plantarum

plantarum, 8 days ago

@human3500

don't be such a downer! This is the end of him, guaranteed. As long as no one is silly enough to say his name three times, we're golden

plantarum, 10 days ago

@stealthisbook @pluralistic

he's pretty explicit about not tracking anything from his website, and invites readers to his domain to read his stuff. I think that puts him in the 'doesn't care about your data', or more accurately 'actively doesn't want your data' category

plantarum, 14 days ago

@mattblaze I don't know anything about tilt shift lenses, but they sound fascinating. Is there a big difference between images made with a shifting lens, and those with a normal lens that have their perspective corrected digitally?

I don't often need to do perspective corrections, but when I do it's surprising how much of the image gets cropped away in the process.

plantarum, 14 days ago

@Hansonthebike

That's a very odd story. Are unmaintained bike paths newsworthy?

Hard not to think these are the people who voted against investing in city-wide active transportation infrastructure. We don't want bike paths for everyone, but of course we need the ones I use!

plantarum, 15 days ago

@rmartinnielsen @KarlSchroeder

#Haiku sounds interesting.

But I kind of lost the thread between "Linux sucks as a desktop OS because UNIX is fundamentally unsuited to support desktop computing" and "Apple made a desktop OS on top of UNIX but that only proves it's impossible"

plantarum, 15 days ago

@KarlSchroeder @glitzersachen @rmartinnielsen

I'm not claiming that Linux is good enough to serve as a desktop for regular users. I don't honestly know. My i3 setup certainly wouldn't be adequate for most people. (On rare occasions when I do use Gnome it seems pretty usable, but I don't spend enough time with it to have an informed opinion)

What I do dispute is your claim that Linux is fundamentally incapable of supporting a user experience that would be accessible to non-technical people. I would consider the existence of Apple's UNIX-based OS as a proof of concept, not an exception that proves the rule.

For what it's worth, from my admittedly limited experience, most of the issues that come up running Linux as a desktop are not shortcomings of the OS itself. Often it's just needing to translate from one way of doing things to another - different , but not necessarily more difficult. Or hitting roadblocks when proprietary programs or formats aren't supported.

Which is not to say these aren't serious challenges, of course they are. But not being able to use Adobe Acrobat to sign your pdfs isn't an indication that Linux is not a suitable desktop OS.

plantarum, 13 days ago

@KarlSchroeder @glitzersachen @rmartinnielsen

I didn't know MacOS was single user. Why is that important? It hasn't hindered MSWindows.

Ubuntu took a simplified approach to user access and admin rights, and I think is intended to serve as a desktop for non-technical users.

I haven't tried setting any of my family up with it though, as I know they'll all struggle with new workflows and incompatible programs. For most of them 'different' is enough to present a serious challenge for tech, we wouldn't even get to any of the technical issues.

plantarum, 13 days ago

@KarlSchroeder @glitzersachen @rmartinnielsen I think MSWindows is part of Linux' problem here. In that many regular users have no idea what they're doing on MSWindows, they just click on buttons when they're told.

Consequently they don't actually know what they're doing, beyond having memorized a handful of patterns to 'open the internet' or 'read my mail'. That level of rote memory doesn't leaves them unable to switch to a new context.

plantarum, 12 days ago

@KarlSchroeder @glitzersachen @rmartinnielsen

We agree on that. I disagree with your idea that Linux' failure to gain traction on the desktop is due to either a fundamental technical issue with the OS, or to a lack of interest or effort on the behalf of devs.

It's a complex issue at the intersection of technology, culture, and economics, and confounded by the abusive monopoly position of the incumbents.

Android proves that Linux can support a user friendly OS that normal people will use. It also proves, or at least strongly suggests, that successfully competing with the incumbents will require massive financial resources. Google-scale dollars; Canonical scale dollars just aren't enough. This shouldn't be the case, but it is. I think the solution isn't technical, it's robust globally coordinated anti-trust policy.

plantarum, 17 days ago

@HankB @tripplehelix

oof. Sounds worse than I'd hoped. But that's also freeing in a way, as if reinstalling is a likely result at this point, I don't need to be so concerned about breaking something as I try to fix it in place.

Thanks!

plantarum, 23 days ago

@seachanger

I read something recently, a popular cognitive science book, that addressed exactly this.

Our need to belong to a group often overrides our capacity for rational evaluation of new information. When confronted with evidence that undermines the core beliefs of our group, a common and natural response is to dismiss the evidence as a way of maintaining the group, and demonstrating our loyalty.

Which helps explain why it's so hard to argue across divides, and even to acknowledge when we're wrong about something

plantarum, 24 days ago

@mattblaze Does that mean the camera can't control the aperture at all? No aperture-priority exposure, it's always in full manual?

plantarum, 25 days ago

@grivettcarnac I wonder if the city doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that the Civic Hospital debacle means the loss of the primary parking for the biggest festival in the city. Completely during construction, and partially after that as it will be in use by the hospital

plantarum, 25 days ago

@ksawatsky @dairpo @casseagull agreed. Too many drivers act as if turning right on red means you have priority over people driving straight on green, or walking in the crosswalk. Absent an enforcement blitz, we've proven we can't be trusted with doing right on red safely

plantarum, 25 days ago

@ksawatsky @dairpo @casseagull yes! we have a number of oblique intersections in my neighbourhood that act as 'sliplanes', and they're terrifying. Sherwood at Carling is a nightmare, it's a design that absolutely encourage drivers to accelerate around the corner right in front of a busy store.

plantarum, 25 days ago

@casseagull I appreciate your frustration!

But if you see trilliums with flowers on them for sale at less than $20/each, it's a good sign they were dug from the wild. These plants take many years to grow big enough to bloom, and that's not something a grower can manage for $5-$10 a pot.