Libb

They’re not exclusive.

I have a website (check my profile) and I also post here. One is my personal space, like my virtual home (like my home, I pay for it) the other is a space where I can share content and participate in open discussions when I fancy doing so.

i’m going to be honest tho, on my reddit account i just got to 1k karma!!

What is karma worth today? Ask your banker how well karma trades against dollars and see what you can you buy with 1k karma, or with 7.4K karma… yep, I just logged back into my reddit account to check how much karma I had in my reddit-bank account :p

It’s worthless. It’s just a gimmick and a trick to keep people wasting even more of their time. Like you said:

i think some of it is taking a lot of my time!!

It does. And not some of it, most of it.

Focus on what matters, which is not some virtual reward that has zero value.

You may have a point here. I used to compare them to oysters until I realized I was being unfair to them, the oysters I mean. What could I use if bricks are also unfair choice? ;)

If by culture you mean Lemmy’s users values, beliefs, or ideals there is nothing special I appreciate (or don’t appreciate). I mean, for me it’s irrelevant as it’s all personal preferences like the fact that I don’t like bananas, or that we have not owned a TV for 25 years (glad to know others may share similar preferences, but it’s no big deal if they don’t).

I care about Lemmy itself not being like Reddit. It’s not ad-driven, there is no algorithmic ‘optimization’, it’s not trying to milk our content and also it’s not being owned by one of those billionaires that think their pile of money means they know better than all of us. In that, it’s very different than Reddit, but at the same time I also expect to meet similar kind of people on Lemmy I used to meet on Reddit.

Interesting, or less interesting, people. People I agree with, and more often people I do not agree with (which is fine by me). Very smart people, while others do have the brain power of a brick. Nice people, or naughty or even hateful ones. People whose values I share, others I don’t and never will (you can go funk yourself, fascists of all types). People who like what I like, and many others that don’t and never will (see my banana and TV examples ;).

And then I also expect tp meet people who think it’s enough to ask their question without even trying to give it the some context or explanation (say, people who ask what we appreciate most in Lemmy culture without explaining what they mean by that), next to people that try their best to give as much context/explanation as they can ;)

Edit: typos + clarifications.

None ;)

I used to use Reddit. I now use Lemmy. That’s it.

To be clear, I do own accounts on many other platforms, including Mastodon, as a way to keep those handles under my hand. I simply don’t use them and see little reason to start using them.

I can’t tell the future. So, I don’t have a list of what will edited/censored tomorrow ;)

I don’t have a list of what have been edited either, sorry. Out of my mind, I think I can recall a few.

Most of us have at least heard about Amazon deleting t one edition of the ‘1984’ novel from some of their customers device (one doesn’t make that up—if you don’t know what that book is about, it tells the story of fascist-like society in which the main characters works at the Truth Ministry, or something like that, and is charged with editing newspapers clips and change them (remove faces from pictures and change the text of the articles) so they always fit whatever the new and constantly changing narrative of that government is. I would encourage anyone to read it, as well as Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ which is at least as interesting as a way to question our own society).

But it should be really easy to find (many) other occurrences. Some about books or movies or series that were edited or completely suppressed because they’re considered offensive to some audience, others because they’re considered unhealthy (like removing the cigarette they were smoking, from some character’s mouth). Others because the publisher did not like something in it or because the author wanted to—try to find a recent edition of the first trilogy of Star Wars without the added extra scenes Lucas so much wanted to put in.

And then there are the endless list of books, movies, series (and probably music too) that are not streamed at all or not re-printed. Either because they’re not considered worth it, or because someone is afraid of the audience’s reaction.

I won’t list the one I have I can remember because I know very well some people are only waiting for that kind of excuse to jump in the conversation, without any other desire than to get offended and to create some polemic.

In any case, I consider the ever rising call to censorship, no matter the motivation, a good reason to own a copy of whatever I want to be able to read, listen to or watch, no matter what anyone could think about it.

