I’m pretty happy not using Spotify. I will continue to do so. My library of drm free music (mostly from Bandcamp) is just fine.

People online often use “introvert” interchangeably with “social anxiety” and “agoraphobia”. Someone will be like “if I have to make a phone call I have a panic attack and vomit lol so introverted right?”

I don’t think “the market” is good at directing companies to make good products. Maybe we shouldn’t rely on it so much.

Happily using Linux at home. Played some elden ring today, and the original fallout last week. Did some writing in libre office. It’s fine. And free. I never have to tinker with it.

I don’t know what it does on Lemmy but I’m clicking the gold star on this reply

Without jeopardizing your academics, prioritize rare things.

TV and video games will always be there. Your friend asking you to come play tennis won’t. Go play tennis even if you don’t think you’ll love it.

A large part of code review has been preventing people from doing stupid shit. AI is making stupid shit worse. It’s not defects, it’s “adding a whole micro service to get the user name from the ID, when the name is already in the metadata” or whatever that recent meme was.

Or that time a guy wrote a whole DSL instead of using the existing framework. Technically impressive, but adds a huge burden.

Many people simply do not seek a faster way of doing things.

Right. But if you’re a soulless manager, and you set faster timelines, you PIP and fire the people who don’t make it. They’ll use the tools or be replaced.

It’s the same as an AI mandate, except less stupid. (It can still be stupid if you set the timelines impossibly fast, but management is not known for being smart or informed)

I wouldn’t do this as me because I’m not a soulless manager.

If AI actually made people faster and more productive, they could simply set faster timelines and people would use the tools.

There are AI mandates because the people in leadership are stupid and dishonest. “Return to office” has the same shape. For many people working from home is healthier and more productive, and it’s better for the environment not to commute as much, but the emotional needs of leadership are primary.

Disappointed no one like blew the whistle earlier or sabotaged the operation. A lot of people had to know about this.

Is it wrong to destroy an object that you own because it the easiest way to accomplish your project? No, that would be silly.

lol what. Yes, it can be wrong. Such as destroying books in pursuit of a shit goal.

Google is run my by assholes and idiots. Break it apart.

Edit: fixed silly typo

I feel like we should run honeypots like this, and anyone who falls for it goes right to, like, therapy and “how not to be scammed” training.

WhatsApp, sms, and Google chat (hangouts? Meet? The thing built into Gmail)

None of them are great.

One of my friends is some sort of neurodivergent and just… won’t install signal. It’s “too much”. I don’t understand this. It’s 30 seconds of “click this link I sent you, then click install”.

The “american dream” has always had a problematic contradiction. You should work hard. Working hard is good. You should work hard so you don’t have to work anymore. Working sucks and you don’t want to do it. You want to be the guy on a golf course getting money while those hard working people assemble widgets for you.

Well, which is it then?

The freedom was always kind of dicey. Sedition act of 1798, for example.

Women also historically had a bad time of it. And the native peoples. Queer folks, too. Religious freedom is hit or miss.

It’s been pretty good for wealthy people, historically. They’ve been pretty free.

I’ve seen some funny comments, but the ones that are like “ur so hot” are baffling.

I don’t know how to grade myself on clarity of communication, but I’ll share some things I think have helped.

Avoid long sentences. Many people don’t read well, and even those that do will get lost in a long block of text.

Read back what you wrote out loud.

Do not neglect the emotional front. Conversations and convincing are about emotions more than facts. Acknowledge their position. Make them feel heard.

Read more. Read a variety of things. Op-eds in newspapers. Books of various genres. Old stuff. New stuff. Feed your brain more than word junk food.

Ask questions. Sincere questions. Don’t try to trick them. People are usually happy to talk about themselves and their beliefs. Use this to find common ground and shared experience.

It seems like their calculations always return high prices. I can’t think of any service that has had the price drop significantly.