Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like net neutrality, agreements.noncompete and tiktok. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was a nosey parker.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

I have managed to install and configure something called NextDNS on both of my devices and most browsers, even though the documentation seems to be made with more tech-savvy people in mind. So far so good. I turned on all the available blocklists, but a lot of strange looking (to me) traffic is still getting through. I'm assuming some of it is benign, but how do I evaluate which addresses I should block or not? I'll list some examples below.

init.ess.apple.com
init-p01md.apple.com
bag.itunes.apple.com
gsp-ssl.ls.apple.com
gspe35-ssl.ls.apple.com
pki-goog.l.google.com
For these, the service offers the following information: 'Provides advertising or advertising-related services such as data collection, behavioral analysis or retargeting.' Sounds like something I wouldn't want to enable. When it comes to the iTunes one, I don't use iTunes and don't even have it installed (don't ask how I managed to get rid of it - it took several days worth of trial and error..). One of these, pki-goog.l.google.com is listed as 'dangerously prevalent (tracks 21.23% of web traffic)'.

Then again, the same general description is sometimes given to addresses that seem legit, such as:
time.apple.com
weather-data.apple.com

Some are indecipherable to me and don't come with any sort of description:
fp2e7a.wpc.phicdn.net
init.ess.g.aaplimg.com
get-bx.g.aaplimg.com
ocsp2.g.aaplimg.com
ocsp.pki.goog

Some descriptions are kind of vague:
a2047.dscapi9.akamai.net
apis.apple.map.fastly.net
'Content delivery network that delivers resources for different site utilities and usually for many different customers.'

Some seem to be doing tasks that are definitely wanted:
ocsp.digicert.com
'Digicert Trust Seal - Includes tag managers, privacy notices, and technologies that are critical to the functionality of a website.'

Then there's an Amazon Web Service, go-updater-1830831421.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com, listed as very prevalent (tracks 5.5% of web traffic) that has been contacting my phone even though I haven't done any shopping or product related searches. What is this and should I block it?

And so on and so on. Is there any logic to these that I can follow? I tried google searching some to no avail.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This is a question I eventually ask about every social media site I use(d). I like Tildes, and the discussions here are much more constructive than any other place I've seen, however I've seen it to be true even here. When one doesn't curate their feed, and use the default home page, the negative topics seems to dominate. I'm talking about the topics that talk about problems and what's wrong with something, often with titles implying the awfulness or emergency of such a problem. I think I don't need to elaborate on how this is much more prevalent and extreme on other sites. But nevertheless, it's a recurring pattern even here.

I know the argument that goes that humans are problem-fixing machines, and that there are psychological incentives to focus on problems. However, this seems overly reductive and lacking in explanatory power to me. Outside of internet, this is not a phenomenon I've experienced with people, unless they were mentally going through something very rough. Otherwise, people generally seem to talk about neutral or positive issues. And even while talking about negative issues, the tone often isn't grim, and doesn't leave a depressive aftertaste.

Even on the internet, in smaller spaces and more closed spaces, like chatting servers, this doesn't seem to hold true. Sure, there are politically-oriented, and therefore problem-oriented spaces even there, but most spaces don't seem to be that way. Back when I used Facebook too, while the posts were vain, most of my friends and acquaintances were just interested in sharing and commenting on social lives.

So I think this is a problem that is more endemic to "open" social media sites, with easily accessible and open-to-public spaces, rather than applying to the whole humanity or even every internet space. Its one of my biggest head scratchers about social media sites. So far I couldn't find a satisfactory explanation in the literature either. Doesn't mean there isn't, but I haven't stumbled upon such.

So, I'm interested in your opinions: Why do negative topics dominate on open social media sites, even here, unless curated against? Why is this such a strong recurring pattern for sites structured like this, while it's not in other online and physical spaces and interections I mentioned?

If this tech interests you keep an eye out for June/July when they expect to deploy the sail.

Rocket Lab’s Electron blasted off at 6:32 p.m. ET on April 23, successfully delivering both payloads to low Earth orbit. - Gizmodo

.

After a busy initial flight phase, which will last about two months and includes subsystems checkout, the microwave oven-sized CubeSat will deploy its reflective solar sail. The weeks-long test consists of a series of pointing maneuvers to demonstrate orbit raising and lowering, using only the pressure of sunlight acting on the sail. - NASA

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/acs3/

There have been a number of threads recently that have touched on this topic recently, and I thought the conversation deserved its own place.

