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FaceDeer

@[email protected]

Basically a deer with a human face. Despite probably being some sort of magical nature spirit, his interests are primarily in technology and politics and science fiction.

Spent many years on Reddit and is now exploring new vistas in social media.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

FaceDeer , to /kbin in Unmoderated and now extremely delayed federation - is it time to move?
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It has been getting worse for me. In addition to the sporadic outages, the spam, and the slow federation, I've had to develop the habit of refreshing the page before I try to respond to or vote on any comments. If I open the page and let it sit for a few minutes before trying I invariably get an error. It definitely didn't used to be that way.

If it was that bad for you from the outset I'm surprised you stuck around. I wouldn't've. I've only held on because I started to feel "settled".

FaceDeer , to /kbin in Unmoderated and now extremely delayed federation - is it time to move?
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This site never worked without a hitch.

That is not a ringing endorsement.

I was very enthusiastic about kbin when it launched, I donated a fair bit to Ernest in those early heady days. But if he's refusing to accept help from other devs and admins I don't think it's sustainable, something like this just can't work as a one-man show. I wish him all the best but if that doesn't change I don't see this working in the long run.

FaceDeer , to Star Trek in Why don't ships onboard sensors detect medical emergencies
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First thing I'd do when boarding a Federation ship is tell the computer it's authorized to keep an eye on my vitals.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
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Why not? It's no different as far as Meta is concerned, it only inconveniences us.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
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I don't mean to alarm you, but Meta can see this post even if Threads doesn't federate.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
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Why can't you do that? Use one of the many non-Threads servers to do it. Like Kbin, the one you're already using. Nothing about it changes if Threads federates.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
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The great thing about the Fediverse is that you can choose that even if Threads federates. You pick what you engage with, which communities and instances you subscribe to and which you block.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse
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By this argument nothing should ever interoperate with anything else because clearly that's the first step toward destruction.

I'm writing this on Firefox, which interoperates with Chrome and Edge. Oh no! We need to get these browsers operating on incompatible protocols stat, before they all extend and extinguish each other.

In reality, "embrace extend extinguish" is not a law of nature. XMPP is not ActivityPub. They are separate things with separate circumstances. Did you know that XMPP is actually still functional and open and you can download clients and servers that use it to this day? The stories about how Google "destroyed" it have become wildly distorted folklore at this point.

FaceDeer , to Star Trek in TrekMovie.com: Patrick Stewart Reveals New Star Trek Movie Script Featuring Jean-Luc Picard Is In The Works
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I think it might be self-inflicted. Patrick Stewart is big enough that he can make it so with regard to the scripts. He's the one that insisted there be a dune buggy chase scene in Nemesis, for example. And he's pushed for more action and romance in the movies. I suspect that this is another case of a good actor or writer who works best when tempered by outside control.

FaceDeer , to Star Trek in TrekMovie.com: Patrick Stewart Reveals New Star Trek Movie Script Featuring Jean-Luc Picard Is In The Works
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The reason I think Lower Decks does a fine job with its "fan service" is that none of those "get this reference? See?" moments matter. They're just stuff that's going on in the background, where an ordinary non-Lower-Decks Star Trek show would simply put a bunch of random meaningless gizmos or whatever to fill out the scene. The story that's being told in the foreground works perfectly well if you don't "get" any of the references. Often the story is enhanced by those references, but if you watch Lower Decks without any knowledge of the previous shows (aside presumably from a general gist of how shows like Star Trek work) you can still enjoy it.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in A case for preemptively defederating with Threads
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Uh... huh. Okay, I'm going to count that as a Godwin and leave it at that.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in A case for preemptively defederating with Threads
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Nothing makes it special. My point is not that I think Facebook will do no wrong, my point is that it's counterproductive to defederate from them before they've done something wrong.

FaceDeer , to Fediverse in A case for preemptively defederating with Threads
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I came to the Threadiverse because Reddit was closing its APIs and building the walls higher around its garden.

I will be supremely disappointed if the Threadiverse collectively turns around and does the same thing.

Instances should be defederated when they do something harmful. Preemptively defederating is counterproductive, it gives Meta no incentive to do things right.

FaceDeer , to Star Trek in Does the federation ever starts allowing genetic engineering again?
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Except the Federation is very much not equal. There's plenty of genetic variation within species and a much larger variation between species. Vulcans live hundreds of years and have telepathy, humans die after just one hundred and are brain-blind. Bashir was born with severe genetic defects. Geordi was blind, and then he could see better than baseline. There are differences in fundamental capabilities everywhere.

Genetic engineering would allow those advantages to be shared by everyone. It annoys me how hypocritical the Federation is about this issue.

FaceDeer , to Star Trek in Does the federation ever starts allowing genetic engineering again?
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The problem with a lot of sci-fi is that if you considered what effects the technology would truly have on society you very quickly get a situation that is so different from the common experience of the audience that most can't easily get on board any more.

If the Federation allowed the full range of genetic engineering that we know they have the tech for, nobody would get old or die of natural causes. Gender and even species would be fluid. People could have arbitrary numbers of parents, or family relationships that the word "parent" doesn't meaningfully apply to. I would love to watch a show in a setting like this but I suspect that my taste wouldn't be so common. And the special effects and makeup budgets would skyrocket.

So alas, I suspect the prohibition will remain.

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