I think it remains to be seen. If the vast majority of text I read is synthetic, my writing will naturally start to smell synthetic too.

When it comes to tech layoffs, the AI argument is almost complete BS. If they really wanted to increase productivity, they’d be purchasing agent subscriptions, not laying ppl off.

The layoffs are happening because it is too easy to outsource tech work to exploited workers in foreign countries. In the vast majority of these cases AI should be read as “Actually Indian” (with utmost respect to my Hindu-speaking colleagues, I have learned so much from you).

They are just exploiting the lack of international labor protections, there is nothing new.

I used to have everything in a git repo, but nowadays I use Nix with Home Manager, and I don’t want to look back.

I have been toying with the idea of forking Servo to make a scriptable keyboard-driven browser, like Nyxt but with something else instead of Lisp.

Probably too huge of a project for one hooman though.

TIL, thank you!

Cactus - Cacti Sarcophagus - Sarcophagi Octopus - Octopi Campus - Campi Mouse - Mice House - Hice

All software is political, riddled with biases and potential security risks. Most of the time we ignore the policy of the software, because we either agree with that policy, or are conditioned not to clock it as a “policy”, because “this is just Common Sense™”.

I suspect, if the author would have been more honest with themselves, they’d write something along the lines of “turns out, software is a platform for political action, and it scares me” - an opinion that is very valid, valuable and thought-provoking.

Try harder!

It’s okay, Elon, we all know you try the hardest.

Oh sorry, I was too focused on calling out the silliness of the idea.

Why on Earth would you curse yourself with MS Office anyway, especially if writing docs is your professional responsibility?

Why not use Git+Markdown+Pandoc, have your copy, data and layout separate?

I understand that a lot of istitutions/companies impose stylistic/technical requirements for docs and publications, - still doesn’t mean you gotta stay married to the worst tooling.

Despite whatever your lead/manager says, there is always an option to nuke it from low orbit and start over.

Get a habit of tracking your habits. When you know everything you do while “on autopilot” and why, - you can outsource a lot of chores and work to your “autopilot” self by setting up your routines and habits correctly.

This skill is best learned as soon as possible, and it’s a shame it’s not taught in schools. 20s is a good time - all the momentum you gain within next 20 years can carry you the rest of the way.

Also, don’t be hard on yourself for failing. You’ll see tons of good advice - a lot of it will seem essential (like being financially responsible), for good reasons. Just know that failing at all these things does not necessarily make you a failure or a bad person. Who knows what struggles you might/will face - as long as you survive and take care of your loved ones, you should be ok. Ultimately that is all we can do.

Also, try to engage with physical things more: people IRL next to you, touch grass, craft something with your hands. Of it’s not physical, it exists in your head, - and your head might not always be the best place to spend most your time.

Please elaborate, I’ve been interested in this for awhile - what do you use/recommend for someone who’s new?

Back in 2011 I already felt that there should be some sort of easy-to-follow hygiene to maintain around mass media, especially internet. You know, like we hide our coughs and sneezes, maintain healthy distance around people, wash our hands, use slippers in communal pools. I should probably look up if someone smarter has already done the work.

Handwriting has been proven to enhance learning in humans, so you are doing great by keeping the habit!

I don’t have much to recommend, but so far this little tool was very useful for me and my math studies: https://github.com/lukas-blecher/LaTeX-OCR

I am not a student, but I learn like a student all the time. I also enjoy handwriting (got an e-ink tablet for that) and knowledge management. I am often dreaming of a “perfect setup” where all I write gets pushed automatically through OCR into my knowledge vault (Obsidian, Logseq or whatever I/my peers happen to use). Even came up with a plan. I hope this new year will leave me enough energy to execute something useful.

Would you like to collaborate on that perhaps?

As someone who has built a career in building and maintaining digital services, a lot of what Carmen talks about rings very true to me, especially this part:

“The platforms make money based on the time we spend on them, and they don’t hesitate to use unethical, addictive resources, so how are you going to ask a 10-year-old or a 13-year-old to stop, if it’s even hard for us adults?”

I’ve struggled with social media and technology addiction myself, so in my mind, allowing a child a smartphone is akin to teaching them how to smoke - that is how toxic and generally “bad-for-your-health” modern internet is, I think.

At the same time, I am not (yet) a parent, so I really don’t know how am I going to be making such a decision when the time comes.

You know what, cucumber is not even a fruit, but once you try adding just a little to your fruit smoothie, there’ll be no turning back.

Brace for a hot take.

Most of these points are completely void, not because Linux is the bestest ever, but because the domination of proprietary systems has conditioned most users to comply to a lesser image of “personal computing”.

Things evolve too quickly? Sorry, we have to stay on top on security updates, new standards, hardware support, new features and ways of working - the world is changing, and our tools follow. It’s not a problem, but a natural consequence of progress. The fact that so many people view this as a source of pain in their personal computing is a problem.

Things break? Well too bad, it’s tech - it’s supposed to break. And we a are supposed to be able to fix it. If most users think that fixing tech is “black magic” - that is a VERY big problem.

Way too many choices? No - you just don’t know what you need. It’s silly to expect a Windows or an OSX user to make an informed choice when it comes to software, because they had these choices picked out for them all their life by the proprietor. An abundance of options is never a problem - our inability to orient ourselves among them is.

TLDR: proprietary computing has normalized a lot of brain-dead practices and expectations, so we crave silly and shiny while turning away from smart and pragmatic. We need better computer literacy, better education and better default computing for everyone.

Del: sorry, I had a brain fart

I’ve been running arch on XPS 15 a couple years ago with no problems. There was a problem with sound on laptop launch, but a couple of months in the kernel update fixed all the issues. Arch wiki has a lot of info on hardware compatibility, as well as steps you should take to enable something that doesn’t work out of the box