Johz's recent activity
-
Comment on PanGui - A cross-platform UI library with a razor sharp focus on performance, simplicity and expressive power in ~comp
-
Comment on PanGui - A cross-platform UI library with a razor sharp focus on performance, simplicity and expressive power in ~comp
Johz Link ParentNot really, a virtual machine is a program that executes code in a particular way, it doesn't have anything to do with GUIs. The benefit of electron and friends is partly that it enables...Not really, a virtual machine is a program that executes code in a particular way, it doesn't have anything to do with GUIs.
The benefit of electron and friends is partly that it enables Javascript developers to do develop desktop apps, but it's mainly that the web platform is surprisingly nice to develop for. CSS is a good language for describing how UI should be laid out, and HTML includes almost all of the most necessary controls, as well as making it fairly easy to create new controls out of the existing primitives. It's also far more cross-platform than most existing solutions, and allows a much higher degree of styling and branding.
So the goal would be to take as many of the benefits of that (cross-platform, UI elements, etc) while removing anything that doesn't need to be there. For example, sandboxing is a big part of the browser, but it's completely unnecessary for desktop applications, because those typically aren't sandboxed at all.
-
Comment on PanGui - A cross-platform UI library with a razor sharp focus on performance, simplicity and expressive power in ~comp
Johz Link ParentJavascript uses a lot of memory, and browser sandboxing makes it even heavier, as each browser tab/window/frame needs its own interpreter. I've seen estimates suggesting Javascript accounts for...Javascript uses a lot of memory, and browser sandboxing makes it even heavier, as each browser tab/window/frame needs its own interpreter. I've seen estimates suggesting Javascript accounts for about 35% of browser memory usage, which is a lot considering how difficult rendering is. If you could control the DOM natively (i.e. not just with Wasm, but directly compiled code), you would need a lot less of that. It would be way less secure (i.e. no sandboxing), but that's less important for applications that are essentially insecure by design. You can also remove a bunch of browser features that only make sense in the context of the web, like networking, storage, devices, etc.
NPM and package management is mostly a red herring here. In general, you're only going to be paying for what you're using, at runtime at least, which means whether a function comes from an NPM library or from a built-in browser API, it'll still use up roughly the same amount of memory. The more stuff that gets bundled in the browser, the less needs to be shipped as additional packages — but the more needs to get shipped in the browser in the first place. I think there's a lot to criticise about NPM, but it's irrelevant to this particular issue.
Basically, I suspect the future is probably tools like Dioxus' Blitz engine, which is basically just an HTML/CSS renderer which can be embedded in other applications. Essentially, take the bits of the browser focused on rendering things, and make them usable in other contexts as well.
-
Comment on PanGui - A cross-platform UI library with a razor sharp focus on performance, simplicity and expressive power in ~comp
Johz Link ParentNot really. Tauri uses the system web UI when it exists, which means the initial install doesn't need to include a whole fresh web browser, but it's still using the same underlying concepts, and...Not really. Tauri uses the system web UI when it exists, which means the initial install doesn't need to include a whole fresh web browser, but it's still using the same underlying concepts, and it's still using a fully-featured browser.
A different approach might to be create a stripped-down browser exclusively for developing applications in. It wouldn't need to support everything that a real browser supports, and you don't need the scripting language to be Javascript or to worry to the same degree about security. I know there's a couple of projects going in this direction, but they're mostly either small or experimental.
-
Comment on UK Supreme Court: 'Woman' means biological female under the Equality Act 2010 in ~society
Johz Link ParentI believe this is a relatively specific ruling, and doesn't establish much in the way of precedence. So other laws should be "safe" from this decision. That said, the Equality Act is pretty...I believe this is a relatively specific ruling, and doesn't establish much in the way of precedence. So other laws should be "safe" from this decision. That said, the Equality Act is pretty important, and as I understand it, a lot of questions about which spaces trans people are allowed to exist in essentially come down to how to interpret the Equality Act, which this ruling will affect.
My hope is that the Government take the hint and fix the EA, but like I said, I don't think that's going to be a battle they're willing to face right now, nor do I think the fixes that are needed will be popular.
