Johz's recent activity
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Comment on Men arrested on suspicion of explosives offences near US air base in Britain following "major incident" in ~news
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Comment on Humble Bundle: current sci-fi/fantasy author bundles in ~books
Johz LinkI got the Zahn one because I'd heard good things about the Thrawn books, and so far I've only read Manta's Gift and it's... not good? Partly the ebook was really poor quality, although that might...I got the Zahn one because I'd heard good things about the Thrawn books, and so far I've only read Manta's Gift and it's... not good? Partly the ebook was really poor quality, although that might also be to do with the reader I use, but the writing was also also just bad. Like, one of the main through lines of the book is one particular character's growth and development, and you can show that through actions and behaviour, or you can cop out and just have the character monologue their way through that growth. Zahn goes for the latter, but doesn't want it to be too obvious, so there's also a psychologist character whose main role is to basically share that monologue, so if the main character has been thinking too much recently, the psychologist gets a turn at spelling everything out for us.
That said, I've not tried any of the others in that bundle yet, so I'll keep an open mind for now.
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Comment on Ray Gunn | Official trailer in ~movies
Johz Link ParentYeah, I've got to say that the name "Brad Bird" is the best thing I've seen from this so far, which makes me a bit nervous for what the final result will look like.Yeah, I've got to say that the name "Brad Bird" is the best thing I've seen from this so far, which makes me a bit nervous for what the final result will look like.
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Comment on Ineos has opened a carbon dioxide storage site off the Danish coast, as momentum builds in Europe for the fledgling but expensive technology in ~enviro
Johz Link ParentWhile I agree that there's a certain amount of greenwashing going on in the announcement, these things are always going to start very small and then figure things out. The earliest computers were...Projects like this don't seem practically viable to me, at least as a solution to the problem they supposedly address. We release something like 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. and this would over eight years be able to store some tiny fraction of only one year's total emissions, assuming we'll capture that much CO₂ in the first place.
While I agree that there's a certain amount of greenwashing going on in the announcement, these things are always going to start very small and then figure things out. The earliest computers were lumbering hunks of metal and wires that could do very little, but if no-one had built them, we wouldn't have made it all the way to the smartphone. Similarly, the only way these sorts of installations are going to become viable is if people build a bunch of mediocre ones, figure some stuff out, then build a bunch more slightly better ones, and so on.
The impression I have is that people who work on carbon capture stuff see it as being eventually viable — this isn't some dumb idea like building roads out of solar panels where almost no amount of research will solve the fundamental problems that stop it from working. It's just not viable yet — and as others point out, not a replacement for the basic levels of decarbonisation we still need to do.
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Comment on Baba Is You and Party House - The Board Games (Kickstarter) in ~games.tabletop
Johz LinkA couple of reviews of Party House and Baba is You from Dan Thurot/SpaceBiff. I've not played much of Baba is You (I've never really got into Sokoban-style games), but I really like the idea of it...A couple of reviews of Party House and Baba is You from Dan Thurot/SpaceBiff.
I've not played much of Baba is You (I've never really got into Sokoban-style games), but I really like the idea of it as a one-on-one duel — it sounds more like a reactive, tactical thing where you're trying to look for every possibility of success. That said, it also sounds very messy, like one of those games of connect four where you realise someone's made a row three rounds ago but neither of you noticed it.
Party House sounds more like my sort of game. It sounds a bit like a deck-building version of Quacks of Quedlinburg — push-your-luck, but with an engine-building aspect to it as well that makes each round feel more exciting. Plus a bit of inter-player interaction sounds good. I'd be interested to see how it plays, exactly, because the description at least ticks a lot of boxes.
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Comment on Ed Sheeran’s tour in trouble after opening acts drop out in solidarity with rapper Macklemore in ~music
Johz Link ParentSo I want to first say that I agree with you that some people have read your comments very uncharitably and I completely agree both that (a) it is perfectly reasonable and healthy to want or...So I want to first say that I agree with you that some people have read your comments very uncharitably and I completely agree both that (a) it is perfectly reasonable and healthy to want or provide entertainment and breathing space outside of contemporary political issues; and (b) it is perfectly reasonable to say "I don't want to express an opinion on this issue". I also agree that ultimately we should be most angry at Israel (on account of the whole genocide thing) and Kraft for forcing this particular issue, and throwing his financial power behind Israel.