And for all the content for which there is no print, DVD or CD available, no physical media at all, well, too bad for them I suppose because… they won’t get my money. Simple as that. I already have access to enough offline/physical content to last me more than the time I have left to live, and I really don’t think I will lose much by not being able to read the latest best-sellers, or watch the latest series or movies.

We’ve already seen books being rewritten to remove certain (offensive) words or sections being removed from re-editions, ebooks being removed from our reading device entirely and, obviously, we’ve all seen books being censored in some (school) libraries. Ditto for some comics. It’s a bit less known (?) but a few movies have already been edited too (removing scenes that today’s audience would consider offensive, or adding scenes (like in the original trilogy of Star Wars: all new releases includes those added scenes). With IA there would be no difficulty to edit a single scene, or even just some part of it, say to remove something/someone now considered offensive. We’re now really into Orwell’s 1984.

Imho, the only way to fight against that trend is in owning physical copies of whatever content you want to preserve. That’s why I quit watching streaming platforms and reading ‘purchased’ ebooks and went back to DVDs/physical books that I fully own and that can’t be remotely edited/removed from my home by anyone.

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Not sure to understand your point.

Ideas don’t come out of emptiness. They never. There is no such thing as some genius that get a brand new idea all by themselves out of their unique genius mind. Ideas are always the consequence of some kind of interaction with other pre-existing ideas and/or with other persons and situations. Direclty or indirectly (say, by reading a book). Genius may help, but it still requires something for the idea to grow out/on.

Talking about books, someone rightfully mentioned Descartes. Even him, who doubted absolutely everything, the whole universe around him and even he himself existed as an a person, in order to reach what he would consider a trustworthy certainty (cogito, ergo sum, I think therefore I am). Even that dude still needed the existence of a God to be certain that the fact that he was thinking (aka, that his idea of what he was doing) could be considered true or, at least, reliable enough to build upon. Ideas don’t come out of nowhere and never grow out of nothing.

Dislaimer: no René Descartes was harmed during the caricaturing his thoughts ;)

Acting like if he owns a country and its institutions?
I do wonder for how much longer Trump will tolerate such a diva standing right next to him on scene?

(that’s coming from a non-US citizen. I may not be the most well informed, mind you)

its not a huge issue, but its not a non-issue…

Well, it’s not an issue for me and I also think it’s a non-issue. Hopefully, you will allow me to have my own opinion on a question or should I ask for your permission first?

And btw by ‘obsessing’ I was only reacting to the fact that out of the two discussions/threads we participated in you and I in the last couple days (threads you initiated) both were about your very personal issue with people apparently heavily downvoting you. I could suggest you go back reading my answer in that first thread, but I’m starting to realize you may not want to discuss my suggestion and would rather be told you’re right. Which I think you’re not, if that was not obvious. See? I don’t need to downvote you to share the fact I don’t agree with you.

you don’t have to be so black and white with your dismissives.

Black and white? I’m not and I would even suggest that it would help (you) if you stopped making a personal attack out of any remark that doesn’t fit your narrative. Was I supposed to write a 40 pages essay to make my opinion more acceptable to you? Fine, I will do it after I read your own 40 pages.

But worry not as I won’t bother you with that ever again or with any suggestion that you would gain a lot by focusing your energy and time (think how precious time is) on things you can act upon, and learn to live with the world around you and people not being perfect (that means all of us, you and I included). If you really want to believe that fighting the ‘issue’ of Downvotes will make your life better, by all mean keep on doing it.

And be assured I did not Downvote you, and only tried to suggest you may be adventuring yourself in some kind of a dead-end and, once again, that you may be wasting some real precious time, time you will never be able to get back the day you realize you could have spend it on something worthwhile. Have a nice day.

edit: clarifications.

I think you obsess too much with that non-issue.

Hi, I’m 21/male from Germany and to me it seems like people here are constantly negative

Depends where you look, imho. (50+ male, from France ;))

I mean, if you mostly read negative topics, well, you will read more negative content. I don’t read those (no politics, no drama, no call to hate, no nothing like that) and I don’t have to read that much negativity.

