really this is all just more evidence for the flaws and conflict inherent in the concept of “social media”. “media” makes us all publishers, all Brands, and alienates us from each other, making our relationships parasocial, not social

(“yet you participate in social media. curious!”)

…which, of course, some people on here also think you should be; I’m sure we’ve all seen people on here barging into threads like “why are you talking about this thing I don’t like. you should talk about the things that I like.”, though admittedly usually such people aren’t also alt text scolds

and in that context, adding alt text isn’t a “putting your shopping cart away” type moral litmus test. in that context, you’re no more obligated to make your posts for your 7 friends accessible to outsiders than you are to make a conversation you’re having in a public place accessible to outsiders

in that scenario, you know your entire audience: it’s those 7 people and if none of them needs alt text or cares, why bother. bsky is basically a self-leaking group chat for you, you’re not thinking about your posts being seen by others. nor should you! and that’s a perfectly valid way to use bsky!

like if you’re just posting for the amusement of yourself and your seven friends who follow each other or whatever, it’s not your responsibility to make sure that your posts are maximally accessible to literally anyone just in case the Eye of Sauron’s fell gaze—I mean the Discover feed notices you

of course, “anyone who insists on ‘artoo’ and ‘threepio’ over ‘R2’ and ‘3PO’ is probably a cop” is probably the strongest opinion I have about anything Star Wars so treat my Star Wars opinions seriously at your own peril

frankly I would respect Star Wars a lot more if they DID commit to the bit instead of retconning the Latin alphabet into the universe. I also probably wouldn’t assume that anyone who insists on writing “reshtoo” instead of “R2” is a cop, whereas I do assume that about anyone who insists on “artoo”

this is also why 80-column text on an Apple II connected to a color TV would have ugly color fringing unless you had a way to block the colorburst to prevent the TV from detecting it as a color signal and trying to decode it accordingly

Apple II graphics would have been hard mode because it didn’t have true color, just NTSC artifact color, which relied on the vagaries of composite video and the NTSC standard that would cause certain pixel patterns to appear as blocks of certain colors on NTSC TVs

but he looks like a movie president, like Bill Pullman in Independence Day! of COURSE he’s gonna be the savior of the republic!

(*quietly excuses herself to barf*)

it can actually be dangerous to boil water in a microwave because it can become superheated without boiling and then flash over into steam when the container is disturbed…but I can’t actually say that was on my mind when I experienced the same horror your friend did when I read your post 😜

when the AI bubble pops I imagine it won't be long after that DGX Sparks and similar such boxes can be had for a song

and it only sounded weird because the news networks deliberately used only his mic feed that didn’t pick up any crowd noise! people who were actually there didn’t think it was the least bit weird!