fxgn's recent activity

  1. Comment on a/s/l? Tildes user survey question. in ~tildes

    fxgn
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    17/M/Moscow, Russia I'm a software developer, probably not unlike a lot of people here

    17/M/Moscow, Russia

    What occupations and industries are represented here?

    I'm a software developer, probably not unlike a lot of people here

    7 votes
  2. Comment on Right to root access in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    AFAIK there are alternative tap to pay apps that do work under GOS I think both of those should work just fine now with sandboxed Google Play. I'm not sure as I don't use those services, but I...

    The most obvious is that tap to pay (namely Google Wallet) will not work

    AFAIK there are alternative tap to pay apps that do work under GOS

    Android Auto took me hours to get working, Google Fit took me more time

    I think both of those should work just fine now with sandboxed Google Play. I'm not sure as I don't use those services, but I think I remember seeing something related in the changelog

  3. Comment on Right to root access in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Keep in mind that this is something that should also be supported by the OS, not just the device. AFAIK, GrapheneOS is basically the only custom OS that can do that (except official Android...

    If GrapheneOS folks are to be believed (and I don't have the technical knowledge to refute it) then the Pixel phones are the only ones where the bootloader can be unlocked, an alternate OS installed, and then re-locked without harming the security posture of the device

    Keep in mind that this is something that should also be supported by the OS, not just the device. AFAIK, GrapheneOS is basically the only custom OS that can do that (except official Android builds, of course)

    2 votes
  4. Comment on Looking for a new mouse (maybe) in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link
    As a few other people suggested, Logitech MX Master is usually the mouse. It doesn't have RGB, but you can configure the buttons on Linux with Piper

    As a few other people suggested, Logitech MX Master is usually the mouse. It doesn't have RGB, but you can configure the buttons on Linux with Piper

    1 vote
  5. Comment on I just turned 29 last month, what are some things I should be thinking about before my 30s? in ~talk

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    It's also more important if you live somewhere with a lot of snow in the winter, because it reflects light, so even though it's not sunny, UV exposure in winter is still pretty high

    Some people swear by using it every day of the year, even when it's overcast, because UV still gets through the clouds.

    It's also more important if you live somewhere with a lot of snow in the winter, because it reflects light, so even though it's not sunny, UV exposure in winter is still pretty high

    1 vote
  6. Comment on I just turned 29 last month, what are some things I should be thinking about before my 30s? in ~talk

    fxgn
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The r/SkincareAddiction wiki is a pretty helpful resource, check out the recommended routine. Basically, as @smoontjes said, you only need a cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen. Cleanser generally...

    The r/SkincareAddiction wiki is a pretty helpful resource, check out the recommended routine.

    Basically, as @smoontjes said, you only need a cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen. Cleanser generally 1 or 2 times a day, moisturizer after every wash and sunscreen as often as possible when exposed to sun.

    Extra products can be useful, but you should only get them if you have a specific concern you'd like to solve, like redness or mild acne or something else. Don't blindly buy every single thing that promises "youthful and supple skin" - research specific ingredients if you need something. I don't fully agree with @smoontjes on the "never exfoliate" part, I found chemical exfoliants pretty effective for me and didn't ruin the barrier, but again, they were used to address specific issues, not just as a result of wanting as much products as possible.

    2 votes
  7. Comment on Looking for an Android tablet with some probably unreachable requirements in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Well, the best "not-depend-on-google" OS is also GrapheneOS, and It's only available on Google Pixel phones. So yeah, Google just makes some good hardware.

    And, for bonus irony given my intent to not depend on Google, the place where I found it for the lowest price is... Google's own store.

    Well, the best "not-depend-on-google" OS is also GrapheneOS, and It's only available on Google Pixel phones. So yeah, Google just makes some good hardware.

    2 votes
  8. Comment on 1,156 questions censored by DeepSeek in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link
    AFAIK, DeepSeek does most of the censorship only on the official client, either with the system prompt or just through refusing to respond. I tried two third-party clients (t3.chat and Kagi...

    AFAIK, DeepSeek does most of the censorship only on the official client, either with the system prompt or just through refusing to respond. I tried two third-party clients (t3.chat and Kagi Assistant) and DeepSeek answered some of those questions just fine on both, including criticizing China and admitting to genocides and stuff.

    2 votes
  9. Comment on The best charity isn't what you think in ~humanities

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    @stu2b50 answered it. An $X donation can save a human life, or the same amount could save a bunch of shrimp from pain before they die anyway. You can donate to the first one, or the second one. I...

    @stu2b50 answered it. An $X donation can save a human life, or the same amount could save a bunch of shrimp from pain before they die anyway. You can donate to the first one, or the second one.

    I understand that you don't have to always be super utilitarian about your donation. Donating to a local charity or some less popular cause is still nice, even though it's less "effective" than other options. But shrimp pain prevention is nowhere on that list for me.

    It sounds more like you’re willing to see a million shrimp suffer than to spend a trivial amount of money.

