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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: October 1st, 2024

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  • Sometimes I wonder if it’s a complete waste of time to think through a post that I’m writing, if only a couple people are going to read it. But then I figure: a) doing so is its own reward: practice putting sentences together, keeping the mind sharp; b) some texts/ideas can be seminal, just as a music band may have very few fans but each of those fans goes on to create their own band; c) contemporary scholars study texts and articles (including ephemera such as handbills) from past decades, so it’s likely that future scholars will trawl and study social media posts from our era, using techniques we can barely imagine. Plus, it’s fun!



  • If Lemmy had weekly awards, you would win one for this post. The bland, LLM-inspired structure creates a feeling of rising dread until the very end when one is left with the horror of realizing this human (if they can still be called human?) has spent way too long talking only to AIs.

    What’s more, the text is not a story or essay submitted as a post; the text only really works AS a post, with its references to Lemmy, Aspect, and SocialAI and contextualized among a stream of posts. The fact that it’s in !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world provides ironic distance, but not so much to prevent it from being read unironically for at least the first couple paragraphs. I don’t know what Aspect and SocialAI are like, but the differences between them and Lemmy that are pointed out in the text creates a picture of a platform that problematizes modern identity and the individual’s role in a society mediated by social media (ha) and AI bots. I bet someone could write a half-decent critical theory research paper expounding on your post. Well done.




  • It looks like your “edit” is right (version of lemmy and instance configuration are an issue), with the additional complication that sometimes where it is hosted makes a difference (sometimes the youtube summary is in a different language and/or won’t grab it because of regional restrictions) and sometimes the reader app/web interface grabs their own thumbnails and/or may not display thumbnails and/or may even try to just embed the video. There was a post on techsupport a while back about this: https://lemmy.world/post/20180043

    I post to !fullmoviesonyoutube@lemm.ee from slrpnk.net and to get a thumbnail, I do the following:

    • get a thumbnail image file. either grab it from wikipedia, imdb, or by a screencap that I trim. put that file somewhere on my computer.
    • use the web interface with default client. It has a “thumbnail URL” field (which I didn’t see back when I had a lemmy.world account - probably version differences) but I can’t just upload the image to that field, so I have to…
    • go to the post “body” input field and click on the “upload image” button to upload the thumbnail image file from my computer. This uploads the image to the server and adds a line of code to the body input field that looks something like this: ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/a-long-UUID.png)
    • copy the part from “https” to “png” and put it in the “thumbnail URL” field
    • usually I then delete that code from the post “body” input field
    • edit: of course, I still have to add the youtube URL in the “URL” field…

    I think this adds thumbnails, but of course I can never be sure because someone can always use a client or configuration I’m unaware of. That’s the price of freedom from a single corporate server and a limited choice of viewer clients.
    Ideally this whole process would be easier or automatic. I imagine the situation/process will change as time gones on.






  • That joke’s been around since 1750 BC

    Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:

    When Jesus came, Jesus said to you as follows : “I will return when the time is right.” Jesus left then but has not yet returned to you as promised. Now you look to my messenger (Sit-Sin) and ask: “Why, then, has Jesus not returned?”

    What do you take me for, that Jesus would not return to me after visiting? Would you treat somebody like Jesus with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to invite Jesus to return several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun to whom Jesus has not returned?

    You alone ask why this is so! Take cognizance that (from now on) Jesus shall exercise against you the right of rejection if you have treated him with contempt. How did you treat Jesus when he visited?

    Translated from the original Akkadian: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/complaint-tablet-to-ea-nasir (er… this is a joke btw)





  • In the Clutch of the Octopus

    Joe and Frank were the best friends brothers could be. As Frank and Callie’s relationship began to blossom, Joe found himself alone more and more. Iola had gone to summer on Rocky Isle, so Joe thought he should take up an extra hobby. He wasn’t quite sure what that would be. A little soul-searching was in order. So, he set out early one morning on his own to hit some flea markets in the area. That’s when he found the brass hookah. He thought it looked like a many-tentacled octopus. Nargeela, the Turkish merchant said with a smile as Joe handed him the money. He took it home to polish it up and discovered a hidden chamber inside the pipe containing a small chunk of resin. Thinking it was incense, he held it over a candle flame. He found its sweet scent relaxing. Later that week, Frank noticed that Joe seemed absent and detached. He was sleeping late and was easily agitated in the morning. Something had a hold on him.

    https://www.beardofbees.com/pubs/The_Hardy_Boy_Poems.pdf (by Eric Wayne Dickey)