Former Redditor looking for something better.

  • 6 Posts
  • 25 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • The foundations of it are stronger than the original. There’s deeper characterization, more complex themes of family, interpersonal conflicts, infighting and the last hour is essentially a non-stop, stupendously choreographed action sequence. It sets up interesting dynamics for the sequels too.

    As a technology buff I appreciated the framerate experiment. Films have always been shot at 24FPS typically, but the human eye sees at a much higher framerate than that. Avatar 2 experiments with increasing the framerate for realism. Action shots are mostly in 60FPS with dialogues and close ups in 24FPS. I think it did make the action sequences feel more lifelike, but the switching was a bit extreme IMO - it pretty regularly switches between 24FPS and 60FPS in action sequences which can be jarring. I personally would’ve preferred solid, on-stop chunks of 60FPS with chunks of 24FPS rather than on again/off again. That made it more distracting than a benefit, but I think the framerate experiment worked well overall. I’m hoping they stick with a single framerate per section in the sequels.

    The real problem is the pacing. I thought Avatar 1 was a great scene setter for the universe of Pandora. Even if it’s broad strokes are very predictable, at least it’s enjoyable to see it play out. But the second time around, my god it takes FOREVER to get going. You know exactly how the conflict pieces slot into place for the climax and the dialogue is still just as clunky as the first film. Plus there’s some excessive “save the whales” scenes that IMO could’ve easily been cut as it repetitively bashes its obvious environmentalist message over your head again and again.

    …But overall, it’s still a bit better than the first film. Just about. I’m really hoping the scripts for the next entries fix the dialogue and have more ambitious storytelling.


  • Exactly. I’ve been following Remedy since I was a teen and they’ve always made it crystal-clear Alan Wake 2 was the #1 priority in their hearts, but the realities of AW1 not selling particularly strong at first meant they didn’t have much leverage to make it as soon as they wanted to. They very transparently and regularly talked about Alan Wake 2.

    I’m really excited to see how different this turns out from the original now they can apply the lessons they learned in Quantum Break and Control.









  • I think we should actively keep track of Reddit restoring user’s content without people’s permission. Screenshots, timestamps, everything. Monitor it all.

    Maybe if Reddit go ahead with their API change whilst treating their users like such disposable crap, we could reach out to the EU to inform them of Reddit’s GDPR breaches. Maybe that’d lead to their new revenue from API charges disappearing into hefty EU fines.

    Update: Maybe there’s going to be some loophole about actually having to use the data deletion request via Reddit’s UI for there to be an actually GDPR breach though thinking about it. Going to ask around some Law friends for advise




  • Yes, it is. So charge a reasonable API price and this whole argument is over.

    But that won’t happen. This is about monetizing Reddit’s content ASAP before Spez resigns ASAP with a nice big, bonus for pushing through those beautiful API changes oh so smoothly.

    The more Spez speaks, the less sad I am about Reddit dying. Platforms come and go. There’s loads of Internet corners to discuss my hobbies. I don’t want to stay on a sinking ship with a hole shot out by the captain because he has ship insurance, actively throwing people off board as him and his crew climb up the still buoyant part whilst insisting THIS WILL BLOW OVER. I’m not going down with the Titanic of community boards as it sinks. It’ll die in infamy and I don’t feel like drowning alongside it.

    However, I will now thoroughly enjoy watching Spez naively, single-handedly dismantle Reddit’s legacy for short term gain whilst thinking he’s being a super duper smart businessman we couldn’t possibly understand. Or possibly being a forced fallguy for share holder decisions which he has a choice in avoiding by quitting.

    I’ve never in all my years of Internet browsing seen someone running an Internet-based company so blatantly indifferent to the customers they serve. There’s no Reddit revenue without Redditors.

    I wish him luck on his inevitably piss-poor IPO when Reddit offers little content of value and more people get more angry at him as more ridiculous reasoning flies out of his mouth. Reddit’s gonna look like MSN News by the end of this mess.




  • This is a really good explanation for how defederation works.

    I understand your point that Beehaw defederating from two subs for moderation and user management seems like an extreme reaction. But it’s one I kind of expected from them given Beehaw’s philosophies as as an instance.

    Their detailed posts about what Beehaw is always made it very clear to me they think carefully about how they run their space and the users they want to grant access to. They really prioritise making their instance a safe space for well-meaning discussion through their vetted registrations.

    I’m not an admin. I’m not an experienced Lemmy user. I’m not someone who has had experience moderating and being an admin on several communities before. They have and I’ve also seen activity on the Lemmy repo from them showing they have dev experience too.

    As you pointed out, the entire site of 12k users is currently managed by 4 people who seem to have quite a lot of experience managing communities. That’s a big workload. I’ve been using both Beehaw and Kbin since Reddit’s awful API changes to see how both places grow and so far I’ve found Beehaw to be a very enjoyable experience with a pretty high engagement rate. I usually get hella upvotes and replies to anything I say. It does feel like a pretty active, close-knit place of well-meaning people even at this early stage. I think they’re running Beehaw pretty well so far. Kbin is very solid too, but Beehaw I’ve found tends to have a deeper level of engagement and longer, more in-depth post styles that I prefer.

    I know any instances with open registration could hop in and contribute to Beehaw, so this issue they have of not being able to vet and control users isn’t unique to those two instances. But given so far the place to me as a user still feels the same as when I joined a few days ago more or less, I’m going to take them at their word that they’re getting an influx of activity that isn’t a particularly good fit for Beehaw for now. There’s a lot of instances that could defederate from. 2 is not a huge number so far. Plus they did explicitly say at the end this is not a permanent decision, they may very well change their minds later on.

    So personally, I respect and understand Beehaw’s decision at this moment. Lets give things time and see how things develop. It’s definitely a temporary, broad axe to cutting an apple type solution to their troll problem - which may very well continue as Lemmy gets more popularity as a platform overall - but I think they want to be specific about who they pull into their moderation team to ensure the vibe of Beehaw is maintained. Lets give it some time to see what happens.







  • Great explanation! Really well written and clearly explained. However…

    Forgive my bluntness, but people not into tech tend to be lazy and stupid about everything lol. I feel like they’d take one glance at that, think TOO MUCH TEXT, not read it properly and still complain about the Fediverse being confusing.

    Any kind of attempt at explaining the Fediverse seems to really confuse people, so IMO the best solution is to not even bring it up. Kinda dismiss it as no biggie, then sneak in a quick explanation at the end. Here’s my go:

    "If the word ‘Fediverse’ confuses or scares you, ignore it. Just join any Lemmy instance you like the look of. They all work more or less like Reddit. If you can’t find a community/subreddit you want on one, make it yourself.

    Or, alternatively, use this to see if one exists already. If it does, you can copy the community Lemmy address (it appears on the right in blue under the ‘create a post’ button in a form like ‘[email protected]’), search for it on your site’s search, then subscribe like you would any other subreddit.

    That cross-site subscribing is what the Fediverse is about - it’s a bunch of small, independent Reddit-ish clones cross-talking. But since they’re small, they’re struggling and slightly breaking with Reddit refugees at the moment. I’d recommend local communities only for now. Join the commuities you find via Feddit in maybe a few weeks or so once everything’s calmed down."