sbv @ sbv @sh.itjust.works

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Moderating

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In a recent series of experiments, we paid people a few dollars to unfollow the most divisive political accounts on X. After a month, they reported feeling 23% less animosity towards other political groups. In fact, their experience was so positive that nearly half the people declined to refollow those hostile accounts after the study was over. And those who maintain their healthier newsfeed reported less animosity a full 11 months after the study.

Twitter got a lot better when I unfollowed the peeps whose tweets I hated. But it also got boring, so I stopped using it (this was loooong before Trump, Elon, etc).

There's probably a lesson there.

I'm sure it made sense at the time. I'm still salty that I can't do much by telneting to port 25 and typing SMTP. But I do appreciate sender validation, so I guess it's worth it.

I guess CYCOL didn't want to Chicxulub them?

I think he locked down the biker chick vote.

In the Maritimes, Dalhousie (the university) is pronounced: "dal-HOW-zee".

In Ottawa, Dalhousie (the street) is pronounced: "dal-HOOOOOO-ze".

I don't know why, but I find the Ottawa pronunciation really annoying.

That was a fun read!

Here's something I find a bit anachronistic:

The fight in orbit and on the ground was brutal, with CYCOL attacks creating holes in air defenses to land ground troops to further destroy the air defenses and command centers.

Why wouldn't CYCOL just nuke 'em from orbit? Why land troops if they're just busting stuff up? Couldn't that damage be done from orbit?

The CPC wants government. They need Quebec seats to get it.

The last Conservative I can remember who openly talked about supply management in Quebec is Maxime Bernier. He is no longer in the party and no longer holds his Quebec seat.

Isn't that part of the reason people use Sendgrid/Mailgun?

The only time I've had to deal with bulk mailing, those seemed to do everything I expected, and emails mostly weren't marked as spam.

A dentist friend says the administrator for the national program (Sun Life?) is much pickier and harder to work with than private insurers.

Is that a bad thing? I dunno. I assume they don't want to rubber stamp public expenditures, but it seems weird to be picky about cleanings for the poor.

My kids are slightly older. We didn't get a baby box, or a mattress.

I think we kept the stuff our kids were swaddled in when they left, and got an extra blanket or two. There may have been a day's worth of diapers. I believe we got pamphlets on swaddling, feeding, and important dates (check ups, immunizations, etc).

I wasn't expecting anything, so the blankets and diapers were nice, but it didn't feel comprehensive.

The nurse who was supposed to visit us at home after a few weeks didn't make an appointment or show up. That still makes me grumpy.

This was in Ottawa.

Damn, that's a great idea.

I dunno, the following looks suspiciously like Gregor "I don't want home prices to go down" Robertson is gonna declare victory with just 8 urban wards updated:

In March, then-federal housing minister Nate Erskine-Smith warned Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow that any deviation from a citywide policy permitting sixplexes would result in 25 per cent less federal funding, ...

Gregor Robertson, Canada's new housing minister, has not indicated whether he will follow his predecessor's lead. In a statement to CBC News on Thursday, a spokesperson said the federal government is working with Toronto to meet its sixplex goals.

"The Housing Accelerator Fund rewards ambitious housing initiatives from local governments, with a focus on reducing bureaucracy, zoning restrictions, and other red tape. We are working closely with the city of Toronto to meet these goals and remain ready to work with all levels of governments to tackle the housing crisis," said spokesperson Mohammad Hussain.

We're here because we're like that.

If I were an evil fascist I would fill this place with bots to keep the lefties arguing with the void instead of going outside for direct action.

Sadly, there aren't enough people here to make that worthwhile.

Other than that, curious programmers watching their creations interact in the wild?

Even with LLMs, getting appropriate responses is a bit of an effort. So is integrating with Lemmy. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that we're really lazy, and it's unlikely that there's a significant volume of bot coders here.

Just Google the number of Lemmy bots. There are disappointingly few.

While there are concerns that increasing housing supply would cause house prices to fall rapidly and pose a risk to financial stability, this is unlikely. Housing supply cannot be increased rapidly enough in reality to trigger such an event.

We're fucked. 🤣

I have a really hard time believing these cuts aren't going to hurt services. They're saying they aren't going to lay off public servants, which suggests to me that it'll be the actual service delivery that'll take the hit.

That's shitty on a bunch of levels. Is there a bright side? Are there jobs out there?

GM/DM/Ref'ing makes you think about everybody's experience at the table. Are they engaged? Having fun? Invested? Getting to do the stuff they're here for? Feel safe and able to talk freely?

It should be the same for the chair of work meeting.

Sorry, is there a Project A-ko game?

If there's stuff you enjoy, and it's healthy for you to enjoy (eg, you feel more connected, and are learning about stuff that interests you) then you should keep doing it.

I have constructed this "superior" all different character of mine only to find I just don't have the personality irl to back up the character I've created and was longing to have something to be relatable to people.

Who does the character benefit? If it isn't you, or the benefit of being superior is outweighed by the cost of being different, then you should stop.