If your free software communications can only be done thru US-based, proprietary options, then you are not free software. To think open source is ideal for your project, but not the tools surrounding it misses the point of trying uplift support & usage of these free sorts of projects (& this isn’t even starting with the privacy & lock-in concerns). Instead of coding around flaws in Microsoft GitHub or building Discord/Slack/Telegram bots, actually build & upstream integrations into the free options as you would like to see folks do unto your own project. Not saying you can’t have these services as an alternative, but as the only option (or the primary option to IIABH) should be shamed & definitely not considered the norm.
Also Matrix is pretty shit, where all the clients/servers run too heavy, & eventual-consistency means self-hosting storage often ballots into ‘too expensive’ which has led to de facto centralization the project cannot fix by design. Meaning Matrix is a better, but still bad chat option.
What fundemental aspect of Matrix is both causing too heavy performance degradation while also being unfixable or impossible to reimplement?
You could switch some of the problems with perf in switching away from the Python implementation server as well as Element clients but these support the most up-to-date features & the majority of users are now relying on these features that often don’t degrade graacefully.
The bigger issue is eventual consistency. Eventual consistency will not scale for small self-hosting. Every message & every attachment for every user in every chatroom they have joined must be duplicated to your server. This is why joining rooms sometmies takes 10 minutes. Even if you make this async from the client side instead of the current long wait, your server & storage are still taking the hit. A lot of small collectives had to drop their servers for performance & cost (read about yet another one today on the Techlore thread at c/privacy where now only Discord is used for realtime coms). This model is required to copycat the ability to search the entire history like the big, proprietary chat apps such as Slack/Telegram/Discord, but they are centralized so it is easier to manage—but its overuse for all announcement & trying to replace forums turns it into a black hole for information. Your small community probably does not need persistent chat like this—persistent info is lighter & easier to crawl as feeds & forums. With medium-sized servers shutting down, only the biggest & smallest hosts are still kicking with most metadata is largely centralized around Matrix.org who also hosts some of the other larger instances.
If you agree that chat can be chatter as well as ephemeral there is lightweight centralized chat in IRCv3 with TLS has most of the features you need with a longer legacy & massive choice for clients & XMPP for lightweight decentralized chat with a long legacy, client options too, & can be self-hosted in a bedroom on a toaster in comparison which increases the chances of self-hosters & decentralization. These were built in a time when we didn’t have such wasteful taste in tech since they needed to be efficient & only sip power/data in comparison both for clients & servers & storage. The bigger question IMO is what are fundamentally wrong with these two mature options that we need a new option built on unextensible JSON & Israeli Intelligence money?
Well, in their FAQ the Matrix team states that they love both IRC and XMPP and that for those whom these options perform better they wish the best of luck continuing to use them. Matrix does have some qualities they do not and they do not mean to compete with them, rather to put up bridges so as to federate between these decentralized protocols.
Personally, I want to move away from communicating through Discord with many of my friends. I do not believe neither IRC nor XMPP would entice them, but Matrix could as soon as they finish implementing their new video call capabilities. The same goes for community projects that use Discord as a replacement for forums.
Entice how? Spinning up XMPP on any hardware is simple to federate with you—& I wouldn’t wish they all self-host Matrix instances. XMPP’s jingle protocol works for voice/video & I use it self-hosted with my partner. What are the others missing considering the weight of the applications is literally felt. If you want a web client with stickers & reactions (& calling), what is Movim missing? Replacing forums is a part of the problem, not something to replicate… Movim & Libervia cover community posts that are web searchable.
I have no experience with the last two options you mentioned, but I was of the understanding that XMPP does not have video group call functionality. Also, it has been a long time since I used XMPP at all, but syncing history between sessions was not possible to me then. These are features that would be deal breakers to miss.
History / sync is known as message archive management (MAM) & every normal modern client & server supports it. OMEMO uses same double-ratchet encryption & multiple clients as Matrix (with the same old client key dropping issues sadly). By default it does not support groups you are correct, however, FOSS Jitsi (& Zoom for that matter) is powered by XMPP under the hood & can be stood up by yourself.
