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ricci

@[email protected]

Research professor in the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah. Co-director of the Flux Research Group: https://www.flux.utah.edu. I build research infrastructure: https://cloudlab.us, https://powderwireless.net, https://emulab.net, https://geni.net.

I do not speak for my employer, nor do they speak for me

Not a boffin

Profile pic: Middle aged white man with grey hair and a large beard wearing sunglasses

Banner: Magtape of UNIX V4 and a VT220. Credit: Dan Hixson

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@regehr@mastodon.social avatar regehr , to random

I'll miss this pompous hack like I miss an ingrown toenail

Two weeks ago, David Brooks wrote his last column for The Times, after 22 years on the job. So many of us will miss his words, and that was evident by the overwhelming response; thousands of people wrote in to ask him questions, a sample of which he answered below.
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ricci ,
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@regehr I assume most of the questions people asked were some variant of "how does it feel to be such a massive tool"

@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

Hachyderm is the El Paso of the Fediverse

It can be kind of hard to understand how big a server (instance) on the Fediverse really is. I know mastodon.social is much bigger than the server I'm on, but how much bigger, really?

So what if we compare the populations of servers to cities?

I built a tool for that! https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/fedicities/

Let's compare mastodon.social, the biggest server on the Fediverse, to the biggest city in the world, Shanghai (pop 24.9M). In comparison, pixelfed.social is like Ahmedabad, India (pop 6.4M). hachyderm.io is like El Paso, Texas (pop 679K). The server I'm on, discuss.systems, is like Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany (pop 32.1K).

Cool but maybe I'm not so familiar with some of those cities. What if we compare to cities in Mexico? (mastodon.social is Mexico City, Hachyderm is Tepic) Or Ontario? (mastodon.social is Toronto, Hachyderm is Caledon).

Play around with this tool, select an area of the world you're familiar with, and get a better sense for how big all these servers really are! Check out what your own server is comparable to!

Screenshot comparing Fediverse servers with Mexican cities
Screenshot comparing the size of Fediverse servers with cities in Ontario, Canada

Screenshot comparing the size of Fediverse servers with cities in Ontario, Canada
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@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

Crash-landing on planet in 10 minutes, get your mute buttons ready!

I think we are watching This Island Earth or something idk I better figure it out

ricci OP ,
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ugh I just got a commercial that said "let's asiagoooooo" and that's enough for me for one night thanks, the movie hasn't even started

ricci OP ,
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okay, confirmed: this is indeed on earth. neat.

ricci OP ,
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"tell, don't show" - the big G, I guess

ricci OP ,
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I see, this is only set on earth because they couldn't afford to pretend to go to other planets

ricci OP ,
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oh my god even the fighting is star trek

ricci OP ,
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so I guess instead of doing space racism we're just going to do earth racism

ricci OP ,
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lame-o people use cars, cool kids use the subway, got it

ricci OP ,
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vulcans but on EAAARRTTHHHHHH

ricci OP ,
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why does this extra-blond man look like he's badly dubbed???

ricci OP ,
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"political correctness GONE MAD"

ricci OP ,
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very bad is when plow

ricci OP ,
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cabbage merchant spotted

ricci OP ,
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still taking about a man, keep trying

ricci OP ,
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are there

  • two women
  • who have a conversation
  • about something other than a dink

ricci OP ,
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mansplaining, or manspreading?

ricci OP ,
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"please, go away"

the most relatable line so far in this movie

ricci OP ,
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excuse me all these conversations are still about dinks, the lengths to which this movie will go to avoid a Bechdel pass are astounding

ricci OP ,
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all dinks are bastards

ricci OP ,
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and now the director's barely disguised adaptation of a plot from his other show about aliens to earth for some fucking reasons

ricci OP ,
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"dink extract" oh my gooooodddddddd

ricci OP ,
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for the women watching, yes this is how the world looks to us dinks

ricci OP ,
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yes they are all fighting over the virile man, looks how feminist we are

ricci OP ,
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you leave your dinks OUTSIDE???

ricci OP ,
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cover those dinks please

ricci OP ,
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you just take whatever a dink offers you huh

ricci OP ,
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oh right there is another plot, thanks for the reminder, I guess?

ricci OP ,
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dink antidote is ... E? T? I can't tell

ricci OP ,
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the way this man said "this dink just may have a surprise for her" like it was some kind of good line

ricci OP ,
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let's exchange dinks 👉 👈 😳

ricci OP ,
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do I HAVE to finish this

ricci OP ,
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"oooohhhhh please don't" what a dink

ricci OP ,
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every billionaire is a dink

ricci OP ,
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can we please please please get these people to stop talking

ricci OP ,
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never mind the kissing is worse go back to talking! go back to talking!

ricci OP ,
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how much dink would a dink dink if a dink could dink dink

ricci OP ,
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they have said dink so many times that it has lost all meaning

oh wait except it never had never had any meaning

please just stop

stop saying dink

stop kissing

stop acting

stop

just stop

ricci OP ,
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oh god ALL LIVES MATTER what a fucking tool

ricci OP ,
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let's see how many times they can fit the word dink into the last 5 minutes

ricci OP ,
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chekhov's dink

ricci OP ,
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you know, instead of making this movie, they could have not

ricci OP ,
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"a thousand new adventures, this has been one of them"

I would not actually describe it that way, no

@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

The hardest problem in Computer Science is doing your job while your neighbors are being abucted by masked thugs and executed in the street

@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

I am so tired of convincing websites I'm human. Fuck you maybe convince me you have something worthwhile first

@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

Launching their new social network, W, the EU posted a map of where other social networks are hosted. It showed nothing in Europe.

But their map is wrong.

Here's what Mastodon actually looks like, and what the Fediverse as a whole actually looks like.

https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/map/?source=fedi

A screenshot of a map showing that many kinds of Fediverse instances are located around the world.

A screenshot of a map showing that many kinds of Fediverse instances are located around the world.
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@ricci@discuss.systems avatar ricci , to random

https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ has been switched over to new datasources for the social networks, coming from my own crawler and observer. Improvements include better heuristics for fediverse user counts and real monthly active user stats for / . I'm also making more raw data available, both for the most recent counts and historical data at https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/data/

Overall, doesn't change the conclusions much, but I'm very happy with these new datasources.

A screenshot of "Are We Decentralized Yet?", showing statistics for The Fediverse and The Atmosphere. There is a banner at the top announcing that it is now using new datasources
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