A really simplified explanation: the wind pushes the kite, which unreels the kite string, which spins the generator shaft to generate electricity.

When the kite string runs out, the kite folds up or changes its orientation so the wind isn’t pushing it anymore, and the generator reels in the kite string. This takes less power than the kite previously generated because the kite isn’t pushing against the wind while it’s being reeled in.

When the kite string is reeled in far enough, the kite catches the wind again, the kite string starts unreeling again, repeat as long as there’s wind.

It’s actually, I think, a really creative implementation of wind power.

But people already have a public place to appeal. This sub, the sub you linked, pretty much any other instance that has a meta discussion community. But posting here, or there, isn’t an actual appeal process - it’s just publicly complaining about administrators.

And that was the answer to OP’s question: that there’s no single fediverse-wide place to appeal a ban, you have to follow instance specific appeal procedures, if they exist, and/or contact the instance’s administrators directly.

Which is a good thing, because it helps keep the verse decentralized.

I think, if there was a single location where the fediverse started telling people “if you get banned, post here to appeal”, users would expect some sort of formal response to their post, and get upset when people tell them posting there doesn’t actually do anything. Which would be bad. And if that location could do anything to encourage administrators to reverse ban decisions, via peer pressure or otherwise, that would also be bad, because it would compromise the independence of instances. That is to say, a fediverse wide appeal community would be at best useless and at worst harmful to the fediverse.

So I think the only appropriate response to “I was banned, what can I do” is “that’s between you and the people who banned you”.

I think any sort of fediverse-wide appeal community, or process, would risk compromising the whole point of the fediverse, ie, decentralization. The fact that admins have the final say on their own instances is part of what keeps the largest instances from controlling smaller ones and keeps the fediverse free of centralized control.

I mean, can you imagine a coalition of the largest instances coming together and telling a small instance “the appeal community agreed this user was banned unfairly, unban them or we’ll all defederate you”? Because I can imagine that sequence of events, if an appeal community got any kind of formal backing from the big instances, and that would pretty much end decentralization.

And you’re right to feel that way. Sharing dumpstered food with other dumpster divers who share your values is one thing - plenty of urban communes with shared kitchens do it. Sharing dumpstered food with random people on the street? I wouldn’t do that either 😆

My dumpster diving days are far behind me, but that attitude used to be called “freegan”.

For me, I wouldn’t criticize anyone who chose to eat animal flesh sourced in this manner - no one in the capitalist supply chain is going to make any money off you, you’re not increasing demand for animal flesh, eating that flesh does no harm to any living animal and makes it no more or less likely that more animals will be killed.

At the same time, the personal is political, and part of that is living your values in a way that is not only consistent but appears consistent to others. Publicly eating like a vegan, and sharing how your diet reflects your system of ethics, normalizes veganism and encourages people to respect and consider your point of view. Every time you, as a vegan, share a meal with others, you are also sharing your values, even if you unobtrusively choose a vegan meal option and don’t say a word about other people’s choices.

But if you call yourself a vegan, and then you eat meat, or wear leather, or otherwise consume animal products, it taints you with perceived hypocrisy, discredits your words and actions, and makes other vegans look bad by association.

Also, it just feels icky.

OP, I would ask, are you part of a collective? Are you in contact with other dumpster divers you could share or trade food with? Because I hate the waste involved, too, and though I wouldn’t eat the animal flesh myself I would be willing to give it to someone whose ethics permit it.

but these are not the best pick for everything.

Why not? Seriously, you’ve got canvas sneakers for running or casual wear, canvas boots (waxed if need be) for hiking and wet conditions, even moderately dressy canvas shoes for business casual.

I feel like, counterintuitively, fake leather encourages the idea that your shoes have to look like leather to be “dressy” or “professional”, and if you need shoes that look like leather, most people will reasonably wear leather shoes, and only vegans will buy the fake leather.

Normalize sneakers in the workplace! Hell, normalize tire tread sandals! We save more animals by making the default something that doesn’t involve animals in the first place than we do by coming up with alternatives that look/taste just like animals.

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There are more comments in this thread alone than this MAGA site will probably ever host. (Trolls and spammers motivated by this thread don’t count 😆 )

And honestly? The biggest takeaway from these comments is how many users don’t understand the difference between a protocol and a platform.

An attempt at censorship failed because the censors didn’t understand the system they were trying to censor. I think that’s both funny and satisfying.

* If you wanted to summarise this letter on a t-shirt, it would be “People > Protocols > Platforms”. *

Can I get this under Calvin pissing on a Disney logo?

Seriously, this is now my favorite summary of the fediverse.

