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I got my Kindle last Thursday, and I love it! It was a bit smaller than I thought it would be, but it turned out to be a good size for reading. It's lightweight but sturdy, and I've enjoyed reading my Amazon library on there so far...much more than reading it on the computer screen lol. One reason for wanting one is because I want to spend more time away from the computer...I spend so much time in front of it that these days it feels relaxing just to get away from it for awhile. This is the model I ultimately went with.

Glad that you're enjoying the Kindle! I do think the smaller size is pretty convenient. And you got warm light too and waterproofing, nice!

I'll have to check out OverDrive/Libby...I think I saw sometime before that even my local library supports it. I have no shortage of books to read at the moment, though.

It does require requesting and waiting for your books, but it's quite nice! There are also... other means of acquiring books if that's how you prefer.

A few years back I read on one of my content creator newsletters that it's important that you control your own platform...that doing everything on social media put you at the mercy of algorithm changes that could damage your business, and so you need to try to get as many people to join your website or email newsletter as possible. It made sense to me...I had read where people's businesses were ruined because Facebook had changed their algorithms so they received a fraction of the traffic they once did. Then I read sometime later about how more and more the web isn't even designed for humans but for Google's algorithms through SSO, which has led to a bland internet where many websites look the same. I'll admit as cringe as they could be, I sometimes miss the personality of old Web 1.0 sites where the design showed something of the author who created it. And more recently, I've read a number of articles about governments seeking to control the internet (and unfortunately not just authoritarian governments).

I could see the benefits of a decentralized internet, one that isn't easily controlled by blocking or shutting down a website, where collectives of individuals could choose whether to support a site not just by donating, but by hosting a copy of the site themselves...the idea of having a website hosted on your own computer and not having to go through a webhost is something that I think would be empowering and freeing for a lot of people. I remember when I was thinking about getting hosting, it was kind of intimidating trying to find a webhost and then figuring out things like FTP. Of course, that being said I know it would present new challenges for misinformation and moderation, but I can't imagine it would be worse than on sites that are literally too big to effectively moderate even if the tech giants behind them wanted to (which I don't completely believe they do).

I don't know anything about blockchains or Web3 (other than that a year ago people were hyping it like they were NFTs), but I can see the power and the appeal of the basic concept. I think a more individualistic internet would be a good thing...in a way a return to its roots.

I might not even describe a decentralized web as more "individualistic"... it inherently requires a lot more cooperation and working together instead of a singular centralized source.

The thing with email and podcasts is that they work alongside today's centralized web. If you want to find a tech podcast for example you can look on up on Google or one of the podcasting sites like Google Podcasts (which I know is being shut down, it's just what I used back in the day). You can look up an email address or you can find it in your organization's directory (I think email is mostly used in work settings these days as a means of communication, my personal email is mostly for receiving newsletters). And that's fine...but it's odd if a technology that aims to replace the modern internet is using it as a way for people to find things. At some point it's counterproductive to tell people to Google links to decentralized websites.

That said, the internet really became ubiquitous with Web 2.0, because it finally became convenient enough for most people to contribute to...the posted web, as the Median post you linked to called it. Suddenly, you no longer had to create your own website to put something online...you just had to create an account somewhere and start posting. I was just saying that if the decentralized web really wants to become a mainstream replacement or alternative to the current web it's going to have to take convenience for non-technical people into account or it's just going to end up being a niche for techies and passionate "data wants to be free" people that never goes anywhere.

I think when we (or at least I) say that we want decentralized internet/web, that does not mean that everything should be self-hosted. For content creators and business owners, self-hosting makes sense, but that's not most people. In fact, that seems counterproductive for both efficiency and usability concerns. (Most attempts to solve this happen in the blockchain space, and generally create more problems around the centralization of power than they solve.) Rather, the way that share and access things should be through open systems that allow for freedom of choice and prevent any one entity from having full control or decision-making power. With email, you can write your own email software and run your own email server, but that's not necessary because you can just use Gmail, and if you don't like Gmail, you can still use something else and communicate with people on Gmail. With podcasts, you can host in one place and then list to any number of podcast directories/apps for people to find it. That's very different from modern social networks, which fully control every aspect of the process, and fully gate their networks to prevent cross-communication.

