Akir's recent activity
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Comment on How are we all feeling about piracy these days? in ~movies
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Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech
Akir Link ParentI think they were just trying to be facetious, guys.I think they were just trying to be facetious, guys.
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Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech
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Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech
Akir Link ParentThat frankly doesn’t even make sense. Both JS and CSS have made some very dramatic changes since they first came out. The use of utility classes in the way you describe also has some pretty...No, it's the opposite, it's understanding that like vanilla JS, CSS was made in a world where websites were less than what they were today.
That frankly doesn’t even make sense. Both JS and CSS have made some very dramatic changes since they first came out.
The use of utility classes in the way you describe also has some pretty obvious downsides to me. If you have a website with 500 blue buttons strewn across it and a designer decides they should actually be burnt sienna, you now have to search for every single instance of those blue buttons and change them manually. If you wrote your own class you would simply change a single line and be done with it.
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Comment on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail in ~tech
Akir Link ParentI’ve come to think these days that the problem is not the lack of workers, but with the ideas driving society itself. In my grandmother’s final years she had a number of nurses. Many of them were...When people aren’t worrying about AI, sometimes they worry about demographics - more retirees to take care of and fewer workers to support them. Maybe that’s what productivity improvements get “spent” on? In some countries, anyway.
I’ve come to think these days that the problem is not the lack of workers, but with the ideas driving society itself.
In my grandmother’s final years she had a number of nurses. Many of them were Filipino, because they were “naturally caring”. Uncomfortable racialism aside, it assumes the question of what a caring society looks like. Why it might be a problem that needs more than labor to take care of. If we did have a labor-independent society, maybe family would be free to stop working their jobs and take care of their elders. Maybe the volunteers who are currently helping elders will be free to take more direct actions to help out. I don’t think we would have to worry as much about elder care in terms of paid labor.
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Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech
Akir Link ParentFrankly that all strikes me as something someone who doesn’t understand the overarching logic of CSS. “Global by default” is arguably mischaracterization of CSS selectors. Literally the first...Frankly that all strikes me as something someone who doesn’t understand the overarching logic of CSS. “Global by default” is arguably mischaracterization of CSS selectors. Literally the first thing I learned when I started CSS is to add a class to an element to style it specifically, and that is exactly what tailwind is doing, no? Dev tools have made dealing with scope creep issues very easy for decades now because they can tell us exactly which file and line the problem is in.
Tailwind also doesn’t solve the problem of not knowing what a given rule will look like until rendered. You can get an idea of it with enough experience, but the same is true of vanilla CSS.
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Comment on No-stack web development in ~tech
Akir LinkI’ll do the thing I usually do here, and blame this on the corporations. They are building web apps on stacks, and usually for good reason. So if you want to have a steady, well paying, and...I’ll do the thing I usually do here, and blame this on the corporations. They are building web apps on stacks, and usually for good reason. So if you want to have a steady, well paying, and long-lasting job, you better know the past half dozen stacks du jour inside and out. Its always struck me as unreasonable that they will hire people who exclusively know their specific situation rather than spend a few weeks of training. I would imagine that will get you “stack smart” people who are great at answering questions about it but will eventually end up introducing a bunch of bugs because they don’t know the fundamentals or how those stacks actually work. But as someone who has never worked at one of these companies, this is pure conjecture.
I’ve also never really understood the value of tailwind and other CSS frameworks. Why bother learning a hundred classes when they are all just a few attributes you could just as easily learn directly? Class-spamming just serves to make HTML more difficult to read than it already is.
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Comment on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail in ~tech
Akir Link ParentWhile I don’t advocate for violence, I think America Is overdue for a socialist revival. Probably the rest of the world too. The world is not in a good place right now.While I don’t advocate for violence, I think America Is overdue for a socialist revival. Probably the rest of the world too. The world is not in a good place right now.
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Comment on How worried should I be about plastic water bottles? in ~talk
Akir Link ParentPLA is only industrially compostable. It requires bacteria that only grows in higher temperature environments, and that means that, effectively, they need to be sent to specialized facilities with...PLA is only industrially compostable. It requires bacteria that only grows in higher temperature environments, and that means that, effectively, they need to be sent to specialized facilities with heated chambers that you likely don’t have locally. My husband buys bowls coated with it and they have the rather hilarious disclaimer printed right on the eating surface that says “recycling facilities may not exist”.
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Comment on Am I German or autistic? in ~health.mental
Akir Link ParentI got normal. I’m just very anal and have opinions. Many many opinions. Although I do have to say I appreciate that the result page called out the possibility of me just presenting well. I will...I got normal. I’m just very anal and have opinions. Many many opinions.
Although I do have to say I appreciate that the result page called out the possibility of me just presenting well. I will admit that I find it amusing to try to unwrap the questions in personality tests to figure out why they are asking and what the answers represent. I did try to answer honestly though.
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Comment on Is new music dying? Everyone’s flopping. in ~music
Akir LinkI don’t see this as a particularly bad problem to have. If you know some basic music history, you would know that before recording and radio, some of the most popular music was folk music. Things...I don’t see this as a particularly bad problem to have.