Personally three of my circles have opted for separate Mumble servers for voice coms (I run one of them from my living room) as video is only ever rarely needed & the system resources is minimal. Having web cams on is seen as a chore & distraction sometimes. The only time video is helpful in my experience is screen share which is different—but screensharing is the worst tool for trying to do code pairing / debugging a terminal using upterm provides a crisper view experience, lower data/system requirements, & observers can optionally drive the remote session.
Did not know about MAM, but that sounds great. I also hosted a Mumble server for my friends for over 5 years, but it was basically never used because there existed a one-stop solution (Discord) that allowed for more stuffTM. TIL Jitsi was powered by XMPP, thanks. I personally have no problem with fragmenting functionality between different specialized applications, but it will always be a tough sell for those I know because they believe they can have it all in their cool app.
At the end of the day, communication services usefulness are upwards limited by the people you can reach through them. The need for everything to be easy and centralized for the user (ironic with respect to server federation, I know) is what has made me so hopeful for the Matrix protocol, since it is designed for allowing this while still being decentralized at its core.
What would you use besides Matrix?
IRCv3 for accessibility if I need it to be centralized &TLS is the only useful encryption; otherwise XMPP + OMEMO for decentralized. No need to reinvent battle-tested, mature standards.
Never thought I’d find another IRC and XMPP fan on lemmy. Let’s replace SSM/MMS/RCS with XMPP while we’re at it.
JMP does that
Yeah I’ve used jmp.chat before, but I couldn’t get any of the clients to work well with my pinephone’s microphone. Shame, since it’s the closest you’re going to get to VoIP on the thing.
XMPP
Is it better? It still has a lot of problems and missing features.
I’d say its better, but not perfect.
Yeah.
I used it recently. Its actually really nice! Its fast. It also suffers from clients being weird. Although it is very stable. And extremely resource light. Apparently a single server can support 100,000 users or something. And it has distributed servers too (which is possible because it’s stateless. Wish Matrix had it though)
Matrix is in my (and a lot of other people’s opinion) way better for the future. The encryption is better, and there’s a lot more stuff supported by it. Importantly moderation.
Dino on Linux and Conversations for Android are both amazing clients imo, but the rest I’ve tried are SEVERELY lacking. Especially on iOS.
I personally think the future from a technological perspective is SimpleX Chat. Fixes so many issues that plague other private IMs, however I’m waiting to switch until I see that their venture capital strategy is actually sustainable and won’t enshittify it.
That’s what I use actually. Very nice, but just… Matrix makes more sense for the masses.
What does simplex do? Is it a P2P thing?
Hot sauces should be required by law to list their Scoville range (SHU) on their packaging.
Fuckin facts, yo, I’m tired of searching up the sauce to try to get a gauge of wherever the fuck the sauce actually is, as opposed to its marketing wank wanting to convince me I’m chowing down on neutron star, despite it really being around room temp unflavored jello.
100% agree. I want to know whether I’m increasing, decreasing, or maintaining my heat threshold.
Ooh… capsaicin-powered hot take!
Me tossing leftovers in the trash does not in any way interfere with hungry people getting food.
Especially if that’s food that’s going to negatively impact your own health, like junk food.
true. but next time, just buy/make less food.
Why?
because the excess is going to waste. why do you think ? sure, it doesnt directly affect hungry people, however:
- it is expensive
- it is increasing demand for food, raising the price
- if the food is still good, you can give it to someone who will appreciate it
is it so hard to simply buy an appropriate amount of food ? or just eating the leftovers ?
- Not even in the top ten list of choices I make leading to not enough money
- Perhaps on the shortest timescale, but increasing the market for food reduces prices long term
- Refutes my original claim without argument, so I disagree unless you’ve got more to back this up.
If for no other reason, then in the name of your own bank account.
My bank account’s biggest limitation is my brain cycles.
Suburban homeowners are the real “welfare queens.”
ice cold
If your political opinion begins with “why don’t we just…” then its a bad political opinion.