Just having these open protocols would create much greater freedom of choice and prevent unilateral decisions by profit-seeking corporations. Even if our search engines remained centralized, that does not change that the content would no longer be behind walled gardens. (In any case, I have not seen a convincing model for a working decentralized search engine that is not a crypto scam.) I think it is also not really confusing from a usability perspective; I have tech-illiterate friends on Mastodon (though I'll admit that Mastodon could have some significant usability improvements, but that comes with investment that it has not had), and whether or not they're there mainly just depends on where their social network is.

I do agree with your last point. I guess all I'm saying is that this is not a problem inherent with the technology, but rather a problem resulting from our socioeconomic system, which inherently rewards centralization of power.

Glad that you're enjoying the Kindle! I do think the smaller size is pretty convenient. And you got warm light too and waterproofing, nice!

I enjoy the warm light, especially at night! I'm currently reading The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living, and the first thing it talks about is how Danes set a cozy environment with warm light sources like candles, fireplaces, and glowing lamps. Besides that, I've had f.lux on my computer for years now...the science isn't clear on whether it helps you fall asleep more naturally, but at this point I just like it.

It does require requesting and waiting for your books, but it's quite nice! There are also... other means of acquiring books if that's how you prefer.

Haha, I actually don't mind paying for a book, especially if it's one that I'll like. There's been times I've read a book at the library or on Scribd (now Everand) and then bought the book just to always have it handy for reference. A part of me, which is far away from my minimalist self, would love to create a small personal library, where I could loan books out to my friends if they wanted to. That was apparently a major thing to have for upper-class people centuries ago...not so much so now, sadly.

I might not even describe a decentralized web as more "individualistic"... it inherently requires a lot more cooperation and working together instead of a singular centralized source.

I guess in my mind the preferred future of the internet is individualistic, and a decentralized internet could help enable that. Potential problems aside, one of the things I liked about the mini-Twitter decentralized feed is that the actual post was hosted on each person's site instead of a central database that a company controls. Even if people are cooperating, it's because they've made the intentional individual choice to instead of just defaulting to that as sites are today.

Related, I just read yesterday that Reddit has struck a $60 million/year deal with a 'large AI company' to use Reddit posts for training data...money that I'm sure won't be shared with the people who actually made those posts. They've apparently also been threatening to block Google and Microsoft web crawlers if they don't also agree to pay up.

I think when we (or at least I) say that we want decentralized internet/web, that does not mean that everything should be self-hosted. For content creators and business owners, self-hosting makes sense, but that's not most people. In fact, that seems counterproductive for both efficiency and usability concerns. (Most attempts to solve this happen in the blockchain space, and generally create more problems around the centralization of power than they solve.) Rather, the way that share and access things should be through open systems that allow for freedom of choice and prevent any one entity from having full control or decision-making power. With email, you can write your own email software and run your own email server, but that's not necessary because you can just use Gmail, and if you don't like Gmail, you can still use something else and communicate with people on Gmail. With podcasts, you can host in one place and then list to any number of podcast directories/apps for people to find it. That's very different from modern social networks, which fully control every aspect of the process, and fully gate their networks to prevent cross-communication.

Just having these open protocols would create much greater freedom of choice and prevent unilateral decisions by profit-seeking corporations. Even if our search engines remained centralized, that does not change that the content would no longer be behind walled gardens. (In any case, I have not seen a convincing model for a working decentralized search engine that is not a crypto scam.) I think it is also not really confusing from a usability perspective; I have tech-illiterate friends on Mastodon (though I'll admit that Mastodon could have some significant usability improvements, but that comes with investment that it has not had), and whether or not they're there mainly just depends on where their social network is.

I think we're not entirely on the same page...I don't have an issue with email or podcast protocols themselves, and I don't think everything has to be self-hosted to be individualistic. I think the problem is that besides someone directly giving you a link to their stuff you look up email addresses and podcasts using some kind of centralized service...a search engine, a directory, or website. And that's fine on the current web...but if the decentralized web wants to replace that, how will you find it? According to the presentation, the only way you could find even a web address is to receive it directly or look it up on their web 2.0 website. You open up the browser and it's literally a blank page. So if your aim is to replace the current web with something that's better (in their opinion), how do you fix that problem without relying on what you're trying to replace?

