Mastodawn

Thom Slattery

@thom@indieweb.social

105 Followers

170 Following

1,093 Posts

Working with big tech professionally, but interested in small tech personally.

My Own Private Instance	https://tragically.social/@thomnottom
Personal Blog	https://thomnottom.com/social/

Thom Slattery Jan 20

David - Forking Mad Jan 20

Myself and my good friend @bumble (who runs a variety of server types on the fediverse), are joining forces to offer #hosting for #GoToSocial servers.

It's early days but we'd be keen to hear from anyone who wants to try running their own GoToSocial but doesn't have the skill, want, or equipment to run their own server.

The aim is to simply charge for running costs for the server. We will not take any costs from this (unless we end up with hundreds of them!). We anticipate a basic instance for one user (or a small handful) will be 5 euros per month and the charge is month to month. You pay each month in advance, and can cancel any time.

All you need is a domain name (or a sub-domain of your existing domain). We can help with this, or help you buy one for a few dollars/euros. We will handle all admin of the server.

Initially we are only looking for a few people to participate. If you are interested send me a direct message.

Thom Slattery Jan 19

Christine Lemmer-Webber Jan 19

We're coming to the point where decentralized social media contains the only structures we're going to have left that aren't completely controlled by hard-right interests

The one centralized holdout is Bluesky, which means either that's going to need to be decentralized, or it's going to be the next right-wing target over this year probably

Thom Slattery Jan 9

The Public Domain Review Jan 8

🥁 Announcing the Public Domain Image Archive! 🥁

We are very excited to share our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images, all free to explore and reuse.

Our aim is to offer a platform that will serve both as a practical resource and a place to simply wander — an ever-growing portal to discover more than 2000 years of visual culture.

Start exploring here: https://pdimagearchive.org/ @pdimagearchive

Public Domain Image Archive

Explore our hand-picked collection of out-of-copyright works, free for all to browse, download, and reuse. This is a living database with new images added every week.

Public Domain Image Archive

Thom Slattery Jan 8

@tchambers Understood, that's just not good enough for me. You obviously have different factors to consider running a large instance.

Personally I'm pretty jaded with the tech community as a whole. It's probably best that I just avoid it completely.

Thom Slattery Jan 8

With the latest turn of events over at threads, it looks like I should probably move on from this server to be safe. I've been meaning to spend more time nurturing my own Mastodon instance, so I may just switch to a single account presence. The future of this account is currently up in the air.

Thom Slattery Jan 8

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jan 7

Mark Zuckerberg, Recipient of World's First Rat Penis Transplant, Announces Meta Will Stop Fact Checking
https://thehardtimes.net/culture/mark-zuckerberg-recipient-of-worlds-first-rat-penis-transplant-announces-meta-will-stop-fact-checking/

#Meta #MarkZuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, Recipient of World's First Rat Penis Transplant, Announces Meta Will Stop Fact Checking

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, medical pioneer who received the world's first experimental rat penis transplant, announced today that the social media juggernaut would stop fact checking.

The Hard Times

Thom Slattery Jan 8

@tchambers That is your decision to make, but I'm not interested in waiting it out. Their intentions have been made clear, so I will most likely either move this account or simply delete it.

Thom Slattery Jan 8

Martin Ralya Jan 7

The best time to abandon anything Meta touches was years ago. The second best time is today.

Thom Slattery Jan 8

Stop calling lies misinformation or disinformation. Just call them lies.

Thom Slattery Jan 3

GlastonBeny Jan 3

From Reddit

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Jcrabapple Jan 3

@TheBreadmonkey here's the same search in Kagi.

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@TheBreadmonkey here's their "Quick Answer".

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey Here is the same in @brave Search - no need to pay for @kagihq.

Jcrabapple Jan 5

@niutech @TheBreadmonkey @brave @kagihq yeah no thank you, I'd rather pay for Kagi.

Henry Barreto Jan 3

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey

Kagi is becoming more and more appealing to me with this crazy AI thing around.

eighthourlunch Jan 3

@henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey Even if Kagi promises privacy, I have a hard time trusting that it's 100% guaranteed when using their service requires a subscription and login.

