anon6789

anon6789 , 2 days ago

I was thinking about this last night. I would never have bothered to make this much content for a place like Reddit or Facebook as there is just too much attention on other things. Over the last year I've spent who knows how much time making, finding, and editing content on here and engaging people to try to keep their attention. It's nice in that I feel heard, but it's also such a small crowd, I notice when people show up and start participating, but also when they stop participating. I've built a pretty big following for Lemmy. I'm currently juuuuust not making the first page of biggest communities, but I feel I'm doing well for a niche community here. But the given number of regular commentors I get feels like it hasn't increased over the last 9 months. As soon as I get new people that comment and participate, the same number drop off. It just feels like I'm not getting anywhere, and it makes me question this as a platform. I've got about a half dozen people I'd call regulars, and new people pop in and out, but if I stop to think about the effort in, I wonder how much minimum user feedback I can get by with to do this another whole year.

My current goal is to make it to December and do the Superbowl Owl of the Year Tournament again. That was a huge boost to the community for those few weeks, but that was a toooon of effort to do by myself. Thankfully someone usually chimes in with some positivity and has a very enthusiastic response to something I've shared that can boost my morale, but it really is tough to keep putting work into what many times feels like a void. I always make sure to thank commentors for saying nice things or just participating, because I wouldn't keep doing this without them. I always tell anyone who listens the commentors are just as important as the posters because you won't have one without the other.

I hope for great success for everyone on Lemmy as a platform, but we all need to always try to be more active than we are if that's going to happen. Just post a "I really enjoyed this! Thanks so much for sharing!" once every day or so if you don't feel you have anything topical to add to a post you enjoyed. I know it means a lot to me to see that on my work, and I'm sure it does to most posters. Even when I just share a picture, I may have spent an hour scrolling to find you that pic, verify it's not AI or stolen, and find a little fact or something to add to the post, It's a really quick and easy way to do a nice thing to show someone that made something for your enjoyment that it reached someone.

anon6789 , 2 days ago

I do the reading and research required to make my posts for myself, but the time spent to turn that into a good post is not insignificant. The sharing is to try to build up Lemmy as a community, and to try to help save other people time doing the learning that I've done. It's an act of giving of my time to try to make a positive change in others' lives. It's a voluntary personal sacrifice, and just seeing some happy responses is all I hope to get. It isn't for people to sing my praises, but to receive a positive comment in return is what shows me that I'm not throwing my work into an empty void and just wasting my time. It's the only feedback we get here, and I think we should all give more feedback to the posts we enjoy if we wish to keep getting them. I feel that is a very fair price to pay for free content.

anon6789 , 2 days ago

It feels so strange when I see it as someone who has only ever lurked online and is pretty quiet in person. I liked what I saw when I came here, and wanted it to succeed, and making this a place where people actually converse is the only way to be viable. I can't make anyone else post or comment, so I just started to do it myself. Sometimes we have to put our natural comfort zone aside to do what we feel needs to be done.

anon6789 , 2 days ago

Well, you did respond to this, so that's a great start!

anon6789 , 2 days ago

I recognize your name, so you're doing something right! 😄

Just do your best to make this a fun place, both for you and others.

There's even a few people on here I wish would post less if they want this place to stay good! 😜

anon6789 , 2 days ago

I do really appreciate getting to give you guys a smile every day with something fun. I dabble in other comment sections, but so much news seems negative, I mainly try to keep a bit of positivity flowing.

I'm glad you got motivated to participate. I had to fake some enthusiasm to make things every day early on, but now that it's become a habit I look forward to and I've gotten familiar with a number of you, it's something I really look forward to doing.

I regularly scout to see what people miss from Reddit, etc and I saw a post the other day saying there is a sub that would read research papers together and I thought that would be really helpful as I've branched out into trying to ELI5 owl research for you guys. I hope that person can stumble onto that and maybe participate. It's fun to see where we'll go with Lemmy.

If you keep commenting and upvoting, I'll keep posting. I'm already looking forward to this year's Owl of the Year. It was so hectic for me, but we all seemed to have a ton of fun!

anon6789 , 2 days ago

Everyone said it was hard to pick between 2 great owls, but I had to narrow it down to 32 out of 250! 😵‍💫

I'm glad I'm able to entertain, educate, and motivate you. I do really feel that it is a team effort for us to succeed as a platform. I have a bunch more great stuff on deck for you guys, so keep checking back!

anon6789 , 9 hours ago

I did see you had Superbowl on your list and I'm always happy to see other people promote it. It's big enough now that I've slowed down promoting it myself so I don't seem pushy. It's been a ton of work, but it's with it to know it makes people a little happier each day.