I think centralized search engines could be potentially problematic...maybe less-so if there's a number of them that are competing with each other. But as it is Google just as a search engine has so much power over the internet that people are designing websites for what Google wants rather than what their own audiences want through SEO.

And I'm speaking more of ideals here...I understand that this is something that's in development and that people don't have all the answers. I don't even know if this will ever be something that has mass-appeal. I think a problem with a lot of tech development in general is that techies design things for themselves and not the mass audience they claim to want to use it, and that's why some things never catch on even though there's people that passionately advocate for it.

I do agree with your last point. I guess all I'm saying is that this is not a problem inherent with the technology, but rather a problem resulting from our socioeconomic system, which inherently rewards centralization of power.

I don't think it's just the socioeconomic system...just speaking from my experience on a small level, I think creators and founders want the security of knowing they can't be forced out of the thing that they poured their heart and soul into. I don't deny that the profit motive is probably a bigger reason, but when I read that Mark Zuckerberg made sure he personally has most of the voting shares in Facebook/Meta, I can sympathize with that side of it too, even if I think Facebook itself is a social abomination.

Harvard Business Review: How to Become a Supercommunicator at Work
https://hbr.org/2024/02/how-to-become-a-supercommunicator-at-work

The Gist
Wondering how it is that some people at work form connections with each other without overstepping boundaries, a husband and wife team ran a study that involved strangers talking one-on-one with each other for another. When they followed up, over half of over 300 people involved had tried to connect with their partner after the study, and 35% had done something together. This is the team that came up with the famous 36 questions that lead to love.

But based on this, there were additional studies and research done, and the author of this article wrote a book summarizing it. For people looking to form connections at work, he recommends these strategies:

1) Prepare Beforehand: This can be as simple as thinking up a few topics of conversation beforehand in case the conversation starts to lag. They found that even if that didn't happen and the topics were never used, it reduced anxiety to the point that the conversations went better.

2) Ask Deep Questions: These are questions that make people think, and ultimately reveal things about themselves that wouldn't otherwise come up. These can often be made from routine questions people ask, such as "What's your family like?" rather than "Do you have kids?". 

3) Ask Follow-Up Questions: This not only continues the conversation, but shows the person that you're listening. However, it's important that you include your own thoughts and insights, lest you come off as an interrogator.

Wintermoot's Thoughts
I haven't been neglecting my studies! It's just that I've been focusing more on training my coding skills to get my skills current, with the aim to eventually create a portfolio site. I'm also keeping an eye out on things about socializing, because I feel like not being good at talking or connecting with people holds me back in so many different parts of my life. Which is where this comes in.

Yes, Wintermoot needs instruction on how to socialize like a normal person.

I don't have any profound insights on this one, but it is something I'm keeping in mind and trying to practice. I read that people like when you ask questions because it shows you're interested in who they are, but this is a bit more precise...it makes more sense to ask people what the best part of their day was than to ask how they are, cause you know they're probably going to answer with "fine" and you can't have much of a conversation about that. xD

@Wintermoot I subscribe to a newsletter called The Morning News and today they shared a piece about how recent AI tech advancement has enabled the rise of high quality indie search engines:

https://newsletter.vickiboykis.com/archive/how-i-search-in-2024/

Given our discussion earlier in this thread I thought you might be interested.

@taulover: Thanks for sharing! I had heard of Kagi in passing before, but this is the first time I'd taken a closer look at it...hadn't heard of the other two at all.

I don't necessarily think you need AI to create a high quality search engine, since the bigger problem is the business model of the large engines where they make money off serving you ads. Kagi even points out ironically enough that Sergey Brin and Larry Page predicted in 1998 that an ad-supported search engine would eventually become biased toward serving ads over producing good results. That being said, I'm not sure how I personally feel about paying a subscription to a search engine. Building a good quality search engine costs money, but I don't use them that much anymore unless I'm looking for something very specific. According to some screenshots from their Discord, as of last year Kagi had around 20,000 paying users but needed 25k to break even. On one hand, it seems they're involved in a number of side businesses, but on the other they seem to be saving some money by supplanting their own index through APIs from Yandex and Brave Search.