That said, I think your version of events paints Ed Sheeran as being either particularly stupid or naive. I imagine a big tour like this is very finely choreographed, and it would surprise me if he wasn't aware both of Macklemore's strong pro-Palestine stance, and that Macklemore planned to bring this up during his part of the show. If he didn't want to talk about Palestine, he probably shouldn't have brought Macklemore along with him.
I wonder if what Ed Sheeran wanted was something like the Ukraine situation, where he could show support for a popular cause, and get some love for it at the same time. Like, I think there's a very cynical read of that situation where Sheeran was doing it purely for the publicity, and I don't think that's true, but at the same time, I don't think he would have done it if he'd have thought his reputation would be significantly damaged by it.
But where generally people support the Ukrainians and don't like Russia, the situation in Palestine is more controversial. And so Sheeran underestimated the strength of organisations like the ADL, realised the minefield he'd stepped onto was more dangerous (and financially costly to him) than he thought, decided quickly that he wanted nothing more to do with that, and dropped Macklemore.
And I think what people are angry about is that clearly Ed Sheeran has put a price on his support of Palestine. He's weighed up how much supporting Palestine is worth to him, and clearly the answer is less than doing the rest of the tour. And that sense of "I will support a cause as long as it doesn't cost too much", particularly coming from someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars, I think triggers a lot of people's sense of hypocrisy.
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Comment on Svend Brinkmann: ‘If you place conditions on forgiveness, love or freedom, you have already destroyed them’ in ~science
Johz Link ParentI don't think I agree with that. Letting go of feelings is letting go of feelings. That's something you choose to do regardless of the other person. But that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness has to...I don't think I agree with that. Letting go of feelings is letting go of feelings. That's something you choose to do regardless of the other person. But that's not forgiveness. Forgiveness has to involve the other person.
But I think we might just be talking in circles with different definitions of forgiveness here.
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Comment on Svend Brinkmann: ‘If you place conditions on forgiveness, love or freedom, you have already destroyed them’ in ~science
Johz Link ParentI don't think that's forgiveness so much as letting something go. And letting something go is part of forgiveness, but it's not the whole thing. The woman in this scenario was willing to let the...I don't think that's forgiveness so much as letting something go. And letting something go is part of forgiveness, but it's not the whole thing. The woman in this scenario was willing to let the crimes of the person monitoring her go, but that in of itself isn't forgiveness yet, because he's not involved in her decision. It's only once she confronts him that forgiveness can happen.
I think another way of seeing it asking whether I can forgive you of a crime that I perceive to exist, but you don't. Let's say I read between the lines of your comment and saw that you were really telling me that I'm an awful terrible person who doesn't deserve to use the internet. That's hurtful, but I forgive you for saying that. Is that really forgiveness? You don't believe you implied any of that stuff, you don't think you've done anything wrong at all — is my claim of trying to forgive you not a bit hurtful in this case?
(To be clear, I don't think you did write anything like that! :D I just find the idea of malicious forgiveness a fascinating concept.)
So I think forgiveness has to be two-way, in that it has to involve at least an acknowledgement of wrongdoing in order to work.
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Comment on Svend Brinkmann: ‘If you place conditions on forgiveness, love or freedom, you have already destroyed them’ in ~science
Johz LinkA while back I tried to make a board game about reconciliation and forgiveness, and while it never really went anywhere, the research I did was fascinating. There's this sense that true...A while back I tried to make a board game about reconciliation and forgiveness, and while it never really went anywhere, the research I did was fascinating. There's this sense that true forgiveness is antithetical to justice: if justice is giving someone the correct punishment for their crime, then forgiveness is letting them off that punishment. That is a deeply radical idea, and I think it's very difficult to come to terms with, particularly when you look at the sorts of evils that people regularly get away with.
