Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38164414

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Make it need JavaScript so you can make scrolling into a slow, clunky slideshow where the text has additional delay before appearing... Absolutely brilliant /s

Good example of modern bad website design... at least in my opinion. Sigh... that's what web frameworks and the 10 layers of complexity are for right?

Qualifying as an "insult" are another category of terms to me, but obviously subjective.

A talk at a scientific conference, attended by adult scientists, was pulled, and one of the reasons given was "in order to ensure the safety and dignity of all of our members".

A __talk__ at a __scientific conference__, attended by __adult scientists__, was __pulled__, and one of the reasons given was "in order to __ensure the safety and dignity__ of all our members".

Disagree with the talk, don't attend, but apparently adult scientists need to be protected from listening to speech now...

Fragile little buggers... (or one hell of a violent talk...)

Writing > Video, because:

a) I have control over pace. Not just how fast I read, but how long I look at a graphic, or a slide, or I might reread a significant sentence, skip a paragraph where the author dwells on something for too long, stop reading to research something,... this also allows me to skim something to see if I'm interested... this is very hard to do with a 2 1/2 hour video... to the point of where I'm not looking into it for that very fact alone, I'm sad to say. I don't want my attention grabbed by 20 minutes of video watching to find out if it's worth watching...

b) Text automatically engages your critical thinking completely differently.

In text form it's far easier to see argumentative structure, and you are far more critically engaged in a subject matter. This applies to the reader, who can far more accurately scrutinize the arguments and logic applied, but also to the author while writing, who therefore produces by average far more valuable content. If you don't believe me transcribe audio to text (whether most speeches, podcasts, or other), and read it critically as if it was a book and find how (in most cases) horrendously it performs as text. This is by the way something we completely lost. Politicians long gone spoke modeled after written text. Speeches transcribed from Abraham Lincoln and fellow politicians of the era read like formally written up arguments... barely anyone can talk like this anymore (we've lost so much in that department).

c) Writing is in some ways more and in some ways less effort than a video. And I'd argue it benefits the content itself. All that energy going into video production, editing, having a nice background and good sunlight for talking to the camera, would be so much better spent on properly writing, researching, citing sources... I'm in no way saying none of it is done, but priorities are completely different when "producing a video essay" versus "I'll write something proper that can stand scrutiny". And I'd argue the latter produces higher quality content.

d) Text is far more easily accessible. I need a static HTML page to host text, it doesn't need any bandwidth to speak of, I can easily host it on my own site, on a blog hosting service, move hosting services, you could even use a pastebin and tweet the link. It's searchable, it can be fully indexed by search engines, it can be accessed via screen readers, easily auto-translated via any tools of ones choosing, easily copy-pasted into your own notes, can be easily cited, extended, worked on...

God I wish people would write more, read more, and in turn produce less videos, and watch less videos... but I might just be a walking dinosaur, or (since I am not even middle aged) just have grown up differently, so... I don't know...

A few points I'd like to make regarding your assumptions and my view of Japan, which I'm not claiming is fully correct, but has a different perspective to offer:

a) I'm not an expert, but Japan's debt is mostly domestically owned (companies in Japan, Bank of Japan, et cetera) and they hold huge reserves in foreign currencies. Economics is more complicated than a simple debt figure, and I'm not well informed about the details, but the ratio of "debt to GDP" by itself isn't the holy grail as far as I know. Devil's in the details. It's a huge problem, but not as large as the number by itself indicates.

b) Japan is self contained. They have a unique self contained non-extremely-western-poisoned culture, an aging population without relying on immigration, their ethnicity makeup is 98% Japanese (I'm sure them being an island, the language and culture barrier are a factor). Find that bad or good, but I think there's something to that, and I think it's important when discussing their culture or their country.

c) Japan is a paradise for geeks, regarding how many possessions are treated and treasured. You've seen outdated tech and thought it was bad? I'm here ordering old consoles, games, dvds, books from Japan and the condition "slightly worn" from a Japenese seller is the American equivalent to "As good as new, perfect condition". Japan is a paradise for cameras, old game consoles, hard to find hardware, watches, ... arcades you wouldn't be able to find in any other country because they've given way to "the times" in other countries... you see a fax machine, or I guess potentially minidisc player, a discman, old cassette player... sold as "new" and think it's bad? I'd love the fact and buy all of them...

d) Toyota is one of the top 10 companies by revenue in the world, still one of the largest car manufacturers, and famous (among other Japanese companies) for efficient and world pioneering management techniques... Japan has the third highest GDP and ranks 19th in the HDI... is it maybe too soon to sing their demise?

Not picking a fight, but from my perspective your comment comes off as condescending, culturally biased and close-minded... Deriding a whole country/culture/economy because of how you interpreted certain things while visiting...you're citing Japanese toilet buttons as an example for their technological demise given their bad UI (having buttons)? Should it be voice controlled, have a touch panel, connect via Bluetooth to your smartphone and have its own bespoke App, offer fancy usage statistics...

You were there for months and this is your cynical take? How could I, as an outsider applying a similar spirit to yours, rate China (censorship, the CCP, inequality, corruption, certain infrastructure projects, technological tracking), the US (politics, cultural crazes, depression, high school system, prison system, weapons, policing), Europe (immigration and identity crisis, EU, ...), Russia/Ukraine..., Mexico, Brazil,...

This is meant to illustrate: a cynical take is easy to come by...

I understand you would want to have some leeway so someone playing the game doesn't surpass the 'disk space required' within the first three days just because of a few additional maps/skins/textures downloaded while playing... but over 50 gb of leeway given an install size of 33.6 gb?

