:)

Lemmy doesn’t need to “take off” or compete with Reddit to succeed. Growth for the sake of growth holds little inherent value. Unlike commercial platforms reliant on VC funding to survive, Lemmy thrives on sustainability. What really matters is that there are enough developers to maintain the platform, people to host the server, and users to create content. With these elements in place, Lemmy can continue indefinitely without the need for explosive growth.

In fact, rapid growth could do more harm than good. A sudden influx of users often brings toxic behaviors, especially those migrating from platforms like Reddit. When new users trickle in slowly, they adapt to the existing norms and culture of the community. But when a horde arrives, they risk overwhelming and reshaping the community in ways that trample over its core values. A slow, steady stream of users allows for organic integration, preserving the essence of what makes Lemmy pleasant.

Unlike commercial platforms, open-source projects don’t rely on profit motives to survive. They’re driven by people who directly benefit from their work and are passionate about their vision. When disagreements arise, projects can be forked, allowing different groups to take them in new directions. Even if a project is abandoned, it can be revived by a new team as long as there’s a dedicated community. This flexibility and resilience make open source inherently more sustainable than commercial platforms, which can vanish overnight if funding dries up.

The Fediverse, and Lemmy within it, only needs a large enough user base to remain self-sustaining. I’d argue that it’s already well past that threshold. There’s no rush to grow rapidly. Steady progress ensures the community retains its identity and values, while the open-source nature of the platform guarantees its longevity. Lemmy isn’t just another platform; it’s a sustainable, adaptable ecosystem built to endure. I’m willing to bet that Lemmy will still be around long after Reddit crumbles to dust.

It’s a highly unlikely scenario that Russia would want to expand the war pat Ukraine, and everybody with a functioning brain understands that. What will happen is that Russia will take over all the territory in Ukraine that’s either pro Russian or neutral.

The rest will be left as a problem for the west to deal with. It’s going to be a dysfunctional rump state that’s not economically self sufficient, and where there will be massive resentment towards the west over the betrayal. If Europe allows it to fall then they will be faced with a new refugee crisis, and if they don’t then it’s an economic black hole that they have to keep pouring money into. Either scenario will only make the already desperate economic situation in Europe even worse than it is now.

It’s going to be easy for Russia to make deals with individual countries as public unrest in Europe continues to grow. Hungary and Slovakia have already flipped to Russia, it’s likely only a matter of time before Romania, Czech Republic, Germany, and France do as well. At that point we’re looking at the end of EU, and possibly the end of NATO as well. Especially given that the US will almost certainly be pulling back under Trump.

Russia/Ukraine war: Russia will get some territory and thats about it, probrally just the Russian majority areas. After that the EU will intimidate Russia to back off.

How do you imagine the EU will do that exactly? The EU has no military industrial capacity to speak of, it doesn’t have access to cheap energy, and it’s becoming politically unstable. A far more likely scenario here is that the EU starts breaking up, and nationalist parties start realigning their countries towards Russia because the US will leave EU to hang.

Meanwhile, in the real world. Russian economy is booming, and the World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025

The IMF forecasts that Russian economy is set to grow faster than all the western economies https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/russia-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-advanced-economies-in-2024-imf.html

you sweet summer child

Anything could happen of course, but I don’t see this as a likely scenario myself. What’s more likely is that we return to bloc competition similar to what we saw during the Cold War. Except this time it’s going to be G7 against the BRICS.

thanks 🎉

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I guess it’s a question of whether you’re designing a system from scratch, or having to deal with an existing one. I took the original question to mean the former, but yeah it’s not much help if you’ve already got classes and you have to figure out how to make them play nice together.

uptime
18:58  up 145 days,  4:57, 1 users, load averages: 6.19 4.70 5.30

Learning languages is a great use case. I’m learning Mandarin right now, and being able to chat with a bot is really great practice for me. Another use case I’ve found handy is using it as a sounding board. The output it produces can stimulate new ideas in my own head, and it makes it a good exploration tool that let me pull on different threads of thought.

Having worked for nearly two decades in a functional language now, that’s precisely how I feel about the imperative style.

yup, and also good for sorting

It’s absolutely hilarious how we now have Raimondo openly admitting that trying to hold back China technologically is a fool’s errand, and yet there’s no change in policy. This is the definition of idiocy.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-biden-chip-manufacturing-gina-raimondo-b98c2606

lol yeah

They’re pretty similar in terms of features, so I’d go with whichever one you can get cheaper. Also, take a look at the price of lenses and availability of third party ones like Sigma as well. I’ve had good experience with Sigma lenses in terms of quality, and they tend to be fairly reasonably priced. 28-75 zoomable is a pretty good beginner lens overall. It can do wide shots for landscapes, but will also let you zoom in a bit if you have to.