Spyke

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Why does it feel like we're at a point where every social media + other digital media are making shitty decisions and falling apart?

It's odd that all of this is happening at once, but if I had to bet on a cause it is complacency.

The internet used to be fast in trading the hands of "power". Social medias/major forums would fall just as quickly as they rose. This began to change in 2008-2010 when we sort of developed the Status Quo of websites we see nowadays.

I think these corporations forgot that social medias are not indefinite, and assumed that they could safely get away with much more now than they actually can.

Glad to see new platforms such as Lemmy rising to the task. Change the status quo.

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People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars

Car manufacturers need to realize that people already have a touchscreen that has a GPS, podcasts, music, and text messaging service in their pockets 24/7. Best option would be to make built in phone holders that are plugged in via USB C and connect to the sound system. Voila.

Stuff like this makes me very glad to own my 2015 Nissan Altima. I get occasionally let down by its somewhat lackluster engine and CVT transmission, but it cuts all the crap with infotainment bloatware in the dashboard and how it works. The only screen in my car is a small black strip that can only display text as most cars used to have. All you do is plug in your phone to the aux cord and use your phone as the touchscreen it was made to be, no need for another one. Physical buttons galore.

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The internet is great again, thanks to all of you 🙂

Definitely. This place is a (much needed) step back to what the internet used to be. Somewhere between 15-20 years ago and now, the online growth experienced obviously went in a wrong direction. I'm glad these huge social media conglomerations were a testing ground for us to discover how the web should not work, and Lemmy is a step in the right direction.

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Lemmy has quickly surpassed 100k users.

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It's all of our jobs to build this place up to what Reddit used to be. Definitely attainable. My only concern is that the more technical part of Lemmy (federated and what not) will shrink the site's critical mass and thus prevent it from being a major player on the internet.

But then again, that excuse was heard back when the current status quo of websites were taking off.

general

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Lemmy.world is now the biggest Lemmy instance!

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I'm sure how the ecosystem of Lemmy will play out is that there are a handful, maybe 6 or 7, main instances that require funding and are simply massive with teams committed to them. Then you have the niche medium sized instances that are known for a particular community or two, such as an instance that is well known for its great vegetarian community or whatever. Then you'll have tiny instances that are used by irl friend groups, or for simply tech savvy people that want a home base instance that they can control.

We're already sort of set up like this, but less organized and smaller overall. Many instances have duplicates of the same communities right now which I think will slowly fade away as future updates make it easier to visit/search other instances.

german

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What tools/methods have you found the most helpful?

Huh, I've never heard of the German Grammar Drills book, absolutely is something I'll need though, I have some strong basics of German grammar, but compared to the other skills in language learning it is definitely my weak spot.

I started learning German with Duolingo, which I honestly suggest for anyone that is first jumping into a language and wants to gauge its worth and learning curve. Duolingo helps drill some basic grammar and vocabulary into your head, but I would not rely on it past an A1 level. Duolingo's idea of pure repetition to learn new subjects is not the way to go, its more of a tool to make sure you're reinforcing what you already know.

Easily the most important tool I use for language learning is a notebook for each language. Perhaps other peoples' brains do not work like this but a notebook to me is an essential repository of information you already know to look over. Also, writing down anything you learn helps further reinforce it. I structure my notebook with pages dedicated to nouns, where the page is broken up by gender (Der, Die, Das), along with verb pages where the page is split into columns for different conjugations.

Besides these two resources, I also use the Nico ist Weg movies, that start at an A1 level and get increasingly harder with each movie. Much better acting and story than you'd expect for a movie to learn German. I just finished up the A2 movie.

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Found this in Myrtle Beach. It looked like a shiny black rock when wet, but now I'm not so sure. Is this a fossil, or something a lot less interesting?

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Oh man, I am not the guy to ask that haha, just using some preliminary knowledge. According to the Fossil wikipedia though, a fossil is considered such if it is older than 10,000 years. What we're looking at is apparently called an external mold, where something embeds a mold of itself into a rock. I haven't been able to find any info regarding how long these things take to form, but most examples I see are tens of thousands of years old.

So I would guess that rock/mold is thousands of years old then. But you're right, it could definitely be millions if you got lucky.

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Lemmy has quickly surpassed 100k users.

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Good point. Once a website is too noticeable, it is much more scrutinized. This has been seen countless times and its much harder to have the free flow of information when everyone is in on it. Then again though, that's why there are hundreds of instances, you can drop ship in the mainstream one and take a quieter approach.

android

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EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones in a landslide; no more glued together junk!

What're the odds this will carry over to the US out of convenience? I'd love for the batteries in phones to become more repairable over here, and I hope that companies would simply make all phones repairable from here on out to make things easier on themselves, but do you think they would, from now on, make two separate iPhones that have repairable batteries (EU) and non-repairable batteries (US & everywhere else)?