News, memes, and tech do seem pretty dominating here, and while it's nice getting notification of all that stuff in one place, I still prefer to go to actual news sites I trust. If I spend too much time doing it here, I feel I read more comments than actual articles, and half the comments seem to be made before actually reading the article, so it's easy to get misinformed or biased opinions rather than facts

I've not sought out any direct help for a few reasons. The primary reason is my content is all stuff that I like. It's a labor of love and not a job. I share what I do because I like it and I think you might like it too. If I asked someone to help me out, I'd feel like they're working for me and trying to post what I'd want, but what they'd want. Bigger projects like the long articles and Owl of the Year are also my personal vision, and honestly, I want those done exactly my way, so again, I don't want to make someone else carry out my vision and be frustrated if they can't do that

Also, I feel the people that create the communities should be more active in their actual management. I didn't start Superbowl, so I'm just a guest. I share my stuff and try to make it a better place, and that's the end of my role. Earlier on, I thought it might be better to join with Birding or some other community, or maybe instead start a Raptors community where I could also do hawks, eagles, vultures, etc. Superbowl had a good bit of Reddit momentum, which I believe helped make things self-sustaining faster than for some other communities. I think combining small groups would be the way to go for a lot of things, but that isn't my call.

Ultimately for growth though, it can't be a daily responsibility for anyone. Maybe if you had a group of 5-10 people that can post daily, like those big politics, news, tech groups do, but most communities would be better served by 30 people posting 1 things a month than 1 person posting 30 things a month. It makes it diverse, and that will pull in more people as the flavor of the group will be less one note, and losing one or 2 people doesn't hurt the group as much.

As much as you like my content, their might be some that like different things than me. Like I don't enjoy many of the really small owls as much. When I do post them, many love them, but I don't post them much because they don't interest me. If someone that did love them shared them passionately, that would invigorate that group more than I could. Also, if you didn't like my writing style or if I just write too much or too little, a handful of people writing in their own voice would be great.

I do think some instances have communities to try and get inactive communities into new hands, but if they're dead, they're probably not big enough to be self-sustaining. I see you post to a few music communities, but it would probably be easier and reach more eyes if they were under a broader scope than synthwave and gothic industrial. People on here seem to have great interest in music discovery in a way that humans can do that algorithms can't. Perhaps having a broader scope where you can say, hey if you like "popular song x" you should check out "under the radar song y" that might get more attention. I'm into music creation and synths more than most random people, and I couldn't tell you what electronic music is in what genre, so my chance of stumbling on one of those posts is small at this point even though I'm much closer to your audience. But the principals of being defederated from other groups seems to fly in the face of people seeing they're not getting traffic, reaching out to each other, and merging control of their communities.

But I think that's necessary. Just about all of us probably stumbled upon an already established and powerful state of Reddit, where we didnt need to put in as much work to get eyes. We could jump in a sub with thousands or millions of eyes already on it. We don't have that power here yet. But we're also small enough but large enough you can get a following relatively quick if you do put in the work.

This is getting long, and I've probably given you a bit to think about, so I'll leave it here for now. It's given me some things to think about too but having to type out my thoughts. We all want Lemmy to be big and great, but it's gotta occur naturally. We can't force it. We've got to look and experiment and see what works and what doesn't. Evolution doesn't happen in one generation, it takes many trials and errors. We've just got to keep at making this place the best we can and the rest will follow when it's time.

anon6789 , 25 days ago

Not sure exactly why you're getting downvoted as that was essentially the point of the article:

Flame retardant chemicals off-gas or leach from the seat and interior fabrics into the air, — especially in hot weather, when car interiors can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

Advocates argue that the risks of these chemicals outweigh the benefits.

But health researchers have found that the average U.S. child has lost up to 5 IQ points from exposure to flame retardants in cars and furniture. And adults with the highest levels of flame retardants in their blood face a risk of death by cancer that is four times greater than those with the lowest levels, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

anon6789 , 25 days ago

I think many may now be too young to remember, but in the 70s and 80s, this was a big issue.

NY Times, 11 June, 1983 - DEMAND INCREASES FOR FIRE-SAFE CLOTHING

Clothing that can erupt into flames is coming under increasing scrutiny of consumer and fire safety organizations. They say Federal regulations governing the safety of fabrics used in clothing are too weak to protect the people who are most vulnerable: the elderly.

