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Entries tagged 'cat:Thoughts' (Page 1)

The Old Fediverse

Gestern dachte ich mir: Wieso gab es früher (vor 2016? 2015?) so wenige starke Bestrebungen, ein Fediverse in Form von Sozialen Netzwerken zu entwickeln?

Die häufig verwendeten Vergleiche Telefon- und E-Mail-Netz sind ja nicht die einzigen Beispiele dafür, dass es sinnvoll ist und funktioniert. In der Geschichte des Internetz waren schon fast von Anfang an fast alle und so gut wie alle weit verbreitet eingesetzten Protokolle dezentral aufgebaut.

Ich denke es liegt daran, dass es das Web schon gab und Menschen, die Dienste baueten, versucht haben, so wenig wie möglich neuzuerfinden. Es heißt ja in Sprichworten, das Rad neu zu erfinden sei Recourcenverschwendung und produziere neue Rad-Varianten mit neuen Nachteilen, die tendenziell überengineert sind. Und nicht nur Unix-Fans finden, dass Technologien simpel und modular aufgebaut sein sollten. Das Web ist schon dezentral. Und es gibt schon lange genug Technologien, mit denen die Funktionen der großen, beliebten Sozialen Netzwerke abgebildet werden können. Weblogs mit öffentlichen oder auf Mail basierenden Kommentaren, Pingbacks, Commented Re-Shares, … Und um den Content so wie er in App oder Webseite üblicherweise von Menschen abgerufen wird darstellen zu können braucht es auch heute nichts als einen Webserver, HTML und CSS.

Dass ein eigenes Protokoll dafür benötigt wird, um Plattformen zu bauen, die von Massen akzeptiert und zügig adaptiert werden, obwohl es seinerzeit Facebook, Twitter und Co. auch nicht brauchten; das ist eine Einsicht, die von der entwickelten Community erst mal breit angenommen werden musste.

Mit dem World Wide Web hat sich das Internet bzw. dessen Nutzung sehr weit verbreitet. Aber das liegt nur teilweise an den Möglichkeiten im und Fähigkeiten des Webs. Unkonventionelle, textbasierte Kommunikationsformen, auch mit großer Asynchronität zwischen Sender- und Empfängerzahlen, waren schon vorher die größte Stärke des Internets. Von daher finde ich es richtig, in Teilen gut vergleichbare Massenkommunikationsplattformen aus Vor-Web-Zeiten Fediverse zu nennen. (Zuerst stieß mir das ein wenig auf.) Das war ein guter Gedankenstarter.

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[Still (Not)] Budgeting

~ 10 years ago I listed to a podcast about budgeting software for private households and learned how much it can help and how much of a difference it can make. Back then I had the time and energy to try out various software and pan and budget the heck out of my monthly income. But it didn't work. I didn't manage to stay in the budget unless I planned to not ever save anything and to not ever eat right. At the time I didn't realise how much more money people in regular jobs make than me.

Now I have a proper job, but not the time and energy to plan things right unless I make it my only hobby. I could probably even save money "for later" (whenever that will be). But it's hard for me to not opt for the more convenient and less time consuming option in almost every decision. And I can't stop myself from buying nice things to make up for the stressful life that I have otherwise.

Today I'm slacking off, after a quiet day at the home office yesterday because of IT problems that shouldn't be my business and therefor prevented me from doing much work. No checking out budgeting software today either.

But I need this lazy, unproductive time from time to time. Time and time again I have to remind myself that time relaxing is time invested in my health, which will be useful at a later time. For the time being, I keep ignoring that time flies by when I spend time instinctively satisfying my basic needs instead of using time efficiently and getting things done in time.

Sorry, people whom I have promised to do or make things for. I sometimes have the time, but not the energy.

I wonder how savings richt I could be if I would seriously start to budget.

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I hope that there are currently experiments going on, with GPT-3 and the like, where AIs are maintaining social media accounts and channels to see whether they can interact with humans daily for years without anybody noticing that they aren't human.

