Because you blocked the entire instance these communities are on. I feel that is the most obvious behavior. Subscriptions don’t really factor in here as they aren’t “whitelists” for blocks.

That doesn’t answer the question. To say “most obvious” just rephrases your position. We have a system that disregards user input because it thinks it knows better what the user wants. That can only be an “obvious” behavior if in fact you expect the system to be incompetently designed.

Advertisement? Deception?

Calm down. Advertisement is a metaphor. If you don’t grasp it, just forget it. A capability is advertised to the user by giving them an option. Then failing to execute on the user’s instruction amounts to deception.

I admit that deception is typically a deliberate act. I did not mean to imply that. It’s safe to call it an accidental deception.

The problem with this way of thinking is it nannies the user by disregarding their express instructions. Telling users what they really want instead of acting on their commands. It’s a subtle attack on users’s dignity and self-determination because it denies them control (without even telling them). It’s like Google deciding to change your search queries for you.

If you look at other systems (well designed systems) involving complex rules like a variety of firewalls and email processing rules, or tools like rsync, they are sophisticated and wise enough to not assume the user’s input is a mistake when a sensible interpretation is possible. They act on the user’s instructions. If a user does a general block but specifies a specific criteria to the contrary, there is only one smart way to interpret that while respecting the user’s wishes: to prioritise the specific rules above the general rules.

Otherwise you have blunt tools, disserviced nannied users, and chaos.

It makes sense to me that blocking an instance would block EVERYTHING from that instance.

But that’s not happening. The current implemation does not block everything. E.g. you still see public comments from the blocked instance. Lemmy is still deciding what the block and what not to block. And what it decides to block fails “the rule of least astonishment¹” particularly compared to what it decides /not/ to block.

¹ the principle/rule of least astonishment is an engineering concept that requires the system to behave in the least astonishing way. In the case at hand, if the user sees the contents of a community they subscribed to but nothing else on an instance they generally blocked, there would be no astonishment because the system would be acting on the user’s instructions. But the status quo is astonishing because the system decides to ignore some of the user’s instructions.

I believe what has happened is that Lemmy is so rich with bugs that users are simply conditioned to expect it to work poorly.

That is the behaviour I’d expect.

Why? When a user blocks a whole instance generally but then specifically subscribes to a particular community on that instance, why would you expect the subscribed community to be empty?

But I guess a relatively easy fix would be to unsubscribe a user from all communities on an instance when it is blocked (and then prevent subscribing to them in the future).

Indeed if you have a false advertising scenario, there are two possible fixes:

1. change the ad to be truthful; or
2. implement what the ad claims

You seem simultaneously acknowledge that there is a deception but that you would expect it? It’s like saying you expect the design to be sloppy. In any case, what you suggest would be one possible fix to the problem. But if implementing that fix, it should go further and inform the user of subscribed communities that will be unsubscribed along with an option to back out of it to prevent data loss.

This current behaviour does make the most sense to me.

Can you elaborate? If you block a whole instance but then specifically subscribe to community X on that instance, what would the point be to subscribing to a community on an instance you block other than to have exceptional visibility on that community?

What do you get by subscribing to a community on a blocked instance under the current implementation?

You would be able to set a full instance block on the instance that works exactly as it does today,

To be clear, there is no such thing as a full instance block w/the stock client. E.g. when you block an instance public comments from that instance are still displayed. Just not DMs and community timelines (even when subscribed). So the devs have selected /some/ content to still be visible from blocked instances, and it defies intuition.

Not unless the devs are incompetent as TrickDacy. It’s inexcusable in any comms system to deceive senders about the delivery of their message. A block certainly does not imply: lie to senders about the transmission status. In the very least, the sender should be informed that their msg was not be delivered.

Do you think it’s smart for a mail server to accept email for delivery then silently blackhole it?