That said, the other thing that I came away with was how important it is that forgiveness be two-way. You can't forgive someone who doesn't want to be forgiven, who perhaps doesn't even believe that what they've done was wrong. I remember reading a story about an East German woman who, after the wall fell, went to find the person who had been responsible for tracking and monitoring her, in order to forgive him. But in the end, she couldn't forgive him because he was unwilling to accept responsibility or blame in the first place — in his eyes, there was nothing to forgive, and in her eyes, although she wanted to be able to forgive him, she was unable to. In a way, his refusal to accept forgiveness was a last abuse of her, because it meant she was unable to properly put aside her anger and hurt. (This incident would have formed the core of the game, just because I found it such a fascinating scenario.)
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Comment on Ed Sheeran’s tour in trouble after opening acts drop out in solidarity with rapper Macklemore in ~music
Johz Link ParentI don't think that's quite what the previous poster was saying. I don't think they're saying public spaces or musicians should generally remain politically silent, just that it's okay for a...That doesn't mean people never need rest. Of course they do. Nobody can remain emotionally engaged with every injustice every hour of every day. But there's a difference between saying, "People need moments to recover," and expecting public spaces or artists to remain politically silent so that the rest of us don't have to be confronted with something uncomfortable.
I don't think that's quite what the previous poster was saying. I don't think they're saying public spaces or musicians should generally remain politically silent, just that it's okay for a particular artist to say "I want my concerts to be a place of rest and positivity", and to avoid political messaging. And I think that's perfectly reasonable — it's certainly a privileged position, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to want or provide such a space.
That said, I think that argument holds poorly for Ed Sheeran here, because he chose to bring Macklemore in the first place. I can't imagine that he was unaware of what sort of things Macklemore was going to say or bring up in his performances — I know very little of Macklemore's music and associate him with this sort of thing, so I assume Ed Sheeran was also originally okay with this amount of political engagement on his tour. The thing that changed wasn't Macklemore, it was the venues putting pressure on Ed Sheeran to prevent Macklemore saying the sorts of things he was saying.
So it's not really a case of Ed Sheeran wanting his places to be apolitical for the benefit of his audience, it's that he wanted them to be apolitical for the benefit of the people to whom he was financially answerable. Which is also a reasonable decision if he were honest about it, but then he'd also need to reconcile that with the fact that, as an already very rich and successful performer, his main concern was the financial impact on him.
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
Johz Link ParentI guess I don't really see the difference between consumer demand and public sentiment. The biggest difference is how you vote: at the polls or with your wallet. Either way, things are unlikely to...I guess I don't really see the difference between consumer demand and public sentiment. The biggest difference is how you vote: at the polls or with your wallet. Either way, things are unlikely to change unless a majority of people are willing to accept that the luxuries they are used to are supplied largely by industries that burn the planet. And not in the sense that those industries are run by malevolent villains who want to do bad things, but rather in the sense that the luxuries themselves rely on massive waste and consumption of resources.
Therefore, the people that ultimately need to enact these changes are us, the voters and consumers. Corporations aren't going to change by themselves, they're responding to the market (i.e. us, again, the voters and consumers). And politicians do (in most democracies at least) what they're told to by us, the voters and consumers.
The problem as I see it is that the voters and consumers aren't really convinced by the need for these changes. Like, we (mostly) agree that climate change is bad, but the price we're willing to pay to fix it is far lower than what's actually needed. I think that's slowly starting to change as more younger people become able to vote and as the more disastrous effects are being felt, but it's taken a long time to get this far.
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
Johz Link ParentIt's a bit more complicated than that, though. Consumers are part of the systems and industries in question. Take Amazon as an example - on the one hand, a lot of their success is due to their...Agreed except consumers. The problem is systems and industries, if action (such as regulation, protests, boycotts) is taken against those, the science says it should be enough.
It's a bit more complicated than that, though. Consumers are part of the systems and industries in question. Take Amazon as an example - on the one hand, a lot of their success is due to their size and ability to overpower smaller competitors. On the other hand, they also make buying things really convenient, and consumers like that. I have friends who buy almost everything on Amazon because it has it all in one place and it comes quickly. That's consumer preference.
