Thanks!

But yeah, it is rough. No wonder they keep it a secret, lol.

I have occasionally. I’ve got Google Play on my phone and I used to use a small tablet to do some reading.

Ultimately I find much better success rates reading a paper book. Having a single purpose item laying around helps motivate me, and the low-tech approach reduces distraction.

Had no idea they had an app. After peeking at that page, I still don’t. Do you just mean it’s a PWA, or is there a native one?

But yeah, agree that their UI/UX does not make it much fun. Still a great resource.

Fair enough! While I do have problems with Oracle as a company that would prevent me from considering their services, my comment above this is just in jest about the post being in this community.

Not meaning to be seriously dismissive or judgmental of the question. I totally understand using whatever resources are available.

Wrong comm.

… or is it? Using Oracle non-ironically?

Agree with this! It’s one of those things where if you want to learn to do it, just start doing. (Which it sounds like op is, so keep at that.) You find where the gaps are then focus on learning just enough to get past your roadblock.

I just pulled a valuable card and got it graded through PSA. Wound up not being worth it really for me. But that might be because I paid for a single card. At the very least you save some on shipping if you send a bunch for grading at one time, but the submission fee might lower in bulk too, don’t remember.

The fee tho is based on how quick you want it done. I wanted it back within a couple months, so it cost me like 60 bucks. If you’re patient it’s a good bit cheaper (tho they did just send me an email saying they’re raising prices). My card (fresh from the pack) graded at 9, which in my case looks like it’s going about the same as ungraded, a little bit higher. Even if the card seems perfect, 8/9/10 is basically a toss up far as I can tell. My card went up in value a bit in the months the process took, so I pretty much broke even on the grading vs selling immediately. And PSA will handle the actual selling for you if you want, so that can be nice.

Anyway, that’s just my experience, and it’s n=1 so grain of salt.

From a collection perspective, I don’t really see the appeal in owning graded cards. On a base level, I want someone to enjoy them and I think the grading tombs lower the aesthetic appeal. I don’t want to put more graded cards into the world. But in some cases you just want as much money for your cards as possible. So grading might make sense for the valuable ones if they’re in especially good shape. Check pricecharting for the cards you’re considering for grading and see if there’s a nice bump.

Pretty cool projects. I played around with the Mandarin one a little. What plans do you have for these going forward?

More languages, custom vocab lists seem like they’d be good additions, but mainly I’m interested in how you plan to improve the game aspects?

Worth noting this is not a new vulnerability, it’s an analysis of a vulnerability disclosed in December:

Following the security disclosure published in the v8.8.9 announcement
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v889-released/
the investigation has continued in collaboration with external experts and with the full involvement of my (now former) shared hosting provider.

According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact technical mechanism remains under investigation, though the compromise occured at the hosting provider level rather than through vulnerabilities in Notepad++ code itself.

Yeah, I saw. Really good! Also saw that F-Droid should be soon, and that sign ups have spiked. The content on there has already improved slighly in the last handful of days. There’s hope for it!

Here’s how Bruce Schneier approaches it: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.html

Thanks, good to know.

More interesting, they at least address the decentralization question:

Why isn’t UpScrolled a decentralized platform?

Because it doesn’t work for what we’re trying to build.

UpScrolled isn’t decentralized (yet) because today’s open protocols (e.g., ActivityPub, AT Protocol) don’t reliably deliver what we need for a mainstream, video-forward app: fast global discovery, stable search/ranking, and smooth media. In practice, these stacks still lean on centralized indexing to work well, so we’re shipping the experience that works now—not a theory.

We keep things open and simple with lightweight, common-sense protections—spam/bot filtering, straightforward reporting, and consistent deletes when people remove their own content. We’re building interoperable by design (clean exports, stable APIs) and will add optional bridges to open protocols as they mature, so you can reach more people without sacrificing speed or simplicity.

Which, honestly, fair. Federation does have some issues.

I’m not seeing anything on open source tho, which I have a harder time seeing the justification for not doing. But it is what it is.

Yes! It’s completely silly. A ‘poll’ designed exactly for the people that want a noai option, to be shared in places like this so those people (like me) can get the tiny satisfaction of hitting No.

They were never wondering what the result would be, they were never trying to gauge their userbase’s preferences. It’s just a page they thought people would share to spread awareness of DDG.

Is it? That got my interest, but I can’t find mention of it on their site or FAQ

(I know Loops is, maybe I wasn’t clear but I was meaning to ask about the other one.)

I heard briefly about this on Loops actually, lol. I wonder what’s the story with it? Is it some big tech company’s new product, a stand-alone startup? American or some other origin? Decentralized? Open source or proprietary?

Not deadset on any of these as deal breakers, but would be nice if some aspects inspired confidence.

I think they’ve really dropped the ball not having Loops do some kind of soft re-launch this week. We’ve known the changeover was coming, there probably won’t be a better moment than this to tell anyone “Hey, Loops is an alternative if you’re leaving”.

Not having a ready to download app in any store, even F-Droid, is such a shame. IMO, short form video makes more sense on worse platforms like a mobile phone. (I’m observing, not complaining too much - it’s not like I rolled up my sleeves and contributed.)

For anyone that wants to make videos, every category is wide open. If you’re making anything compelling (outside maybe Linux and politics), there’s not much competition. Claim your spotlights now.

If anyone that makes videos on Loops reads this: I’m begging you, please put captions on your videos. Most of my ‘doomscrolling on the phone’ time doesn’t happen in situations where turning the volume up is convenient/appropriate.

“Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe.”

Oof, this still isn’t up on F-Droid or either main app store. That’s a shame, I thought this moment would be a great time for Loops to get some user base, but it seems like it’s still not ready for wider adoption.

That said, it does look a lot better now than it did a few months ago when I last tried it. Here’s hoping it picks up some momentum. I finally tried TikTok last year, and was really impressed by the breadth of videos and how quickly it was able to start showing me things I enjoyed. With the recent change in ownership, I don’t know that I’ll revisit it much if at all. Would take quite a lot to replicate even a little bit of the zeitgeist TikTok had going. But like with Lemmy and Mastodon/Bsky, I’m hoping I can do my little part by choosing where to put my attention. Just don’t know that I’m going to find much there I care to see, for now.

Really? That seems a little unusual. The handful of places I’ve worked have all asked me what kind of direction I want to move in, with management path being an option (which I didn’t pursue).

Actually getting those roles is another story. I’ve seen leaders go for many years without becoming managers, others switch over somewhat quick. But it seems like being open about what you want you work toward should, in a good work environment, get you some support toward it.

Doesn’t have to mean you’re trying to steal your boss’s job. Could be stepping into a support or backup role for them, being ready to fill the shoes if they get promoted or job hop or retire, or could just mean getting some leadership practice. You can frame it as professional development, to be ready for other internal lead roles if they open. Then when/if they don’t, use that experience to apply at other companies too.

I disagree. In theory, the crowd-sourced curation and moderation is a great concept. Comments still accomplish that to some degree, but I like the votes.

There are a lot of problems. Bandwagoning like you mentioned - people are more likely to up/downvote if they see it’s already going one way. And the almost opposite problem, where low-effort votes only look at a headline or title without clicking through or actually reading the content.

But to me it’s almost a moot point on Lemmy anyway. Sorting by Hot or Scaled surfaces new content heavily regardless. Even when it’s spam and getting downvoted to oblivion, seems like the posts still show up on my feed just by virtue of being recent.