If you know some basic music history, you would know that before recording and radio, some of the most popular music was folk music. Things that were passed on from generation to generation and were regional.
This concept of a megahit or universal culture seems like it’s always been like this but that’s just because it’s been for our lifetimes. In reality, it was just a blip caused by the advent of inexpensive audio recording and duplication methods.
When I hear stories of the music industry suffering I can’t help but think of historical figures like John Phillip Sousa, a man who was the closest thing to a superstar before ubiquitous recordings. He really didn’t like records because he felt that it would decimate a culture of musicianship, cheapen the work of both players and composers, and discourage people to learn how to perform music. And for the most part he was right. How often are you going out to listen to live music? Theres a pretty good chance you had wanted to be a musician at one point in your youth, but you didn’t because it’s so difficult to make money in it.
Will the death of the musical monolith repair this historical damage? Not likely. But the spirit of music can’t be killed. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. The culture of music is changing and I see that as a good thing because it’s resulted in a true explosion of creativity and there are countless indie artists who are producing music with more passion than the big corporations could have ever mustered. We are living in good times; let’s not let the death of this norm bring us down.
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Comment on Am I German or autistic? in ~health.mental
Akir LinkBoy that last question was really painful to answer. None of those are the “real problem with the world” by a long shot. If we try to answer the question as objectively as possible, the real...Boy that last question was really painful to answer. None of those are the “real problem with the world” by a long shot.
If we try to answer the question as objectively as possible, the real answer is man made climate change. We systematically destroy biomes at our convenience and in a global level we are destroying the atmosphere, something that affects not only us humans but all living things on the planet.
If we take “the world” to be society, I’ve got plenty of better options:
- unchecked capitalism
- the inability of people to recognize fascism
- the corruption of power in general
- cultures where it is acceptable to not have compassion for “others”.
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Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 6/4/26 in ~hobbies
Akir Link ParentHa! It's really me being a lazy chump. But I do advocate for lazy gardening techniques like no-till. I'd probably practice it if my backyard wasn't entirely concrete.Ha! It's really me being a lazy chump. But I do advocate for lazy gardening techniques like no-till. I'd probably practice it if my backyard wasn't entirely concrete.
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Comment on Amazon killing purchasing, borrowing and downloading books for older Kindles in ~tech
Akir Link ParentYou may have been in KUAL, which is typically how you launch koreader. If you were in koreader you also had the option of changing where it considers to be your home folder where your books are....You may have been in KUAL, which is typically how you launch koreader.
If you were in koreader you also had the option of changing where it considers to be your home folder where your books are. That way you don’t have to navigate beyond subfolders if you have any. It’s the only “must configure” option IMHO. You also have the ability to configure the view in a lot of nice ways, including the ability to hide books you’ve already read.
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Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 6/4/26 in ~hobbies
Akir Link ParentI’m honestly amazed that I don’t I live in an HOA neighborhood too. I personally have a much worse opinion of the neighbors who have the cheapest possible astroturf lawns. But hey, I still have a...I’m honestly amazed that I don’t I live in an HOA neighborhood too.
I personally have a much worse opinion of the neighbors who have the cheapest possible astroturf lawns. But hey, I still have a higher opinion of them than I do of the ones with perfectly manicured grass.
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Comment on Tildes Gardening Group: Week 6/4/26 in ~hobbies
Akir LinkI am an anti-gardener. In previous weeks I have been trying to covertly toss away my husband’s potted plants. A few years ago we basically just gave up on the front lawn and it continues to be our...I am an anti-gardener. In previous weeks I have been trying to covertly toss away my husband’s potted plants.
A few years ago we basically just gave up on the front lawn and it continues to be our best landscaping idea yet. Local plants have found the area where the grass has died and over time has taken over the place. We do need to lop away some of the taller ones from time to time but it is essentially self-maintaining otherwise. The native plants also have the quality of improving the soil it’s grown in so if we wanted to plant something more purposefully decorative it should be pretty successful.
There are some who might be tempted to point and say that my lawn is overrun by weeds, but my response to that is that nature is frickin’ beautiful and can’t you see the pretty wildflowers? My lawn is imperfect and it browns seasonally, but in my eyes we have the best landscaping in the neighborhood.
The back yard, on the other hand, remains a concrete maze of potted succulents and cacti. Sigh….
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Comment on Half-baked idea for metered inline image allowances in ~tildes
Akir Link ParentI honestly hate that a lot of how-to content has moved to video for the same reasons. They either waste my time because I have to dig through it or they waste my time because it was too short and...I honestly hate that a lot of how-to content has moved to video for the same reasons. They either waste my time because I have to dig through it or they waste my time because it was too short and didn’t tell me what I needed to know.
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Comment on Fitness Weekly Discussion in ~health
Akir LinkLast night I finished my last weight training day of the week, as well as the end of the second week of training with Claude. There’s been lots of hiccups. If you have been reading my story you...Last night I finished my last weight training day of the week, as well as the end of the second week of training with Claude.
