Flargus's recent activity

  1. Comment on Russian-style kleptocracy is infiltrating America in ~society

    Flargus
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    or maybe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, western-style kleptocracy infiltrated russia? (think emoji)

    or maybe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, western-style kleptocracy infiltrated russia? (think emoji)

    6 votes

  2. Comment on I was wrong about Google and Facebook: There’s nothing wrong with them (so say we all) in ~tech

    Flargus
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    at the moment sure, they essentially are the web. But there was a time before that, and there can be a time after it. "Adaptation" is tricky, philosophically speaking - does the lock necessarily...

    at the moment sure, they essentially are the web. But there was a time before that, and there can be a time after it. "Adaptation" is tricky, philosophically speaking - does the lock necessarily predate the key or do they co-evolve?

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Which Mastodon instance should I use? in ~tech

    Flargus
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    that's sorta the point in that there isn't rly :P mastodon.social is the one that mastodon official maintains afaik, but it's only like the jumping off point. this might be helpful for ya tho

    that's sorta the point in that there isn't rly :P mastodon.social is the one that mastodon official maintains afaik, but it's only like the jumping off point. this might be helpful for ya tho

    7 votes

  4. Comment on PinePhone Linux Smartphone priced at $149 to arrive this year in ~tech

    Flargus
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    idk i think with System76 already having broken through the linux laptop scene in a pretty big (& growing) way, this is a lil less of a risk, tho obv plenty of different challenges

    idk i think with System76 already having broken through the linux laptop scene in a pretty big (& growing) way, this is a lil less of a risk, tho obv plenty of different challenges

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps in ~tech

    Flargus
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    imo it's mostly to do with image management, which isn't inherently a bad thing. If Apple(tm) or an Apple(tm) device(c) is related to a story, that's a black smudge on the shiny purgatory-white...

    imo it's mostly to do with image management, which isn't inherently a bad thing. If Apple(tm) or an Apple(tm) device(c) is related to a story, that's a black smudge on the shiny purgatory-white reputation it's worked so hard to build. After all, if apple weren't so careful, how could it justify its luxury status?

    1 vote

  6. Comment on I hate my job as a system administrator in ~talk

    Flargus
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    to me it seems like what you hate most of all is capitalism. i know that word can mean a bunch of things to a bunch of people, but what i mean is very specific - a societal environment where in...

    to me it seems like what you hate most of all is capitalism.

    i know that word can mean a bunch of things to a bunch of people, but what i mean is very specific - a societal environment where in order to put food on the table & pay rent, the vast majority of the population must sell off their ability to labor to an employer (who has the legal deed to specific property).

    That dynamic alone is the core of much of the dissatisfaction i find in any career, it's what makes the mantra of "do what you'll love and you'll never work a day in your life" trite - because if you're not in control of your own time, even if that time is spent adjacent to what you do to relax, you're still at the whim of another person's (or group's) visions and whims. If what you're doing isn't meaningfully a product of your own desire - if it's not as core to who you are as honey is to a bee - then you'll eventually grow disenchanted and feel your alienation from it. The problem's not the actions, it's the incentive structure.

    Though im not rly aware of sizeable ones in tech (iirc there's a couple in the games industry), the idea of Worker-Owned Cooperatives as a way of significantly overcoming that alienation is one that im rly invested in. What that means is that every person who is an employee shares in the responsibility of employer. Decisions of hiring, firing, and payment are decided upon through one of a variety of consensus methods, which means that even if some staff still take managerial roles, it's in management's best interest to come to an agreement with other staff instead of dictating the decisions downward (as is rational in workplaces with a traditional employee/employer structure).

    They've shown time after time to improve staff engagement, workplace longevity in the face of economic crises, and long-term planning, but since they get to the root of our preconceptions of how work "should" be, they're scoffed off as fantasy. IMO in someplace like that ppl who are as genuinely interested in learning and self-improvement as OP would thrive much more than the places they're currently being wrung out in

    8 votes

  7. Comment on Venezuela opposition leader swears himself in as interim president in ~news

  8. Comment on Venezuela opposition leader swears himself in as interim president in ~news

    Flargus
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    Chavez promised to diversify the economy and do more to prevent price fixing by venezuelan capitalists (who still own the vast majority of the economy), but ultimately was unable to for a variety...