Or maybe I shouldn't hope that experiments are being conducted on fellow beings (human or otherwise).

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A mainstream rock band called "nREM".

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One in three

I'd just like to repeat a point that I had made in a podcast once, because I think people trying to have lucid dreams tend to overlook that: If you sleep 8 hours a day, the chance that you are dreaming at any given point in time is 1 in 3. That's not bad. Getting the habit of questioning whether you are awake or sleeping right now into your mind really is the most important thing for someone starting out as an oneironaut. If you haven't stopped and taken some time to question your current state upon reading the first sentence on this entry, that is something you still have to realise. "Any given point in time" includes "now". Of course you knew that already. But are you questioning reality based on the fact? … One in three.

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Science-Fiction-Idee für ein Backrezept: Ein viraler Kuchen, dessen Rezept durch chemische Prozesse beim Backen auf der Oberfläche geschrieben erscheint. Bilder werden auf sozialen Medien etc. geteilt, mehr dieser Kuchen werden gebacken.

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There Are So Many Things And Too Many Options!

There are calendars with only pictures of black-furred dogs, bottle openers for the left-handed, overviews of lists of lists of things in the Wikipedia, 9 different USB connectors (plus extensions, plus rare proprietary connectors, times 2 for male and female), there are more human languages and dialects than any one person has even heard of, there are clocks with inverse hours markings, clocks with more than three hands, humans with more than two hands, apples with more than one colour, child safety locks designed to be so weak that they are useless while technically implementing the requirements that they need to have in order to legally be allowed to be called child safety locks, there are programs for children to prevent drug addictions in the future, there are commercial efforts to anchor behaviour in children that makes them more likely to become addicted to certain drugs in the future, there are safety shoes that look like sports shoes. There are ingenious ideas that never go anywhere because the person who had it is not listened to, there are thoughts that come to you after they could and should have come to you. (Like the one that just came to me: This first paragraph looks like it was inspired by a song by Funny van Dannen that I and probably most of the readers of this blog know. I don't think it was.) Anyway. There are soo many things, is what I'm trying to say.

When it comes to living ones life as a human in the 2020s, there is a notably large amount of options, which I herewith declare as too large. I mean options in many different areas. But I'll only name one area here, because it happens to bother me right now and I'm not really in a writing mood today. (You may also see it as an example of too many things: Too many examples to name here.)

There are too many ways to fill your time. There are so many parameters that play a role in deciding what to do at any given time that I find it impossible to choose the right thing simply because it would take, well, probably the rest of my life, to find out what the right decision would be. It would definitely take so long that what the right decision would be would change multiple times in the meantime.

Let's leave out work. If you're employed and have to work certain hours, I think I can make the case that those hours should be treated differently. Let's say you are lucky enough to always know what your job is and what you should do at work and maintain a barrier between work life and private life that allows for such disregarding.

Then, what do you want to do after work, before work, inbetween work? Some broad categories would be to do something to work towards certain goals, like to improve the state and wellbeing of society, your town, your country, the world, do something for friends or family, socialise for personal development and gaining experiences, improve your own health or life, just relax or have fun for now, and so on.

Let's just choose the last one because it's probably the simplest to explore in the context of this text and because hedonistic endeavours are an easy choice and close to my thinking if in doubt.

So, what do you do to relax from work, from the stress that comes with living a modern life and to have a good time?

I took a break from writing this text and was distracted for too long. I've lost my train of thoughts now. Don't expect a continuation. (I will jump on the train and continue this text if/when I get the same thought again.) I guess this entry ends now before my main thought has been expressed.

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Hab mir grad mal vorgestellt, die meisten Menschen seien wirklich so fies und schlecht drauf, wie ich es meistens wahrnehme und oft annehme.

Ach du Scheiße könnte diese Gesellschaft schlimmer sein als sie ist.

Das Schlimme ist nicht, wie Menschen in persönlichen Interaktionen handeln. Oder?

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