linux Foundation Report.

This is the actual source. If you simply scroll through it, you'll see they're investing in many things that move the Linux ecosystem forward. Open standards, open hardware, security in the software stack, providing for latest market needs, keeping an eye on legislation that could affect Linux, staying in touch with important entities in the industry, and so on.

Scroll down near the bottom and you'll find where the reporter got their information from. It's an expenditure chart and, sure enough, it says "Linux Kernel Support 2%" Note, however, that it also says:

• Community Tooling 5%
• Training and Certifications 7%
• Project Infrastructure 9%
• Project Support 64% (!)

Note that it doesn't say how any of them is further divided. Remember all the things I mentioned earlier? All of that is value for Linux as a whole.

Software projects aren't just about programming the big thing. Working on a large project will show you this. Could the foundation spend more on Linux? Maybe. But saying they only spend 2% on it is disingenuous.

The reporter doesn't mention this in his clickbait piece, either because he doesn't get it in the first place, or more likely because he just wants to push his views.

This is yet another example why Lunduke isn't a credible source of news.

On the other hand, an isolated community can also become a nasty brewing pot, reinforcing harmful behaviors and even intensifying them over time.

I don't think calling them safe spaces for hateful assholes is accurate, but I understand frustrations with them.

There's at least one interesting fellow in this very thread sharing extremely predictable opinions.

I thought I was annoying when arguing. Still do, but I found someone worse. Doesn't make me feel better, because it seems I'm sharing a table with them.

There's a chance duckduckgo does something similar, but sadly I can't check at the moment.

Leaving a comment so I remember to try it later—unless anyone reading is willing to do so.

Yes, people chase content, which means chasing where many people are, but why did Bluesky become a mainstream alternative and Mastodon didn't?

I'm saying marketing doesn't cut it, and it's not just about where most users are either, otherwise everyone but Threads would be irrelevant.

People bounce off both Threads and Mastodon, and there are platform-related reasons for that.

That may be true for some people, but isn't a valid generalization. See the Brazil blocking Twitter situation.

Millions decided to give Bluesky a chance and a graph showed daily user activity quadrupling. Now, a not-insignificant portion are saying they refuse to return to Twitter because:

• It feels less toxic and healthier
• They have more control over their experience
• They're finally having fun with social media again

Sound familiar?

And I'm pretty sure Misskey has more features. Hell, Mastodon as well probably. Bluesky doesn't even support video yet.

The first sin of the Fediverse isn't being small, that's the second. First is being a pain in the ass.

This was one of the reasons I left, and I assumed most disliked the official app, but weren't willing to part with the content.

Now, I think I was too close minded. Stuck in my bubble. If it's not in a discussion about reddit sucking, chances are people don't care that much.

App sucks? Didn't think about that, it's just an app. App really sucks? Whatever, they already use 5 other apps that are worse.

The medium shapes the experience, but isn't an experience unto itself. Not that important to the average person.

Why are there three forks(?) of what I assume is Misskey? I think the original is still kicking, even.

With modern internet speeds, there's no reason you can't have full UHD-BR quality streamed over the internet.

Cost is a prohibitive reason for many (hardware, internet).

I do believe files are better than physical media, simply because with the proper setup they're easily backed up and won't degrade or break.

Everyone makes mistakes. You've grown, rejoice.

It's also a reminder that many may still learn who he really is.

Purely anecdotally from what I've been reading online, it seems most younger folks hate Threads.

Not necessarily because of privacy issues or social impact, mind you. They also think it just sucks to use, don't like the UI, don't like the content—which turned out to include a lot of people trying to build a personal brand and sell you things. Just like Instagram, where most users came from.

Excluding content details, Mastodon fails similarly. Requires learning, unsatisfactory UI, more difficult to find and engage with content you like.

Thanks. I know you're not OP, but I'll take this opportunity to answer anyway.

privacy preserving attribution

...is not as bad as many people think.

The best argument that I believe still has merit is this:

All websites on the internet—including ad networks!—are guests on our computers, and the content they provide are merely suggestions for a user agent to interpret and show us how it chooses.

If you agree with this—and I kinda do—then yeah, PPA shouldn't exist. You're probably a staunch user of uBlock (or uMatrix) and don't want your browser engaging in any privacy-preserving attribution shenanigans.

