The ability to speak to anyone doesn’t necessarily mean that you never feel lonely at parties. Good conversation is a two way street after all, and if you can’t find someone to challenge or interest you, then you can talk to people all night and not really get anything out of it. I think we all know that feeling, even those who aren’t as “gifted” socially as others.
I don’t think the solution is what the author does though. I mean, If you really can’t find someone interesting to engage with at any party or social event… I mean it’s a cliche to say this, but maybe it’s you?
> The ability to speak to anyone doesn’t necessarily mean that you never feel lonely at parties
The ability to extract valuable entertainment or information from all conversations is, though. I am no expert in this, and I have actively fled from conversations that started to center on someone's hobby horse without much escape or diversion, but I know people who can enter a conversation on anything and, even just by asking smart questions, emerge better from them.
You can still feel lonely while asking those questions and keeping other party engaged. Because it is one way discussion. You are saying things to engage and fun the other person. But you yourself is not getting connected nor feeling like you are engaged or expressing yourself.
I mean, it can be fun and enjoyable, but it does not help loneliness, no more then business meeting.
Probably because it’s where a lot of us ended up when we got old and stopped wanting to fiddle with settings. I’m sure Linux will one day catch up to where Mac products are and simply work out of the box without hassle, and maybe they are already there.
But I switched from Linux to osX after 10-15 years because I got tired of having to ever really deal with the OS.
How do you install macOS on a powerful desktop like the ones I've built?
How do you make "sed" be GNU sed on macOS without breaking all sorts of scripts?
How do you play the latest games like Deathloop on macOS?
How do you turn off workspace switching animations on macOS? (Note I said "turn off," so don't suggest Reduce Motion).
How do you set different scrolling orientations for mice and trackpads without installing yet another app with its own icon, updater, etc?
As another commenter pointed out, using macOS is like living in a hotel. Some people live in hotels already and some others would certainly do so if they could afford it, but it's not the kind of life I want to live.
I view it as more of a conceptual thing than a size issue. The 74kb is a symptom of the issue, which is that bad things can’t be deprecated because of backward compatibility.
If there is solution that removes the necessity of a 74kb package then I think we should embrace it.
I’m still fairly new to TypeScript but it’s quickly replacing Python as my daily driver for most things that aren’t back-end APIs, and Date is certainly one of those things I would love to see changed.
I view it as more of a conceptual thing than a size issue. The 74kb is a symptom of the issue, which is that bad things can’t be deprecated because of backward compatibility.
If there is solution that removes the necessity of a 74kb package then I think we should embrace it.
I’m still fairly new to TypeScript but it’s quickly replacing Python as my daily driver for most things that aren’t back-end APIs.
I don’t think fact checkers are an enemy of free speech. The entire foundation of science is build upon the process of being able to fact check each other’s findings.
There has also never really been a period in western civilisation where the news media wasn’t heavily controlled and fact checked by powerful editors.
The real issue isn’t fact checkers, it’s that Facebook isn’t held accountable.
If we want a functioning democracy, we need to stop giving major corporations a pass because the manipulation that happens on their platforms is created and run by users. That’s not how we treated News Papers and it’s not how we should treat Social Networks. If Facebook has really been a knowing participant in genocides, then Mark Zuckerberg belongs in the Haag as far as I am concerned.
The scientific method does not presume to produce or check "facts". Real science is based on probabilities. Individuals have to set their own criteria as to when level of probability they want to classify as a fact.
Fact checkers are totally an enemy of free speech. They flag posts saying that is so called "information" is inaccurate and that people shouldn't be able to see it.
If it is false is it really right to flag the post. I mean yes it is false but as Americans we are suppost to have free speech when we don't.
> If it is false is it really right to flag the post. I mean yes it is false but as Americans we are supposed to have free speech when we don't.
Good thing nothing that happens on Facebook ever spills over into other countries.
On a non-sarcastic note, I find it interesting that you didn't engage at all with the comment about Facebook and genocides. It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and play philosopher on topics of corporate censorship like this. What's less interesting, but far more useful, is evaluating whether Facebook should do more to moderate when their platform is actively used to orchestrate genocides in several separate places on earth.
> If it is false is it really right to flag the post. I mean yes it is false but as Americans we are suppost to have free speech when we don't.
Your first amendment right to free speech is a limited freedom from the government stating that the government cannot stifle or compel your speech. Facebook is not (yet) the government, so the 1A protections do not apply to Facebook. After all, if Facebook were forced to host content they didn't want to host, that would be considered compelled speech.
I would argue that if a post is verifiably, unequivocally false it is right to flag it as such. Maybe limit its reach in "discovery" platforms but still show it to followers/friends. This is a very, very small percentage of posts (think: "the earth is flat," not "do vaccines really work?"). These warnings should link to reputable, peer-reviewed research as a primary source and a reputable secondary source for those who don't want to read the research paper.
It’s very hard to answer for you because it’s likely about personal growth and realisation more than anything else. But I can tell you what I did, or rather what happened to me.
