A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.

Admin of SLRPNK.net

XMPP: prodigalfrog@slrpnk.net

Matrix: @prodigalfrog:matrix.org

  • 167 Posts
  • 273 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • The Bluesky firehose throughput is massive and any home ActivityPub instance that tried to enter the network would easily be overwhelmed just loading the basic home page feed.

    AKAIK, activitypub (on mastodon) only requests and receives content from individual users that have been followed by someone on the local instance, it wouldn’t load all of bluesky at once, it would just need to have an up to date database of bluesky’s users so they are easily searchable. With that model, even crappy PC’s can interact with the mega servers.

    Plus, many ActivityPub folks don’t want to federate with big companies anyway.

    With the OP’s point of ATProto being open-source, I assume the thrust of the argument is that at done point there would be a community hosted instance, which were it compatible, I think most activitypub se rvers would gladly federate with.

    I don’t think ActivityPub is made for large servers

    Ideally there doesn’t need to be any, as the conglomeration of all smaller instances should be able to act as a large server. Unfortunately as it currently stands, the UI of most fediverse software makes interacting with that wider pool more difficult than it needs to be, and thus punishes smaller Mastodon servers with more difficult discovery of interesting topics or people to follow. But I think that can be overcome simply with better UI design.

    AP works well for following friends and family, it’s kind of terrible for the tailored topic based social media feed most people want out of social media apps these days.

    Again, I think that’s a UI problem. I don’t use mastodon myself because of it, as I find it difficult to find people that interest me. However, Lemmy’s use of Topics, and more critically, the existence of Lemmyverse.net which searches across all instances, make finding interesting things possible regardless of the size of your home instance. It’s criminal that that functionality is not a native feature in the standard lemmy Ui, and I’m not aware of anything similar for mastodon.


  • I’d rather that ATProto was just compatible with activitypub to begin with, or allowed for meaningful federation.

    The ability to scale up into a behemoth like twitter will only be viable for a minority of people who can afford the infrastructure to do so, and with that level of centralization comes a certain level of control and allowable viewpoints. Not the worst thing if the people running it are good folk, but that’s always reliant on luck, and your chances to roll a good team lessen dramatically with such a small pool of servers. Not to mention the inherent problem of adequate moderation on mega servers, where the ratio of mods/admins to users can quickly become overwhelming, especially if reliant on volunteers who don’t like the feeling of just being a cog in a greater machine.

    ActivityPub, on the other hand, allows for anyone to host an instance with an old laptop, while still having access to the big picture.

    The argument should not be to tolerate ATProto since it’s easier to use, it should be to rile up support to make Activitypub’s interconnections so intuitive and smooth to use by default, that it can easily offer those ‘big social media vibes’ to those who want it.

    The potential social benefits of truly federated, Citizen Owned media cannot be overstated.





  • Quick addendum to the Acquiring the means to keep yourself safe section:

    In addition to Pepper spray and learning self-defense, consider acquiring body armor to keep yourself protected and alive. This can range from sports equipment to defend against batons and other melee weapons, all the way to ballistic armor to protect against pistols or rifles. This article gives a pretty excellent overview of what you should look for, where you should get it (including one leftist armor maker!), and even briefly covers DIY armor if you’re on a tight budget. Be sure to follow that up with a good helmet, and if you can, a gasmask too.



  • Personally, I would say:

    • Thief 1, 2 & 3
    • Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis
    • Mafia 1 (not the remake)
    • Gemini Rue
    • Deus Ex (Game Dungeon has a great video on why the story punches so high, link to relevant segment here)
    • Disco Elysium (even though I personally didn’t really care for the game due to the setting, the writing is undeniably high quality)
    • A Mind Forever Voyaging

    All of those games have, IMO, a tremendously good sync between gameplay and story, where everything lines up to the point where you can become fully absorbed into whatever experience the writer/designer crafted. I would say Thief accomplishes it the best, while Mafia’s and Deus Ex’s clunky gameplay hold them back, but I can see what they were trying to achieve, and overall are close enough to my ideal.



  • I have a very similar experience to @Zarxrax@lemmy.world. When I was younger, I’d play just about anything I could get my hands on. But now, it’s like you, where 99% of what’s out there doesn’t interest me.

    I think this happened for a few reasons for me:

    1. Games are a pretty big time commitment compared to other media, and my time has only become more valuable as I get older. I’m just not willing to invest it in a game that isn’t really scratching an itch effectively
    2. There are more games out now than ever before in history. Combined with the previous point, there’s never been a better time to be picky.
    3. AAA games are stagnating pretty badly due to profit incentive. While there a still some that break the mold and show artistic value, most of them are so commodified and painfully derivative, it’s difficult for an older gamer who has already played things like it to get excited
    4. I’ve become more attuned to my preferences in genre, and know what I will and will not enjoy, which is something I didn’t have as much when I was younger, since everything was still relatively new and therefore, interesting enough to play.

    But this last one is the biggest reason for me: games are not reaching the potential they have locked within them.

    I say that as someone who is a massive fan of storytelling, good writing, and immersion in games. Compared to books and movies, writers are still given extremely low priority in the gaming industry, which results in a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance, simplistic writing, and a lack of innovative gameplay inspired by said writing.

    Indies have been the most willing to experiment, but that’s mostly with pure mechanics or themes, and writing is still often neglected.

    There have been a few titles that I think reach that potential, but most of them are quite old now. With so few to truly tickle me in that way, I’ll instead opt for arcade type games that manage to create a tight gameplay loop, as it let’s me not lament the lack of a good story so much.