npteljes
npteljes on Hacker News
This made me realize that I don't actually love any website like that. Wikipedia comes the closest, but even if that would disappear, surely someone would have a dump, which I'd grab at that point. Until then, I won't do this.
The two things I go back to are music, and books. Even books not so much, but songs tickle a very specific part of my brain, that I want to reproduce over and over again, and then not for years, and then again. And when I want to go back and I can't, and I know I could, that really hurts, and I feel betrayed. So I do actually archive the music, even from streaming sites.
This is not how consent works. I appreciate the malware consideration of Windows, I hate it as well. However, using an OS, and having it auto-update a driver does not mean that whatever else is also welcome to be installed alongside that driver. And Microsoft agrees here:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/microsoft-responds-t...
Maybe you and me would resist buying a TV, just to stick it to them, but I don't see this on a population level, at all. Convenience is now utilized so successfully that these things might as well be essential.
I'd also like to bring in another thing: that people don't care that much about this aspect of privacy. They care that their neighbor don't see their naked bodies, but they don't care that their viewing data might end up in a datacenter or whatever. This surveillance is too abstract to be meaningful to the layperson, there's no feedback of it at all, everyone's doing it, and practically nobody got hurt so far.
So a boycott of an entire product category is a hard sell. Not just because of lack of alternatives, but because the incentives are just not there.
What's a fun car for you, and what parts of the driving experience do you find fun? I drive a car that's widely regarded as boring as fuck, and I love it (Toyota Auris with 1.8 HSD). I really enjoy the scenery rolling by and the problem solving part of the driving, like what roads I take and such. I also really like that the cabin is quiet (compared to my last car), so the engine / wind / etc noise doesn't stress me extra, and that I can hear my music, podcast, or own thoughts better.
Boycotts can only work when there are viable alternatives. When there isn't a suitable replacement, and abstaining is unpopular, the needle isn't moved. Elections are often the same: people vote on huge package deals, each of them worse than the other, when looked at from a different perspective.
There was definitely evidence, just the mainstream was never loud with it. I'm on the privacy train for more than a decade now, and smart TVs were always considered abysmal in this regard - bad defaults, low configurability, and no alternative firmware.
One pragmatic difference is that the art we directly interface with, the code we don't.
On the other hand, art is also strongly related to the human expression. Code can be artful as well, but usually it's more like utility, and to be frank, most art is utilitarian as well. So, art was was soulless enough before AI, and AI now ratcheted this up to a level never seen before.
Completely aside, but you maybe haven't even chosen to dislike cilantro. Some people have some gene configuration that make them taste cilantro like soap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OR6A2
In case anyone else is also interested in the "what kind of music", this is straight from the study:
>>The patients were asked to choose their preferred music from two prerecorded instrumental musical pieces instituted as the music therapy. We used non lyrical, soft, slow tempo, relaxing instrumental musical pieces of either flute [click here for audio]or piano [click here for audio]as the choices presented to the patient.The musical pieces were selected based on their slow and meditative tempo (60-100 beats per minute), and only non -lyrical instrumental piano or flute based versions were chosen.The flute version which was preferred by most patients was a combination of Raga Yaman and Raga Kirwani. Raga Yaman is bright and uplifting and Raga Kir wani is known for its soothing and calming effects. Combining these two Hindustani classical ragas provides musically uplifting qualities that could be helpful in reducing the stress associated with surgical procedures and control the hemodynamic responses to surgery. Noise cancelling headphoneswere used to play the instrumental pieces at 60db. The musical piece was played for the entire duration of the surgery on loop using blue tooth connectivity of the headphones with a mobile phone.<<
Oh, that's right! They use KDE only for the Desktop Mode operation, not the normal one. So yes, not much is impacted.
This is interesting to me, because SteamOS, so Steam Deck uses KDE. I really wonder how they are going to tackle going from X to Wayland on 4 million machines, and what that will bring.
1. It's the other way around: because people don't care that much, that's why there is almost exclusively proprietary hardware around.
2. The people who require the "higher grades" of being open source are simply not a large enough market
3. Being open source is not a natural advantage of a product, in fact, it's more of a risk, liability, responsibility, and effort than being proprietary.
Hence, proprietary is the default.
And, for this reason, different entities ship different versions of the Linux kernel (and system) as well.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel
The simple statement that it's not 100% open source is not an attack on the effort. It needs to be said, because the blog entry's title is "Pebble Watch Software Is Now 100% Open Source".