-
Comment on UK Supreme Court: 'Woman' means biological female under the Equality Act 2010 in ~society
Johz Link ParentI think it's technically correct as it stands, and making it more correct might make it harder to parse. But I never know how to write a good title for these sorts of things.I think it's technically correct as it stands, and making it more correct might make it harder to parse. But I never know how to write a good title for these sorts of things.
-
Comment on UK Supreme Court: 'Woman' means biological female under the Equality Act 2010 in ~society
Johz LinkI suspected this might end up here. It's worth reading the full judgement (PDF warning), or at least the section "Summary of our reasoning" at the end. This is relatively clear language, and the...- Exemplary
I suspected this might end up here.
It's worth reading the full judgement (PDF warning), or at least the section "Summary of our reasoning" at the end. This is relatively clear language, and the summary is fairly helpful.
The most important thing is that this is not saying that "women" means "biological female" under all law. The question is specifically what the Equality Act 2010 is referring to when it uses the terms "man" or "woman". From relatively early on in the document:
It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain
on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman”
other than when it is used in the provisions of the [Equality Act] 2010.Their logic is roughly as follows:
- The existing legislation before the Equality Act used "man" and "woman" to refer to biological sex, and this is how it has consistently been applied before.
- The Gender Recognition Act (from 2004) allows a person to change their gender, but doesn't redefine or change the terms "man" or "woman". The act does say that someone with a gender recognition certificate legally has the acquired gender, but the court argues that it merely implies they have the acquired sex. Specifically, they argue that when the GRA uses the terms "sex" and "gender", it's using them interchangeably, which fits with the use of language at the time.
- Because the Equality Act doesn't itself define the terms "man" or "woman" in a way that suggests it should be interpreted any differently from existing legislation (and because the existing legislation defines those terms in terms of gender), the court should assume the definitions from existing legislation apply. As far as I can tell, this isn't a universal rule, but rather it's a result of the Equality Act being the type of legislation that it is.
- Even if those terms didn't apply, the Equality Act uses the terms "man" and "woman" to refer to people's biological sex in certain situations (such as when discussing pregnancy, breast-feeding, etc). The court argues that if "man" and "woman" get interpreted more broadly than biological sex, it makes those sections of the legislation make no sense. The full document provides a number of other examples here, some more convincing than others.
- Trans people still 100% exist — the Equality Act includes explicit protections for them, and the Gender Recognition Act affirms their existence.
- In conclusion, when specifically asking who gets to be considered a "woman" for the purposes of the Equality Act, the court rules that this term only refers to biological women.
Point 4 feels like the shakiest point here, and produces a bunch of other weird effects — for example, a trans woman in a relationship with a cis woman would not be considered a lesbian for the purposes of the Equality Act, despite them appearing so to other people. However, I think this isn't necessarily a flaw of the judgement, and is more a flaw of the legislation. The core issue is that the legislation uses "woman" to define a mix of biological and gender-based reasons for validly distinguishing between men and women. For example, on the topic of pregnancy, it makes sense that only biological women of any gender should be afforded those protections. However, for, say, creating safe spaces for victims of gender-based violence, that doesn't necessarily apply.
The ruling does point this out (and also points out that the EHRC has also been pointing this out for years), but unfortunately that's a problem that can only be solved by legislation, and not by courts.
Short term, I suspect this is going to get championed as a victory for the right (it already is), despite still affirming that trans people exist, that trans men are men, and that trans women are women (outside of the specific context of the Equality Act 2010). Beyond that, I think the Government really needs to legislate to fix the EA. Unfortunately, right now, I don't think they're willing to take on that job, just because of how toxic it will seem to the electorate.
-
Comment on What is one of the coolest museums you've visited? in ~travel
Johz LinkMore on the quirky spectrum, but these are some museums that have really stood out to me: If you're in Germany, I recommend going to one of the Panometers they have there. They're art pieces built...More on the quirky spectrum, but these are some museums that have really stood out to me:
- If you're in Germany, I recommend going to one of the Panometers they have there. They're art pieces built into old gas reservoirs — you typically start in a small museum exhibition, and then at some point you end up in the central room which is a giant 360° digital painting showing a scene related to the exhibition you just looked at. They cover a variety of topics too — there's historical scenes, there's nature exhibitions, plus stuff like the Titanic or the bombing of Dresden.