    Chavez promised to diversify the economy and do more to prevent price fixing by venezuelan capitalists (who still own the vast majority of the economy), but ultimately was unable to for a variety of reasons - some to do with the fact that much of that money was directed towards things like housing developments for the poor, some to do with generic bureaucratic corruption, and some to do with the US & allies like KSA manipulating the price of oil to destabilize the region.

    At the end of the day though, "Bad Economic Decisions" happen in every single country. This isnt something unique to Venezuelan Socialism, it's not something unique to the US's Official Enemies, and it's not something that will be fixed by putting in yet another pro-business neoliberal stooge who will follow the whims of the IMF and sell off everything still state-owned to the lowest bidder.

    But none of that's even near the center of the discussion. It's all caricatures of evil dictators stuffing their faces while every single citizen is unhappy and in the streets throwing molotovs. No US media stooge talks about the Caracazo or any of the enormous protests which rocked Caracas before anyone had even heard of Chavez, nobody talks about the staggering inequality that has been the case for decades in Venezuela. Anything that happened before Chavez is assumed to be Perfect and Fine, he just decided to mess things up just for the sake of it.

    US State Ideology is incapable of dealing with trajectories and history. Everything that happens in the world happens in a vacuum, and purely because of the personalities of the actors involved.

    19 votes

  9. Comment on Advice for learning a language? in ~hobbies

    Flargus
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    focus on nouns, pronouns & verbs for situations you might find yourself in, string together words very basically with sentences consisting of lots of pointing, don't worry about fancy conjugation...

    focus on nouns, pronouns & verbs for situations you might find yourself in, string together words very basically with sentences consisting of lots of pointing, don't worry about fancy conjugation & declension & other and finer points of grammar until you can get across a basic level of understanding. Once you've put in the hard work of sweating over 3/4-word sentences, adding more on is easy ;)

  10. Comment on Advice for learning a language? in ~hobbies

    Flargus
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    also if you're looking for Russian music, check out Kino & Nautlus Pompilius, they're fun :^)

    also if you're looking for Russian music, check out Kino & Nautlus Pompilius, they're fun :^)

    1 vote

  11. Comment on Advice for learning a language? in ~hobbies

    Flargus
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    My #1 go to method for getting started in learning is to find music in your target language that you like. Listen to it a bunch wherever you are. Find lyrics online, sing them to yourself. sing it...

    My #1 go to method for getting started in learning is to find music in your target language that you like. Listen to it a bunch wherever you are. Find lyrics online, sing them to yourself. sing it in the shower. sing it at work. on the train. sing it again and again until youve got the words down, regardless of if you can understand a single one of them, regardless of if your pronunciation is miles off. Get used to the way it feels to have the language in your mouth, and once you eventually learn what some of those words mean, you'll have some other context to attach that meaning to.

    Step 2: Speak it. Start where everyone else starts. Babble. Make a fool of yourself. Every single person who has spoken any human language does at some point, most just get to when they're kids & are less self-conscious about failure (big unaccounted-for factor in those "kids are 10000billionX better at language learning" studies is that it's cute when kids mess up, and everyone assumes that if they mess up as an adult they'll be laughed out of the country).

    If your situation makes it so you 100000% can't find anyone who knows your target language nearby/can't afford to travel somewhere to find ppl (even diaspora) - the internet's got a bunch of good stuff too, i can personally vouch for at least some folx on italki (paid lessons, usually reasonably priced but varies by language). There's lots more (i haven't used) on HelloTalk and here https://www.lifewire.com/free-language-exchange-websites-1357059

    and last must-do: SRS (the surgery and/or Spaced-Repitition-Software). It's basically fancy flashcards which measure how well you remember each card, and puts the card back into the deck at different points so that if you did well, you won't see it as often, but if you misremembered it'll be more common. I use Anki (android/web free ios paid) and Memrise (freemium). Duolingo has it's own flashcard app TinyCards, but last i checked it didn't have significant community support in building robust decks, but that's always susceptible to change!