But here's the kicker: if you use uBlock, PPA won't do anything. It can't, even when left enabled. For the API to be called, ads need to get to your browser first, and uBlock doesn't allow them to get that far. The only people really affected by PPA are people not using adblocking, i.e. the people being tracked all over the web, who would likely benefit from PPA.

As I said in a previous comment: if PPA works and is widely adopted, I can see the argument for how it'd be better—unfortunately, most people still browse the internet without uBlock. That doesn't mean I'll stop installing it on every device I can; I'm simply accepting that'll never be every device on earth.

And for all that Mozilla is implementing "bullshit," they're also the only ones keeping uBlock 100% functional by maintaining manifest V2. They spend time and resources protecting the very thing that trumps their supposed bullshit. That feels not like enshittification to me, but a group trying its best, even while stuck between a rock and a hard place.

What do you believe Mozilla was implementing?

Hey, I got curious and decided to take a look at how things are going.

Currently, there's a big meta issue on Bugzilla (1907090) with dozens of sub-issues tracking development of tab grouping on desktop, and they're actively being worked on right now. Seems like there's simply a lot of work to be done, especially of the invisible sort, before we get the feature proper. But things are progressing nonetheless!

So I'd say there's no need to join the crowd asking that on every other announcement... but that's just what I think. Hopefully this was helpful :^)

if its truly end to end encrypted

Telegram chats aren't end-to-end encrypted by default, and group messages cannot be encrypted. Just saying.

However, its design is a little too complex to be used at small sizes, as you would in text or in a button.

I wonder what the criteria are. Because ⁂ just looks like three blurry dots to me. It's not making things worse, but I wouldn't say it's making them much better either.

I think I agree with the major point of the article, that many gaming journalists... don't do a great job. At all. Many seem to outright hate the communities they serve, which can't be healthy for either side.

But it certainly wasn't this article that convinced me. It's needlessly hostile, contains personal attacks and petty insults, and despite its many claims and assumptions about Deadlock, gaming companies, journalists and gamers, it has only 4 outgoing links—one of them, bizarrely, simply to x.com—and nothing else. Screenshots? More supporting evidence? Have a useless picture of Valve's office, I guess.

One of the linked resources is a tweet:

bye Twitter Quoted tweet: "Where to find Verge staff on Mastodon https://theverge.com/23519135/mastodon..."

Why does the author think this is relevant?

Their Twitter account links to a Mastodon address, a throwback to when Elon Musk bought the website and the journos had a hissy fit because they could no longer backchannel to have accounts banned for telling them to “learn to code.”

Wow, that's why you think people were complaining? Nothing else, no other possible undesirable consequence arising from Musk's takeover of Twitter? Not even his influence in levels and management of hate speech and misinformation in the platform?

Indeed, the majority of his last month’s output on Twitter – now X.com – is whining about Musk and bizarrely saying “bye Twitter” despite The Verge still being very much active on the site. It’s all so tiresomely typical.

It's actually quite common for organizations that give mastodon a chance to keep their Twitter account as well. It's the sad reality that most people (many of their following) will stay on Twitter. See Mozilla for another example, they host their own instance, even, but that sadly doesn't mean they can throw away Twitter.

So the journalist in question shows support for mastodon, both by mentioning their account and bringing attention to the fact that The Verge is also joining, and this is your reaction? If you know why this happens, it's misleading, and if you don't, then it's a failure in reporting. Both are bad and make me hesitant to believe anything else you say.

By the way, I'm curious about your choice of platform. I wonder what factors led to you picking nazi central as your center of operations. I'm not claiming you're a Nazi, it's just... you're sitting at the table with them, you know?

The answer is games journalism, maybe journalism in general, has become a largely self-serving practice where nothing matters except appearing smarter than the audience you’re supposed to serve.

Well said, Richard. Definitely got that feeling just now.

And to people thinking The Verge sucks completely: don't generalize publishers like this, please! You should be critical, aware of their leanings and biases, but remember that they're still an organization hosting multiple writers with different skills too. The Verge has some solid reporting, like when they showed how SEO ruined the web. They also have some utterly shameful moments—let us never forget The Verge PC—just like most other media.

When the color of their skin is otherwise irrelevant, I get you, but in this instance I think it's relevant because Trump seems like a racist idiot. It's salt upon injury, not because a rare black man who happens to be articulate owned him, but because a rare articulate man who happens to be black did. The point is the same, but the latter doesn't perpetuate racism. Context matters.