- The city museum in Ljubljana is really cool. We were in the city for a day, and we popped in because we'd seen too many castles recently and wanted to see something else, and it was really impressive. It's a small museum, maybe five or so rooms, but still quite dense. They had a number of different trails to follow, and one of them was different recipes from different eras in Ljubljana's history, with a video showing the food and the preparation and giving some info, and a flyer to take home with the recipe on it. There was a similar one about fashion, and some others.
- Most museums in the UK. That's not because they're necessarily great (although most are), but because so many of them are completely free to visit, and yet still really impressive. You've got great places like the British History Museum, which, despite its flaws, is still an astounding place to visit, but most big cities will have a plethora of smaller art galleries and museums, which often have all sorts of different events or temporary exhibits that are really worth visiting — especially if you're not paying anything to see them!
-
Comment on I'm tired of dismissive anti-AI bias in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI find that interesting, because to me, "LLMs are useful for everything" thing feels like as much of a strawman as "LLMs aren't useful for anything", in the sense that I rarely see anyone say...I find that interesting, because to me, "LLMs are useful for everything" thing feels like as much of a strawman as "LLMs aren't useful for anything", in the sense that I rarely see anyone say either thing outright, but I often hear people complain about other people saying those things.
I can believe that this has a lot to do with the bubbles I'm in, though. My work is fairly tech-y, so most people have a fairly good understanding of how AIs work, and what their limitations are, but also are mostly excited to try out and play with new things. Outside of work, most of the people I know aren't particularly tech-y, and just haven't found a use for it yet outside playing around with it a bit. But I can imagine if you know people in that niche of tech-adjacent, mostly managerial work, they have a lot more exposure to the AI marketing, and a lot less understanding of what's going on under the hood.
I've also heard people being forced to use more AI as a KPI thing, I can imagine that would really rile me up, but it's just so completely outside my experience of either work or AI that I can't really comprehend how anyone would come up with that idea.
-
Comment on US President Donald Trump announces pause in ‘reciprocal’ tariffs for all countries but China in ~society
Johz Link ParentThe whole thing reminds me a lot of the Liz Truss Experience™ here in the UK: a very ideological approach to the economy that very quickly ends up in near disaster. In both cases it looks like...The whole thing reminds me a lot of the Liz Truss Experience™ here in the UK: a very ideological approach to the economy that very quickly ends up in near disaster. In both cases it looks like more sensible hands have stepped in or had the appropriate conversations behind the scenes. But I can't imagine the Republican Party is going to drop Trump like the Conservatives did Truss.
-
Comment on US President Donald Trump announces pause in ‘reciprocal’ tariffs for all countries but China in ~society
-
Comment on What lesser-known alternative would you recommend as a substitute for something more popular? in ~talk
Johz Link ParentOn a similar note, mango chutney in sauces (particularly for chillis and the like) also works really well.On a similar note, mango chutney in sauces (particularly for chillis and the like) also works really well.
-
Comment on Everything is a remix in ~tech
Johz Link ParentLike I said in that comment, I agree with that principle, not just for IP, but also for all forms of inherently rent-based property. But the key question is how can it remain in their hands. And...Like I said in that comment, I agree with that principle, not just for IP, but also for all forms of inherently rent-based property. But the key question is how can it remain in their hands. And for something to remain in their hands, i.e. for individual people to profit off the things that they've created, we need to acknowledge that the creator has a right to be in charge of the distribution of their own work. Tools like Creative Commons are great for people like me who produce creative works essentially as a hobby, but if you want to be a professional artist, you need the tools to be able to stop someone else from selling your work and making a profit from what you've produced.
Right now, the best mechanism we've found is this idea of intellectual property, at least as far as I can tell (feel free to suggest alternatives). It has flaws, and we should be working to fix them, but IP as a concept isn't necessarily a bad thing.
