both companies notably ruined the internet in the 2010s by consolidating discourse then taking various steps to destroy the user experience and the feel of the communities for profit.

so, broadly, the web went from cozy, small hobby forums in the 90s and 00s, then with the 10s as a transitional period, the 20s being practically complete corporate control of online discourse.

it's a bummer. but nothing lasts forever. where will we go next?

By that I mean, it must be an inherently comforting thing to think - we inherently know this and want there to be something after death, because it feels right, or more meaningful. There's a reason basically every civilization ever has some sort of afterlife ethos.

I realize I am basically horseshoeing my way into evangelicalism but still. Maybe life was better if we believed there was something beyond this. [edit - please note that yes, the world is shitty, things are awful and getting worse, and that is exactly my point -- we get THIS SHIT, and nothing else? god that's awful]

apparently my city literally literally banned public rail funding, and people online love jerking off about how good biking is, so i figured might as well try. I have come up with:

pros:

• good for mental health / exercise / endorphins
• arguably quaint
• feel like an old timey guy taking his wares to market
• feel european
• can annoy others
• less of a police state around them vs cars
• more flexible parking, routes
• capacity to be peaceful
• nice in summer

cons:

• look like an annoying dork (esp w neon - which also hurts the quaint factor)
• have to wear a helmet (^)
• getting sweaty, potentially "unpresentable" for work
• still have to find safe parking
• still takes a while
• have to find new routes to places
• can't listen to music or might die
• little meaningful protection against severe injury
• can only carry so many groceries/etc
• sucks in winter

i posted a fairly obscure support request on an obscure sub and instead of just saying the post isn't live, etc etc, it'll fake-show me the post as #1 on the hot page of the sub, #1 on the new, but then if I open the sub in a private window it isn't there -- so it either wasn't approved at all, or hasn't been approved yet. why lie? why why why.

it's so fucking frustrating, because usually there's literally no other place to go for support, and now I can't even post about my issue because some mod who works for free decided my valid thread with support logs and everything "isn't good enough" or god knows what. sick of it.

people have been demonizing it for most of the AD years i think but it's quite pleasant really. are there any proven negative effects?

this is stupid. something about activation energy? are there any activation energy hacks?

Companies are training LLMs on all the data that they can find, but this data is not the world, but discourse about the world. The rank-and-file developers at these companies, in their naivete, do not see that distinction....So, as these LLMs become increasingly but asymptotically fluent, tantalizingly close to accuracy but ultimately incomplete, developers complain that they are short on data. They have their general purpose computer program, and if they only had the entire world in data form to shove into it, then it would be complete.

full disclosure i was accidentally logged out today and scrolled for 5 minutes and it was pure pure absolute uncut dogshit i mean god awful bad. so i don't blame people. but on my account it knows what i want