But beyond that, the meaning of a “block” on an “instance” is not defined to users. Block what? It is not blocking everything as it is. E.g. you will still see public posts from users of a blocked instance, just not their DMs. What justifies the inconsistency between pubic and private msgs particularly when it’s the opposite of intuition? If blocking one and not the other, it’d be more reasonable to block public msgs and not DMs.

And what justifies not properly informing users of the blocks what effect to expect?

Beyond failing to inform users, the control is not refined enough. I want to block Cloudflare clutter from my search results and timeline views, but not individuals – and most particularly not individuals sending a DM. OTOH, there /would/ be a corner case benefit to blocking DMs from a whole instance, if a lot of harassing msgs come from multiple accounts on an instance. It should also be possible but only as a separate control.

Alexandrite is back for me now. But now the icons are missing in the normal stock client again, as they were yesterday.

It works now, and the icons are back. Guess it was just a temporary glitch. But Alexandrite is still dead.

I suppose the nuance I did not elaborate on is the proliferation of private surveillance that is shared with cops. I vaguely recall something about Amazon doing a backroom deal to give the gov unwarranted access to private Amazon Ring cams, which is not something the general public can access.

In the context of my dream law, police failing to use their Ring access to protect victims would have to lead to loss of access to the cams.

When it comes to surveillance, the two characteristics are inseparable. That is, law enforcement /will/ abuse it while pitching the most seemingly legit cover story which is rarely the real purpose of the surveillance.

It’s always a matter of envisioning how it will be abused and working out whether it’s an acceptable evil compared to the likeliness of the legit use. IMO the answer is usually no, sadly enough. Snowden has put on display that surveillance users are in fact criminals themselves as they violate warrants and any kind of checks and balances.

There does not seem to ever be a realistic option to give cops a tool and expect it to only be used responsibly.

There are 4 interesting attributes (which makes Fediseer quite useful because no other dataset captures this level of detail):

• open_registrations
• approval_required
• email_verify
• has_captcha

When running select open_registrations,approval_required,email_verify,has_captcha from FSnodeTbl where open_registrations = 0 | sort -u`, we get all varieties of combinations:

0|||
0||0|
0|0||
0|0||0
0|0|0|0
0|0|0|1
0|0||1
0|0|1|0
0|0|1|1
0||1|
0|1||
0|1||0
0|1|0|0
0|1|0|1
0|1||1
0|1|1|0
0|1|1|1

AFAICT, the value of open_registrations is not implied by the other variables. It seems to be an independent variable that should mean just what it describes on the face of it.

And if we consider just cases where open_registrations is true, there are fewer combinations, strangely, but still it’s independent of approval_required (2nd column):

1|||
1|0||
1|0||1
1|1||
1|1||1

Sounds like Paypal, who is “not a bank”, but who operates on the basis that you must link a bank or interact with a bank to do transactions. But you say unbanked people can use it? How do you get cash loaded onto it?

I suppose it’s still far from being something I could find useable because apps that reject rooted phones would be closed-source (read: untrustworthy; misplaced control).

Wow, wtf! I would not expect that degree of mass surveillance to be economically viable. And so overtly stark in the face of the GDPR. In principle, we should be able to make a GDPR access request to the central bank to ask them where we shop with cash and which ATMs we used.

I don’t get why “QR” is described as a “payment option”. It’s still a bank account transaction in the end which is exclusively for banked people. And worse, it excludes people without recent smartphones and the Google Playstore account needed to get the closed-source app that violates our software freedom.

I have a hard time giving a shit about the novelty of not carrying a plastic card in the big scheme of things, when forced-banking is being oppressively shoved in our faces and privacy is toast, while also being vulnerable to systemic denial of service in the event of cyberattacks as acts of war. While violating our human rights (banks treat different people differently based on where they come from).

Europeans are fucked as far as privacy goes. The GDPR is unenforced. But even if were enforced, the GDPR’s data minimisation (article 5) rule only obligates data controllers to consider options that are available.

