An actual worthwhile investment.

Gotta love the Daddy

Am I the only one who gets an ASMR-like response from these 3D images?

One thing that strikes me (at least about the Old Poor Law) is how localised it is. This is contrary to most social safety nets today which are centralised at the highest level. I imagine that localisation could potentially mean less waste (people see direct effecs), but could also reinforce regional differences.

If computer screens had a physical dimension, they would be infinitely deep. Around you there is a room. You've probably already exhausted all the concievable ideas for things to do in that room, because there is a finite and quite small number of objects inside it. That is why the internet has such a draw to it. If you are trapped in the room (not necessarily physically), the internet gives you an alternate means by which to wonder wherever you like. You can go anywhere. You can go exploring. All from the same prison cell of a room.

I came to this thought by questioning why it was that I've been spending so much of my time online, in front of a screen. It also made me understand what people would have done in the days before screens (say the 1920s). So long as you aren't trapped in a cell, your physical surroundsings are an almost equivalent alternative to the internet. You can go exploring or wonder aimlessly (like through TikTok). If it was 1920 and I was stuck at home with nothing to do, instead of watching a screen I would have gone down to the square/street, grabbed a beer, sat down, and just waited for something to happen. Anything. Eventually there would. Incidentally I tried this the other week and it worked. The city is a source of dopamine. You can go to the same websites and there'll be something new to watch every day — so long as you watch the little details and wait for long enough.

I realize this might seem stupidly obvious to some. But I'm a Gen Zedder who grew up very sheltered and with a computer, so it only just hit me that this is how life is supposed to work. Like, I do have a social life and everything, but this explains why it has all seemed so predictable (ie. unless I arranged something, nothing would happen.) There are two infinitely deep spaces to exist in, and I was blind to one of them.

This is very exciting. Here is the APK I downloaded. And the associated discussion.

It even already seems to support stylus input which is very exciting seeing as there has been talk of porting RNote to Android.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30711375

People just need to get used to paying for the web. Monthly subscriptions for Spotify or Netflix are widely accepted, so a fee to fund the rest of the net doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. It could even be made part of the ISP fee (perhaps this could be forced on all ISPs by govts under the guise of 'supporting local websites').

The technical solutions already seem to exist, but have been shut down 1) due to lack of use and 2) by the entrenched business model (in the case of Scroll). Therefore, the challenge currently lies in bringing the masses over to this business model (IMO easier than it may seem, as the masses never consciously opted for their current method of paying anyway and hence feel no attachment to it), and stopping regulatory capture by the entrenched business model (an even deeper root problem whose solution would solve many issues beside this one).

So assume that everybody switched to this model of funding overnight. I don't think it would stop surveillance capitalism entirely since the surveillance technologies that the current business model lead to being developed (AI, cookies, etc) have since been adapted for use in other settings (facial recognition CCTV etc.) whose investment sources are now entirely separate from the web’s. What's more, websites would probably keep spying on paying users anyway, simply because they already have the technology to do so, and it would make them extra money on top of their allocated subscription money. Despite this, I still think it's a change worth working towards.

People just need to get used to paying for the web. Monthly subscriptions for Spotify or Netflix are widely accepted, so a fee to fund the rest of the net doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. It could even be made part of the ISP fee (perhaps this could be forced on all ISPs by govts under the guise of 'supporting local websites').

The technical solutions already seem to exist, but have been shut down 1) due to lack of use and 2) by the entrenched business model (in the case of Scroll). Therefore, the challenge currently lies in bringing the masses over to this business model (IMO easier than it may seem, as the masses never consciously opted for their current method of paying anyway and hence feel no attachment to it), and stopping anti-competitive take-overs by companies from the entrenched business model (currently enabled by regulatory capture, an even deeper root problem whose solution would solve many issues beside this one).

So assume that everybody switched to this model of funding overnight. I don't think it would stop surveillance capitalism entirely since the surveillance technologies that the current business model lead to being developed (AI, cookies, etc) have since been adapted for use in other settings (facial recognition CCTV etc.) whose investment sources are now entirely separate from the web’s. What's more, websites would probably keep spying on paying users anyway, simply because they already have the technology to do so, and it would make them extra money on top of their allocated subscription money. Despite this, I still think it's a change worth working towards.

^((Reposted because my other account is blocked)

I'm finding it harder and harder to tell whether an image has been generated or not (the main giveaways are disappearing). This is probably going to become a big problem in like half a year's time. Does anyone know of any proof of legitimacy projects that are gaining traction? I can imagine news orgs being the first to be hit by this problem. Are they working on anything?

I made a user script that strips down Google Calendar into a minimal view so that you can display it in sidebars and desktop widgets.

https://gist.github.com/albert-tomanek/d966b6bca618353827bb94789cafcf52

I currently use a normal tablet for watching lectures + taking notes in splitscreen mode, but I've been thinking that this would be the ideal device for my workflow. Essentially a hinged, dual-pane tablet with stylus support – prefarably with Android. Does anyone know if something like this exists, or if there are any tablets that I can buy a second hinged screen for?

From https://reddit.com/comments/1j6ql4g/comment/mh1v6bf

The current model for funding advancements in tech in the 21st century is: quantitative easing-doped venture capital hungry for investments -> startup uses initial money to make actual tech advancement (this is the good bit) -> hypes up idea, does IPO -> ideally market monopolization and vendor lock-in -> which allows them to enshittify and extract arbitrary rent from both the supplier and consumer side of their user base and return money to the investors, for ever.

The fact that this funding model applies to tech in general is demonstrated by the broad range of fields where it has been used:

• for software, things like Figma or Medium
• for hardware, things like the Juicero (a great example of how venture capital values trendiness (juicero was wifi-connected, required an app, god forbid if AI existed at the time) over real-world utility (the juice capsules could be opened by hand))
• for biotech, things like GMO golden rice, where Monsanto disabled propagation so that farmers would have to come back to them for seeds (that's not exactly what happened, but I'm trying to make a point).

The obvious alternative to this is touted to be open source, ie. people making things for free and sharing it with others.

Unfortunately, the amount of things you can achieve for free, possibly relying on donations, is very limited. If you want to become a serious business, you need a serious funding model. I am convinced that the choice between open source and the Sillicon Valey model is a false dichotomy, and other ways of funding advancements in tech must exist (after all, the Sillicon Valey model has not always been the modus operandi).

Are there any hybrid business models for funding tech developments, that eg. even allow the developed tech to be open source? Has any research been done into the design of novell funding models?