Why do people waste all this time with complaining and being negative if they could use this time to be grateful, enjoy life and make the world a better place?

Let me ask you this: weren’t you just negative by asking that instead of, say, showing us by example how to share/read positive content and… make the world a better place? See, negativity is very easy to fall into ;)

I think I’m noticing this particularly in older people including my parents.

I think you may be noticing wrong but who knows? Once again, I’m well into my 50s and I try to see things in a positive way, no matter what’s going on. I don’t think it’s age (or sex/gender, or politics, or culinary taste)-related. It’s a personal thing.

As far as I know, the current culture around dating/relationships includes meeting your SO’s family

Date someone that doesn’t rely on ready-made recipes/expectations to meet people?

I mean if your family is screwed up (mine was), you should not be bothered to try to explain it to anyone. Not mentioning that most likely it’ll end giving the exact opposite result of what you’re looking for (I mean, anyone hearing someone telling them ‘fear not, my family is nuts but me yeah I’m 100% ok’ won’t feel that confident about you). That’s also useless.

Like I said, my family was… problematic. Did I try to rationalize them? nope. What I did is that as soon as I was able to, I let them behind me where they could live their live like they wanted to, and I started living my own… and meeting people that would not care the reason why ‘mom/dad/family’ was not an essential part of my own live. That works. Ask my spouse ;)

• My fountain pen (and ballpoint too), paper notebook and print books: no login required, no tracking, no sub (and no constant need to upgrade to the newest version: some of my fountain pens are older than I’m (I’m 50+ ;)
• My DVDs and CDs: no login required, no tracking, no sub.

Reading. Writing.

Like everybody around here, I get random downvotes too but I’ve yet to see anyone harassing that poor downvote button against my previous messages (I would not be surprised if this changed right after I publish this comment).

A few times, I 've seen multiple posts of mine get downvoted in a row in some thread. I supposed it was the action of someone disagreeing with me and wanting to ‘punish’ me for our diverging opinions but I could not tell, and I don’t care much either.

Much more than knowing someone may not like what I said, I’m interested in knowing their reasons why they disagree with what I said, or how I said it (even more so that I’m still learning English, so any remark can help me correct mistakes no matter how unpleasant the remark can be).

Alas, many people seem to think downvoting is enough an argument to say out loud they disagree with someone and to demonstrate how wrong they’re. It is not, at least not for me. I don’t know about them but I only write what I think, and what I think doesn’t change with the direction of the wind, or with the amount of + or - votes it receives. It can change when I’m faced with convincing arguments.

But arguments require a tad more work to share than just hitting the downvote button. Work not that many people seem to be willing to do.

What do you call ‘political violence’?

The biggest counterpoint I have is simply that I enjoy camping. Good luck finding a desk lamp when you’re 5 miles into the woods.

Nothing to answer there :P

I carry a jailbroken Kobo with wifi disabled

I used to that with a Kindle. See my answer to the other comment why I decided I did not want to do it anymore.

That’s exactly what external light means. If you need to sit near a lamp to read your book, then you are relying on external light.

The idea was that I do not need an extra light because, well, there are plenty all around but, you’re right, that’s what an extra light means. They’re just already there ;)

About half of those issues are solved by drm-free ebooks

My iPhone or Kindle will still track my reading habits when I read a drm-free or pirated book (which I tend to avoid as I want to support authors and publishers and I can afford to). For years, I have been using a Kindle that I disconnected from the Web after activation, it was working fine but then I realized we should not have to fight that situation to begin with: our privacy should be respected out of the box. Since I decided to not compromise anymore on that, well, I quit using those device. Like I said, it’s just a personal choice in favor of my privacy (not an allergy to tech itself, just to the way it has been hijacked to become a spying tool)

I do need to look up words a lot (usually in other languages)

So do I (be it in my native French and in the few others I pretend to speak). But like I said, I also never need to get instant access to a dictionary either. So it can wait I get back home.

and a bus stop after dark will never have enough light for reading. If you read at home I guess these aren’t issues, but pocket books are meant to be read on the road.