But someday after that, we’ll reach a point when the phrase “social media is all fake robo-crap” will be as common of knowledge as “cigarettes cause cancer” or “slot machines are a poor investment”. Adults can still smoke and slot, sure. But nobody in the developed world can say they weren’t warned of the risks.

Prescient.

Bluesky is a small indie company. It can’t afford to fight the law or implement the extensive age verification the law requires. So it chose to pull the plug and leave.

FB, X, etc, have a lot more resources to implement the extensive, invasive age verification Mississippi requires and keep fighting it in court until the decision upholding it is final.

Wow, look at all those corporate buzzwords. The focus on big generic ideas and the lack of implementation discussion or specific examples. And those perfectly spaced em dashes. Chef’s kiss. Premium chum right there 😆

But AI generation aside, this article is counterintuitive in a bad way. Save a Fediverse instance by building a real life community of “handmade goods and creative projects” based around that instance? If users cared about your instance enough to have real in person events your instance wouldn’t need saving.

If anything, it should be the other way around. Real life communities can incorporate a Fediverse instance for online socializing and building community. And those instances will thrive as long as they fill a need for the community. But creating the instance first and building a community - which is several orders of magnitude harder to do - to support the instance? Sheesh.

There should be multiple independent steps of verifying if someone should get banned and in what way. And probably integrate a good test for joining the community so that it’s more likely for people to be rational from the start (that way you don’t even have to look at so many potential flags).

How much would you pay to join a community with that level of protection for user rights? Like the old subscription based forums, some of which are still floating around the internet?

Because “multiple independent steps of verifying” is, frankly, going to be a lot of frustrating, thankless, and redundant work for moderators. I mean, we know how to safeguard people’s rights through legalistic processes. Courts do it all the time. It’s called due process. And due process is frequently a slow, complicated, and expensive pain in the ass for everyone involved. And I think very few people would want to do that work for free.

(Conveniently, this would also serve as a good test for joining such a community - people are more likely to follow the rules and act like decent human beings if a subscription they paid for is riding on it, and it would price out AI and spambots in the process.)

When you start with compromises like that, the failure is guaranteed, there is no “attempt”.

That’s like saying tapering off a drug addiction is a compromise compared to going cold turkey.

I agree that food is addictive. Habits we develop around food are some of the strongest habits we have. Which is why a lot of people make radical changes in their diet - think New Year’s resolutions - and then give them up entirely because they find their new diet too hard and go back to their old comfortable habits.

If a “revolution in your kitchen” worked for you, good for you! Congratulations!

For other people, changing their dietary habits in a way that lasts a lifetime means building better habits through slow and gradual change.

Especially for people who aren’t cooking and eating alone and have to take other people’s preferences into account - that is, making changes is necessarily a compromise with the other people in their household. And it’s much easier to get your household to agree on smaller, gradual dietary changes then a food revolution.

Congratulations!

“The goal shouldn’t be perfection but rather a healthy and sensible dietary pattern that allows room for enjoyment,” Kuhnle said.

Right. Because attempts at perfection typically fail. Especially when it comes to diet. Quick and drastic dietary changes often lead to relapses and rebounds - yo yo dieting is a thing, after all - while gradually changing food habits is more likely to result in long-lasting dietary and health improvements.

It’s not about a “magical middle ground”. It’s about understanding how humans act.

I have another tip!

Michael Pollan has a dictum for health: eat “real food”. And by “real food” he means food containing only ingredients your great-grandmother would recognize.

(Or someone else’s great-grandmother in some other region/culture, if you’re eating food from somewhere else. Food you’d see on a farm or in a market before the rise of industrial food processing, is the point.)

A way to do that in a modern supermarket is “shop the edges” - do most of your shopping in the produce section, the bakery, for non-vegans the meat and deli sections, the fresh unprocessed food sections that are located on the edges of the building in a typical American grocery. Then duck into the middle of the store for staples like rice and beans and oil and stay far away from the frozen food section.

And when you do that - when you avoid pre-processed food, buy fresh ingredients, and make your own food - it’s easier to eat vegan because you control every ingredient that goes into your food. Your food will not have mysterious chemicals that may or may not be animal derived. Your food will just be food.

And not only will you be eating more ethically, you’ll end up a lot healthier.

Vegan meat substitutes are still fairly healthy compared to actual meat.

I agree, although that’s more a function of how unhealthy meat is than how healthy meat substitutes are.

And I think there’s a significant difference between traditional meat substitutes, like tofu and wheat gluten, and modern meat substitutes like impossible burgers, with high levels of sodium and saturated fat and chemical binders and industrial processing and so on.