Notices by Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 108

It took me years to realize although there are real things that have gone wrong, in my both my life and the world, there's no magic wand I (or we) can wave to fix it all. The change that's need is a transition. A gradual, life-long evolution towards greater self-awareness and clarity, and in the world, a #GreatTurning (to quote Joanna Macey), that requires a slow, patient commitment to an ongoing process of collective change.
https://www.activehope.info/great-turning.html

It took me years to realize although there are real things that have gone wrong, in my both my life and the world, there's no magic wand I (or we) can wave to fix it all. The change that's need is a transition. A gradual, life-long evolution towards greater self-awareness and clarity, and in the world, a #GreatTurning (to quote Joanna Macey), that requires a slow, patient commitment to an ongoing process of collective change.

This! 1000 times this! This is what attracted me to revolutionary politics, new age spirituality, and the obsessive pursuit of liberation and enlightenment (in both the secular and spiritual sense of the word). Everything has someone gone wrong, in the world and in my life, but the revolution, the millennium, the #AgeOfAquarias, or achieving nirvana, will fix it in a single glorious Second Coming.

> Susan would complain that the present, the life she was living moment to moment, felt unreal to her. Only the future really mattered, for that was where her ideal life resided. “If I just wait a little longer”, she would remark in a tone of wry despondency, “there’ll be this magically transformative event and everything will come right.”
- Josh Cohen
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/minds-turned-to-ash

@ultimape In AP apps, it could go something like;
* user is @mentioned in non-public post
* sender's server delivers to receiver's server
* receiver's server notices it's a non-public post, and checks if the @mentioned user is on a "DM to email" list
* if they are, retrieve their email address from the database
* mail merge the user email address, and the DM text, using a standard mail template

@ultimape
> I'm not a big fan of email though

Fair enough, and I doubt you're alone. That's what I suggest making it opt-in. But I hope to see the #UX of email improve if we are successful in spearheading a general return to federated services on the net.

> it could take a significant engineering effort to retrofit.

Not as significant as building a decent #UX around DMs in each client.

@djsumdog
> program and application are pretty synonymous

Yes, but I'm pointing out how that came about.

> app today specifically refers to mobile applications

I don't think so. We were talking about "apps" before mobiles were a thing. Remember Java "applets"? I talk about desktop apps, and I notice other people doing so all the time.

@artsyhonker ah, OK. I'm not sure how well that would work with my netbook keyboard, and I'm more looking for a software solution I can easily deploy if I switch devices. But thanks for the tip :-)

@starbreaker it is actually. Thanks for the tip.

@z428 the solution, as I see it, is basically to go back to the 1990s ISP model, where one entity hosts all your services (email, chat, blog, micro-blog, media-sharing, remote backups etc). Unlike the 90s, that ISP need not be the company that you lease your internet connection from (probably won't be), but it is an entity you have a trust relationship with. Not just an "instance" you've picked at random via web searches. I've written a bit about that vision here:
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/blog/2018/06/12/from-digital-cages-to-cooperative-digital-cafes/

@z428 Decentralization is not the problem. Instance trust is the problem. It's even more of a problem with Signal, because there's only one instance, and you just have to trust it.

@z428 all the issues you raise apply to email. Yet, email is a federated private message technology that people use every day, even for sensitive communication, without batting an eyelid. I mean, they *shouldn't*, at least not without learning to use #PGP, and even then not for anything that puts anyone's life / freedom at risk. But they do.

@artsyhonker Molly guard? Mouse is a touchpad, but I could find out (or set up) hotkeys to disable it during composing sessions ...

@starbreaker had a skim. This looks useful in general, but I'm familiar with CLI text editors, I just can't be bothered learning to use them properly. What I'm specifically looking for is something that *stops* me from editing, while I'm composing. The Hemingway Mode in GhostWriter looks like what I'm after.

@starbreaker cool, thanks!

@kensanata there was a GNU/Linux app modelled on #iAWriter that I used for a while, can't remember the name now. After a while I realized that the default text editor in any GNU/L distro does pretty much the same thing. iA Writer only seems radically minimal when you're used to composing in a word processing or desktop publishing suite.
@krozruch

#ShowerThought word processing is a computer "application" (a use you can apply a computer to). A piece of software that allows a user to do word processing is a word processing "program". Somehow, over the last 20-30 years, we got these two things so fudged together that "app" is now a common English word for any kind of program for end users.

@priryo you mean removal *of* formatting options? Any basic text editor gives you that (compared to a full word processing app or desktop publishing suite) . Especially a CLI one like Emacs or Vi. But formatting is not what distracts me. I don't do any. It's the compulsive re-drafting while composing that holds me back.

@krozruch I did have a typewriter at one point. I found it difficult to find keep it working. Ribbons and repairers are becoming more and more rare in my country. Also, I know myself, I'm very averse to typing stuff up from written or typed pages. I have boxes of old writing stored in people's attics. That's why I compose on the laptop, and why I asked the question I did ;-)

@noorul OK. So why would you use Signal? Contacts on iPhones who can't find a decent XMPP or Matrix app?