@Jennifer @ai6yr

> good reporting isn’t cheap

I remember when journalism in newspapers was funded by the Rivers Of Gold - the classified section which would be half a kilo of paper I would toss out so I could read the news. There was at least _some_ hope that the journalists could independently report on what was going on.

That’s gone since the internet arrived and did classifieds better, but now the newspaper I used to buy every morning to read on the train is an anemic rag full of ads and sponsored “supplements” masquerading as news.

“Democracy dies in darkness” is now less of a warning and more of a recipe to dismantle it.

@ai6yr

It could well be that people are abandoning WaPo because it's going to shit, but, even if it was a pillar of journalism, people still wouldn't pay because they think news is "free" elsewhere.

There is no "free" of course - you pay with your identity, your eyeballs and your privacy - but that's invisible to almost everyone.

@futzle

I'd guarantee no one at the manufacturer ever even considered UX. The priority is to look nice.

I'll bet the button you use every day is the same size as the one you use once, ever, but they are nicely aligned to look pretty and symmetrical.

@fixatedpersonsunit

IANAL, but "pardoned" doesn't necessarily mean "sorry we were wrong, you didn't actually do it" does it?

I assume this is more about "Donald is on our side, so let's try to milk it for some megabucks as well".

Gee Elon, I imagine that it's a bit frustrating and disconcerting to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and haphazardly taken away.

@evan

It's the fiftieth anniversary of the movie of the same name on the 4th of June next year. Was it a coincidence you posted on the 4th June?

I saw the movie at the drive-in with my girlfriend when it first came out. Fond memories, but not necessarily of the film.

I'm sure it's not connected that we're also coming up to our fiftieth wedding anniversary next year.

@treleanor

Very funny, Weather... now it's raining AND sunny because I'm walking home.

The beautiful rainbow ahead of me seems to saying "Ha,ha... Gotcha. Now stop whining and look at how magnificent I am".

@rallias @cwebber

Looxury! I had to whistle tunes for years before I got a cassette player.

@treleanor

Yes, I fell for that. Went for a walk and the clouds immediately started threatening with some spots or rain. Then clear sky. Then threats again.

I'm holed up in the local cafe for a while after my increasingly "brisk" walk landed me here while it makes up its mind.

@smallcircles

Agreed.

Don’t get me wrong, the lists are great and I love the flourishing ecosystem. It’s just that, as good as those sites are, they don’t get us any closer to a simple onboarding process. If anything they make it worse.

@smallcircles

Sigh. I love that there is a choice of apps - it’s a reflection of the openness and flexibility of the underlying protocol.

But I have a lingering worry that it magnifies the bewilderment of new users when onboarding.

“How do I join Twitter?”. “Download the app and sign in”. “Ok, I’m in”.

“How do I join the Fediverse?”. “Just choose [somehow] from one of hundreds of hosts. Now choose [somehow] from scores of apps to sign up”. “My brain hurts”.

There needs to be a simple elevator pitch and a brain-dead onboarding process before I’ll be able to sell the Fediverse to my non-techie friends and relatives.

It’s very frustrating because the Fediverse has so much to offer them.

@petergleick

It probably doesn’t matter that they used AI to generate garbled nonsense; they’re perfectly capable of doing that without AI.

The AI thing is a convenient shortcut to ignore it, but the real issue is that garbled nonsense is being used as a basis - and a rationalization - for shitty policies.

@futzle

At least they have passkeys as an option now.

They seem to be the answer to most of the problem (apart from the initial setup being a bit non-intuitive). I assume someone will point out that they're fundamentally flawed in some way though.

@liveable_melb

Location?

@elzbethmrgn

I'm the one who rejects Anzac biscuits if they are crunchy instead of chewy.

@mike @kev @frameworkcomputer

I actually liked the fact that early Windows mostly conformed to CUA, (presumably because there were still users where a mouse was optional) so I used those keys a lot.

I abandoned Windows a quarter century ago, so when I moved to Mac, then Linux, the fact that Emacs key mappings (mostly) worked in the GUI was a boon.

@mike @homeassistant

I was just playing with that literally minutes ago.

I’m setting up som Zigbee water leak sensors and I’m broadcasting “Sh*t! There’s a water leak! Check the [entity_id] sensor” on all my speakers (plus a phone notification).

It was certainly more urgent in the “scared” voice but:

1) it was only available in the US male voice and

2) it was only in the Google TTS. I prefer to use the local Piper TTS especially for important messages. It’s actually surprisingly good quality.

@PrPl

I find the current layout pretty good for navigating threads without losing context.

The consistency between desktop and mobile is a bonus I wouldn't want to lose by adding more columns.

@falcennial

Reminds me of my banking app when I do a payment and it defaults the "from" account to the one with zero dollars... every... damn... time.