Ben Matthews

Isn’t it technically possible to split browser functions so we can recombine as we like? - i.e. separating the rendering / js engine from everything around the side - managing all the tabs, bookmarks, cookies and passwords, workspaces and sessions, mail, notes etc. In my case, I like the workspace structure provided by Vivaldi, but don’t see why it has to be built on chromium browser. Anyway as a developer I need to test against blink, webkit and gecko, so would be nice to swap them within the same user interface structure.
By the way, I develop a “javascript-heavy” web-app (interactive climate model) and it seems to be working fine, and fast, in firefox, so I’m not convinced by complaints in the article.

Well problem with any Lemmy community as such a forum, is that current usage (not necessarily intrinsic to the software) is so ephemeral. So it’s good for discussing breaking news, but not to gradually accumulate discussion of solutions to complex problems, over years. I wish this were not the case, but doubt anybody will even notice this comment, as no longer ‘hot’, and folded away … Rather, a few weeks later the same topic will be reopened under a different post, and we start over again.

I agree with most of what you say. I’m a long-time fan of calculating more complex things client side, as you can see from my climate model (currently all calcs within web browser, evolved from java applet to scalajs).
Also, in regarding social media, keeping the data client side could make the network more resilient in autocratic countries (many), and thelp this become truly a global alternative.
On the other hand, some ‘trunk’ server interactions could also doing more not less, bundling many ‘activity’ messages together for efficiency - especially to reduce the duplication of meta-info headers in clunky json, and work of authentification-checking (which I suppose has to happen to propagate every upvote in Lemmy?).

Thanks, that makes sense if I think about it, but maybe users shouldn’t have to - i.e. the Mdon part-conversation way still seems confusing to me (despite being a climate modeler and scala dev), although haven’t used Mdon much since I found Lemmy. And I still feel that both ways seem intrinsically inefficient - for different reasons - if we intend to scale up the global numbers (relating OP).

That makes sense, to store only popular stuff, or temporarily - especially for ‘heavier’ images (although as we see with lemm.ee, that leads to issues when an instance dies). Yet I also wonder about the scalability of just the minimum meta-info, whose size does depend on the protocol design.
For example with Lemmy every upvote click propagates across the network (if i understand correctly, mastodon doesn’t propagate ‘likes’ so consistently, presumably for efficiency, but this can make it seem ‘empty’). Maybe such meta-info could be batched, or gathered by a smaller set of ‘node’ instances, from which others pick up periodically - some tree to disperse information rather than directly each instance to each other instance ?
As the fediverse grows, gathering past meta-info might also become a barrier to new entrant instances ?

I don’t think the general architecture scales that well (think of all the duplicate storage …

That’s my hunch too, although haven’t studied in detail - so I wonder how we can fix it ?
Is there an forum that discusses this scaling issue (in general, across fediverse) ?

Since much (so-called) “AI” basic training data depends on Wikipedia, wouldn’t this create a feedback loop that could quickly degenerate ?

Maybe eventually they should build several smaller dams instead of one big one, just enough for irrigation and water supply, considering the potential ecological balance of the whole region, rather than of just a narrow potential ‘reserve’.
It’s naturally a dry area, the south bank opposite Kherson is already almost a ‘desert’ with dunes, although with a long history - they say such ‘Pontic Steppe’ grasslands were where indo-european tribes originated.
Anyway, before grand plans, Ukraine has to control both sides of the river, so I suppose they’ll keep watching how hard the mud bakes this summer.

Indeed it seems Trump picked up some ideas about “Juche” (national self-reliance?) from his best buddy “rocket-man”.

US has only 4% of the world’s population, there are now plenty of super-rich in China, India, etc. who like to flaunt i-stuff.

Yeah, but you just gave me an idea too, how about AI-directed canines? “apple-intelligence” applied to follow-your-nose. My dog loves to chase small spots of light, which might be a trick to steer them.

And if chinese buy iphones, do they now have to pay 84% tariff? - maybe HQ in europe solves that too?

As a global company, Apple could just re-establish itself in europe, e.g. Ireland, and continue trading with China, they can just put the US on hold for a couple of years.
Meanwhile for those who really addicted to istuff, coyotes can smuggle iphones across the border, so maybe this solves the fentanyl ‘issue’.

Well thought out article - worth reading

History will recall this as the Trump Slump …

Others, including populist right politicians in several of EU’s own member states …
The article’s intention is good, but does anybody here know how much the EU commission or parliament can do about this, without unanimity, and without it’s own police ? Also does the ECJ have any role?

Diverse views here, even within our lemmy ‘bubble’, suggest it’s not obvious what to do about this (and similar situation in France and other european countries). Banning either individuals or parties can set a risky precedent and does not necessarily diminish a movement. I’d rather go for gradually (but rapidly) changing norms about acceptable campaigning, propaganda, use of social media, ‘fake’ news (lies). That includes faster-acting legal restrictions on funding, ownership, facts/fakes, algorithms, etc… , as well as positively strengthening alternatives like our fediverse.

Well it’s extremely predictable - only dependent on cycles of the moon (and sun). In a specific location there are slack periods every six hours or so, but the phase of the waves shifts as you move along the coast a bit (not too far, on the scale of France) so these could be smoothed out by combining power from multiple locations.

The sequencing of events set up by trump team, getting Ukraine to agree first, benefits putin - while he delays answering he can still initiate some new offensive, but if Ukraine now makes any big surprise move that starts regaining territory, Russia can play the ‘agree to ceasefire’ card to stop it.

Belgian here, and I think all such specific options are wrong.
Any big equipment ordered now would quickly become obsolete, look how drones (both air and sea) evolved just during the last couple of years. Next problem may be countering crawling robots controlled by AI. Meanwhile heavy expensive stuff carrying people becomes relatively inefficient. So what any country needs is multifunctional adaptable factories and teams - capacity to make new equipment quickly, as needed.

The geopolitical situation will also evolve long before any equipment ordered now is ready. And how that evolves depends especially on defence against misinformation. Addressing gaps opened in development aid also influences the geopolitical balance. A smaller ‘diplomatic’ country might play an outsized role in these domains.
If military threats can be reduced, multifunctional factories should be capable to make technically-related equipment to tackle multiple non-military threats including “natural” disasters - such as floods or forest-fires, there was already discussion of a need for european rapid-response teams for such purposes. Build capacity for manufacturing both swords and ploughshares together. This could also gain more sustained cross-society support, and keep personnel actively trained. Building multifunctional capacity rather than stockpiles also avoids driving future leaders to enter conflicts to justify the “investment” (arguably a factor behind this war of Russia, as well as earlier US-led wars).

As for paying US for F35s (which keep whizzing above my head, my dog chases them away…) - crazy waste of money, if as demonstrated last week any mad president in Washington can just switch them off (or refuse to update codes, software etc. - same effect in just a few weeks).