I agree it seems that "smokeless tobacco" means "consuming tobacco by putting it in your mouth rather than putting nicotine into air and inhaling it". I assumed that "smokeless tobacco" included "vaporized nicotine", probably due to my unfamiliarity with nicotine products.

Regardless, it seems that using a vape leads to less harm than using cigarettes:

There is substantial evidence that e-cigarette exposure is associated with biomarkers reflective of cancer disease risk. However, the overall evidence on cancer risk is still limited and should be further investigated by future research, particularly rigorously designed clinical trials and population-based research.

FDA officials concluded that the health risks from Zyn pouches are likely lower than potential risks from using snus (low toxicant smokeless tobacco) and the FDA has already concluded that some snus brands are significantly less harmful than cigarettes.

I don't consume any nicotine myself, but it seems that letting people use nicotine in a way that is less harmful to their health is a good idea.

There have been specific statements made that express that you shouldn't use nicotine:

"There is no safe tobacco product," the agency said. "Youth should not use tobacco products and adults who do not use tobacco products should not start."

When I swear, I tend to use "fuck" or "bitch", and maybe "shit"

Maybe the author meant to express, "Regardless, if the global system of interconnected computer networks is functioning properly and you have a connection to it, you can host a document on the web." since a "global system" and "your connection to it" are separate things, and either can have a problem while the other does not have a problem. That's me being charitable though, and I agree that it's more likely that they were being redundant.

I also find it interesting that the original sentences reference "the internet" (with a lowercase "i") rather than "the Internet". "The word is sometimes still capitalized to distinguish the global internet from smaller networks", so it's interesting that the author might be referencing an internet that is not global rather than a global network. They probably are referencing "the Internet" though, since "many publications, including the AP Stylebook since 2016, recommend the lowercase form in every case".

I'm not sure that your reply is directly related to my comment. The full sentence I quoted is "Under these definitions, Bluesky and ATProto are not meaningfully decentralized, and are not federated either." by Christine Lemmer-Webber, but Daniel Holmgren talked more directly about "decentralised distribution of data".

Because of what I quoted, I don't think that "Bluesky" or "ATProto" are decentralized or federated, so it's extremely unlikely that I'll interact with them anytime soon. The particular reason that they are not decentralized or federated is not really interesting to me.

To get specific: it is a significant issue for me if "everyone can access the data but before it reaches the end users it goes through centralised applications". A "centralised application" is able to restrict my ability to contact other people, whereas with a federated and/or decentralized/distributed system, it's more likely that I will be able to contact someone that I want to communicate with. For comparison, consider how people would feel if using the United States Postal Service meant that all physical mail had to pass through the District of Columbia or if sending an email message required interacting with BBN-TENEXA just because that was the first machine to be capable of sending networked electronic mail. In the ideal case, the recipient of a message I send would not have to coordinate with me at all before they receive the message: "The first use of network email announced its own existence."

"Reconciliation must come before economic cooperation", and I doubt that there will be imminent "reconciliation" between Bluesky and people who want to spend less than $100 for each month that they want to back up content shared using the AT Protocol. This is not impossible (since "Bluesky is a Public Benefit Corporation"), and there is a documented goal to have "multiple independent Relay services", but it seems that having one would cost well over $100 each month. In the meantime, trying to cooperate with a person is harder to justify when you don't know if they are actually willing to help you or not.

As a relevant example, consider that there are a notable number of people who wish to avoid cooperating with threads.net even though I would describe it as being part of the Fediverse.

My initial thought about this is that it'll probably be interpreted as a person arguing on one's own behalf rather than having representation from counsel or an attorney ("pro se legal representation") while using a computer, since one party wasn't represented by an attorney. The fact that the computer can generate a video or text probably isn't very relevant, although that probably wasn't happening in the past.

This is interesting, but I don't yet entirely understand it.

My first thought after trying to read the entire document was that the author seems to suggest that "AT Protocol" is a natural result of the movements they describe, but I find it hard to believe that the "peer-to-peer (p2p) movement" could naturally result in things that "are not meaningfully decentralized, and are not federated".

This seems to describe my answer to this question in more detail than I'd be capable of right now: https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

I believe you're quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

It seems that document currently expresses that "the AT Protocol, which powers the Bluesky social network" is "[a] major protocol in competition with the Fediverse", which suggests that neither "the AT Protocol" nor "Bluesky" are included in the Fediverse.

Moreover, "AT Protocol" and "Bluesky" are conspicuously absent from the second paragraph of the article content / lead section.

The majority of Fediverse platforms are based on free and open-source software, and create connections between servers using the ActivityPub protocol. Some software still supports older federation protocols as well, such as OStatus, the Diaspora protocol and Zot. Diaspora* is the only actively developed software project classified under the original definition of Fediverse that does not support ActivityPub.

There discussion related to this around https://thebrainbin.org/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/705694/-/comment/5682529

I believe you're quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

It seems that document currently expresses that "the AT Protocol, which powers the Bluesky social network" is "[a] major protocol in competition with the Fediverse", which suggests that neither "the AT Protocol" nor "Bluesky" are included in the Fediverse.

Moreover, "AT Protocol" and "Bluesky" are conspicuously absent from the second paragraph of the article content / lead section.

The majority of Fediverse platforms are based on free and open-source software, and create connections between servers using the ActivityPub protocol. Some software still supports older federation protocols as well, such as OStatus, the Diaspora protocol and Zot. Diaspora* is the only actively developed software project classified under the original definition of Fediverse that does not support ActivityPub.

There discussion related to this around https://thebrainbin.org/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/705694/-/comment/5682552

How was the embedded nickname "the Iron Kidney" established?