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Cake day: June 29th, 2024

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  • A large part of it is the obnoxious monetization and general enshittification and privacy violations, but that’s not all. There are a number of usability annoyances. If I’ve been away from Discord for a little while and try to continue where I left off in a thread on a server, it never properly preserves where I last stopped reading. There are often times when I get notifications but it won’t actually take me to the relevant message, and that can even result in situations where the ping just gets lost entirely.

    Then there’s things inherent in Discord’s design and how people use it. It’s become a tool that people have decided is a convenient replacement for chats, wikis, and forums - but it’s a shittier version of all of those things. Pinned messages are such a tucked away and half-baked feature. The fact that people are using Discord both to organize and discuss projects - as well as using that same space to host documentation or other critical knowledge-bases has made information significantly less accessible. I don’t want to join someone’s niche club just to “learn more.” If I want to read something I would rather just go to a wiki on the actual open web.

    Discord is hot garbage ultimately for the same reasons as Facebook. It’s trying to be everything to everyone, and dropping a black box on the open web by doing so. It’s just another example of people trading convenience for actually using the appropriate tools for the kind of job they’re trying to do.






  • We really need to stop abandoning existing foss projects and thinking a whole new thing needs to be invented. Free and open-source software is not a product, it doesn’t abide by the same rules and relationships that proprietary tech does.

    It’s more organic. It’s also a commons that we can continue to draw on, and reshape. If I recall correctly, there were something like three different vector graphic editors from the same codebase before Inkscape managed to be the one that gained traction.

    Matrix isn’t perfect, but abandoning it just to reinvent it all over again just because some people really need a thing that works like Discord, even though Discord is absolute hot garbage; is just going to re-create all the same problems. Matrix today is better than it was two years ago. And Matrix in a year will be better from now.



  • Almost. Kind of more like:

    w̴̝̉A̷̘͋t̸̨̊E̴͖̔ŗ̸͝ ̴̞͗l̵͉̍E̷͉͝f̵͙̄T̸̜̅ ̷̰̀i̷͙̿N̷͙̒ ̸̪͠a̸̪̐ ̵̪̑G̷̥̾l̷̜̑A̶̩͠s̵̟̿S̸̡̍ ̵̠̕o̷̙̓Ṽ̶̬e̴̲̕R̸͈̐ṇ̷͠I̸̝̾g̶̹̐H̶̛̪t̷̞̓ ̴͙̍T̶̜̊a̵̳͌S̵̩̈́t̵͊͜E̸͚̐ś̴̤ ̴̡̆B̸͎̌â̷̞D̶̳͐ ̵͕̌b̴̭͗Ë̵̟́c̵̮̆Ä̷́ͅu̵̹̾S̶̝͛e̷͚̓ ̷̠̆I̸̛̯ť̵̙ ̸͙͗G̶͎͐e̵̞̿T̷̬̕s̵̟̍ ̵̱͌H̸̡̉a̴̟͝Ǘ̸̞n̸̖̅Ṭ̷̎ḙ̴̽D̴̡̓





  • I think you’re right, it’s not possible without modifying the product so much that it can no longer be considered a true chocolate bar. I was going to post another comment in this thread about how I would make a chocolate bar. The sugar isn’t even the hard part - the thing that makes sugar harmful is when it’s 1) refined away from a whole-food source, 2) consumed in excess, and 3) part of a diet that is high in both sugar and fat, and low in other nutrients like fiber and phytonutrients. The first issue can be solved by using date sugar as the sweetener, which is just whole pulverized dates. Molasses (in small amounts) could also play a role.

    The bigger problem is the cocoa butter itself. That stuff is really high in saturated fats, and chocolate cannot be considered chocolate without it’s inclusion. If I were to prioritize health over adhering to a standard, I would use either some kind of nut butter as a replacement (ideally one high in omega 3, like walnut butter), or a healthier oil like canola oil. Hmm, maybe avocado could be a good choice.

    At this point I think it starts to run into stability issues, so an emulsifier of some sort would be desirable. I wouldn’t want to use industrial products like lecithins, so maybe something like chickpea flower. But then at this point we’re gone so far from chocolate bar that we’re probably talking about something that would be closer to a brownie texture.

    Another thing I found in looking into this is that there are two main forms of cocoa powder/solids. The one used in chocolate bars uses a so-called “Dutch process” which leads to a product that is lower in flavanoid/polyphenol content. The other kind of cocoa, usually sold as “natural cocoa powder” has higher acidity, so a more sour taste. It requires either more sugar to taste good, is generally preferred more in baked goods, or in some cases will include an alkaline ingredient to neutralize the acidity.

    So in pursuing health I end up removing literally every ingredient that makes a chocolate bar what it is. I guess I’m just finding out that I don’t like chocolate bars after all. XD

    It’d be interesting to experiment with these lines of thought and see what comes out…