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey From their privacy policy:

Searches are anonymous and private to you. Kagi does not log and associate searches with an account.
We do not log or store your IP address. Your IP address is used only temporarily when enriching location/maps searches, and is not shared with any other party.
We only store cookies needed for site functionality.
We do not use any web browser analytics or other frontend telemetry.
We do not display any ads, or have any first-party or third-party tracking in service of ads.
We collect only the data needed to provide and protect the service.
We proxy all images to prevent tracking from third parties.
We use HTTPS encryption everywhere. All passwords are hashed and salted.

Of course, if you don't trust privacy policies or any third parties you can self-host SearXNG or Whoogle.

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey they're also adding Privacy Pass integration this month.

https://privacypass.github.io/

Privacy Pass

Privacy Pass

@jcrabapple @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey Ooo, that part (privacy pass) is interesting -- do they have more details on this somewhere?

(This _should_ allow users to prove to Kagi that they have a valid subscription without revealing who they are -- but of course the details are very important here ;)

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@meejah @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey yes that is the goal, but it was just mentioned on their 2024 year end call. There should be more details coming soon.

@jcrabapple @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey Cool. I've previously worked on a privacy-pass based payment system, so I'm very curious how they're using it here :)

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@meejah @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BQzZkkpLQ4&t=2507s

Kagi End-of-Year Community Event 2024

YouTube

@jcrabapple @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey Just watched that segment: super cool!

This sounds ideal, and great use of Privacy Pass. I would still like a few more details (like when they rotate server keys, how many tokens are issued per request, and how those token-issuing requests work).

In any case, the answers to those will only slightly affect what Kagi learns; they will _not_ be able to associate searches to particular users (just that a user is legitimate).

Chris Bussard Jan 5

@jcrabapple @eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey

May have to take a look at Kagi when that lands...

@eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey that makes me trust them more. That means you are the customer, not advertisers.

@eighthourlunch @henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey You can use @brave Search anonymously and for free, it is independent, it doesn't rely on Google like Startpage or on Bing like DDG.

@henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey kagi is all about AI. It's funded by the same bros. And it's a US company so there is no real privacy because of us laws.

I was a paying customer until it went big on the AI crap.

The heavy, I felt, promotion of AI and remembering not to add a ? to searches (which triggers an AI summary) annoyed me.

I found this article useful
https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

But sure, other companies are also bad/worse, and google is dreadful.

Why I Lost Faith in Kagi

Issues with Kagi's AI focus, finances and leadership

lori's blog

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@swift @henry_barreto @TheBreadmonkey lol their AI is completely optional but stay angry I guess.

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial Jan 3

@henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey Kagi is all-in on LLMs. I refuse to give them money on that basis alone. plus the CEO said some pretty questionable shit in interviews recently.

@gsuberland @henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey I'm aware of the LLM thing, but can you elaborate a bit on the "some pretty questionable shit"? 🤔

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial Jan 4

@Lilim defending promoting nazi extremist shit

The Book of Kels Jan 3

@henry_barreto @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey

Hasn't Kagi been trying to introduce "AI" for the past year or so? They were running around talking about how it'll "humanize" searches in April, at least.

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey the fediverse strikes again. Just had to explore Kagi

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey How are you finding Kagi? I think I last used it at a previous company for some project, but that was about 2 years ago now.

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@governorkeagan @TheBreadmonkey I love it and advocate for it. It's the way a search engine should be. It's like Google when Google was good, but it's private and more customizable.

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey That’s great to hear! I’ve been using DDG for years at this point but I love the idea of customising my search engine (e.g the mastodon toggle you have)

Jcrabapple Jan 3

@governorkeagan @TheBreadmonkey *And* you can share your lenses i.e. my Mastodon Lens:

https://kagi.com/lenses/z3RKii3nOp0GJGLWDELJC3YcRacrem5w

Kagi Search

Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.

eestileib (she/hers)Jan 3

@jcrabapple @governorkeagan @TheBreadmonkey

Kagi is about as good as Google was ten years ago. I pay for a family subscription to the basic search, have not tried their llm stuff at all.

Their maps are still developing.

@governorkeagan @jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey Brave Search also provides similar Goggles for free.

@jcrabapple @TheBreadmonkey wow, this is quite relevant, much better than google. I'm getting good quality results with DDG as well, but some people have been complaining that DDG is as bad for them as Google. I live in Czechie in EU so maybe some of it is regional.