There’s been lots of hiccups. If you have been reading my story you would know that I started after recovering from a workout injury and am using Claude to help me improve my routine. It’s a very different experience than the few times I’ve had with trainers in the past, who have basically just told me what to do from on high. Claude gives me the feeling that I am working with it rather than for it. Sadly I still have to nail down a routine 100%, but that’s not really an issue because at this point it’s just small adjustments and trying out a handful of alternatives. Besides, it can’t actually be set until I see a physical therapist on the 16th to deal with my body issues.
This is slight hyperbole, but working with Claude has really been a game changer. It has taught me to build my mind-muscle connection and trained me to stop if I’m feeling the effort in the wrong place, in which case Claude can help me with my form or adjustments to the gear I’m using. I’ve learned that it’s a small miracle that I haven’t been injured more.
In spite of that I don’t know if I’d recommend using Claude for this purpose to everyone. I’ve seen hallucinations, so you do need to have a baseline of understanding how things work before you get started so you can push back against Claude’s occasional bad advice. It’s also not particularly good at figuring out exercise machines if you just take a picture of it, so you are better off telling it the exact model you are using; doing so will usually cause it to search the web and give you a much better response. Though I will warn you that the last time I used it, it cited a whole lot of TikTok. I suppose that’s fine because it’s one of the places I would have looked at myself if I made different choices.
The new training poses and routines have already had a noticeable impact on me. At first I felt disempowered because the weight I was putting on the stacks was lower, but with the improvements in form and the growing mind muscle connection I actually feel stronger after working out than I was before. In the past working out was something that would completely drain and exhaust me, but now after working out I tend to have something of a second wind. My experience with exhaustion and muscle fatigue are also completely different because I am properly focusing on specific muscle groups instead of bringing all those unrelated muscles in with each movement. Ever since I got my last injury I was dreading going to the gym because it took so much out of me and I felt infirm. Now I’ve reclaimed that feeling that I actually want to go back! That alone is a huge victory.
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Comment on Why Microsoft’s war on Windows’ Control Panel is taking so long in ~tech
Akir Link ParentIt really was not. It was hot garbage when it launched. Because it had higher base specs it introduced the “experience index” benchmark to illustrate how well your computer could run with Vista,...It really was not. It was hot garbage when it launched. Because it had higher base specs it introduced the “experience index” benchmark to illustrate how well your computer could run with Vista, and famously it would get so slow over time it would actually downgrade you.
Even basic operations were slower for seemingly no reason. If you copied a file with Explorer it would be noticeably slower than using the copy command from the CLI.
On top of that Microsoft really fucked gamers over by forcing DirectX 10 to be a vista exclusive, so a great number of hugely important new rendering techniques were locked behind a system that would reduce performance for those games just from the vista tax. Microsoft also famously lied about the visual improvements in very blatant ways, offering poorly doctored screenshots to demonstrate the difference in rendering. Seriously, I remember they showed a DX9 comparison shot that they just cut the contrast and brightness.
Vista did have some good ideas behind it and eventually they got it to be good, but that point is when Vista turned from Windows 6.0 to Windows 6.1 - which Microsoft branded Windows 7.
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Comment on Why Microsoft’s war on Windows’ Control Panel is taking so long in ~tech
Akir Link ParentThe program my university applied to in order to get Microsoft services to its students recently downgraded the entire tier to exclude the desktop applications for Office. Now attempting to use...The program my university applied to in order to get Microsoft services to its students recently downgraded the entire tier to exclude the desktop applications for Office. Now attempting to use the desktop applications will prompt me to use the web versions.
It might be the biggest middle finger a tech company has given me after Google clawing back their free storage after promising an eternally expanding amount.
I mostly don’t pirate. The one big exception is textbooks. Fuck textbook publishers so much.
Right now my university is supposed to offer only freely accessible educational sources, but they kind of cheat by offering access to a database service which has the full texts of books. It’s the worst experience I can imagine. You can only log in with a cookie that you have to spend a hundred different clicks to get into, and the cookie has an extremely short TTL; if I leave to poop, by the time I am back I will have been logged out. The reader doesn’t keep track of what page you are on, either. And then there are a ton of tiny annoyances. We have to find the book by searching for the titles (because of course direct linking doesn’t work! MORE STEPS!), and if you search the books will have all the terms highlighted. Can you imagine how shitty it is to read a book where every instance of the word “the”, “and” and “a” are highlighted?
Every time you open a book you will be assaulted by a sidebar that gives you a single paragraph AI summary of the entire book - something that is not only useless in general, but redundant because the curriculum already describes the reading. You can’t close it until the page fully loads, which can take a while sometimes. For a while it was defaulting to displaying the book reflowed, which was always bad because it got rid of the page numbers I needed for the reading assignment and also because it often mangled the formatting in fun interesting ways. At least that seems to have been rolled back.
Their reader actively taught me to never directly quote sources because if I attempted to copy text it would automatically insert a reference immediately after what it was I was copying, which of course is incompatible not only with my assignment requirements, but every assignment requirement I can imagine getting from any institution. But it wouldn’t matter anyways because of course I would be logged out automatically before I had the chance to write the lead-in for it.
There’s a million papercuts that are pushing me towards giving up my degree and honestly this reader is one of the major ones.