I started as a developer, because I was good, I gradually became the lead enterprise architect (I’ve never hated anything more than TOGAF by the way), and eventually “fell” into management. While doing this I rode locally fame ladder in Danish public sector digitalisation which means I’ve had a massive impact on our overall national strategy for IT architecture but like 5 people know who I am. I’m not sure I ever actually liked that work, but it was thrilling to be part of something “important”, so I felt like I liked it. Eventually I had my first child, and 9 months later I had a depression caused by stress so severe I spent a night in a psychward. Long story short I was diagnosed with ADHD at almost 40, and told that I needed to figure out how I wanted to live my life.
Turns out I like problem solving and that I hate project management. So I quit the public sector and found a job in a company where I could be a programmer again, I made sure to find a company where I wouldn’t have to deal with a whole lot of the Atlassian sort bureaucracies surrounding programming and it’s frankly been a bliss.
I’ve gone from not thinking I could ever work more than 30 hours a week until my children left our house to back to full time.
So chances are you probably already know what kind of work you like, but it’s just really hard to figure it out. One thing that I thought I would miss was feeling “important” but the truth is that I was never actually “important”. If it hadn’t been me someone else would’ve done it.
(For reference I’m Danish, having a break down here gets you 6 months sick leave with pay and costs you basically nothing out of your own pocket. This made things easier to say the least.)
When the iPad appeared, I thought it'd be a great option for my elderly and non-computer-savvy father; but the whole touch-screen thing turns out not to work well for him. Shaky, rheumatic fingers too often trigger the wrong thing and throw him into some unexpected state; or a second (or third) finger inadvertently touches the screen and completely changes the behavior of the device.
I thought the direct-manipulation interface would work for him, but experience says that in his case a traditional mouse pointer and an explicit "click" action gives less trouble.
We're in the same situation, but went with a pack of simple styluses instead of switching platforms. Working ok so far, arthritis definitely gets in the way of the iPad solution. That being said, we're definitely avoiding a pile of family tech support because of the iPad.
Ah, I can see you are real expert. I look after two elderly people, probably the biggest problem that they have is with applications that change state based on how you touch it. Even something as simple as picking up a call in Android is totally unintuitive (if anything, Android has got worse...tbh, I barely understand the incantations that one has to perform to do things on there now). Another big one is hidden menus, they don't understand that you have to click the burger for this hidden menu or that an arrow on the button means you can click through (Apple is actually better in how they structure menus).
I understand why these products have been designed this way but I don't think the people who make them understand how badly they are designed for some people. I am a web dev and, imo, a lot of this comes from ways to make your app "look cool" on mobile. Add some buttons, make your app a bit longer vertically...it isn't the end of the world.
I will say though, they find tablets far easier than computers. Tablets present a very simple interface of things to do. Computers seem more complicated (ironically, you see this with kids today even young adults in their early 20s...they have no idea how computers actually work, and often don't understand anything beyond...click this, and app opens). Both hate phones, they can use them but they feel uncomfortable using them.
On the OP, you just have to take stuff over. If you are paying bills or whatever, you should just do it yourself. It will save you time.
I switched all the old people in my family to iOS/macOS almost 8 years ago or so, and tech support time went down to zero.
Troubleshooting is usually just turn it off and on or take it to Apple store and get it fixed or get a new one. The new screen sharing feature is nice too because now you can show them where items in the menus are and whatnot.
Almost all of my close family is on Apple as well.
For the others, unless they're really close or really desperate, I tell them that I haven't used Windows in many years (which is pretty much true, other than testing sites and so on to make sure they work in Windows browsers), so I can't really give them good advice.
There's one relative that uses Linux, but he doesn't generally need my help. Heh.
They didn’t though. Nobody forced them to leave without a reasonable deal, or a reasonable bureaucracy set up to handle it.
They did that all by themselves.
I think they could have gone for a deal similar to the other non-EU but still kind of EU countries like Norway if they wanted. Because of pragmatism, but that’s not what the Brexiteers wanted.
Britain couldn't get a deal then vote for it, as the EU would then hold all the cards negotiating. I.e it will be have offered Britain nothing in order to stop Brexit.
Likewise if Britain had set up a bureaucracy to deal with Brexit before it was voted for there would have been a massive backlash about the waste of tax payer money on an uncertain event.
This is the sort of distorting of history the article speaks about. Vietnam was invaded by the French in the 1800 and turned into a colony. That colony was lost, and then semi-regained over the course of WW2 and the years following.
When the French lost and withdrew, America invaded and was subsequently beaten.
This is not a defence of China or Russia, look at how they are invading Tibet and the Ukraine, but the Vietnamese people weren’t invaded by China or the USSR, they were invaded by the US. South-Vietnam was an American fabrication during its invasion following the post French-Indonesian-war, because the Vietnamese people had a government in Hanoi, the US simply didn’t like it.
After the communist victory at Dien Bien Phu, the French negotiated a peace (without much choice) that forced them to give up the North (where the communists were strongest).
The French slowly disengaged from the South over the next decade leaving a fragile Vietnamese government in the South that had no interest in joining the communists in the North (1 million fled during partition).
The US did back a fractured, unstable government in the South in order to contain communism - I’m not arguing that. But to claim that the country, one that lasted 20 years, wasn’t “real” is just silly.
