I'm not sure how well that would work on this. I don't know the specific algo they're using, but an early, primitive one was even-odd. You divide all tokens into two groups, A and B. When generating, on even tokens you somewhat boost the odds of tokens from A, while on odd tokens, you somewhat boost the odds from B. If a high-probability word is coming up it won't meaningfully alter it, but if there's different ways something can be phrased, it can cause changes in the phrasing choice to match the A/B boosts.

Now, it's easy to see how one could defeat that algo, but I'm sure that what they're using now is a lot more sophisticated than just alternating even-odd.

Yeah, I'm extremely dubious that the open source version will "sync" with the operational version. I expect the general codebase to be truly represented, but not the "levers" that can be pushed on an operational system.

. You can't just decide you don't like the algo and that you'll modify it and use a different one;

I mean, on any decent social media platform you should be able to? Bluesky has had this feature for years. Not just algo choice, but the ability to outright create your own algos and share them with other people.

It's IMHO a red flag when a for-profit company wants to force everyone to use the same algo.

And if someone at the bar thinks you're an asshole, they'll do the RL equivalent of "blocking" you.

Once again: nobody has an obligation to listen to you, and if you think you have a right to force other people to listen to your views, you're the asshole.

I'll take "Things I've Never Once Seen On Bluesky" for $1000, Ken.

'Nuff said?

In direct response to your mostly off-topic joke, I think it just shows again what a lousy businessman the YOB is, even when he's breaking new ground in corruption. To actually make it relevant to this story, we'd have to figure out how to get the YOB to run the scam over on Bluesky, and that can't happen. Or at least it's beyond the bounds of my imagination. However here's my "criminal mindset" scheme to maximize the loot from your joke:

Sell off early access to EVERY official government announcement. The first one-minute auction would bid for the "most important" word from the coming announcement. Then there would be an auction for the top two words, then three words, then four, and all the way up to 100. Then the announcement is released to the public peasants like us.

But of course it needs AI to be a modern FinTech scam! So they use an AI to pick the words with the training objective of maximizing the loot. And of course the bidders are all using their AI agents to try to figure out what the coming announcement is about as each word is revealed. But their training objective is mostly to decide when "the story" is about to break because the big activity in the FinTech game market will happen at the point where the meaning is revealed. Hmm... That seems to increase the urge to bid big for early words, because that lets your AI study the pattern of released words to predict exactly when the break will happen.

Now I am worried about my criminal mindset. I've thought of how to adapt this business model to funding Bluesky. Considering the biddable value of messages on Bluesky it would be more of a micropayment auction, but millions of micropayments might wind up with some real money?

Deservedly Funny, and I think a good opening joke is always a fun FP, but I already want to get serious. I think "Why?" is the question.

Personal anecdote needed? I'm still using Bluesky, but never used it much. It would be amusing if there was a tool to track my personal Bluesky usage stats over time--but I don't think I care enough to click on such a link even if it already exists. I think the federated approach is a good idea, and Bluesky is nicer than Mastodon, but the Bluesky trend has been towards feeping creaturitis, and I'm not interested in fancy and time-consuming toys. Rather too similar to what went wrong with Firefox... And some more besides.

I think Bluesky is mostly a charity, but whenever I hear about new features in a charity-based nonprofit project, I start by asking myself "Would I donate money for that feature?" But the answer is almost always "No", and the implication is that my donation would be used to create more features I would say "No" about, except then it would be too late and I'd also be out the money.

What if features were ONLY added when enough people agreed in advance that the feature was worth paying for? And if they had to put their money where their mouths are before the implementation would start? What if you could easily see how much measurable cost you are creating by your usage of a website and consider that in terms of a possible donation?

So I think I have devised a mechanism to implement positive answers to such questions, but I'm not going to do an entire CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) spiel again. I'm just going to ask for your better ideas. Oh wait, I seem to have stumbled back into joke territory. The idea of constructive solutions on today's Slashdot is quite hilarious.

To be clear: anyone can join Bluesky, regardless of their views. But if your posts are mainly, say, calling black people monkeys, calling trans people groomers, things of that nature, yeah, a lot of people are going to block you on sight. That's not "censorship", that's just people finding you to be an arse and having better things to do with their time online than be forced to listen to you. Everyone has a right to show anyone else the door; nobody has an obligation to face harassment.

If you feel the need to force other people to listen to your views regardless of whether they want to hear from you or not, you're the asshole.

Meanwhile, here's the reality of Bluesky user numbers (drag the range to the full range). Funny how everyone always wants to truncate the timeperiod for the "user base" to have a start date of that last big spike.

The simple fact is that with any site, most people who visit don't end up sticking around, and there's a dropoff rate. The persistance rate at Bluesky is actually unusually high**. The reason for the spikes is that Bluesky's users joined in waves; you can track each wave to specific events. Those two big spikes in new users were the US election date and the US inauguration date, respectively. You can find various other spikes related to for example various things that happened with Twitter.

** The typical retention rate for a new "consumer-social" app is 40-50% for 1 day, 20-30% for 1 week, and 10-15% for 1 month. Compare that to the Bluesky data. Again: persistence has been very high; the new-user join pattern has just been extremely "spiky".