When it comes to climate change, it's a similar situation. Most people agree that climate change is bad, but they like meat being relatively cheap, and being able to afford private transport, and long-distance travel being relatively quick and convenient. And therefore companies offer those services, even though it's terrible for the environment (and then greenwash the whole thing to try and get the best of both worlds).
It's a bit too simplistic to say it's all consumer-driven - there's also plenty of lobbying and advertising going on to push consumers in certain directions - but I think it's a mistake to take consumers out of the equation entirely.
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Comment on Small talk, ice breakers, lines in ~talk
Johz LinkI've never been a fan of icebreaker questions that sound like Icebreaker questions. There's a British comedian who has a book of "emergency questions" which is a similar concept, and they're funny...I've never been a fan of icebreaker questions that sound like Icebreaker questions. There's a British comedian who has a book of "emergency questions" which is a similar concept, and they're funny to watch when he's interviewing a famous comedian, but they don't really break the ice so much as move it around. You can ask a question and get a response, but usually that doesn't lead the conversation on much further so you're just delaying the inevitable.
What I try to do (and I'm not very good at it, in fairness) is find out what the other person's Mastermind specialist subject is, and then I can "interview" them about it, and that's usually interesting. Work is often a good topic, especially for people who work in areas like academia, or in unusual jobs. Hobbies are also good, but asking "what hobbies do you have" is a terrible question most of the time, so I find I have to go at that one sideways - "what did you do at the weekend/in the summer/etc" or something like that. Children are a classic option for a reason, especially because right now I mostly meet people in the context of toddler groups and things like that.
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Comment on Looking for an effective self-block application for Android in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI use an app that's just called Block, I think, and it's been pretty good so far. It can block specific apps, as well as websites, it has a few different ways of scheduling blocks (schedules,...I use an app that's just called Block, I think, and it's been pretty good so far. It can block specific apps, as well as websites, it has a few different ways of scheduling blocks (schedules, hourly limits, daily limits) and it has a fairly configurable pause setting. I've not fiddled around much with the anti-uninstall stuff but it looks like it has that, you could see if that handles Portuguese properly!
I have the pro version but I'm fairly sure that that was a one time fee, and I found it a reasonable price. A number of features are only available with pro, but I can't remember which ones right now, unfortunately.
My current tactic is to block all time wasting apps and websites between 6am and 7pm, with pauses disabled. I have a second block that does the same, but it only blocks newly installed apps and it allows me to pause the block - this is an escape hatch that makes installing new games and things a nuisance, but means if I'm somewhere and I need to install a particular app for some reason, then I can still do that. Finally, I have a 24/7 block on Reddit that I can unpause for 5 mins at a time, so that I can read Reddit results when I'm googling something, but it's difficult to keep on scrolling endlessly. (Actually, I might have already disabled that last one because Reddit's new login popup makes it so difficult to use anyway.)
I've found this setup really effective so far, and it's been going for over a year now, I think, in various forms. I think part of it is a psychological sense that I paid for this thing, so I'm damn well going to use it properly, but even before I paid I was fairly happy with it.
Good luck in your search, though. I sometimes feel a bit dumb that I need my phone to tell me when I'm allowed to play with it, but at the same time it works, I'm happier for it, and that's what matters.
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Comment on Sanity check - always-on machine + laptop with remote desktop in ~tech
Johz Link ParentGood shouts! I did try out the laptop<->phone connection, although only briefly. For working it was more than good enough, although I only tried gaming out on LAN connections, so I should probably...Good shouts! I did try out the laptop<->phone connection, although only briefly. For working it was more than good enough, although I only tried gaming out on LAN connections, so I should probably test that out again under less ideal conditions. But I suspect that matches how I'd be using this setup anyway — gaming while at home, but doing idle programming/tinkering while on the move. But I will double check how that gets set up.
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Comment on Sanity check - always-on machine + laptop with remote desktop in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI'll treat that as independent confirmation that Moonlight/Sunshine isn't a bad choice then! :D Out of interest, why did you stop using this setup? And what was the biggest nuisance you found with it?I'll treat that as independent confirmation that Moonlight/Sunshine isn't a bad choice then! :D
Out of interest, why did you stop using this setup? And what was the biggest nuisance you found with it?