We know from all the cashless bars in Amsterdam how naive and flippant consumers are about privacy. Creating a digital footprint of alcohol consumption is one of the most foolish things consumers can do, particularly in light of that Scandinavian guy who was denied a mortgage on the basis of his drinking habits, which were known to the bank by his purchase history.

Privacy aside, there is a human rights issue because banks treat different demographics of people differently. It’s disturbing how the human rights problem is so overlooked.

In any case, Albania cannot join the EU while being cashless unless Albania keeps their own currency.

“We have an ambition: that by the end of this decade, Albania will become a cashless society, meaning that all interactions and financial transactions are fully digital,” “Albania 2030 — a vision towards European integration.”

Either they are grossly naive, or Albania intends to keep their own currency. If they did some basic homework, they would quickly realise form the Rundfunk case in Germany that the EU has exclusive competency over the euro. Member states can only fuck with the euro to the extent powers are delegated to member states. The EU has allowed member states to limit the use of cash (which is already abusive and downgrades the euro). But the EU has a very hard line against total elimination of euro banknotes. No member state may abolish the euro.

So the question is, would the EU allow new members to keep their currency? That is the only way Albania can join while being cashless.

populism is the motor behind Rama’s ambition to have a cashless economy.

I doubt that. I have found that people on the left and on the right equally oppose abolition of cash and forced banking. It’s around 60—70% who oppose cashless societies regardless of political party.

You raise a good point nonetheless. Though it’s really the consequences of version nannying that concretely exposes the problem, as the masses are still brainwashed to think “the latest and the greatest”.

So ideally I would need to also convey exactly what shenanigans Transcend intends with version mandates for the point to reach people. And I don’t have that answer. I can only conjecture that they will most likely stop hosting all versions of the tools as a way to sabotage repair/recovery of old devices.

You’re missing one massive issue here, which is that - irrespective of the version you think you downloaded - they can use this tactic to force the latest version to be installed instead.

What do you mean: missing? Denying people control over their software and versions is of course an obvious and inherent facet to the problem.

Need an older version, because they broke a feature, changed the license terms, made something that was previous free paid-for, or otherwise? Too bad. That installer is only ever going to do one thing, and it’s the newest version (if, as you say, it continues to work at all).

Or worse, no version at all. Or a broken version (all software has bugs and that includes updates).

The HP shit-show

HP controls what inks you use to the extent of sabotaging your printer “for your protection” in an automated firmware update.

The TomTom shit-show

If you install the PC desktop tool for managing your TomTom from the CD that comes with your TomTom, it forces a check to ensure that you’re installing the latest (Internet required, despite this not being mentioned on the packaging). When you allow it to connect to the WAN, it discovers that there is a later version and it blocks you from installing the original version. When you run the latest version (your only choice), it then says “your device is no longer supported”, and refuses to load any maps (even original maps) onto old TomToms. My local flee market is trying to sell a huge box of old TomToms, two for a dollar, because of this shit.

🞜

I will not buy Amazon, HP, or TomTom products for these reasons (among many other reasons). Now I have added Transcend to the list.

deleted by creator

I got lucky on this recently. Saw someone threw away a working washing machine. I will never buy one because it supports companies who block repair (all of them have contempt for repairers). So the only way for me to get one is to pull one from a dump. I saw on one on a curb saying it just needed to be cleaned or something. I went straight to a shop that has cargo bikes and was able to rent one on the spot. They take reservations but I got lucky. Went straight to the washing machine and it was still there. I was surprised the bike could take the weight and was surprised how well it handled.

but fuck apps

The problem with most shared bikes is they impose a closed-source app exclusively from Google. I got lucky that a local shop has a website for reservations and you can just walk in and pick it up at the shop – which means a human has to collect a cash deposit. But no shitty app.

Mulo seems pricey as well. I would not pay more than $/€ 25/day (not electric). Maybe Mulo is electric.

Locomotion is donation based… interesting that that works.

Can other piefed users say the same? I wonder if there is an interoperability bug there.