Those who most often suffer serious injury or death from clothing fires, safety experts say, are retired people who spend many hours of the day in such loose-fitting garments as bathrobes or housecoats. With the exception of children's sleepwear, for which special regulations were decreed in the 1970's, Federal standards allow clothing manufacturers to use all but the most extremely flammable fabrics.

Plastic fibers can melt to your skin, which isn't great considering you're in contact with the seats and carpets of the car. In an emergency, you're not prepared to deal with additional complications like that.

The article I linked here is pretty good, so I recommend reading it if you aren't familiar with this issue from back then. It will really help give you the other side of the issue to see why these chemicals are there to begin with.

anon6789 , 25 days ago

Going by my own car that I bought new in 2008 and still drive, the chemical residue on my inner windshield has been rather consistent throughout the time I've had it, so it is still off-gassing after all this time.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/81c94f30-3ea9-43b4-9bfb-359604637c72.png

There are many unhealthy chemicals in just about every part of the car, and heat cycles keep releasing more of them. The source for the above infographic say many studies have been done, but many sounded like they conflict with each other and many seemed to focus on short term health effects.

anon6789 , 1 month ago

I cheated the system and just politely usurped an existing comm with a few hundred subscribers thanks to prior Reddit fame! 😇

On a more serious note, I was telling someone today that I mainly try to give them content they won't be able to get anywhere else, including on r/superbowl. I filter through the hell of Facebook to pick out things they don't want to sort through, or I do summaries of research papers they don't have time to read. I search for sources of content with small audiences.

I also try to engage with everyone that replies to me. I value all my commenters, and them chiming in grows the group as much as me posting, so I want them to feel like kings and queens for participating so they come back. They can go anywhere for content, but they gave me a chance, so I want them to come back to me first next time.

Owl of the Year was also a big 2 or 3 week event that really picked up steam quickly, and will hopefully draw people back again this year. Not sure how replicable that is for most of you, but I'm glad I tried it.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

I see a bunch of complaints against Kahn, but I haven't been able to find articles on what she did that someone else would have done to be more effective. I don't normally follow this type of news, so if anyone can point me to some articles, I'd appreciate it.

I've heard a few interviews with Kahn, and she sounds like someone looking to make a difference, so I'd like to cheer her on, but if she's not the right person for the job, it'd be nice to see some examples why. I'd think much could go on to make her lose without it necessarily being due to her actions or inactions.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Dang paywall. That's at least something I can look into more directly though, so thank you.

Lemmy makes me feel right wing anymore. I think the general news and politics here might be worse than Reddit, which is a shame. There's a lot of things I'd like to learn or discuss, but half the threads might as well be bizarro MAGA rallies with how cultish they get.

I just came back to this post from one on Angela Chao, and just like the last one about that story, people are cheering on this lady's death because they don't like her brother-in-law. I haven't been able to find anything about Angela that would indicate she had it coming, but that isn't stopping anyone. If people have valid criticism of a person or idea, share it. Don't just keep shouting "such-and-such bad!" over and over.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Lol that's exactly the stuff I mean. Legalize drugs, sure. Make them safe and take the business from cartels. Legalize anonymous strangers selling random chemicals, nah.

It was good maybe the first 3 months of the Great Migration, then had a sharp decline. Those first few months were great.

I'm not here for anyone's militant views on politics, software licensing, diet, or religion. I just tend to avoid most comment sections anymore.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

We need to work more on getting in the first few comments before they get there. If I come in and hot takes are all I find, I just move on. I'm sure others do the same.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

I looked up the difference, and it seems that the majority of us have probably been raised in a place where Kahn is the more common spelling we'd encounter.

anon6789 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

According to the report, the trip details had been provided by General Motors — the manufacturer of the Chevy Bolt. LexisNexis analyzed that driving data to create a risk score “for insurers to use as one factor of many to create more personalized insurance coverage,” according to a LexisNexis spokesman, Dean Carney. Eight insurance companies had requested information about Mr. Dahl from LexisNexis over the previous month.

“It felt like a betrayal,” Mr. Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.”

Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is obtained in fine print and murky privacy policies that few read.

Especially troubling is that some drivers with vehicles made by G.M. say they were tracked even when they did not turn on the feature — called OnStar Smart Driver — and that their insurance rates went up as a result.

“I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” he said. “Same with acceleration. I’m not peeling out. I’m not sure how the car defines that. I don’t feel I’m driving aggressively or dangerously.”

