floof.org
Users invented retweets.
They typed “RT” and then pasted in the text of a tweet they liked. The practice became so widespread that Twitter turned it into an official feature.
Quote-tweets were created by Twitter users, too: they typed a commentary on someone else’s tweet, then pasted in the URL of that tweet. Voila, the quote-tweet was born.
And users invented tweet-threading: the first Twitter threads were created by posting a tweet, then replying to your own tweet, then replying to the reply, etc, etc, until the thread was done.
In each case, Twitter listened to its users, formalizing digital desire-paths.
Contrast this with the current Twitter management, who are actively hostile to user innovation,
actually sabotaging the measures they take to improve their experience, even banning users for innovating.
This is absolutely characteristic of end-stage enshittification.
It’s how John Deere went from a company whose product improvements came from touring farms to understand how their customers were modifying their tractors and integrating those improvements in future lines,
to a company that threatens and blackballs customers who mod their tractors.
Twitter is a neat illustration of the problem with benevolent dictatorships:
they work well, but fail badly.
Because they are property — not protocols — they can change hands, and overnight, you get a new, malevolent dictator who wants to retool the system for extraction, rather than collaboration.
By contrast, ActivityPub-derived services like Mastodon are open protocols.
Users who want new features, or changes to existing ones, can either unilaterally implement them (if they have technical skills or capital to hire technicians); or they can appeal to others to implement them
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/
"Labour promises rail nationalisation within five years of coming to power"
Not bad..but as this is "Labour" rather than Labour, I'd like some time alone with the small print if you don't mind.
Party pledges to bring all passenger rail – but not rolling stock – into public ownership as contracts with train operators expireJessica Elgot (The Guardian)
“A desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by being a man and higher scores on psychopathy and sadism”
I won’t say ‘I knew it!’ because I could’ve never written it in such a beautiful way. #ScienceSays #Carrogance #Dudeism
👉 https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp/162006
@notjustbikes @SheDrivesMobility
Background: Although people are familiar with loud automobiles, equipped with modified mufflers to increase the volume, it is unclear who is most attracted to these vehicles.doi.org
As both the Tories & Labour refuse an offer of easy access to the EU for 18-30 year olds, because they don't want to re-invigorate 'freedom of movement', at least our Govt. did conclude a deal with Iceland for young people to easily gain working (and visit) visas.
I'm sure Iceland is a great place to visit & a place to work, and equally I'm sure we should welcome young Icelanders to work here... but its not quite the same is it?
UK nationals can now apply for Working Holiday residence permits in Iceland and Icelandic nationals are eligible to apply for Youth Mobility Scheme visas in the UK. This is based on an agreement between Iceland and the UK on Youth Mobility.www.government.is
Pulling a @kyashkt and lurking around Caddock (@Tauss_Srgl) 👀
✂️ @blueharborc + @lupesuits
📸 - Yuvon
#fursuit #fursuiter #fursuiting #mascot #furry #furries #furryfandom #fursuitphotography #foxfursuit #costume #cosplay
If you want the #Tories out at every level you need to vote. Local elections are in May.
The Tories have gerrymandered the system with #VoterID requirements…Jacob Tees Mogg’s words not mine.
You have until 24th April to apply for a Voter ID certificate, if you don’t have one from the list that is heavily skewed towards the elderly.
https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate
Apply for photo ID to vote (Voter Authority Certificate) in some elections and referendums in Great Britain if you do not have an accepted form of ID.Government Digital Service (GOV.UK)
Instead of driving to another dead end with EVs "we could spend less energy in much more interesting ways creating
#publictransport systems that are a joy to use."
- Rachel Donald
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-04-15/the-oil-crash-is-coming-sooner-than-we-think/
#HalfHeartedFanatic #Fuckcars #Carfree #LowCar #Science #Economics
Low-energy is the future, either through choice or physics. We are running out of time to have a say.Resilience (Resilience.org)
I kind of knew what I was getting into when I commissioned a certain OddlyShinyFox (birbsite handle) to draw Lily, but I was not expecting it'd come out so very cute. I'm just absolutely floored by this.
*squee!*
@KayOhtie Yeah, I've never felt so cute before hehehe
His style is just so good for that... and yet, so amazingly shiny.
Never mind the carbon tax. Tax breaks and public spending for fossil fuel companies cost taxpayers billions every year and hurt the environment.The Conversation
Kona Bicycles winding down and up for saleRyan Mallon (road.cc)
<rant>
I was there.
I remember the time when you could find just about any information you wanted, with a quick search on the World Wide Web.
We didn't know, that it was a Golden Age. And we didn't know how briefly it would be there and then gone again. We believed in the Myth of Progress, that it would go on and on.
It started with SEO, and paid links. Minor adepts could still work the system with skill. But before long, Large Language Models became the fad and inside a couple of years, the search engines returned pages and pages of nonsense, and adepts had to use their skills to search countless pages before finding something even vaguely useful.
And then, it became impossible. No techniques cleared the gloom, it was just a grey fog of meaninglessness.
I was there, when you could find knowledge.
I was there.
</rant>
"I want to make my own resistor": get a piece of wire. you are now done. this will perform perfectly well.
"I want to make my own inductor": get a piece of wire. wrap it round a stick. you are now done. this will perform perfectly well.
"I want to make my own capacitor": here is a twenty page essay on building a foil capacitor. follow these steps. it will perform like dogshit.
If asking for directions to walk to a place was on an Internet technical forum.
"Well I wouldn't start from here"
"Catch a bus, the driver will know"
"Why do you want to go there xxx is better"
"You are using the wrong shoes, try £5000 worth of wellingtons"
"My friend once walked to somewhere else"
"Don't walk trains are better"
"Turn right before you get to the bridge"
"Never heard of xxx "
"Read the f%£%%$g map!"
It's normal to invent characters and then fall in love with them, isn't it?
…Isn't it?
I've been thinking abstractly about Boing's enshittified airplanes recently. Specifically, I'm wondering if this is what cultural and technological collapse looks like in the early stages. Our most advanced technologies stop working (and start falling out of the sky) because the institutional culture (of skill, excellence, systems integrity) that built them has been irreparably degraded by metastasizing hypercapitalism.
Today it's airplanes & decent concrete, tomorrow maybe combine harvesters?
@Kestenan To be popular, Keir will have to do things that make people's live actively less difficulty.
Hard to do when you have painted yourself into a corner fiscally.
Truth that Starmer's new "friends" won't let him acknowledge even if he wanted to is that even Tory voters now want the rich taxed. Hell some of the RICH want the rich taxed.
Starmer is fighting the last war. As both Labour AND "Labour" have a track record on doing.
@Kestenan Yup. I suspect the Tories to be back in 5 years or 10 if Starmer's landslide is big enough.
We need to ensure they are one-nation Tories by the time that happens because if they are PopCon we're fucked.