It still boggles my mind that C# is as good as it is given where it comes from. Java really fucked up with type erasure and never fully recovered imo.

But, I’m starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta

This is an incorrect assumption, because

And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

I would be very interested to read this! There are definitely limits to my optimism here. I think Meta is a horrible company and I don’t expect them to act in the best interests of the Fediverse; I’m just not yet convinced that them giving up what is essentially free and ad-free API access to one of their platforms cannot be used to our advantage. Threads federation could absolutely be catastrophic, but it’s also possible that it’s a good opportunity; that’s all I’m saying.

They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can.

Right, unless they can’t, though. Ideally the Fediverse should be resistant to this kind of influence without resorting to defederation. I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.

We don’t need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true.

I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.

They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them?

I couldn’t care less about Meta itself. My interest begins and ends with Threads users. There are a ton of people that would never give the Fediverse a try for one silly reason or another—predominantly, I would argue, the fear of the unknown—and this seems like it could be an opportunity to overcome that obstacle if leveraged correctly. The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.

Again, maybe I’m wrong, but this whole thing is basically an experiment, isn’t it? I’d like to see what happens before reaching any conclusions.

Maybe I’m just being naive, but this seems like an argument in favor of federating with Threads. One of the reasons Facebook and Instagram are so effective at driving engagement is that users have basically no ability to curate, sort, or filter the content that they see, especially since third-party clients are banned. You can’t even view most things without logging in.

The implementation of ActivityPub in Threads is a strange departure in this context - (federated) Mastodon users can view all of the content Threads has to offer without subjecting themselves to Meta’s arguably predatory curation algorithms. It almost seems like an escape for people who want to use a Meta-sized platform without Meta getting its grubby little fingers all over your mental wellbeing.

If people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?

I’m not extremely familiar with it, but I think X11 qualifies. I think it was determined that HDR support would be basically impossible to implement.

That seems like a better fit for an intrinsic, doesn’t it? If it truly is a register, then referencing it through a (presumably global) variable doesn’t semantically align with its location, and if it’s a special memory location, then it should obviously be referenced through a pointer.

I’ve never really thought about this before, but const volatile value types don’t really make sense, do they? const volatile pointers make sense, since const pointers can point to non-const values, but const values are typically placed in read-only memory, in which case the volatile is kind of meaningless, no?

IPv8 tattoo

I’ve used Java 21 pretty extensively, and it’s still comically bad compared to various alternatives, even apples-to-apples alternatives like C#. The only reason to use Java is that you’ve already been using Java.

And compile-time reflection will probably also continue to suck due to some irreconcilable limitations of type-safe generic specialization. Oh how I would love an equivalent to C++ template parameter packs…

There may be good examples out there, but I’d argue Atom isn’t one of them. VS Code was clearly intended to be a spiritual successor with MS branding IMO, it is a fork of Atom, and it is equally open source (MIT license).

Me:

You are a talented comedian. Generate some jokes or riddles that rely on wordplay.

ChatGPT 4:

Sure, here are a few wordplay-based jokes and riddles:

Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!

I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes. She gave me a hug.

What do you call fake spaghetti? An “impasta.”

I’m reading a book on anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down!

Why was the math book sad? Because it had too many problems.

Enjoy these light-hearted plays on words!

Edit: I prodded it a little, and I actually quite like the fourth one below.

Me:

These aren’t very clever. Can you generate some that a more mature audience would appreciate?

ChatGPT:

Of course, here are some more sophisticated wordplay-based jokes suitable for a mature audience:

Parallel lines have so much in common. It’s a shame they’ll never meet.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. I mean another.

I’m reading a book on the history of glue. Can’t put it down, but I’m sticking to it.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. A classic example of linguistic ambiguity.

The rotation of Earth really makes my day. Quite literally.

These jokes involve a bit more linguistic and conceptual play, appealing to an audience that enjoys a deeper level of wordplay.

gas prices are still at “I DID THIS” sticker stupidity levels

Gas fell below $3 again…

You mean earbuds?

Yeah, that’s my conclusion as well. I suppose we’ll see what the editors have to say.

This source linked under “Djupe and Burge 2019” in my original comment :-)

It is also cited directly in Djupe’s Cambridge publication that OP posted.

So I dug into this, and the following excerpt is the only piece of information related to the claim in question:

In the run up to the 2020 election, religious conservative public figures – for example, Rick Perry – claimed that Donald Trump was anointed by God; Perry called him “the chosen one” (see Djupe and Burge 2019). The head of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Council, Paula White, went a bit further: “To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that.” In May 2019, 21.4 percent of Protestants believed Trump was anointed by God to be president, as did 29 percent of evangelicals, and a majority of Pentecostals (like Paula White). Belief in Trump’s anointing increased considerably closer to the 2020 election (Djupe and Burge 2020; Edsall 2020).

Here are the original sources of the claim:

1. Djupe and Burge 2019
2. Djupe and Burge 2020
3. Edsall 2020 (archive link)

I’ll keep editing this comment as I get further into it.

Edit 1: added archive link for Edsall 2020

Edit 2: fixed the link for Djupe and Burge 2019

Edit 3: Here is an archive link to the Economist article.

Edit 4: relevant quote from the Economist article:

In a survey conducted by Mr Djupe shortly before the election, three in ten Americans believed Mr Trump “was anointed by God to become president”.

Edit 5: Conclusion

It seems as though the Economist article, and therefore the Raw Story and various other articles referencing it, are not correct. I’ve looked through a couple dozen resources at this point, and I cannot find any publications from Djupe or Burge substantiating this “30% of Americans” claim. However, I did find

However, I did find this:

Other surveys have shown similar results. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey asked Americans, not just church-attenders, about God’s role in recent presidential elections. They found that 32 percent of the more than 6,000 respondents, a sizable minority, believed Trump’s election must be part of God’s overall plan—though only 5 percent of those respondents believed God chose Trump because of his policies.

So maybe the 30% finding was from Pew after all? I’m going to send all this to the Economist to ask for clarification.

Good thing the IDF refused to use rape kits when the entire world was calling for them to do so right after Oct 7.

Proof?

Good thing the IDF refused to use rape kits when the entire world was calling for them to do so right after Oct 7.

Proof?

I literally just quoted the article. Which side are you on? Is Western media trustworthy or not???

we only started sending untrained conscripts with one rifle per two men as a joke!

Ha, yeah, it’s wild that that’s happening. I don’t expect the last two thirds to be… competent, or well-equipped, FWIW.