Very cool, and thank you for taking the time to make such a detailed post!

If you are using any Synology products with your setup, you should go ahead and apply the recommended updates

I’d imagine it’s the same as personal finance apps. A spreadsheet can be enough, and it is enough for a lot of people, but a custom app can make things easier:

• reducing the friction of keeping track
• built in visualizations
• alerts
• integrating the data with other tools

etc.

Something being FOSS doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe / ethical, but a LOT of FOSS apps are designed with those principles in mind.

However, being FOSS means that if an app claims that it is safe / ethical (ex. In this case, not storing data anywhere but on your device), you or an experienced peer can check the code to verify that fact.

Good note, I didn’t notice that in the original post. I edited the title

I wonder if there is any pattern to those numbers

edit: ah I didn’t notice, thanks all :)

There was the attack on the Internet archive recently, are there any good options out there to help mirror some of the data or otherwise provide redundancy?

One option that I’ve heard of in the past

https://archivebox.io/

ArchiveBox is a powerful, self-hosted internet archiving solution to collect, save, and view websites offline.

Research and organized information on a topic, however obvious it might be, is an important step towards policy changes. We also see those changes from time to time, for example some recent EU decisions

Taking a look at the current sidebar, it might be nice to reorganize the stats section completely

What I’m thinking is:

By default it will only show some stats, where users can select what stats they want displayed in the settings. This way I can hide the stuff I don’t care about, instead of having to look through the already busy list.

**Statistics:**                       [✏️edit]

- Monthly Active Users: 4,000
- Total Subscribers: 30,000

[ v see all v ]

Then expanding the box will give the full list of stats:

[ ^ collapse ^ ]


**Statistics:**

Active Users: 

- By day: 800
- By week: 1,200
- By month: 4,000
- By year: 24,100

Subscribers:

- Total: 30,000
- Local: 12,000

Comments: 
- Total: 81,000
- Today: 510
- This week: 1,315

[... etc]

It opens up the possibility of including more items in that list. We could also replace the expand option with a link to a full statistics dashboard page.

Creating a bunch of accounts possibly to manipulate votes

Looking from the admin level, doesn’t happen that often. Vote manipulation is already something we keep an eye out for, and usually it’s done to highlight certain content (ex. pushing some political angle) rather than boosting one community over another.

you can stop seeing by adjusting your “Show Bot Accounts” setting

I like some bots, but I only subscribe to a bot-only community if the volume of posts is reasonable.

Alternatively, I think both metrics are helpful in different ways

1. Quality over Quantity: MAU counts lurkers equally with active participants. PCM focuses on actual engagement.

3. True Reflection of Activity: A community with 1000 MAU but only 10 posts/comments is less vibrant than one with 100 MAU and 500 posts/comments.

I’d say votes are also an important part of engagement. It helps differentiate between good and bad content. I’m more likely to join a community with a few good posts a day (or even a week) than a bot community with many posts a day. Going by how the subscribers counts change over time, I’d say this is a common experience.

2. Spam Resistance: Creating multiple accounts to inflate MAU is easy. Generating meaningful posts and comments is harder.

While any abuse is bad, spam posts and comments are a bigger concern right now. AI generated spam / link spam is obnoxious and we deal with it often (as admins/mods). While someone could make lots of accounts to inflate MAU, it only really affects the community ranking against other communities and not day to day usage. Lemmy is already considering removing the trending section, and admins usually step in if a bunch of similar accounts are created at once.

5. Easier to Track: No need for complex user tracking. Just count posts and comments.

I’m not sure I understand this point. Are the vote/comment/post calculations very resource intensive?

All that being said

• I don’t see any downside to listing the info in the places you mentioned
• If people want such a sorting option, then sure why not. Give people options

The article also linked to this Mastodon post where someone has been sharing their findings

https://digipres.club/@foone/113313513964826090

One potential concern is

the fact that Redbox machines contain a file that has “a complete list of titles ever rented, and the email addresses of the people who rented them, and where and when.” She also found that the first six and last four digits of credit card information was logged. She said that the records on the particular unit that she was looking at contained 2,471 different transactions and had records on it dating back to 2015.

https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/contact/phone/q19.htm

Canada:

First, locked phones are a thing of the past. Effective December 1, 2017, service providers will have to offer unlocked devices to their customers.

What are the benefits of having an unlocked device?

An unlocked device can be used on other networks, which means that you will be able to switch providers and keep the same phone. That means more flexibility for you, the consumer.

You could take it a step further and set a temporary network name & password for the hotspot, and then change it back afterwards

that way you can use your hotspot near your TV in the future without worry

https://youtu.be/Q1QPXyebhiY?t=505

So what’s our timeline here?

Not long! It will probably happen in our lifetimes. We just need to figure out… how to make it work

There is nothing inherent in knockoff that says it doesn’t work. That would be a fake.

While I can find definitions that call it “an inferior copy” (link), that’s not the point. Common usage has made it so that people will assume things about the quality or efficacy of the medication when certain words are used. Even if a word is technically correct, perceptions about the word can make it a bad choice.

Often when patents expire and other options emerge, they are called “generics” or “store brand” versions. Those terms don’t carry the negative associations.

The original comment you replied to said

Yeah, they aren’t “knock-offs” or “imitations.” That is some bad reporting.

They used quotes to point out that those words usually imply an inferior quality, something which doesn’t do what it says that it does, something that is produced without permission, etc.

While the drugs may still be copies, word choice can affect how people perceive the quality / efficacy of them.

Some more discussion on this article over on !medicine@mander.xyz

See here: https://lemmy.ca/post/30650429

A few points brought up in the comments

• The shortage isn’t necessarily over, and an obvious downside is drug prices / abuse from the manufacturer
• This mostly affects larger pharmacies that can do compounding (ex. CVS, Walmart) since smaller independent pharmacies usually don’t have the means to do it. However, the specifics will vary depending on where you are.
• A more reasonable concern is that the compounded drugs don’t go through the same quality control. So while they should act the same and be safe, it’s possible that some pharmacy company (see above) is cutting corners for profit.

My thoughts:

• the US has a drug price problem
• it’s possible to get safe and quality controlled pharmaceuticals without restricting it to one company, especially if that company can’t handle the demand

community promo

If you’re a medical professional on the Fediverse, some communities you might be interested in:

• !medicine@mander.xyz
• !medical_professionals@midwest.social
• Other healthcare communities here: https://lemmy.ca/post/6611650

Privacy, security, intellectual property