Maybe I'm too naive, but that's how I interpreted OP's comment.

Wasn't there a privacy scandal involving them a while back?

Edit: for reference, see this link by The Verge or this one by Mozilla and scroll down a little.

Yeah, I think it's just funny comparing it with the usual situation on Linux, where there's even less restrictions. I believe you can actually put a newline in a file name, for example, though I'll need to check and come back later.

I'd need to rename a massive amount of files if I ever wanted to go back to Windows.

P.S. yup. Generally, just avoid /, null, and you're good to go.

Even the poisonous swamp hides beauty within... doesn't mean you're guaranteed to enjoy visiting.

I think the big difference is that you seem to think that AI has peaked or is near its peak potential, while I think AI is still just getting started.

That's a fair assessment. I'm still not sure if popular AI tech is on an exponential or a sigmoid curve, though I tend towards the latter. But the industry at large is starting to believe it's just not worth it. Worse, the entities at the forefront of AI are unsustainable—they're burning brightly right now, but the cash flow required to keep a reaction on this scale going is simply too large. If you've got time and are willing, please check the linked article by Ed (burst damage).

I mean, maybe I could have phrased it better, but what else are you gonna do?

My bad, I try to trim down the fat while editing, but I accidentally removed things I shouldn't. As I said, it's a nitpick, and I understand the importance of helping those who find themselves unhirable. Maybe it's just me, but I thought it came across a little mean, even if it wasn't your intent. I try to gently "poke" folks when I see stuff like this because artists get enough undeserved crap already.

I've no idea where you're getting these predictions from. I think some of them are fundamentally flawed, if not outright incorrect, and don't reflect real life trends of generative AI development and applications.

Gonna finish this comment in a few, please wait. Edit: there we go.

One by one, somewhat sorted from "Ok, I see it," to "What the hell?"

:::spoiler Wall of text

Generative AI is going to result in a hell of a lot of layoffs and will likely ruin people’s lives.

It's arguably already ruining many artists' lives, yeah. I haven't seen any confirmed mass layoffs in the game industry due to AI just yet. Some articles claimed that Rayark, developer of Deemo and Cytus, fired many of its artists, but they later denied this.

AI is going to revolutionize the game industry.

Maybe. If you're talking AI in general, it's already been doing so for a long time. Generative AI? Not more so than most other industries, and that's less than you'd expect.

AI is going to kill the game industry as it currently exists

I doubt such dramatic statements will turn true in time, unless you're very generous with how openly they can be interpreted.

Generative AI will lead to a lot of real-time effects and mechanics that are currently impossible, like endless quests that don’t feel hollow, realistic procedural generation that can convincingly create everything from random clutter to entire galaxies, true photorealistic graphics (look up gaussian splatting, it’s pretty cool), convincing real-time art filters (imagine a 3d game that looks like an animated Van Gogh painting), and so on.

There's a bit to unpack, here.

• With better hardware and more efficient models, I can see more generative AI being used for effects and mechanics, but I don't think we're seeing revolutionary uses anytime soon.
• While time could change this, model generation doesn't seem too promising compared to just paying good 3D artists. That said, they don't need to be perfect, good enough models would already be game (ha ha) changing.
• Endless quests that don't feel hollow... might be entirely beyond current generative AI technologies. Depends on what you mean by hollow.

Generative AI will eventually open the door to small groups of devs being able to compete with AAA releases on all metrics.

That's quite the bold statement. On some aspects, I'd be willing to hear you out, but on all metrics? That's no longer a problem of mere technology or scale, it's a matter of how many resources each one has available. Some gaps cannot be bridged, even by miraculous tech. For example, indies do not have the budget to license expensive actors (e.g. Call of Duty, Cyberpunk 2077), brands (e.g. racing games), and so on. GenAI will not change this. Hell, GenAI will certainly not pay for global advertising.

Generative AI will make studios with thousands of employees obsolete. This is a double-edged sword. Fewer employees means fewer ideas; but on the other side, you get a more accurate vision of what the director originally intended. Fewer employees also will also mean that you will likely have to be a genuinely creative person to get ahead, instead of someone who knows how to use Maya or Photoshop but is otherwise creatively bankrupt. Your contribution matters far more in a studio of <50 than it does in a studio of >5,000; as such, your creative skill will matter more.

Whoa, whoa, slow down, please.

Generative AI will make studios with thousands of employees obsolete.