My default worldview for the past decade+ has been something best characterized as naturalistic or materialist (the totality of reality can be explained by material and its interactions.) I've had a few things challenge this view recently, namely the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." I'll post my own comment about what moved me from hard materialist to agnostic on materialism, but I encourage you to post your own reasoning in your comment!

Not really usre where to put this, so mods feel free to move it if you think that putting it under life.style is inappropriate.

My original thought was more related to online cashless payments in general- if you don't know, there's actually a way to donate directly to Tildes to help pay for server costs if you like this site enough. However, I've discovered that I don't like to often do any monetary transactions online- there's just something that's a pain in the butt about entering 19 digits online (16 for card number, then three more for the SVC).

But in the spirit of wanting an actual discussion... buying things online has been an option since I was a teenager, so we're talking about 20 years ago. You'll usually hear people and companies say "You can go shopping right from the comfort of your own home, there's so much to choose from, and if you choose the right option you can have it in just a day or two... just enter your credit card info and you're all set!". But for me personally, it's the last two that I take issue with.

You have the overall credit card issue- right now, I live in a country where cash is still king, even if it IS trying to catch up to other nations with cashless payments. For credit cards, besides entering the number being annoying, and then your address (billing and shipping, usually but not always the same place), it can be far too easy to spend way too much on credit card. Remember, many countries actively push the consumerist mindset, which is a MAJOR trap. And just to mention it- I do NOT trust any sites or devices to remember my card info. I'm VERY paranoid of being hacked- specifically talking about storing any info in something like Google Wallet/Pay/whatever it's called.

But then you have the other issue, and why even though you might get more selection online, I would still rather visit an actual storefront, even if it's an hour or so away. To put it simply- when the transaction is completed, I want to have the item in my possession. Buying online, you always run into the shipping (and handling) issue- Amazon is one of the fastest, and they still take at least two days. In the US, the issue has been made worse because of the post office situation. or in other words: you paid the money, now how long will it take to have the actual physical item? It's probably just a product of how I grew up, but I hate having to wait longer than a day after I've already given you my money.

So, people of Tildes, what about you- do you find online shopping to be extremely convenient, or do you have your own issues with buying things online?

Added the qualifier to the title as web3 understandably earns a lot of eyerolls haha. At the same time, a lot of web3 focused places seem to have a specific mindset about what "should" be done so I wanted to ask here.

I worked in the space at startup (ironically making web2 services to assist in web3 so I’m still an extreme novice). But my time there was a constant push / pull between convention and money and innovation and the unknown. The company I was at would try to appeal to big companies in hopes of finding a product market fit, who looked to us for guidance on what to do in this new space where they hoped to make money. Trend after trend would pass and it would be entertained whether we’d jump on it because product market fit.

The most desirable companies were household names with non-web3 userbases because they meant unprecedented reach. But to make web3 approachable to them, you’d have to define a UX that didn’t exist and would be pulled in a tug of war between two forces. The first mindset optimises for the purest idea of giving the user power— UXs that were obvious about the concepts of transactions and transferrable assets. The other wanted to replicate web2 UXs in web3, to the degree that a user gives temporary control of their wallet to a developer so the developer performs transactions as them.

Then, there is the data and pseudonymity piece. Companies have been taught that data is valuable, and one of the values of a blockchain is an identity that exists outside of any one company. But if all of your assets are on a blockchain— either under your public key or perhaps under a few that might transfer assets only between each other— then your identity can be known (not so private) and also cannot be monopolized and sold (because your data is public).

In the background, as this all happens, is the decentralization argument. At the end of the day, my company used EVM nodes operated by another company (which themselves might be wrappers around something offered by AWS). What is meaningful decentralization alongside specialization of labor? What is decentralization in a world that has billionaires and enormous companies who has the means to buy resources and set up tons of nodes?

Being out of the space now, I do think a decentralized database with immutable scripts, user-managed transferrable assets, and transferrable identity has enormous value. But recently I’ve been wondering how much of that can be accomplished in the private sector. In my time there it felt like the startup needs (enterprise customers, increased ARR) constantly compromised the will for innovation efforts.

I have a couple of old Reddit accounts I’d like to delete as fully as possible. However one of them dates back to my teenage years and it’s some of the only writings I have from that time. Any recommendations on good simple ways to scrape all the comments off of it and save them? Then what’s the best way to completely erase a Reddit footprint these days?

Looking for as simple a solution as possible, I’m not tech illiterate by any means but it’s also not a real strong suit for me.