It’s like saying South Korea isn’t real because the UN backs it’s security and the communists had significant support prior to partition.
The US propped up a dictatorship in the South and canceled free elections because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win. This is a matter of recorded fact, not a conspiracy theory.
They had also been supporting the French with materiel and even limited numbers of advisors during the First Indochina War.
There was a war of national liberation against a colonial power, and the US sided with the colonial power.
Of course Ho Chi Minh would win - there were no free elections in the North (100% of votes went for him!) and substantial support in the South. I wouldn’t call that a fair and free election.
Yes, and I agree the US supported the French materially and with advisors.
But South Vietnam was no longer a colonial power. The French were gone and the Vietnamese called the shots (not without foreign influence, I agree, but similar to the USSR and China influence in the North - you pay the bills you get a say).
But none of that infers the South wasn’t a real country.
> Of course Ho Chi Minh would win - there were no free elections in the North (100% of votes went for him!) and substantial support in the South. I wouldn’t call that a fair and free election.
False.
The US own internal documents stated they believed Ho Chi Minh held enormous popular support, especially in the countryside.
They cancelled the elections and instead propped up a bloody dictatorship. Nothing natural about the South, it was completely artificial, incompetent, and repressive.
The original Viet Minh was a anti-colonial organization, fighting against japan and france, in WW2 - ironically with US-Advisors and taking the US- as a example for a successful liberation from european colonial powers. After the war ended, the us- switched sides and dumped them. They then went and picked the next-best set of allies - which was russia/china.
Oh sure, he had a lot of support. But it was entirely clear the North was not going to allow any free vote. They had already purged any opposition long ago.
So are you arguing that South Korea is a “completely artificial, incompetent and repressive” country? It was also a dictatorship after the war for about 20 years. But Vietnam still is today after 50.
No, I'm arguing about Vietnam. Please try not to sidetrack the conversation.
Fact: Ho Chi Minh had huge popular support and would have won general elections, a fact the US didn't like at that stage and so they made sure it didn't happen. Instead, they propped up one of the most brutal dictatorships in the region, one so bad they had to allow its removal and the assassination of their puppet dictator.
They also destroyed South Vietnam, killing villagers, poisoning the land and bombing the hell out of North Vietnam.
And they failed because they were foreign aggressors.
Fact: the US doesn't get to choose the form of government of other countries. When they try to do it by military force, they are invaders and aggressors.
You can argue until you're blue in the face, those are the facts.
Your facts are wrong. And I’m sorry you cant see the similarities between Korea and Vietnam. There was plenty of support for Kim Ill-Sung in South Korea as well, but there was plenty of opposition too.
The North was a brutal dictatorship propped up by China and the USSR.
The South was a brutal dictatorship propped up by the West.
Both had Vietnamese supporters. Again, to dismiss the South as not a real country is just twisting facts. It was a civil war between two Vietnamese factions and the South lost. Those are the facts.
The mythology the North has created around the war (just like every country does) is helped to keep its grip on power but is a gross oversimplification.
And you’re right, the US doesn’t get to choose which government a country has. But neither does Vietnam when it comes to Cambodia or Laos, but hey, they hasn’t stopped them!
> There was plenty of support for Kim Ill-Sung in South Korea as well, but there was plenty of opposition too.
Please stop trying to sidetrack the conversation.
> The North was a brutal dictatorship propped up by China and the USSR.
No, it was a nationalist anti colonial government that aimed at the reunification and independence of Vietnam.
> Both had Vietnamese supporters. Again, to dismiss the South as not a real country is just twisting facts
It was an artificial creation imposed upon the Vietnamese by external parties; hence not a real country.
> The mythology the North has created around the war
Oh, there is a mythology alright! There's a whole myth created about this war, mostly by the foreign country that fought it -- to devastating effect to both Vietnam and the invaders who fought in it -- and who claims to be freedom loving and is still trying to heal from the wounds and the nonsense the war it inflicted caused upon thousands. This mythology is necessary in order to reconcile their aspirations to being a beacon of freedom and the fact they acted on the side of colonial oppressors.
> But neither does Vietnam when it comes to Cambodia or Laos, but hey, they hasn’t stopped them
But we are not talking about that, are we? If we were, we could condemn Vietnam's interference with other countries. Regrettably, this was about Vietnam's own struggle for independence and US interference with said independence.
When the US was fighting for its own independence, that's good. When they were stopping and interfering with another country's, that's bad. The same country can act good and bad at times. This was a case when the US was bad.
English is not my first language so maybe fabrication is the wrong word? I didn’t mean fabrication as in it didn’t exist, but that it wouldn’t have existed without the US.
It’s sort of the same, but what I don’t get is how things like that rainbow cat and other famous internet pictures are NFTs. I mean, if the picture was around for twenty years before it became a NFT, then how is the NFT the “original”.
Going that line of thought, what happens if two people make the same picture into a NFT?
I don’t think the solution is what the author does though. I mean, If you really can’t find someone interesting to engage with at any party or social event… I mean it’s a cliche to say this, but maybe it’s you?