I kind of wish you could try Kagi without creating an account...I'm more mindful of even where I create accounts than I used to be. But it'd be interesting to see if it's really worth the money.

Overall, I think AI can be a good creative and productivity tool, and I enjoy asking ChatGPT (which I do pay a subscription for) off the wall things just to see what it comes up with, but I don't think the current state of the technology justifies the way tech companies are trying to cram AI into everything.

I like the vibe of Marginalia...it has that Web 1.0 vibe where it's one person showcasing the things they're working on and some of their thoughts behind what they're doing, like an encyclopedia that strips out distractions like links and text. That being said, I though its search engine was the worst of the two in the link I was able to try, and it's encyclopedia often seems like reworded Wikipedia articles...often even having the same sentences in the same places in the article. As a "this is what I'm doing and why" sort of site though, it's pretty cool.

Where are we looking? A Possible Path for Repoliticizing Technology
https://mayfirst.coop/files/where-are-we-looking.pdf

I am currently reading through Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life by Nathan Schneider. It's about his thoughts on how most online spaces are the 'digital fiefdoms' of their owners and how communities can instead utilize technology to democratically govern in a way that's representative of the community. In the specific portion I'm reading, he basically argues that you can't have that if you're using platforms and technology that have been designed based on top-down or corporate control. Earlier in the book, he gives a brief history of how this came to be, starting with BBSes in the 70s and 80s that were hosted on computers that physically sit in the host's home at a time when hosts were also legally responsible for the content their users posted. Based on those considerations the systems were designed so that the host had full control, which they could delegate portions of to other people to assist them.

He mentions a virtual cooperative that he's a part of called May First Movement Technology. I've been fascinated with this community model for some time now...it's basically a system where people invest themselves into the cooperative in some way (in this case it's paying $50/year membership dues, but in other cases it may be made up of people who work on a project, people who live together, etc.) and in exchange they get a say in how the organization is ran, including the group of people who are in charge (in this case a board elected by its members, although some decisions require direct approval of members too). In this case, they also get the opportunity to be involved with like-minded people (technologists who lead, are involved with, or support social justice movements) and to serve in advancing the organization and its causes by joining committees. For an additional charge, members can also use cooperative-owned website hosting.

That is where in turn I found this document, which is an English translation that was originally posted in Spanish, which further discusses some of these issues. It contains a number of links that I haven't had a chance to check out yet (it's taking a while to get through this book because it references other things, which references other things, which references other things...I can already see this is a space that's abundant in substance), but it raises questions of what sort of technology and practices would best allow for democratic, bottom-up community governance. It references how May First declared itself an Apartheid Free Zone through the bottom-up efforts of its members, then closes by restating the need for the technologies we use to reflect the communities they inhabit (in this case, to be "places of bonding, affection, and resistance" through technologies that "bet on the reproduction of life").

Wintermoot's Thoughts
Like I said earlier, I've become fascinated with the cooperative model...I think partly because it's based on people coming together and investing themselves into something. I think social media and a lot of modern websites train people to passively consume rather than become involved...at best people just respond to things. I think that's one reason why new and younger people struggle with NationStates when they join. They're used to consuming content on websites, and once they've consumed the issues, the WA, the dispatches, etc they're like "that's it?", when the truly rich experience comes from becoming involved with a regional community.

Don't worry, I'm not about to suggest that Citizens start paying membership dues lol. But I think even the current discussion on requiring Citizens to make a single post during some timeframe to maintain Citizenship is a recognition that ultimately members who aren't involved are just members on paper. I don't necessarily think the cooperative model is appropriate for Wintreath...I think here that model would disadvantage people who don't have the time or interest to be involved in governance, which I would wager is a majority of our community. But there is something appealing in this day and age of people coming together and investing themselves to build something that's greater than any one person (as opposed to traditional models where everything revolves around its owner, root admin, CEO, etc.)

One of the revelations I had recently when reading The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family is that everybody wants to be a soldier in some cause...to invest themselves in, advocate for, and fight for...to have a purpose beyond themselves. It's one of the ways movements like QAnon further entrap people by meeting this deep emotional need. In some way, everyone wants to invest themselves in something, but I believe many people don't know how to do that given that they've been trained by social media to consume rather than to become involved. I suspect the cooperative model may be a healthier way to meet those needs online, too.