In Germany, we used to put an ASCII art fish for trolls, because they were troll-fishing:

><xX))))o>

That was advising others not to react to them/ Maybe we should use something similar for clanker-bots ?

Ahrtal, Acapulco, Derna, Emiglia Romana, Valencia, Blatten in Switzerland… every year we see more apocalyptic images.

I am always wondering why there is no standard for video conferencing?

We can be glad that the telephone was not invented in our times…

In principle, this is correct. But the need for a helmet increases massively with speed.

Consider the end speed of free fall when falling a certain height - or the inverse, height in meters versus speed in kilometer per hour. It is:

10 km/h   ..... 0.39 meter
20 km/h   ..... 1.57 meter
30 km/h   ..... 3.54 meter
40 km/h   ..... 6.29 meter
50 km/h   ..... 9.83 meter

Would you jump from ten meters height into a concrete surface? Few people would, because it is almost certain that you die. But the frame pillar of a car is equally hard as such a surface.

Another data point: In the center of Copenhagen, not so many people use a helmet, but the speed is typically between 10 and 15 km/h - so many bikes there ! - and the number of serious accidents is very low. The contrary is the case for Germany.

And just to make a point: Using a helmet is always safer.

Yes, right.

But: A bike helmet won’t help you much if you have a collision at 50 km/h. If you go at moped / light motorcycle speed, you need a motorcycle helmet, too.

That was sadly exactly what I was expecting from the electric motorization of bicycles. It is a history that has repeated itself many times in the last 70 or 80 years since the first combustion engine mopeds.

The fact is that the human-powered bike is at a sweet spot of efficiency and safety. Once you go faster, you need a helmet, a heavier frame, wider tyres, better brakes, wider lanes, protective clothing, protection against cold, a heavier motor for propelling all the extra weight, and so on. The energy input from you the human dwindles.

It is not any more a bicycle.

What is wrong with the fediverse?

Nothing, because it has a different purpose?

This is a young (and still small) project of open source programmers and a user community which believe that for some purposes, a lot of useless and annoying features and bloat can be omitted from the “Modern Web” - and the result can still be much more user-friendly and useful for open discussion and exchange of ideas than what we have today with Facebook and X.

The design comes from the belief that a more frugal use of resources is better, if focused on what is the real core goal - transporting text, ideas, and media over the network.

Turns out it works nicely for some people!

It is also less addictive than social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit with endless feed and “like” buttons.

(Edit)

So, what is it useful for?

• Microblogs
• keeping in touch with friends
• Personal Blogs and long form texts
• sharing ideas
• political discussion, for example ecological questions
• Sharing poetry, photos, images, music, art, other media, data and documents
• organizing and sharing file data
• sharing source code like tar archives and zipped version control repositories

What is this not useful for?

• interactive web content like e.g. shopping sites or online banking
• forums
• marketing material
• AI slop
• user tracking
• surveillance

(as you see, it is not claimed to be good for everything, and you can also expect some weird argumentation and trolling in discussions around it!)

See also discussion in the Linux channel:

https://feddit.org/post/24780758