feigneddork's recent activity

  2. Comment on Stellantis introduces pop-up ads in vehicles, sparking outrage among owners in ~transport

  3. Comment on Single most useful program you daily use? in ~tech

    feigneddork
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    I've seen Linux Mint gain quite the lead in terms of recommendations I've seen online - from my mastodon feeds from people who used to use Windows and now swear by Linux Mint to that YouTuber guy...

    I've seen Linux Mint gain quite the lead in terms of recommendations I've seen online - from my mastodon feeds from people who used to use Windows and now swear by Linux Mint to that YouTuber guy who did a video about moving away from Adobe tools.

    I've personally used Pop!_OS, but I genuinely think it's awesome that I'm now seeing a bit of Linux resurgence!

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Single most useful program you daily use? in ~tech

    feigneddork
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    I want to add a shout-out to uBlacklist as well as Bypass Paywall Clean. Both extensions are a god-send.

    I want to add a shout-out to uBlacklist as well as Bypass Paywall Clean. Both extensions are a god-send.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Stellantis introduces pop-up ads in vehicles, sparking outrage among owners in ~transport

    feigneddork
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    What kind of dystopian hell have we entered when we have to consider using ad blockers on our vehicles? I guess I'm fortunate enough to not have heard of Stellantis (I'm from the UK - wondering if...

    The off-roading community has always been passionate about modifying their vehicles, but no one expected that “blocking ads” would become a must-have Jeep upgrade.

    What kind of dystopian hell have we entered when we have to consider using ad blockers on our vehicles?

    I guess I'm fortunate enough to not have heard of Stellantis (I'm from the UK - wondering if anyone else in the UK has heard of Stellantis here?) so I don't have to worry too much about this nonsense, but I fear the heated seats from BMW kickstarted some absolute late stage capitalism BS nonsense. The only thing that keeps me happy is the amount of push-back BMW received from the heated seats subscription nonsense.

    19 votes

  6. Comment on To those who have been trying out Kagi: what do you think of it? in ~tech

    feigneddork
    Link Parent
    I completely forgot about this as it's been a while since I used Kagi, but yes I do remember using it - especially to make sure the NHS (UK health service) rises to the top as well as wikipedia....

    I completely forgot about this as it's been a while since I used Kagi, but yes I do remember using it - especially to make sure the NHS (UK health service) rises to the top as well as wikipedia. It's a great feature!

    1 vote

  7. Comment on To those who have been trying out Kagi: what do you think of it? in ~tech

    feigneddork
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    I used to pay for Kagi, and one of the things I really treasured was being able to filter out websites (excellent for blocking Fandom wikis). But since then I discovered uBlacklist and honestly...

    I used to pay for Kagi, and one of the things I really treasured was being able to filter out websites (excellent for blocking Fandom wikis).

    But since then I discovered uBlacklist and honestly that extension is so good in terms of subscribing to filters (I have filters for AI clones, stack overflow scraper websites, W3School links, far right websites, conspiracy websites, as well as custom filters to filter out Donald Trump, Elon Musk, etc) that I've found that DDG and uBlacklist is at worst the same as Kagi, and at best better than Kagi.

    I don't pay for Kagi now, but I wouldn't mind too much. I think the whole AI announcement with Kagi made me roll my eyes, but Kagi's usage with AI was tame. And that's kind of how I feel about Kagi - just generally inoffensive, and pretty great if you come to rely on searches a lot. I don't think I need a paid search engine like Kagi myself, but if I had a family I would probably pay for Kagi to ensure my kids wouldn't be exposed to crap.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Apple is killing Swift in ~comp

    feigneddork
    Link Parent
    I've used both Kotlin and Swift in a past role - Kotlin for some backend stuff, and Swift for a iOS RTMP library. I've found Kotlin to be great at the time as it's "Java, but what if Java was more...

    I've used both Kotlin and Swift in a past role - Kotlin for some backend stuff, and Swift for a iOS RTMP library.

    I've found Kotlin to be great at the time as it's "Java, but what if Java was more C#" - i.e. a cut-down less verbose version of Java. I personally dug it at the time, but I saw a project that was entirely written in Kotlin, and there was many, many classes in one file which just made me appreciate Java's one file one (main, non-static) class structure. The codebase was a mess, and as much as I liked Kotlin, I think it's something you really need to sit down and really agree on coding styles beforehand if you are working with multiple people because it's really easy to make a mess.

    Swift on the other hand. Yeesh. I did not have a good time with Swift. Admittedly I was dealing with RTMP code so this was byte manipulation and string manipulation as well as trying to manage concurrency - like all of the poorly developed aspects of Swift - but I still have my negative impressions.

    Because I came from Java/Python world to Swift, Swift felt like Apple made Python, but their way. Apart from the common if/else and for loops, it really felt like Apple/the designers of Swift tried to make unique features that didn't feel all that necessary. For example, take guard - that's literally an if (!condition) {} statement in syntactic sugar. I kind of felt like it was supposed to be used for nullabillity though (the Kotlin equivalent but just for nullability IIRC is someThing?.let { //code to run if not null } ?: { //code to run if null }).

    String manipulation was a pain - look at this monstrosity of an answer that explains how to substring. Also bear in mind I was working on Swift 2 code and had to migrate to Swift 3 code.