-
Comment on US Senator Cory Booker's (NJ) marathon Senate speech has exceeded 24 hours and is on track to beat Strom Thurmond's Civil Rights Act filibuster. (gifted link) in ~society
Johz Link ParentI guess I don't understand why the Dems are still in the "raise awareness" stage, almost half a year after the election results and a few months after the inauguration, especially given the...I guess I don't understand why the Dems are still in the "raise awareness" stage, almost half a year after the election results and a few months after the inauguration, especially given the opportunities they've had to vote against various Trump appointments and the budget bill.
As an outsider, the whole thing feels so weird.
-
Comment on Everything is a remix in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI agree with your final point that the current IP laws need improvement, I just don't see how you can make that argument based on your premises. If you truly believe that IP cannot be property,...I agree with your final point that the current IP laws need improvement, I just don't see how you can make that argument based on your premises. If you truly believe that IP cannot be property, then how do you get to the idea that we should have copyright in order to protect those who create intellectual property?
The argument that intellectual property doesn't exist because it doesn't represent a physical thing in the real world is lazy. Plenty of important legal fictions exist that don't represent physical things in the real world. That doesn't make them not important. There is no physical or biological way to determine what a "human right" is, but it's still important that we define it. In the case of intellectual property, as humans we have certain intuitions around intellectual work, and IP is a way of codifying them: saying that being inspired by other people's work is okay, but directly copying them is generally not okay.
The argument that intellectual property doesn't exist because it's possible that multiple people could come up with exactly the same idea at the same time is absurd. Firstly, because it's already handled by existing copyright law, which does allow people to create the same work independently and differentiates this from one person copying the work of another. Secondly, because that's not how human thought works. We don't just regurgitate what we've been told verbatim, we synthesise our inputs and then we create new works out of them. Intellectual property is not your "sources of inspiration" — intellectual property is specifically the words put down on paper, or the dialogue spoken, or the pixels animated. Of course the concept of intellectual property becomes nonsense if you conflate the two, but that is not a good definition of intellectual property.
Your third main argument that, even if intellectual property exists, it should be heavily limited is one that I agree with, but it's important to keep in mind that this is not how we treat any other form of property. If I own land, I am freely able to give it to my children (modulo taxes). They did not work for that land, and will proceed to profit off its ownership. Yet you argue that the same should not apply to intellectual property. I would argue that the better argument is that we should treat more property (in particular anything that can create economic rent) the way we do intellectual property. But I think we should be at least somewhat consistent here.
-
Comment on Everything is a remix in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI made what I would describe as a leftist argument for intellectual property in a sibling comment to yours, but I wanted to also respond specifically to this. It's very difficult to sum up any...There doesn't seem to much energy behind the idea of copyright reform among liberal/progressive/left-leaning/leftist people in North America. (I'm not as familiar with the thinking of people with different political orientations or from different regions of the world.)
I made what I would describe as a leftist argument for intellectual property in a sibling comment to yours, but I wanted to also respond specifically to this.
It's very difficult to sum up any political dichotomy cleanly, but one way we might very broadly sum up left vs right is "people vs things". A leftist might value a government that looks after all its people equally, whereas a conservative might value a government that produces great works and achievements. A conservative might celebrate a policy that selects a few top students to try and create the next Einstein, but a leftist might prefer a policy that selects a broad range of students of different abilities to balance out inequalities. The famous Thatcher quote about how the left "would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich" is perhaps not entirely inaccurate — and I say this as someone firmly on the left of the political spectrum.
(This is of course a massive oversimplification of the political landscape, and I don't want to suggest that most people's politics can be flattened down to this degree — but I do think this can still be a useful lens to look at politics with.)
With this "people vs things" idea, I think the public domain is essentially protection for things — i.e. ideas, works, things that we as a society produce — whereas intellectual property is (theoretically at least) protection for people — the writers, artists, etc who are creating those ideas and works. I don't think intellectual property is necessarily great at doing that right now — IP generally doesn't remain in the hands of the people who create it, which would be the ultimate leftist goal — but I think the "people vs things" viewpoint helps explain why there's no strong leftist argument in favour of the public domain, or abolishing IP.
