Possibly a Dog

I've got a few other masto accounts but this one is beige.

I was a hot shit coder in Silicon Alley during Web 1.0 and Silicon Valley during Web 2.0, but now I'm back in Vermont doing boring unemployed post-autistic-burnout stuff. (At least I hope it's post!) I think this account will be for fun and politics and occasional shitposts. My autistics.life account will be more personal and reflective.

I like #linguistics #physics #dnd #cooking #science #chickens #dogs #politics

for coding and some politics: Alex Chaffee (npub1yq5…yvc5)
for mental and emotional insights: Alex C (npub1zhn…95tq)
for dog and leaf pix: [@alexch@vermont.masto.host](https://vermont.masto.host/@alexch )

Public Key

npub1mrh5elr8z0s5cwulu866mljh5h0vmr39qnsut2yhg958snmsjussr06rd6

NIP-05 Address

possibledog_at_beige.party@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsd3m6vl3n38c2v8w07raddlet6thkd3cjsfcw94zt5z6rcfacfwggpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsz9rhwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjmcqsv3q9

Publishing to

nostr.wine

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1mrh5elr8z0s5cwulu866mljh5h0vmr39qnsut2yhg958snmsjussr06rd6

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Published at

2026-09-04T09:32:56Z

Kind type

0 Metadata

Event JSON

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Last Notes

2024-11-26 23:18:06 UTC

“The fact that AI can't do your job, but that your boss can be convinced to fire you and replace you [or otherwise unfairly oppress you] with the AI that can't do your job, [thus *punishing* individual workers for algorithmic decisions or other events outside their control,] is the central fact of the 21st century labor market.”
Another excellent non-fiction horror story from @npub1fdr…lvhs :
https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

2024-11-02 20:50:25 UTC

- reply

linguists call that a "shift-response" and it might be part of a normal allistic give-and-take wait-your-turn conversation
which autistics may see as an invalidating *non sequitur* since we like conversations to build up a common greater structure, but most allistics enjoy more fragmented egocentric small-talk
or it might be full-fledged "conversational narcissism"
"How to Win Conversations" by etymology_nerd
https://youtube.com/shorts/GOVUP_a_-Nc
is a great satire on the concept

2024-10-27 12:13:13 UTC

- reply

TIL! Thanks for the twtxt link.
I haven’t personally checked out Nostr. I hear it’s a cryptobro bar.

2024-10-26 13:28:52 UTC

- reply

oh wow thanks for the link
It’s been a while since i got slashdotted 😅
I love how most of that thread is bickering about the correct definition of “decentralized” —
the [Dictionary Fallacy](https://effectiviology.com/appeal-to-definition/) is such a booby trap for clever passionate people, totally flips a conversation from collaboration into competition and rage
— while ignoring the core fact that #Bluesky is *owned by goblins* who are totally gonna push it down the #enshitification path no matter what its network topology looks like.
(goblin owners including the *actual guy* who fucked up Twitter and then sold it to the second worst person on the planet)
I wish ATProto was a proper old-school open standard, since there’s a lot of cool ideas in it, and some well-intentioned dedicated hobbyists building a community around it, but it’s still mostly a wishful-thinking stalking-horse for a single company and their greedy #utilitopian owners.
I’m gonna have to look at that page more after I get some coffee.

2024-10-25 16:46:12 UTC

- reply

And, they just announced subscriptions. Here comes the rent!
https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3l7bifd4rwd2g (direct link to the sub subskeet) has a bunch of cheerleaders replying “take my money”, as if that will forestall the inevitable degradation of service, and as if they weren’t secretly planning this business model shift all along
it’s #enshittification stage 2: charge rent for full functionality, then add ads to the free tier — first for self-promos, then to buy subs for others, then “partners” (advertisers) including crypto scams from their new co-owners, and influencer-hustling pickaxe salesmen
(referring to the real profiteers of the gold rush)
— then add ads to the paid tiers too
(that’s stage 3, right @npub1fdr…lvhs ? it’s hard to keep the stages straight since they’re all happening so quickly these days)
#bluesky

2024-10-25 12:12:41 UTC

- reply

**https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc**
"We originally titled the method "placeholder", because we didn't want it to stick around forever in its current form. We are actively hoping to replace it with or evolve it into something less centralized - likely a permissioned DID consortium. That being said, we do intend to support did:plc in the current form until after any successor is deployed, with a reasonable grace period. We would also provide a migration route to allow continued use of existing did:plc identifiers."
the road to software hell is paved with "actively hoping to replace it"

2024-10-25 12:07:37 UTC

So, you know how Facebook is a corporation with a lot of spread-out servers that talk to a centralized database and algorithm that controls and manages all your posts, opaquely, for profit.
And so is Xwitter. And so is LinkedIn. And so is TikTok.
And so is BlueSky. 😲
BlueSky's big claim is that they're "decentralized" with "no algorithm". And yeah, technically, ironically, everything's an algorithm, but I'm not well-actuallying that word. Their current default feed algorithm is not The Algorithm; it lets you see all the posts from all your friends and that's great. It also lets you block at will, and won't shove spam on your feed, or shadow-ban your friends' political posts. It's not evil (yet). It's fine.
But. It's not decentralized. #BlueSky is a centralized corporate app, running a theoretically-decentralized network protocol that currently has only one (1) active node on the network: BlueSky. The other minor members of the ATP network are just piggybacking on BlueSky's 13 million captive users for auth and reach.
It (allegedly?) uses #ATProtocol to pass messages between its edge nodes. But all its central features are still centralized, and the protocol allows "reach" to be centrally managed separately from "speech" (to enable centralized blocking, and goosing and filtering in various feeds), and the protocol isn't even fully implemented as designed.
For example, ATP allows for "DID"s for identity portability, so if you later want to switch to a hypothetical GreenSky competitor, you won't lose your followers and blocklist and post history.
But the actual BlueSky app does not implement DIDs. It's called "did-placeholder" on their github. It's a stub. It's TBD. It's not a feature, it's a feature request.
And guess who just bought a seat on BlueSky's board with a $15M Series A round? That's right, a crypto vulture named Blockchain Capital.
Their general partner Kinjal Shah -- whose cryptocurrency-fueled career has careened from Bitcoin to NFTs to DAOs to VC -- is now on the BlueSky board, and methinks the press release doth protest too much when it defensively claims, with just a pinky promise, "the Bluesky app and the AT Protocol do not use blockchains or cryptocurrency, and we will not hyperfinancialize the social experience (through tokens, crypto trading, NFTs, etc.)."
Go ahead and enjoy BlueSky. It's better than Facebook. It's easier than Mastodon. It's sassier than TikTok. It's not motherfucking Xitter. But it's not decentralized.
links:
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/10/bluesky-now-owned-by-crypto-grifters/
https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-24-2024-series-a
https://github.com/did-method-plc/did-method-plc