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Sanity check - always-on machine + laptop with remote desktop
I'm looking for a new laptop as my current one is falling apart, and one option that seems quite tempting at the moment is getting a desktop machine, leaving it running away in the background, and...
I'm looking for a new laptop as my current one is falling apart, and one option that seems quite tempting at the moment is getting a desktop machine, leaving it running away in the background, and then accessing it using remote desktop software from a laptop (or even tablet) most of the time. My logic is that I want a fairly decent device for programming on and occasional games, but I also want something portable that I can carry into every room of my flat. I've also been experimenting more with Tailscale and using my laptop as a remote development machine and my phone as a dumb terminal while traveling abroad, and that's worked fairly well, so I'm interested in how far I can take this concept. Plus the idea of also being able to use my main device as a small homelab is kind of appealing as well.
The plan would be:
- Framework Desktop sits somewhere at home and is on all the time. My wife has a Framework laptop that she's quite impressed with, I realise the value proposition for desktop computers is less given there's already so much possibility to configure and upgrade, but I've never built a PC myself before and I don't want to complicate this setup too much.
'* A dumb terminal device that I can carry around with me. For now, that'll probably be my current laptop as long as it lasts, but in the future maybe a cheap Chromebook or even a tablet that I can connect a keyboard and mouse to. - Moonlight/Sunshine setup for the remote desktop side of things. From what I can tell, this can stream both individual applications but also the whole desktop, and works with various clients.
- Tailscale to access all of this outside the home. This is less important but it would be convenient. And if I go down the homelab direction, also for being able to access my self-hosted services remotely or running my personal website off my own hardware.
Things I'm concerned about:
- German connection speeds are, broadly speaking, poor, especially with upload speeds. I'm looking at maybe 300M down, 50M up. Inside my local network that won't affect me, but if I did want to take my laptop with me, I don't have a good sense of whether the remote desktop aspect is really feasible.
- The Framework desktop - I like the company, and I like the idea of a repairable desktop that's still sold as a single unit and not something where I need to buy everything myself. But I also don't have a good sense of how much of a premium I'd be paying here, vs either building something completely from scratch or buying a more typical desktop
- The laptop would probably live in the living room because that's where all the other technology (in particular the modem) in our house lives. It's fine if it makes a noise while I'm actively using it to watch things, but I'd need it to be very quiet the rest of the time. Framework does sell a fan that is specifically designed to be quiet, but I'm not sure if this is "it's quiet compared to having a normal computer fan on" or "it's quiet compared to having turned all my devices off for the night".
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of setup, and is this something that would reasonably work, or am I completely missing something obvious that makes this a terrible awful idea that nobody should do?
Thanks in advance!
24 votes - Framework Desktop sits somewhere at home and is on all the time. My wife has a Framework laptop that she's quite impressed with, I realise the value proposition for desktop computers is less given there's already so much possibility to configure and upgrade, but I've never built a PC myself before and I don't want to complicate this setup too much.
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Comment on Choosing a printer in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI also recommend this, although in the end we got a black-and-white printer, which is fine. Where we live, there are some fairly cheap self-serve printing shops when we really need colour, and the...I also recommend this, although in the end we got a black-and-white printer, which is fine. Where we live, there are some fairly cheap self-serve printing shops when we really need colour, and the printer at home is mainly for convenience when printing out documents and things for typical German bureaucracy purposes, and those can pretty much always just be black and white. It's also good to have something at home for emergencies, even if it's "only" black and white.
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Comment on What JavaScript framework should I use? in ~comp
Johz Link ParentI strongly disagree with this statement. To be clear, I think not using a framework at all can be a fine option, and I also think React has a lot of issues that make it a poor framework. My own...- Exemplary
There's nothing React / whatever really gets you anymore that you can't get from native Web Components and all the effect and suspense garbage it comes with serves literally no point anymore. It's time has officially come and gone.
I strongly disagree with this statement.