In response to questions from The New York Times, G.M. confirmed that it shares “select insights” about hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding over 80 miles an hour and drive time of Smart Driver enrollees with LexisNexis and another data broker that works with the insurance industry called Verisk.

Customers turn on Smart Driver, said Ms. Lucich, the G.M. spokeswoman, “at the time of purchase or through their vehicle mobile app.” It is possible that G.M. drivers who insisted they didn’t opt in were unknowingly signed up at the dealership, where salespeople can receive bonuses for successful enrollment of customers in OnStar services, including Smart Driver, according to a company manual.

After LexisNexis and Verisk get data from consumers’ cars, they sell information about how people are driving to insurance companies. To access it, the insurance companies must get consent from the drivers — say, when they go out shopping for car insurance and sign off on boilerplate language that gives insurance companies the right to pull third-party reports.

This summary contains 489 words. I'm neither a bot nor open source, but the bot summary was poo.

As usual, lack of transparency is of key concern. Digital opt-in where other people have physical control of the device and have a profit motivation should not be acceptable.

The quote about what is a hard brake exactly or heavy acceleration is most relevant to my thoughts. Without any context, are you hard braking to avoid dangers? How many hard brakes are acceptable? What is the penalty for hard braking, etc?

My girlfriend tried the OBD reader for her insurance for a bit, and it didn't anything one way or the other to her insurance. For something as random as driving, I dont see who would want to volunteer for it. We know the only direction prices ever move is up, so what does the consumer have to gain?

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Is there anything you can do once you get the report?

This is the kinda thing that I'd probably be happier not knowing if there's nothing I can do about it.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

It mentioned logging speeds above 80 mph.

That's the highest speed limit I can find for the US, so if you're 80+, it seems you are breaking the law regardless of location.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

I take it those are the people downvoting that comment, like I made the speed limits or collect the data. 😆

I didn't know if I've been anywhere that people wouldn't say 80+ is fast though.

My old commute was a half hour all highway and busy roads. New commute is an hour, but all lazy back roads and it's so much more relaxing. People make driving into a win/lose game or something around here.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

I'm in Southeast Pennsylvania and they'll whack you for 10 over, but 20-30 over is not rare here. People just don't care about anyone but themselves on the road.

I take all back roads to work now and it's much better even though the drive is twice as long.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

This matches what my girlfriend's experience seemed to be, a weirdness about trying to please the device that has no real awareness of the situation. Second guessing yourself in an emergency isn't the best outcome.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Even the speed limits are bigger in Texas! 🤠

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Same. It makes sense in it providing a sense of control over the potential situation.

How someone else can just come in and say your personal reaction to something is wrong seems pretty disrespectful.

They can have a different takeaway, but that does not make your opinion invalid.

anon6789 , 2 months ago

I feel like I've only ever seen Donald Duck OJ as part of a cheap hotel's complimentary breakfast! 😆

I remember foil tabs like those on a few things, but I was born a smidge too late for "pop tops," which pulled off the same way, but were as thick as the to of the can. People supposedly just tossed the little shrapnel pieces everywhere for people to get poked with. Hence the switch to a tab that stayed connected to the can.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ae1b02a9-316c-48c8-a901-c1ffe53384ee.png

anon6789 , 2 months ago

Lol yes, they will always live on thanks to that reference!

anon6789 , 3 months ago

I can see a number of pros and cons to allowing drones, but draconian stuff like this doesn't help people decide things rationally.

anon6789 , 3 months ago

It's frustrating there are so many bad reviews when it's not like basic material testing is that complicated. If a few of these media conglomerates just ripped off the things Project Farm does to branch out what products are tested, that would be immensely helpful. As a bonus, much of his testing is actually interesting to watch, so you'd actually be generating double the content, the review and the test itself.

I do enjoy Project Farm is testing more household items these days. The trashbag torture tests this week were good. He tests enough catagories that with whatever item he's testing, you can see what is the best value for daily use or what to get when you really need something to work no matter what you throw at it.

anon6789 , 3 months ago

Lol he is loud I guess. I'm surrounded by louder people, so I don't notice. 😁

You can always skip to the results chart at the end. I do that for things I'm kinda interested in but will probably never buy.

anon6789 , 4 months ago

I heard someone say owl and I came as soon as i could!

May I recommend today's breaking owl news story:

What a Twist! : New study says owls may actually be able to turn their heads a full 360 degrees

Visit !superbowl for all your owl-related concerns!