Maybe pointing towards something else about gaming I don't understand...

Without any of this information the story is a bit of interesting trivia, little more, and provides very little to discuss in my opinion. The quality of comments so far reflect this lack of substance.

And just to make sure: None of what I said is meant to belittle his situation from a personal/human perspective.

sigh...

written by two employees working in the 'low-carbon division'. Maybe they're about to quit to create a ton of Social Media accounts and produce Youtube videos and to deride themselves as heroes...

To anyone bothered by my demeanor: excuse the cynicism, I have little respect for "open letters", it's childish and narcissistic. I'm sorry the evil hierarchical structure doesn't give your opinion enough credit, you, who should obviously be running this place. So yeah, better cause a media stir like a little child in a supermarket wanting chocolate... also little respect for the blown up media coverage around such minor events.

But obviously my point is that if I'm officially stuck to your client, maybe give me a working version when Ubuntu is updated, instead of me getting warnings about "no matching release candidate" (or whatever the exact wording) and me being vpn-less for weeks. If I pay I shouldn't have to rely on hacky stuff to just use your service. Also maybe react to an E-Mail I send to support? Also I personally am not using mozilla vpn anymore, but as said: maybe someone else can profit from your link.

One issue w/ their vpn was stability and speed (not extremely bad, but better now on a different provider), but the main crux was that they officially supported Ubuntu but would only support a new Ubuntu release many weeks after release date. So you were left without vpn (think they don't support plain wireguard/openvpn from CLI, you're stuck with a client not available for your officially supported OS...) or had to hack around to install the old version... An E-Mail I sent to support asking about this was ignored, I never received a response (as a paying customer, mind you).

Cancelled my vpn account then and there. Getting into the issue of running and moderating social media? Seems like the last thing I'd like to get into, when my goal is to write software and get stuff done. Especially with how toxically PC and about x-rights here/there/everywhere and "pseudo tolerant" parts of the software ecosystem have become (and those will be the ones most active on such platforms)...

Work on browser fingerprinting prevention, or on your browser engine, or consider maintaining an easy to install privacy respecting de-googled android fork... (bit out there already, still better than running a social media server...), bring more add-ons to firefox mobile, port more tor browser technologies to mainline firefox to be togabble in the settings...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37692454

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

85 GB of free storage listed as minimum system requirement?

Granted, I haven't seriously played any major games for at least 10 years I'd say. My occasional playing is limited in time and scope and usually involves reliving some old titles... is this really a new normal? We're also not talking about a big MMORPG with an incredibly wide world... Counter Strike is still a FPS you play on small maps right?

(edit: I just rechecked to make sure it doesn't say 8.5 GB, which would have also seemed a lot to me... I'm really getting old)

When I read "I'll admit I only skimmed this article" I though maybe due to blocked JavaScripts the article didn't load for me and I only read the preface of the actual article or something...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room

> The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Due to the room's particular size and geometry, certain frequencies of the recording are emphasized while others are attenuated. Eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the characteristic resonant frequencies of the room itself.

performance recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhtO4DsSazc

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33514094

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

For all the people still complaining about the SMS thing: I get it, at the same time, I don't. When I first installed Signal I was surprised and annoyed it wanted to be my default SMS app. What does SMS have to do with encrypted messaging? I immediately saw people would use Signal, send SMS, and assume they were securely messaging. Now Google is pushing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services which Signal can't implement.

The official announcement back then did not provide enough context, this here does https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...

Are they supposed to 'keep' people esp non-techies from using RCS 'by default' and make them use SMS? The app that cares so deeply about encrypted communication?

My thinking: integrating SMS into Signal was a dubious move to aid adoption. I could make the reasonable argument it should've never been done. With the arrival of RCS and SMS falling by the wayside more and more, it just can't be justified any further.

Sucks for adoption? Maybe. But honestly, Signal can't want people to use SMS, right?

recent tweet of his: 'To clarify: I'll likely continue to post new stuff (blog posts, project releases etc) here, and I'll watch out for DMs and mentions, but I'm not going to be refreshing my timeline or actively seeking out conversations to engage in any more' - link for the curious: https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1588778119422701568

reminds me of all the "Quitting Facebook" memes.

I'm gladly going to be wrong, but Mastodon will never be mainstream _anywhere near_ to what Twitter was/still is for all the reasons that have been pointed out on every HN thread about it for days now... How about waiting to see what happens instead of an ideological knee-jerk 'pat myself on the back' half-quitting but not really reaction? Sigh... and the love it gets here, I can't understand it...

It's going to come off as harsh but I can't read this and not think of a petulant child not getting what it wants.

Maybe it's just because I don't have Twitter, Facebook or any of that crap so I guess I can't understand it because I don't have a stake in any of it... guess that kind of reaction is typical for someone living the messy life of hour by hour social media craze.

(sorry I could not refuse to write this comment)

I don't want to be locked in, I also don't want to be manipulated by shiny virtual crap. Activities also is such a poor metric. On many days I have simply one commit, because it's a night of programming followed by one push to the repo... friend of mine wrote a script that makes one-line changes to a file and pushes regularly, so his activity chart looks great... (his first idea was to have it spell something out)

The trend with github seems obvious, it'll be a linkedin dev-hiring social media crap-platform people stay on for visibility and many developers eventually won't know how to use git outside of it... (and we hear the cries of "I'd like to contribute but it's not on github..." and some projects will see it as a feature of being not on github to keep those kind of people away).

So many things are going to sh*t... and people like it, which is the worst. sourcehut.org is a nice alternative (I have an account). I also wish more people would just host their own gitea instances.