The problem is that you can write that list slanted in the other direction just as adroitly.

You really cannot.

Okay, I'll bite that worm you've left dangling on that hook. Let's go down the list.

Sec. Def:

Biden: Gen. Lloyd Austin. 4-star U.S. Army General with 41 years of active military service. Former Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and Director of the Joint Staff. Oversaw the drawdown of 150,000 troops and massive logistical operations in Iraq.

Trump: Pete Hegseth. White-nationalist alcoholism-scandal-plagued weekend morning co-host for Fox & Friends, former Army National Guard major. Zero executive experience managing large military commands, defense procurement, or enterprise-scale organizations. Opened his tenure by leaking war plans to a journalist by writing about them on WhatsApp instead of secure messaging channels, and is currently losing a war which he promoted launching in Iran, with zero preparation for obvious threats like drones and Hormuz closure, while spending his time obsessing over testosterone levels and beards.

Department of Health and Human Services + Surgeon General:

Biden: Xavier Becerra: 24 years on key Congressional healthcare subcommittees; Attorney General of California overseeing the enforcement of public health and healthcare antitrust laws.
Vivek Murthy: MD/MBA from Yale, Harvard faculty member, practicing physician, and two-time U.S. Surgeon General with deep clinical and administrative credentials.

Trump: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Famous antivax-conspiracist brainworm-addled kook who eats roadkill, cuts of whale heads, measures raccoon penises, and swims in sewage. Zero medical degrees, zero public health degrees, zero experience running a hospital system or public health agency.
Nicole Saphier: Radiologist who's a strong advocate of Kennedy's conspiracy theories.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services:

Biden: Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. 30-year veteran of healthcare policy and public administration. Former healthcare analyst at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), key drafter of federal health legislation on the House Ways & Means Committee, and senior official in the HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

Trump: Dr. Mehmet Oz. Daytime television talk show host and former cardiothoracic surgeon, widely criticized by the medical community for promoting quack medicine and pseudoscientific wellness supplements on television.

Department of Education

Biden: Dr. Miguel Cardona. Public elementary school teacher, middle school principal, assistant superintendent, and State Commissioner of Education in Connecticut. Holds a Master’s degree in Bilingual Education and a Doctorate in Education.

Trump: Linda McMahon. Professional wrestling (WWE) executive and mega-donor. Most famous for fighting her husband Vince McMahon at WrestleMania X-Seven in 2009 before running for congress (twice unsuccessfully). Before getting into WWE, she earned an undergrad degree in French and worked as a secretary at a law office translating French documents.

Director of National Intelligence:

Biden: Avril Haines. Former Deputy Director of the CIA, former Deputy National Security Advisor, legal counsel to the National Security Council, and Georgetown/UChicago-trained national security legal expert with decades of experience inside the Intelligence Community.

Trump: Tulsi Gabbard. Former congresswoman and Army Reserve officer. Zero professional intelligence community experience, zero senior leadership roles in intelligence analysis or collection. Before her position she was most famously known for harboring sympathies for Russia and Assad.

Federal Bureau of Investigation:

Biden: Christopher A. Wray. Yale law grad; three decades of working as a US prosecutor and attorney general under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including heading the criminal division of George W. Bush's administration.

Trump: Kash Patel. Former congressional staffer, and podcaster. Zero track record in law enforcement. Has spent most of his time in office abusing its perks for himself and his girlfriend.

Department of Justice (AG):

Biden: Merrick Garland. Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (served 24 years on the federal bench). Former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General who personally led the successful prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers. Harvard College (valedictorian) and Harvard Law School (magna cum laude).

Trump: Matt Gaetz (first pick). Former congressman who was under active House Ethics investigation for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; zero prosecutorial experience, zero judicial experience, zero executive law enforcement leadership.

Department of Transportation:

Biden: Pete Buttigieg & Polly Trottenberg. Buttigieg: Rhodes Scholar, Harvard graduate, municipal executive overseeing urban infrastructure redevelopment.
Trottenberg: 30-year veteran of transportation policy, former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (managing one of the largest municipal transit grids on Earth), and senior federal transit policy director.

Trump: Sean Duffy. Former cast member on MTV's The Real World: Boston, former congressman, and Fox Business commentator. No professional background in civil engineering, transit systems, or logistics.

How many more of these do I need to do?

Insightful? Mod parent Funny.

The word "through" is not the same as "threw", but that's just the entry point for proof of stupidity. Must have been motivated by disappointment in missing the lynching party.

Mod parent insightful or funny or something.

My own wording would focus on the meaning of the DNA. It's NOT a unique individual, which is the root of that particular flavor of insanity. It's more like a book of recipes that might produce a human being. But it's such a complicated process that quite often it just aborts spontaneously.

Or maybe go for the joke about building complicated human "devices" with unskilled labor?

Me? I favor a right to reproduce along with a right to genetic counseling. With current technologies that leads to the 1/e solution of the Secretary Problem... But technologies keep improving.