I stopped drinking caffeine in my everydays, reserving it for occasions that are more meaningful to me, like a weekend of chores around the house, or going out to a party.
Drinking it every day makes me a bit jittery and anxious, and I feel that my employer doesn't deserve the increased productivity that it brings. Turns out that I get the same salary, even though I'm noticeably slower, less creative about my solutions, and less focused. In turn I'm steadier, more thorough. A good tradeoff, especially on a personal level, and I don't miss it at all, even though I was drinking 4-5 coffees as day in my "prime".
I also quit "cold turkey", like the author. Headaches on days 3-7 or so, which I managed with a low dose of paracetamol. They weren't too bad, but I tolerate headaches really badly :)
Maybe there are other factors too, I'm not very sure. When there are thin light lines on a dark background, that's really hard to look at for me. And strangely, the same dark lines on a light background don't bother me at all.
Yes and to make it worse, sometimes the unstyled paste shortcut doesn't work. For example, in Microsoft Notes.
I'd guess so, yes. I think dark mode users leave the screen brighter than it should be, because in dark mode, it doesn't matter as much as it does in light mode. Then, after looking at dark things for a while, the eye gets used to the light level, and then opening a white page is like a supernova happening in front of the user's face. In short, with dark mode, the lightness baseline is much lower, and a light page disrupts this.
I'd say it's more of a courtesy thing. If you like a bit of a web design challenge, you can experiment with the prefers-color-scheme CSS feature. With this, the browser will automatically apply the dark mode for users that have it set, making the experience seamless (and state of the art).
Many of these haters have astigmatism, which makes the dark mode hard to see for them. I don't think all of the people who have this realize they have this, so, it gets directed against the dark mode itself.
I use the OS provided Night Light feature everywhere for this, and my eyes are loving it. I have it set up to follow the day-night cycle, so during the day it doesn't get overly sepia.
Wiki already has the functionality for dark mode, but loads the light mode as default. They even have the Automatic option, but the user has to select it, so, it's like semi-automatic. They really are just single line modification away from true automatic light/dark mode.
I have good news for you, the article is back in business, and the discussion is happening!
I mean, there is not much substance in the article, but I agree. I don't like dark mode too much either. I read that people with astigmatism, so cylindrical sight, don't handle dark mode well. I'm not sure how true this is, but it definitely applies to me. I can't seem to properly focus on many dark mode UIs - with spreadsheet software being the worst.
What I found is that using light mode, reducing screen brightness, adequate ambient lighting, and applying a brown filter works really well. Each of these components add an immediate relief when I'm applying them.
Funny thing is, I'm experimenting with dark mode in some places. In my KDE, it seems to work well for me in general OS UI, and in my file manager. Also works well on my phone after dark.
What I especially dislike is the mixing of dark and light modes. For example, when everything is light mode, only the terminal, and the IDE are dark. Fuck that. For this reason, for many years, I had my terminal in light mode as well.
Happy to hear that! Have you also played Fall Guys? How do they compare? I haven't played platformers for two decades now, but looking at the Mario screenshots, I got an immediate Fall Guys feeling.
Create text in higher resolution, rasterize it, warp it would be my process, if I needed to curve the characters themselves too. In case I didn't, because the shape is not that small compared to the text, simply wrapping around the shape works. Usually there's a tool to create a path, and then text can go along that path, as if the path were its baseline.
And the E looks fantastic in my opinion!
In case you launch the GOG game because of Proton, then I suggest using Heroic launcher to start it instead. You can use Proton there too, automatically downloads and everything, same as Steam. And there will be no clashes with Steam.
DRM is optional on Steam, many games don't have it (or roll their own). In many cases of Steam DRM, activation is only one-time, after that, granted the hardware doesn't change significantly, the player can be offline indefinitely.
I'm no fan or DRM, but the current implementation is far from "always-on".
That's how it works in Linux land for two reasons. One, drivers live in the kernel (roughly). Two, Linux is aftermarket for many hardware, in which cases there's hardware first, then the support.
>A reminder that urgency fades, context grows, and perspective is a habit.
That is such a great line. I also feel like 99% of the news is just noise, in terms of not adding anything actionable to our lives, nor is it growing our perspective.
In contrast, I really like Wikipedia articles about current events. They feel much more to the point than news articles.