    If you've never worked with Swift, every major(ish) version was effectively a breaking change (at least from what I remember from 2 -> 3 and I think even 3 -> 3.5?), and the way you had to migrate was to use Xcode to automatically detect deprecated code and let it "fix" your code, although in an attempt to fix your code it could end up breaking it. This used to happen to me all the time with the byte manipulation code, and I would have to google stack overflow instead, find the answer, rewrite it, and use Xcode's "fix" tool to guide me through the broken code like I'm surfing on a wave of broken tides to find the next botched bit of code.

    I think the article explains how concurrency was never really implemented. It's genuinely shocking that it hasn't been a priority to this day - Apple chips with all their cores, you'd think they would want to utilise that power more, but what do I know.

    After about a year or two writing and maintaining Swift code, I decided to take the plunge and learn Objective C. Imagine the surprise of my life when I found Objective C to be a lot more fun to learn due to:

    • Literally decades of documentation from Apple and third party developers compared to the fleeting amounts of documentation on Apple's website - I've looked up AVAudioPlayer on Apple's documentation and honestly it looks a million times more better than it did before - I remember very, very sparse info like the documentation was auto-generated from the functions of the class and with minimal wording. This looks very helpful now, and I would've killed for stuff like this rather than Apple Developer videos where the dev talks about playing low latency video in an half an hour video with no transcript.
    • A clear explanation of Apple's thread delegation stuff (effectively previous point)
    • Once I developed in it, the syntax wasn't too horrible. I mean, sure, it is bastardised C, but for bastardised C, it was pretty good syntax.

    Eventually I moved away from mobile development altogether. Apple's and Google's grip on the market means you are effectively forced to push something new at least every year (even if your app is OK and doesn't need updates). Meanwhile, making a website is cheap, hassle free, and you can do whatever you like and charge whatever you like, using whatever payment means you like (Paypal, Stripe, etc).

    (Sorry for this long rambling post, this whole post bought back memories. If you've enjoyed Swift, good on you, and I hope it continues to serve you well.)

    9 votes

  9. Comment on Steam game recording - available now in ~games

    feigneddork
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    With all the features that come with Steam, it's genuinely a wonder this wasn't there before. Oh well, I say it's a great addition. Making it easy for end users to share video clips of gameplay is...

    With all the features that come with Steam, it's genuinely a wonder this wasn't there before.

    Oh well, I say it's a great addition. Making it easy for end users to share video clips of gameplay is a no-brainer and is basically a free marketing tool for video game companies (or the thing that tanks them if their game is buggy as hell).

    5 votes

  10. Comment on "Valve are gathering the avengers": we believe Gabe Newell is assembling the ultimate dream team for the one game everyone's been waiting for in ~games

    feigneddork
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    My cynical take is that the only time Valve would conjure up a dream team is to have some multiplayer game with an in-game economy. That, or a new game to sell some expensive hardware like Half...

    My cynical take is that the only time Valve would conjure up a dream team is to have some multiplayer game with an in-game economy. That, or a new game to sell some expensive hardware like Half Life Alyx.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on Anthony Fantano discusses how social media disincentivises well thought out discussion in ~music

    feigneddork
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    I figured folks on Tildes would have a lot to say about this topic! How long have you been on music based forums? Have you found the discussion to have gotten better or worse?

    I figured folks on Tildes would have a lot to say about this topic!

    How long have you been on music based forums? Have you found the discussion to have gotten better or worse?

    8 votes

  13. Comment on Is National Cinema Day happening this year? I can't get a straight answer online! in ~movies

  14. Comment on Google Pixel 9 launch event live coverage: all the news in ~tech

    feigneddork
    Link Parent
    I swore off OnePlus after getting their 7 Pro as an upgrade from the 3T. The 7 Pro was really expensive and I found the curved screen to be such a massive pain in terms of touch screen. That, and...

    I swore off OnePlus after getting their 7 Pro as an upgrade from the 3T. The 7 Pro was really expensive and I found the curved screen to be such a massive pain in terms of touch screen. That, and there was no real perceived improvements, even with the new 90Hz display.

    I now have the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G (rolls off the tongue, right?). With that said, I had iPhones before - they were OK, but I did miss customising my phone and actually having some level of control over it like I could do with an Android phone (for a start, it has a proper filesystem that is user accessible). I got this phone for £180, and for that price it is absolutely phenomenal. The camera is crap, but I'm not someone who takes many photos anyway, so it was an incredible bargain.

    Failing that, I would've gone with used/refurbished phones from reliable manufacturers (Google, possibly Samsung although they tend to bloat their phones)

    2 votes

  15. Comment on People looking to be first time homeowners soon, what's your plan? in ~life

    feigneddork
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    I'm in the process of buying my own house, actually! I'm in the UK and I'm near the tail-end of things: Started signing the contracts, paid all my deposit off, now waiting for other side to sign...

    I'm in the process of buying my own house, actually! I'm in the UK and I'm near the tail-end of things:

    Started signing the contracts, paid all my deposit off, now waiting for other side to sign contracts, agree completion date and celebrate having my own house!

    It has been very stressful so far, as I've paid the deposit but it doesn't guarantee that the deal won't fall through.

    One thing I'm realising though that there is never a good time. House prices have started climbing down recently here in the UK, but that's because interest rates have been climbing up. So it's a matter of picking your poison: do you want high monthly interest rates with the chance of a cheaper house, or do you want a more expensive house but "reasonable" interest rates on your mortgage?

    Also, I've saved for nearly a decade now, so I feel like I should be able to afford it. I do worry if the deal falls through, I do wonder what happens to my deposit. I should get it back, but who knows. I try not to think about it though.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Reddit is going to enforce rate-limiting the API's free tier as well as charging for higher rates in ~tech