Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

Know the difference.

How do you find new #music?

I've seen some people compare the algorithm for different streaming services, since that is the main way they find music. But I'm curious to know other ways people find music. I tend to use the Staff Picks on Tidal and Pitchfork to find new stuff. I rarely let an algorithm find me new stuff.

PSA about the Steam client performance:

Turns out that in your Steam library, rare achievements are marked with an animated light effect. This animation somehow takes up an astounding amount of system resources especially on older PCs/laptops.

If you notice that your PC slows to a crawl whenever your steam library is open, you can go to Steam > Settings > Library and then turn on Low Performance Mode. It simply disables a few insignificant animations but the performance gains can be massive. On my old Dell Latitude, the CPU usage goes from >50% to <10% just from changing this one setting!

I have no idea why they put this under "Library" and not "Interface" cause I've been looking for a setting like this for months but I finally found out about this and now you have too!

Tangentially, I suspect that this focus on the individual also provides an indirect advantage to whiteness (and privilege more broadly) and the structures that keep it in power.

Individualist systems always disproportionately benefit those who wield power, after all - those who are preferentially listened to, have the most to gain from a system that centers around clout and mythical personalities.

It's also in this context that I do not really see fedi as a long-term solution to social interaction online.

Sure, it is clearly better than centralized corporate platforms in terms of its ability to support community. But at its foundation, it is *still* about the individual, not about providing the tools for building deliberate community. And the entire federation setup is designed around that, too, it's not just Mastodon.

We can do better than that.

It's actually kind of uncanny to see the similarity between the disappearance of third places in the US, and the development of social media on the internet.

We used to have online third places - community-run spaces with some common interest in a topic, be it a TV show, a game, a hobby. Every space was its own thing, and the identifying characteristic was the community that built it. Forums are the most well-known example. You came there for the people, first and foremost, the topic was just the gateway.

Now we have social media that are entirely focused around the individual and their opinions and clout. And the community spaces that do still exist, are usually more like shopping malls - singular canonical subreddits that are sanctioned by the IP holder, controlled by them directly or indirectly, and expected to hold every single fan of the 'property'. No true mutual community, just a bunch of people in a room with a shared interest.

semi-related-ish ... someone here posted about their game being poached by game aggregator sites and adding a check to see if it's in an iframe and rendering something else. whoever that was, thanks for the tip!

Informal survey question: are you plural, and do you eat a lot?

(For 'normally', assume whatever you think is common; the exact quantity or pattern is not important here. If you're not familiar with what 'plural' means, please skip answering this one - I can't add a 5th option, sorry. Boosting is still appreciated!)

How do I get a mid-teen to understand data privacy, surveillance capitalism and why these topics matter?

Is there a teen-specific guide?

Thank you all very much for links etc.
The most recommended works are:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765323118/little-brother by @pluralistic
https://nostarch.com/smartgirlsguide by @violetblue

as well as ' Government Surveillance: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)' https://yewtu.be/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M