Yaky

@Yaky@slrpnk.net

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨glupi jebeni bot⁩ ⁨⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Recently, saw some survey that explicitly said 1-7 is “poor”, 7-8 is “OK”, and 9-10 is “great”. Wild, not sure what the point of the scale is then.

  Same with book ratings. Looking at StoryGraph, the average ratings I see is somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5. While I would rate a decent book a 3.

  Born in Eastern Europe, live in the US, maybe that’s why.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  When I read books, picturing everything in my head is a part of the enjoyment. Often, books describe senses and feelings that would be more difficult to portray in images or video. Some examples:

  Right now, I am reading Ancillary Justice (by Ann Leckie), and the main character (who is the narrator) has difficulty with recognizing gender, so, unless explicitly stated, it is up to me to decide how characters look. Also, main character controls multiple bodies at once, and some paragraphs are full of parallel events and thoughts.

  Annihilation (by Jeff Vandermeer) has a movie adaptation, but it’s different from the book. The book goes deeper into the main characters own thoughts, concerns and regrets. It also describes smells and physical senses quite often, and the creature the main character encounters evokes emotions more so than just a description. And throughout the story, in addition to the general eeriness of Area X, there is just a feeling of being lost. (I should give credit that It Follows does the uneasy feeling really well, too)

  And just to be annoying, I can extrapolate your logic to “video does not show what happens around the camera, VR is better”, and “VR does not bring the senses of touch, smell, and heat, fully immersive simulators are better” :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How I view others in social media⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I am the same way, if I write something, I try to make it a complete, and informative statement.

  IMO this trend started with Twitter 10+ years ago, where short messages were equivalent of shouting into the crowd, and more frequent shouts got more retweets. Then there was the trend of “first” comments, glad that is mostly gone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how do I avoid becoming conformist, lazy and completely incapable of learning something new?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I knew a guy in his 30s that has similar attitudes: thinks that his ways and opinions are the only valid ones, thinks he is smarter than most people, has instant assumptions about people based on appearance, and does not take criticism well.

  From talking to him, I would say that to avoid becoming someone like him:

  • Do not define yourself in terms of work or money. Yes, most people need a job to pay bills to live. But find a hobby, passion, or charity that you like. Trying to make / hustle / gamble money for the sake of a larger number in your account (with no other goal) is honestly sad.
  • No one is out to get you. Stop seeking enemies or blaming problems on others.
  • Do not make IRL opinions from online “content” (I don’t even wanna know which subreddits and YouTube people this guy follows) Interact with real people.
  • If your friends are repeatedly calling you out on questionable or insensitive actions and opinions, listen and think for a minute.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It also works as a weather provider for Gadgetbridge!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have been using OpenSCAD to make models for 3D-printing. I know this is a specific use case, and I have no experience with the “real” CAD software, but OpenSCAD makes sense to me as a programmer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You might be interested in postmarketOS They try to mainline older Android devices. It works pretty well on the PinePhone, too.

  As far as I understand, the hardware-adaptive part is difficult to implement because ARM systems do not have automatic hardware detection like x86/x64 PCs do, so the hardware list (tree) has to be known for each device, that hardware is mostly proprietary and requires proprietary drivers. All of which results in Android phones using different per-phone-model kernels.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The code is on Codeberg, as seen on their site.

  And it’s free on F-Droid. Playstore has it for $8, which goes to the developer (and probably supporting the conversations.im XMPP server)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their proprietary counterparts?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Markor: one of the few Android text editors/notepads that saves text to text files (crazy idea, right?) and works rally well with Syncthing.

  Conversations.im for Android is an incredibly well made XMPP/Jabber messenger, and their message polling and real-time message delivery is unmatched AFAIK.

  ratbag (and the frontend, piper) is a tool for remapping buttons on mice with a sensible interface. Beats installing proprietary Logitech software.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do Americanized names of places etc exist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  But you would call Alexander or Alexandra “Sasha” or even “Shura” in some Slavic languages. And you call Robert “Bob” in the US.

  On the same topic, are “Alexander”, “Aleksandr” and “Oleksandr” the same name or not? What about “John” and “Ivan”?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does Google make money from Gmail, the google calendar, drive or other services when used with third party front ends?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  TBH I haven’t used traffic feature (or WeGo, really) enough to know if it’s good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does Google make money from Gmail, the google calendar, drive or other services when used with third party front ends?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I have been using Organic Maps for many years. They are offline-first, and use OpenStreetMap for the data. Since it’s OpenStreetMap, quality might vary by country and even city.

  If you’re looking for more commercial app, HERE WeGo / Here Maps has traffic and online accounts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there any non capitalistic technology companies still around?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It really depends on the business.

  I worked for two smaller businesses (team of ≤ 10 software developers). One was mismanaged, ran by very unpleasant people, and abusive towards employees, resulting in a huge turnover and a “dead sea effect”. The other company got government grants because the owner’s relative was a politician, and had ridiculous surveillance software on developers’ machines.

  Ironically, the most “human” and enjoyable work I did was working on internal legacy software and code rewrites for a huge corporation before and during their move towards agile and modern “conveyorized” approach to software.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  From some philosophical standpoints (determinism, for example), a person is their mind, a brain; so reproducing or simulating the brain to a very high degree would result in reproducing that person. Whether that is true or not is philosophical, and is similar to the Star Trek teleporter discussion.

  In Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe, the classification is pretty sensible: there are three levels of simulation.

  Alpha level is a nanotech scan-copy of a real brain which kills the subject, but the resulting persona is considered intelligent, a human, with rights and all. IIRC there were only 60 people who did that.

  Beta level is a model built upon all available information about the person, all audio, video, text, etc. This is pretty much what we might now call a trained AI, but it is not considered intelligent.

  And gamma level is a fully artificial persona, usually used for chatbots and what we would use LLMs for now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What determines whether people are likely to purposely (but mistakenly) put two words together (without a space)?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO tech terms evolve a bit faster and are more accepted with their new spelling and meaning. Older words are less prone to such adjustments, but “alot” puzzles me as well.

  Here are a few more to add to the confusion:

  • From your own post, we now type “website” not "web site"
  • We use email now, not e-mail, and definitely not “electronic mail”
  • “Blog” is shortened "web log"
  • Is it “username” or “user name”? They could mean different things, but might not
  • It’s always “password”, not “pass word”. Same with “passphrase”.
  • Is it “filename” or “file name”? In software, this becomes even more confusing since “filename” could imply a full path to the file, or just the name (sometimes without extension)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I watched Arrival (2016), there was a lot more to it than I was expecting⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  FYI Annihilation novel has the same premise and setup as the movie, but is quite different plot-wise. It’s more emotional, introspective, and has very vivid imagery. Much different from what I usually read, but I loved it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is a metaphor you like in your language?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ukrainian “не лізь поперед батька в пекло” (“don’t rush to hell before your father”) - a mix of “don’t be foolish / try to prove yourself / hurt yourself doing so” and also “let experienced people do their job / lead”.

  Also Ukrainian “або пан або пропав” (“Either [you become] a lord, or you disappear”), an important risky choice, or sometimes used as YOLO of yesteryear.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you have any recommendations for casual games?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Time Management: The Game

  Probably the most valuable IRL skill you can learn in a game. Or you can just chill and fish for a whole year, no one’s gonna judge you.