    5 votes

  12. Comment on Advice for learning a language? in ~hobbies

    Flargus
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    The thing about duolingo, and the reason it's able to be free is that the majority of the content is not actually created by paid employees, but by volunteers who know two languages fluently...

    The thing about duolingo, and the reason it's able to be free is that the majority of the content is not actually created by paid employees, but by volunteers who know two languages fluently enough to build a course in it. The developers give access to the tools, but it's only ever gonna be so effective. But if you get marked wrong on something that should be right, flagging it as a mistake really helps it improve!

    I think a lot of ppl think it's a silver bullet & it's not, but it's certainly a rly effective tool to have in one's toolbox, especially getting off the ground!

    1 vote

  13. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~comp

    Flargus
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    I'm not convinced that Knowledge must correspond to something Actual though. If the farmer nods at bessie, walks home takes a nap, and the scoundrels move on to papier-mache in greenerrrr...

    I'm not convinced that Knowledge must correspond to something Actual though.

    If the farmer nods at bessie, walks home takes a nap, and the scoundrels move on to papier-mache in greenerrrr pastures..... if the farmer wakes up and continues about, his life having been affected in no way, why is his certainty - his knowledge - of that sense-data Wrong?

    In the coding case, they can't go about their day because until they figure out the issue the feature will be down. There's an imperative to discriminate why that experience doesn't match up with expected knowledge, and one can 'hop back' to the realm of the Actual.

    But in a somewhat quantum sorta way, farmers don't need Actuality. They just need cows.
    (if mr. COPenhagen is to be believed)

    1 vote

  14. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~comp

    Flargus
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    astute
    1. The application deployed to this resin device is called "logger". Not a good sign

    astute

  15. Comment on SpaceX to lay off over 10% of its workforce in ~space

    Flargus
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    im sure that's not at all an indicator of how much they value their workers! surely an isolated incident and not belying a deeper more systemic problem!

    im sure that's not at all an indicator of how much they value their workers! surely an isolated incident and not belying a deeper more systemic problem!

    4 votes

  16. Comment on Linux from Scratch is one of the best things I ever did. in ~comp

    Flargus
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    Oh I thought this was about writing it in that programming language for kids

    Oh I thought this was about writing it in that programming language for kids

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Google Translated: How the French Yellow Vest Movement is being politically appropriated around the world in ~news

    Flargus
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    Also if he wasn't paid by the Kochs

    Also if he wasn't paid by the Kochs

  18. Comment on Mac, Electron and the decline of native apps in ~tech

    Flargus
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    Imo it's less an opportunity missed than a new field of terrain entered. Desktop apps won't be the default experience of using something, but they'll always be an option. I think there'll be a...

    Imo it's less an opportunity missed than a new field of terrain entered. Desktop apps won't be the default experience of using something, but they'll always be an option. I think there'll be a greater decoupling of the front end of apps from the back end, & well see lots more apps w both web & desktop interfaces, with somewhat different layouts & focuses.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on To slow down climate change, we need to take on capitalism in ~enviro

    Flargus
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    Surplus subsumes Profit; when labor is no longer accounted as a separate input in order to attain revenue generation, & instead as the universal democratic voice deciding what happens w that...

    Surplus subsumes Profit; when labor is no longer accounted as a separate input in order to attain revenue generation, & instead as the universal democratic voice deciding what happens w that Surplus, then dividing Profit becomes philosophically sorta difficult. Since actions are based on some type of consensus procedure, the motive force of the cooperative only partially follows the profit motive, & on the macro scale stops (or scrambles) the societal focus on profit

  20. Comment on To slow down climate change, we need to take on capitalism in ~enviro

    Flargus
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    Idk I think to an extent this is roughly accurate, but it still posits a natural humanity not already exposed to any ideological influence, which rly is an abstraction over anything. Much of the...

    Idk I think to an extent this is roughly accurate, but it still posits a natural humanity not already exposed to any ideological influence, which rly is an abstraction over anything. Much of the core aspects of Marxism rly are logical conclusions of a lot of aphorisms we grow up with, but a lot abt the analysis of Capital & the base of the material world isn't necessarily intuitive, as the world it reflects isn't necessarily either