-
Comment on Everything is a remix in ~tech
Johz Link ParentAt its extreme end, though, this argument would suggest that any intellectual work must be done pro bono, for the public good, and given immediately into public hands for others to use, and that...I think that the concept of “intellectual property” is as dumb as it sounds. You can’t “own” ideas anymore than you can own a virus.
At its extreme end, though, this argument would suggest that any intellectual work must be done pro bono, for the public good, and given immediately into public hands for others to use, and that seems deeply absurd to me. Intellectual work is still work — writing a book, directing a film, creating music, whatever else — these are acts of work, and a society that doesn't reward certain forms of work is a society where that work becomes undervalued and minimised and ignored*.
The question shouldn't be about who owns the rights to what, the question should be about rewarding valuable intellectual work — how we build a system where artists, writers, etc can profit from their work in the same way that the worker in the steel mill, or the bus driver, or the farmer profits from their work?
Public domain absolutism is essentially a demand for nationalisation of intellectual work. Nationalisation can work in some situations, where a given resource or service would naturally create monopolies, and therefore it is necessary to ensure that monopoly is in public hands. But it also has downsides. If intellectual work is nationalised, then intellectual workers must either be unpaid for their work, or they must be paid by the state. If they are unpaid, then we can only hear the voices of those who can do intellectual work in their spare time — those for whom writing is a hobby that they have time to indulge in. If intellectual workers are paid by the state, then workers critical of the state are going to struggle to have their voices heard.
Intellectual property has a lot of flaws, but the basic concept — that someone can create an intellectual work and place it into the marketplace and expect to get paid for that work — is necessary if we want to rely on the variety and abundance of intellectual work that we see today. I agree with the idea of reforming intellectual property (although I think the deeper issue is reforming the current power structures that allow vast amounts of intellectual property to be consolidated into the hands of a few large corporations), and I could even imagine the possibility of getting rid of the concept of intellectual property and replacing it with something else. But whatever that replacement is, it can't just be the public domain.
* Good examples here are professions like nursing or teaching, that are deeply undervalued and are not well-rewarded, but also completely necessary. As a result we see deep cracks in our education or healthcare institutions, where these professions often rely on young people coming into the workforce, being worked to the bone, and then burning out and leaving the industry.
-
Comment on Are you tech-savvy enough? in ~tech
Johz Link ParentI also have the feeling that since switching to a Mac (for work), I spend more time configuring that and trying out new tools and utilities, because it's so much harder to get things to work how I...I also have the feeling that since switching to a Mac (for work), I spend more time configuring that and trying out new tools and utilities, because it's so much harder to get things to work how I expect. On Linux, most things behave mostly like I want, and those things are usually fairly configurable if I want them to behave differently. On Mac, I need to install some fancy app from somewhere (and even pay for it in some cases) to get what feels to me like very basic functionality. And even then, it often doesn't feel truly stable.
Each to their own of course, but I'm very much looking forward to when Asahi has thunderbolt support and I can seriously look at switching back to Linux there.
-
Comment on A trans refugee's court case against Hungary just improved Trans+ rights across all of Europe in ~lgbt
Johz LinkThe particularly interesting thing here is the use of GDPR — the refugee in question argued that if the Hungarian government recognised them under the wrong gender, then it would be inaccurate...The particularly interesting thing here is the use of GDPR — the refugee in question argued that if the Hungarian government recognised them under the wrong gender, then it would be inaccurate personal information, and therefore under GDPR rules, the government would need to fix the issue.
This ruling should therefore apply to the whole of the EU, and brings in a certain amount of protection for all trans people here.
-
A trans refugee's court case against Hungary just improved Trans+ rights across all of Europe
33 votes
It depends how much it can retain. For example, the Blitz system being explored by Dioxus uses parts of the Firefox/Servo browser under the hood (for example, Stylo), which means they can piggyback off existing tooling. In general, HTML and CSS will largely stay the same.