If we could just, we would have already just. If you think you’re the only one with the capacity to see a simple answer - newsflash, you’re not a political genius. Its you who doesn’t understand the complexity of the problem.
My partner lacked political engagement until his 30s for reasons so he occasionally has these hot takes. But he expresses them to me and I do feel bad because he’s not coming at it from an arrogant perspective. It’s ignorance, some naivete and also exasperation at a whole lot of shit things.
I have to gently explain to him why XYZ isn’t that simple or black and white, or why his idea doesn’t work - and the answer to that, 9 times out of 10, is ‘because money/rich people/greed/lobbyists/nimbyism’.
I’m just slowly chipping away at his innocence and it feels bad.
Its great that you’re helping to inform him! I have found the people who know the most about politics and global issues tend to talk less and listen more.
My responses to him are always prefaced with a big sigh. Because whatever I’m about to tell him is negative. And he often concludes with ‘so how can you care about this/why do you give a shit if it’s pointless’ and I’m finding it harder and harder to answer that question.
Ignorance truly is bliss
Adam Savage had a bit where he pointed out there is practically zero times when to you should start a sentence with “why don’t you just”. My first instinct is to patiently listen & respond but I’m slowly turning into “why don’t you just stop, think & rephrase that”
My hot take: You shouldn’t downvote comments you disagree with in a thread asking for hot takes.
I have always upvoted comments I disagree with if they are using good arguments. I save downvotes for hate and bad faith.
I think this should apply in general, not just in this thread. Down votes are reserved for comments that do not positively contribute to the conversation.
Ok now you’re just asking for it
It’s a shame that this needs to be a “hot take”, I was hoping we’d be leaving that shit behind on Reddit.
Fediverse is not for everyone and I’d rather not have fediverse go mainstream, and if it does I’d rather have normies use normie instances like lemmy.world and mastodon.social because that way you can filter them out if you don’t like them.
More and more people are against giving kids internet access. Allow me to go against the grain:
If your child is neurodivergent, or LGBTQ+, or any other form of misfit, then denying them internet access is tantamount to condemning them to social isolation. It wasn’t until I got unrestricted internet access, circa 17 years of age, that I realised that actually, no, I wasn’t a fucking alien, there were hundreds of thousands of people just like me, but I didn’t know because I was stuck in this shitty small town with shitty small town people. So I spent seventeen years thinking there was something fundamentally wrong with me when in reality there was something wrong with the environment around me.
I would have had a much happier early life if I’d gotten internet earlier. Wouldn’t have spent 90% of my teens being suicidal.
Humans are doomed, destroy themselves one way or another.
Life itself is probably doomed by sheer laws of entropy lol
[Country] isn’t real, it was made up by [its founders] to [dodge taxes / dominate neighboring city-states / measure dicks with [Other Country]]
heh, just replace [Country] with [The Country I dont like] and you’ve got yourself a deal
Here’s one I get a lot of flack for that I don’t bring up much
I think people trying to cook up gun control laws are targeting the wrong guns, in going after semi auto or military rifles, when they should be going after cheap handguns that have been available forever. The majority of gun deaths are suicides, and that’s almost always done with a hand gun, but even if you control for that the majority of homicides with guns are done with hand guns.
Hand guns are usually relatively cheap. They are very easy to conceal. Its very common for people to walk into a bar with a holstered hand gun and make a series of bad decisions. Its too common for people to get in road rage incidents that escalate into something tragic because of a handgun in the glove box. People leave them around their house and treat them as toys that kids end up finding.
AND I would argue that handguns are not in the spirit of the 2nd amendment. They are not fighting weapons. They are for fun, personal protection, or making people feel tough without having to do any real work. They have little range and lesser power. There are are no troops in the world that deploy with handguns as a primary weapon. US military officers get them but that’s more about tradition.
Yes, I’m aware that shooting incidents done with rifles would be more deadly, but the fact there would be much fewer of them at all would be a net benefit in a society that banned or severely restricted hand guns.