Generative AI is failing to deliver significant gains to most industries. This article does a wonderful job of showing that GenAI is actually quite limited in its applications, and its benefits much smaller than a lot of people think. More importantly, it highlights how the market itself is widely starting to grasp this.

Fewer employees means fewer ideas; but on the other side, you get a more accurate vision of what the director originally intended.

Game development can't be simplified like this! Famously, the designers and artists for genre-defining game Dark Souls were given a lot of freedom in production at the request of director Hidetaka Miyazaki himself. Regardless of what you think of the results, including the diversity of other's visions... was the director's vision!

Fewer employees also will also mean that you will likely have to be a genuinely creative person to get ahead, instead of someone who knows how to use Maya or Photoshop but is otherwise creatively bankrupt. Your contribution matters far more in a studio of <50 than it does in a studio of >5,000; as such, your creative skill will matter more.

Again, that's assuming a lot and simplifying too much. I know companies that reduced their employee count, where what happened instead is that those capable of playing office politics remained, while workers who just diligently did their part got the boot. I'm not saying that's what always happens! But none of us can accurately predict exactly how large organizations will behave solely based on employee count.

A lot of people will have to be retrained because they will no longer be creative enough to make a living off of making games.

I admit, this is just a nitpick, but I don't like the way this is phrased. Designers still have their wisdom, artists are still creative, workers remain skilled. If hiring them is no longer advantageous due to financial incentives to adopt AI, that's not their fault for being insufficiently creative.

:::

Well, sounds great. I almost wish more companies would advertise to that market, really.

It's like... I know you're lying, and I know you probably don't actually care, but some of your competitors couldn't even be bothered to do this much. Those companies thought shitting on things I care about to maximize profit was the better strategy. I'll take that into consideration in my future decisions.

And if the situation changes, if they turn around and go full in on generative AI, we'll just have to consider that too. That's life.

Of course, I believe using alternatives that are more resistant to these kinds of market trends (community built software, perhaps?) would be ideal, but it's not always an option.

The last few pages of the transcript are chilling. I don't know who this helmsman, AB-1, is, but I deeply feel for them.

:::spoiler (Implied) heavy content

CAPT: come on @AB-1. gotta move. (we) gotta move. you gotta get up. you gotta snap out of it- and we gotta get out. AB-1: okay. CAPT: come up. AB-1: okay.

AB-1: help me. CAPT: don't panic. don't panic. CAPT: work your way up here. AB-1: I can't.

AB-1: help me. CAPT: you're okay. come on. CAPT: don't freeze up @AB-1. come on.

AB-1: I can't *. CAPT: yes you can *. AB-1: my feet are (slipping/slippery).

AB-1: I need a ladder. CAPT: we don't have a ladder @AB-1. AB-1: (a line). CAPT: I don't have a line @AB-1. AB-1: you gunna leave me

AB-1: (I need someone to/help somebody) help me. (you don't wanna/you gunna) help me? CAPT: I'm the only one here @AB-1.

AB-1: (I can't). AB-1: I can't. AB-1: (I'm gone/I'm a goner). :::

Always sweet to see folks incentivize each other to engage with content!

For anyone still daunted by the article, I expect the DEFCON channel will upload this talk soon, which might be more up your alley.

I've seen this, and what bothers me most is when you get that nasty feeling they're not looking for a therapist, but validation. Yeah, your ex-wife sucked, man. She was totally in the wrong about everything always, sorry you had to deal with her for so long. I'm sure you're in the clear and there's nothing you could be blamed for, it's easy to tell from this one-sided retelling of your personal conflicts.

When anyone's first topic of choice for casual conversation is how much their last partner was in the wrong, it's... difficult not to be dubious.

I think that's because your instance hasn't updated to Lemmy versions that add this yet.

It helps people and discourse, so it's appreciated. Stalking and tagging downvoters is probably going too far, though.

Wow, did I misread that badly. Thank you for explaining.

I wonder if they're aware, actually. From the linked issue:

Also noteworthy is that reddit and lemmy are unique in keeping vote privacy: mastodon, twitter, and most other platforms expose them.

What voting system on Twitter is he talking about?

I fear this, too, but I'm not sure what that'd look like. Would people tag someone who downvoted them and act like they're entitled to an explanation? That would probably(?) earn a block from me.

Edit: never mind, that's exactly the kind of thing that happens, it seems.