To be clear, I think not using a framework at all can be a fine option, and I also think React has a lot of issues that make it a poor framework. My own personal preference would be for SolidJS, that's what I usually go for if I'm using a framework, otherwise I'll sort of hand-roll things if they aren't too complicated. Either way, I am not trying to denigrate web components or claim that React is some brilliant tool that solves all your problems. However:
Web components are not a replacement for React. Web components are mostly orthogonal to React, they should be used for different things.
React provides, roughly, three major things: reactive state (i.e. when I change some application state, trigger the appropriate side effects including updating the UI); templating (i.e. a declarative syntax for describing how the UI should look depending on the state); and state management (i.e. how do I stay in control of a complex state tree). It isn't necessarily great at all three (templating is great, reactive state is overly complicated by the
UI = f(state)paradigm, and state management exists but is mostly supplemented by third-party libraries), but all three are present.Web components provide two things: a set of APIs for isolating parts of the DOM in different way, and a declarative syntax for executing these APIs from HTML. It's also worth keeping in mind that the APIs aren't necessarily even tied to web components - you can use the shadow DOM without ever creating a custom component - but the two parts are mostly connected for historical reasons.
Many people use web components via Lit, but Lit is a fairly standard web framework, much like React, that just happens to use web components internally. When you use Lit, you get all the reactive state, templating, state management goodies that you get from React and other frameworks, but only because Lit is providing them, and not because they have anything to do with web components themselves.
You should reach for web components if:
- You are writing code that will be embedded into a variety of different contexts and frameworks, and you want consumers to be able to use a consistent syntax to pass data into your code
- You are writing a widget that is entirely self-contained with very clearly defined inputs and outputs, essentially something like a date picker or a chart widget that can be dropped into any page.
That's probably not the case in this instance, in which case web components aren't really adding much.
I also don't agree with your comment about the "effect and suspense garbage". In fairness, React makes effects more complicated than they need to be, but both tools are incredibly useful. Effects are how you interact with things outside of the React world, and suspense is how you cope with asynchronous data. If you don't have these things, you need to either load all data upfront (impractical for anything that's actually reactive where that data can change) or you manually manage that asynchronicity everywhere that it's needed, essentially building your own less-good version of suspense. All frameworks have something like suspense, although different frameworks have different APIs and names for it. Svelte and SolidJS in particular are actively exploring this space in detail because of how useful it turns out suspense can be.
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Comment on New Zealand has a new official language — English in ~society
Johz Link ParentIt's worth noting that the Māori Language Act 1987 doesn't make Māori the official language, it makes it an official language. That is, the language of the bill is not about codifying the complete...It's worth noting that the Māori Language Act 1987 doesn't make Māori the official language, it makes it an official language. That is, the language of the bill is not about codifying the complete set of official national languages, it is asserting that Māori must be officially recognised as one of those languages. The assumption throughout the Act is that English already is an official language (English is made reference to several times as a comparison).
So in that regard, further legislation is unnecessary - English is an official language, as are Māori and NZSL, there's not much that needs to change.
That said, I think the original lawmakers kind of shot themselves in the foot by using the language of "official language". The Welsh equivalent the the New Zealand legislation is in part based on does not use this idea of an official language, it simply says that it can be used for official purposes. Wales didn't gain an official language until 2011, and even then, the status of official language is defined far more explicitly than in NZ's 1987 Act. I suspect some of this could have been resolved with tighter wording there, and avoiding the specific wording of "official language".
The UK government has no shortage of people calling for more restrictions on immigration, as well as tighter controls on UK citizens (or at least those kinds of UK citizens). They don't need to manufacture something to drum up support for those sorts of policies.
This feels a lot more like a Hanlon's Razor situation: a group of people are in the wrong place at the wrong time — potentially to do something illegal, potentially not — and the reaction is particularly swift and aggressive due to the tensions in the Middle East and the US being involved.
And I think even Hanlon's Razor is a bit strong — it doesn't even sound like incompetence (at least not so far) just a reasonable amount of caution given the US's current attempts to further destabilise an already volatile region. Maybe the situation could have been clarified before going all "state of emergency" and panicking wildly, but on the other hand, maybe it couldn't and assuming the worst was a perfectly reasonable approach until further information could be found.