Problem is that most of your anti-gun folk aren’t crazy, or don’t want to appear as such, and so they placate the defenders of gun rights with phrases resembling “I believe we should be able to have handguns because self defense buuuuuut nobody should have semi auto rifles.” Of course, the second they do ban long guns (curbing a total of 500/60,000 gun deaths a year mind you), they’ll switch to “oh well clearly that didn’t work so now we’re taking the handguns too.” It’s literally by design, simply a tactic to fool those who won’t bother looking into that whole “only 500 killed with long guns/yr” stat, nor the fact that 5.56 only delivers about as much energy as a hot .357mag rnd, but the Barrett .50BMG which is bolt action and therefore totally fine delivers about 10,000 more ft-lbs of energy, etc.
Besides that, the 2a protects things “in common use” according to Heller and “must have a historical precedent for bans,” according to Bruen therefore handguns do fall quite under the scope of the 2a and a ban would be ruled unconstitutional immediately.
Besides that, self defense is important, and unless you suggest people start open carrying ARs, the best way to do it is to CCW a compact 9mm handgun.
Furthermore “guns shouldn’t be for the poor” would help to curb crime, but at what cost? That is pure T bona-fide classism and I don’t support it, personally.
This guy never saw John Wick.
@TehBamski Most entertainment is produced in abusive environments, promotes positively evil people to become famous, and twists the legal system through in such a way that it enables surveillance and erodes ownership rights. But barely anyone is willing to boycott it.
The destruction of the library of Alexandria was a win.
How so?
Its legacy as this place potentially and magically fulfilling the hopes of having the answers to one’s questions far exceeds reasonability, especially given the ordinariness of its circumstances/contents, and combine that with the fact that what they were known for is performing human experimentation on live prisoners, all without the ability to understand these experiments enough to start forming a unified concept of medicine around it, since this is Ancient Greece/Egypt we’re talking about.
No one authentically hates the word moist. There’s no evidence then anyone disliked the word before Friends made an episode about it. Everyone since that has either been parroting that episode or someone who, in turn, parroted the episode.
Either these people saw it and decided it was an interesting facet to add to their personality, or it was the first time they’ve ever consciously thought about how a word feels and sounds and that shattered their ignorance and spoiled a perfectly good word.
There was a Friends episode about it?
I don’t remember a friends episode about this either. I do remember it being on how I met your mother though so possibly the person you’re replying to was thinking of that.
Yeah, I think that’s the one I meant. I didn’t watch either of them.
Slurp is an infinitely worse word than moist.
Personally I dislike squelch, mulch, ask, just a ton of words, but I dislike them because they way they fell in my mouth. Either they’re hard to pronounce or they don’t feel nice in my mouth.
Turns out liquids of unusual viscosity is an excellent heuristic for things you shouldn’t put in your mouth.
If someone’s too dangerous to own a gun they should be institutionalized until they’re no longer a danger. Just taking guns away from them won’t prevent them from being a problem.
Define “too dangerous to own a gun”
Like porn, I know it when I see it.
Tough to legislate, no?
Not really, the tough part is finding people I’d trust to write, enforce, and interpret the legislation.
Anything that would currently mean a person loses their right to gun ownership. A felony, red flag, whatever. I’m not sure I agree with all of them but the logic of the situation dictates that if a person is so dangerous that they will kill people then that needs to be corrected. Just taking a gun away won’t prevent them from doing harm if they want to.
It’s hard to argue that guns don’t make the proverbial bad guy more efficient at killing. If guns weren’t the most effective tool for killing someone, cops would carry cheaper alternatives like billy clubs, and wars would still be fought with swords and bows.
Of course, they do carry billy clubs and blunt instruments are quite capable of killing people too. Sure mass shootings would be harder (assuming we could do one single thing about the six hundred million guns out there already, which, good luck) but single brutal murders w/o guns are also a problem and typically target women, lgbt, and disabled people.
And homeless people
Yes thank you I forgot to include them, but that’s true.