    But also, you know what? Yeah. I am. I'd rather spend $5 on a coffee than on helping a bunch of shrimp die a less painful death. I find it really hard to care about them.

    7 votes
  10. Comment on The best charity isn't what you think in ~humanities

    fxgn
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    I'm sorry, I don't buy this. Even as someone who's somewhat interested in effective altruism and adjacent concepts. I don't care about shrimps. I'd watch a million shrimps die a painful death if...

    I'm sorry, I don't buy this. Even as someone who's somewhat interested in effective altruism and adjacent concepts. I don't care about shrimps. I'd watch a million shrimps die a painful death if it meant saving a single human life.

    8 votes
  11. Comment on Kids at-home science experiments (of the less tame variety) in ~science

    fxgn
    Link
    Check out kid science kits. They contain detailed instructions and some experiments that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise, since they use some chemicals that you probably won't just buy in a...

    Check out kid science kits. They contain detailed instructions and some experiments that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise, since they use some chemicals that you probably won't just buy in a grocery store

    This one from National Geographic seems great, though I don't know what specific experiments are there and what's their danger level:

    https://www.amazon.com/NATIONAL-GEOGRAPHIC-Amazing-Chemistry-Set/dp/B09LRHSXW9?th=1&psc=1

    And since those kits are made specifically for kids, they're usually specifically focused on experiments that look cool and exciting (although yeah, it usually still includes elephant toothpaste and other classics, but there are often others which do involve actual fire and sparkles and stuff)

  12. Comment on Remote code execution via MIDI messages in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link

    I gained remote code execution via MIDI messages to trick my synth into playing Bad Apple on its LCD. This blog post is about my journey with this reverse engineering project.

    5 votes
  13. Is anyone else kind of scared by the internet?

    I don't mean that I'm scared by some terrible content on the internet, or that I'm actually afraid of using it. What I mean is the same feeling I often get from open-world games: FOMO, a sense of...

    I don't mean that I'm scared by some terrible content on the internet, or that I'm actually afraid of using it. What I mean is the same feeling I often get from open-world games: FOMO, a sense of chaos, being lost and lacking direction.

    Internet is inherently like an open-world game. There's so much content available. In your entire life, you won't see even 0.001% of it. This very post will probably be seen by like 100 people at most, which is such a tiny share of all internet users.

    I get very anxious thinking about this. People often talk about how they miss "the old internet", which consisted of small websites and had to be explored. To me, that sounds like hell. I don't want to explore internet. I want to know where something is and how to find it. Information is on Wikipedia. Opinions are on Reddit. Et cetera. But the internet doesn't work like that - there's so much stuff that I don't even know how to grasp it.

    I recently discovered https://are.na because someone mentioned it here on Tildes. I signed up, and immediately got that feeling. There's a huge amount of content, and I'm supposed to just explore in until I stumble upon something?

    Tildes is one of the few websites where I don't feel that, because the amount of content is relatively small so I have a feeling of keeping it under control. But it also makes me think about how there are countless other small communities like Tildes, and ones that I'll never be aware of - and that's also pretty scary.

    Does anyone else feel something similar? I've seen many people talk about similar feelings regarding keeping up with social media, but that doesn't actually bother me, but the amount of communities that can be explored does

    35 votes
  14. Comment on Any Tildeans who have lived in China or Russia and the West? What were the differences in the daily lives of average people? in ~life

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    I personally don't, for a few reasons: There aren't really that many forced drafts any more. There was a big wave two years ago, but now there are enough people from poor cities who're willing to...

    I personally don't, for a few reasons:

    • There aren't really that many forced drafts any more. There was a big wave two years ago, but now there are enough people from poor cities who're willing to voluntarily enroll, because solider compensation starts at $2000/month which for many people is like 5x their salary
    • Moscow citizens usually aren't drafted anyway, since they're the only ones with some protesting power, so it's easier for the government to just leave them alone and draft people from small cities
    • Mandatory army service only applies to people who don't attend a university, and I have that sorted out, I'll probably study abroad, but even if I don't, I have direct acceptance to a few Russian unis
    • Army services are as corrupt as the other parts of the government, so in the worst case, you can just bribe them to avoid the army

    With that being sad, drafts are still obviously a concern for many people

    17 votes
  15. Comment on Any Tildeans who have lived in China or Russia and the West? What were the differences in the daily lives of average people? in ~life

    fxgn
    Link
    I currently live in Russia. I was born here and always lived here, although I've traveled a lot and consume mostly foreign media, so I can compare somewhat. Keep in mind though that I live in...

    I currently live in Russia. I was born here and always lived here, although I've traveled a lot and consume mostly foreign media, so I can compare somewhat. Keep in mind though that I live in Moscow, which differs significantly from the less affluent parts of the country (to the point where there's a popular Russian saying "Moscow is not Russia"), so perhaps my experiences wouldn't be applicable to an average Russian citizen who lives outside of Moscow and surrounding area.

    I agree with @stu2b50's main point. It's not really that different.

