Some experimentation with Chaos Game.

For those unfamiliar with Chaos Game, it's a mathematical experimentation (not really a "game") which applies some constraints to randomness, so order and pattern will emerge from it.

For example: you have an equilateral triangle and you start at the topmost vertex of it. You randomly choose between the three vertices, then you place a point exactly in the middle between the current coordinates and the chosen vertex. You repeat the process indefinitely, choosing another vertex and placing a point midway between the current coordinates (it's now a place inside the triangle) and the chosen vertex. Gradually, you'll start to notice a pattern, in this exact case, you'll end up with a Sierpinski triangle.

The more random and unbiased the randomness, the more quality the end result will have.

You can change parameters. For example, you can change the geometrical shape (e.g. a pentagon instead of a triangle), or you can change the ratio (i.e. how far from the current coordinate to the next coordinate: instead of going half the way, you can choose to go 1/3 (0.3333...) of the way, or you can even extrapolate past the next coordinate with a ratio bigger than 1). You can choose to not repeat the previous coordinate, or you can choose to not choose a neighboring vertex, and so on... Different constraints will result in different results, sometimes a fuzzy cloud of dots, sometimes a pattern.

It's interesting to see patterns emerging from randomness.

(I tried to send two pictures, but one of them got an error while I tried to upload...)

Things I have no interestt in seeing:
Politics, posts in foreign languages that I don't understand, posts with obscenities, bickering over who joins what network, posts about what leaders of various networks do, vegan activism/ promotion, images without descriptions, world affairs (non-Western), posts about mental health, etc.

Things I am Constantly Seeing
Politics, posts in foreign languages that I don't understand, more politics, posts with obscenities, bickering over who joins what network, posts about what leaders of various networks do, yet more politics, vegan activism/ promotion, images without descriptions (very rare here, thankfully), still more politics, world affairs and wars (non-Western), posts about mental health, and you guessed it, even more politics! At least I don't see all of the inspirational/love yourself, or religious posts. Those are just as annoying.

Posts I Would Like to See:
Animals (especially cats and birds), plants, insects, high culture (theatre, classical music, fine dining, literature, fashion, etc.), cooking/recipes, history, science for non-scientists, technology (not just how to write websites or who's doing what in the Fediverse), audio games, good news, interesting discussions, people's daily lives (yes, I know this is not Dreamwidth), etc.

Militant Kindergarten is a 15-week seminar that is part of a larger project of militant formation through group study, analysis, and discussion. During Militant Kindergarten, we read and study especifismo, a revolutionary current of anarchism coming from Latin America that, today, has become relevant around the world. We do this primarily by reading Social Anarchism and Organisation by the FARJ (the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro) and our own condensed version of the text called “104 Steps to Recovery of the Social Vector”. By reading the main text on our own and the abridged version together, we aim to refine and develop our understanding of anarchist theory, strategy, and militancy. From our close readings, we plan to discuss precise expressions, concepts, and theories.

This study will be rigorous and challenging, so it’s important that we practice collective solidarity with fellow participants. We encourage everyone to reach out to others to discuss kindergarten and build relationships that will last beyond this project. Our objective is as much about relationship building as it is about gaining knowledge. This is why we see value in combining radicalizing and radicalized people in the same learning process.

The Center for Especifismo Studies (CES) aims to create a dependably safe and welcoming environment for learning and participating. All of the organizers have attended this seminar in the past, and after finishing the sessions, we invite anyone who’s interested to join us in organizing future Militant Kindergartens.

especifismostudies.org/4th-ann…

I'm frustrated with the fact that only public posting works on this server right now.

Nothing I post with a more limited scope, like to "Friends" or "Mutuals" etc., is visible to anyone else, and I can't see anything posted by anyone else that isn't public. Nor do Direct Messages seem to work. On other social platforms I rarely post publicly. I primarily post with limited scope to my network or DM someone.

That's how I want to use Friendica, but right now I can't. It seems weird to me that I can post publicly and get engagement from other servers, even other federated platforms, but I cannot communicate privately or in limited scope with anyone on the SAME server. You'd think it would be the other way around?

As it is, I can't really bring anyone else to this server from Facebook until it is working properly, and they are frankly losing interest. They're all going over to Bluesky instead even though it's more like Twitter than Facebook. 😕

The main reasons I picked this server were that it seems to be on proper hosting rather than on someone's home hardware and is operated by non-profit organization rather than an individual, and - unlike a LOT of Friendica servers - it was open to new users. But until it works right I can't recommend it or use it the way I used Facebook. I don't want to have to migrate to another Friendica server and I definitely don't want to try running one myself.

I know the server admin is desperately trying to fix it. This post is not a dig at him. But at this point, if wiping the server and starting over would fix it, even if I had to re-sign up, I'd be okay with that. I just want everything to work!