Hacker News: weast

New comment by weast in "Is Social Media More Like Cigarettes or Junk Food?"

weast — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 07:19:02 +0000

What about gambling? Definitely addictive without the mechanisms you described above.

I have heard social media described as the attention slot machine.

New comment by weast in "My Struggle with Doom Scrolling"

weast — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 19:36:21 +0000

I am currently working on a phone designed to reclaim the digital toolbox nature of the smartphone- access to maps, messages email etc, but with an e-paper display. There are some (albeit not so interface friendly) e readers with SIM cards, but I think there is great power in just having a screen that doesn't vibe with the oversaturated video and image based distractions we are so used to lugging around with us all the time.

One of the most interesting things about a hardware based restriction is that it entirely avoids the game of turning on and off apps or deinstalling them. Even if you want to respond to a message in your DMs in Instagram, it will work, but the temptation to pull up the Reels or For you page just isn't there when it's all black and white and choppy.

Mind you we are super early stages but the idea feels promising and by my own testing I have really found it to be a much more pleasant phone experience.

I'll post some links here if people are interested.

New comment by weast in "If we want a shift to walking, we need to prioritize dignity"

weast — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 08:52:59 +0000

Haribo is from Bonn, not Solingen! The name states as much, in its quintessentially german Consonant-and-vowel aliteration technique: (Ha)ns (Ri)egel (Bo)nn. Much like Rimowa (Ri)chard (Mo)rszeck (Wa)hrenzeichen, or Leica (Lei)tz (Ca)mera.

New comment by weast in "How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent"

weast — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:15:27 +0000

That is a really good point. Determination without direction (or at least a misguided one) produces a lot of wasted energy. i guess the idea here of determination with lack of intelligenxe assumes some sort of intellectually elite group that can steer the determined work to some optimal outcome.

New comment by weast in "How to find a lost phone in a no-cell-coverage camping site?"

weast — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:20:09 +0000

Kind of a moot point? Enforcing the law operates on a different level of desired outcome than the goods itself are worth. imagine you get your phone stolen and instead of retrieving it they bought you a new one creates a pretty perverse incentive structure!

New comment by weast in "From Art Nouveau to Bauhaus: How Home Interiors Looked in Popular Art Movements"

weast — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 17:57:28 +0000

Where is this? In Europe?

New comment by weast in "‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on"

weast — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 21:06:36 +0000

I think Nassim Taleb used the analogy of studing an ant or a bee colony: it is not sufficient to study the ant or the bee in isolation, as it is the interactions between them and their respective colonies that shapes the behaviour. Shifting the level of analysis makes counterintuitive behaviours at the individual level (i.e. bees sacrificially stinging attackers) make sence when we shift the level of analysis up.

New comment by weast in "The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs"

weast — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 19:38:10 +0000

I think it would be far more engaging and interesting to respond to the point being made rather than the noteworthyness of the source? I think we can maintain a critical distance to the force that allow us to live the way we do, and i do not believe this reduces us to mere hypocrites. The ability to admire and admonish these practices is deeply human!

New comment by weast in "The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs"

weast — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 19:29:39 +0000

I think what I like so much about the aesthetic is that it its age allows me to quickly forget the second order effects of industrialization and quickly, quietly appreciate the sheer magnificence of these extraction cathedrals, the total celebration of our ability to harness nature, to defy the balance of the world in our favour. If my suspention of disbelief is paused for a minute, i recollect the opening scenes of Dr. Strangelove, where the refuelling of the bomber planes looks more like a avian pairing ritual than a technocratic feat of usurping the laws of nature. A few scenes in the shell video definitely have a phallic quality to it (like the drill bit penetrating the water, the pipes laid across the forest floor), and I even felt a moment of self referential criticism as the camera panned across the bleak oilfield in the middle of the ocean expanse.

I think I disagree on the point about the "medium is the message" framing. I dont think the camera quality has much to do with it, instead the visual qualities arise from the lack of a need to show that critical view, as the blank optimism overshadowed the less savory views by a mile. I think we have lost the capacity to view these process neutrally, independently of the medium used to record them.

I remember watching a hungarian film called On body and soul, which takes place in a meat processing facility. The footage of the meat processing is beautiful, eerily so, and it is really jaunting when you realize the only images of slaughterhouses you have seen is grainy handycam footage filmed for ideological purposes. The medium is always important, but always subservient to the gaze.

I found the video eons ago, it still has so few views and I am so happy to have brought it to light to such a receptive crowd.

New comment by weast in "The unintentional dystopian beauty of oil rigs"

weast — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 12:07:15 +0000

One of my favourite videos is a striking self-promo clip commissioned by Shell in 1970s. The tech optimism is strong, with visuals that would feel much more at home in a climate shock video nowadays. the video captures the otherworldliness of oil production and large scale infrastructure in a hypnotic way. It really is quite beautiful.

https://youtu.be/_zWjT59S_wk

New comment by weast in "Making Sandspiel"

weast — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:49:58 +0000

If you've ever wondered what a fully fledged sandspiel Roguelike (technically more a roguelite for those of you who mind) hahe a look at a game called Noita on Steam. It is a masterpiece of weaving an incredibly rich game out of the sandspiel apps of yore. I was suprised by how much I enjoyed it, evej if it is a little punishing.