I would say (pocket) books are meant to be read and would not have any expectation on where and when people are supposed to be reading them. Then, I don’t read when I’m moving (I get sick). I will read at a bus stop or waiting in a line anywhere if there is enough light. If there is not enough, I will either write stuff in my notebook (even dim light is enough to jot down quick notes), or I will think about stuff.

About the formatting there are some books which should absolutely not be read as ebooks cause you’ll miss out on things. But most books are a block of text split in chapters and paragraphs. A phone can absolutely support that.

Typography and page layout was once a thing. It was considered kind of an art form even. I feel a bit sad to see it boiled down to some ‘block of text split in chapters’ but it could also just be a sign that I’m getting old and out of touch. Which is to be expected too ;)

Thx for the discussion, it was interesting.

I’d argue phones are actually better pocket books.

It’s obviously a matter of personal preferences, which is absolutely fine.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer print for these reasons, and for context I have been reading ebooks since I have owned a Palm Pilot PDA in the early 00s, so not reading them is a decision and a choice, it is not an allergy to them or to the tech:

• Print fully respect my privacy.
  There is no tracking and no spying on my reading habits. That’s also why I read print newspapers and magazines as much as I can.
• No remote deleting of ebooks after purchase.
  Like Amazon and Microsoft already did. They refunded customers but that’s not how private property is supposed to work: I pay for a good, I own it its previous owner taht sold it to me can’t decide to enter my home to take it back, even if they were to leave some cash on the table.
• No remote editing possible.
  No matter if one book or one word in it suddenly becomes unpopular or offensive to anyone.
• No notifications, social media, games, email, whatever, to distract me.
• Does not need external light either.
  Try to beat day light and at night, or when the sun plays hide 'n seek, well, I have access to this revolutionary piece of high-tech called ‘lamps’ that are lying around absolutely everywhere in our home and, as far as I can tell, are also everywhere I may find myself wanting to read a book.
• Does not need batteries, and no recharging.
  The same with my watch, btw: no battery, just a spring I rewind every morning after I shower and when I put it to my wrist. It has been working wonder for years and its manufacturer has yet to send my a message telling my watch is tool old and I need to purchase a new model to get updates… because there are none ;)
• Does not need app and system updates.
• Does not need Internet.
• Unlike a smartphone, a book itself does not need to be replaced every few years by a new one (aka creating always more e-waste). Talking about phones, here, not e-readers that may last many, many years.

BTW, I seldom need to quickly look up a word either. When I don’t know a word and if I can’t figure out its meaning by using the context it is used in, aka surrounding sentences, I write it down in my pocket notebook (which also requires no battery, no upgrade, doesn’t track me either, etc.) and look it back at home in one of my… paper dictionaries (which don’t push ads into my face, don’t track me, and so on)

you can adjust font, text size and brightness (some font choices in printed books are just terrible)

This is the one advantage I find to ebooks in general (the reader is in charge of the display… depending the app used) but getting that freedom you also instantly lose access to the excellent page layout many publishers work hard on. Sure there are a few dickheads in the field but a majority are not at least those whose catalog I enjoy reading.

And, most ebook page layout is, well, what word did you use? Terrible? You would be right.

I’ve never actually seen a pocket book that can fit in a pocket.

There are (I would say I can fit most poetry books and many plays in my jeans back pocket but I don’t really), the idea is that those small books are easy to carry and are cheap (at least back in then they were supposed to be). It also depends a lot what one reads.

Edit:

it’s much more compact, can be held in one hand and you can carry multiple 800 page books.

I don’t need to carry that. On my desk I have dozens of books and references volumes opened at once (that would be expensive to do the same with multiple phones, right? ;) but I only carry with me a single pocket book so I can read on the go. I do not need my entire library, not even a couple 800, or even 1600 pages books ;)

Edit: if you’re willing to read more of my reasoning to stop using ebooks (I should say ebooks sold by Gafam, as I will still by self-published ebooks when there are DRM-free and there is no print available) and refocus my reading on print instead, I’ve published a couple blog post. Link in my profile.