    What things felt free to do and not free to do? Was that a quality of law or society? (e.g., freedom of speech, gay relationships, zoning, running a business, jaywalking, etc.)

    Like yeah, obviously there's less freedom than in a typical western democracy, but that isn't really something that affects a regular person. There's no free speech protection and the government can go after you for opposing it - but they generally don't care. If you're not a public political figure with a large following, nothing will happen to you for posting anti-government sentiment online like I'm doing right now.

    In day to day life, it's even less noticeable. The country isn't some sort of antiutopian dictatorship with cameras and policemen on every corner. It's just a country. Regulations and tax codes are pretty much what you would expect from a regular country, except the government is more corrupt and less competent, so it doesn't get much useful stuff done.

    Queer people are pretty much the only group of people who are significantly affected in their day to day lives. Being gay or trans is technically not illegal, but the "LGBT movement", whatever that is, is considered extremist, so most queer people I know prefer not to show their identity publicly.

    Trust or reliability in government

    As I said, the government is pretty corrupt and inefficient, so I don't really trust in it. The mayor of Moscow is actually pretty cool and genuinely improves the city, but that's just an exception, and he's still a corrupt pro-war friend of Putin.

    IMO the biggest issue with this is that it often results in a feeling that you shouldn't even try. For example the country has ecological problems, but it's not really worth it advocating for better policies because the government won't care anyway.

    Educational quality

    I'm currently a senior high school student in a good private school, so I can't speak from my own experience, but I have many friends who attend public schools.

    If we're talking about academic quality, as in the pure level of information taught, it's pretty high. Russian school programs are definitely much more advanced than American ones. But everything else kinda sucks due to the same reason: corruption and lack of funding. Teachers are underpaid so they don't really give a shit, schools sometimes have a pretty toxic environment, poor equipment quality, etc. This really depends on the school though - some public schools are much better than others

    As for higher education, Russia is pretty good in that regard. There are still a lot of outdated educational practices, but more and more universities move away from them and offer a high level of modern education on par with top European universities (see for example the HSE University)

    Relationship to the media

    In the past few years there has been a huge shift among Gen Z and Millennials towards Telegram channels as the primary form of media. People often talk about what role WeChat plays in the lives of Chinese citizens, and Telegram is becoming more and more important for Russian people everyday (although unlike WeChat it achieved that by fair competition and not by government monopoly).

    There is a healthy mix of pro-Putin and anti-Putin media. The anti-Putin media is getting censored, but since it's all moving to Telegram which the government has no control over, it can't just be outright banned. The main censorship method used by the government is the "foreign agent" legislative. Basically any media that the government doesn't like is recognized as a "foreign agent" and faces some strict limitations, which often prevent it from getting sufficient funding.

    What luxuries people tended to have (e.g. modern imported gaming consoles, domestically produced products, number of cars, etc.)

    Again, I live in Moscow, so the experience may be very different from the rest of Russia. But we generally have everything that people in other countries have. It all became more expensive after the war due to sanctions, but it's still here - it's just shipped from countries who don't impose sanctions against us, like Turkey. In some areas, there are many domestic alternatives, some better, some worse, just like in any other country.

    I also wrote a comment on this topic a while ago here:

    https://tildes.net/~society/1gct/the_west_doesnt_understand_how_much_russia_has_changed#comment-crtn

    And another one about Russian IT companies in that same thread:

    https://tildes.net/~society/1gct/the_west_doesnt_understand_how_much_russia_has_changed#comment-crv2


    Feel free to ask any other questions if you have them, I'll always be glad to answer!

    37 votes
  16. Comment on Pinterest alternatives in ~tech

    fxgn
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    If you only want the saving functionality without the social/discovery aspect of Pinterest, check out https://raindrop.io/

    If you only want the saving functionality without the social/discovery aspect of Pinterest, check out https://raindrop.io/

    4 votes
  17. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~life.women

    fxgn
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    I don't understand the pushbacks against this expressed by the feminists. It seems like they're mostly focused on the fact that this legislation isn't perfect - and it's definitely not, as...

    I don't understand the pushbacks against this expressed by the feminists. It seems like they're mostly focused on the fact that this legislation isn't perfect - and it's definitely not, as @first-must-burn explained really well, but it would still be a great first step towards fighting sexual assault.

    4 votes
  18. Comment on So you want to write Java in Neovim in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    You had lua config inside of a .vim file?.. I think that's why there was an error lol

    Also I had a init.vim and I don't believe Emacs would correctly flag Lua errors inside a vim file

    You had lua config inside of a .vim file?.. I think that's why there was an error lol

    2 votes
  19. Comment on So you want to write Java in Neovim in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    I'm not sure what the benefits of vim are though. Neovim is fully backwards compatible, so you can just continue using vim plugins and writing your config in Vimscript if you like that. And you...

    I went back to Vim.

    I'm not sure what the benefits of vim are though. Neovim is fully backwards compatible, so you can just continue using vim plugins and writing your config in Vimscript if you like that. And you get some other benefits of neovim like more modern standard support and better defaults.

    3 votes