915 karma · joined September 2, 2013
https://hnbadges.netlify.app/?user=AlphaGeekZulu
Version 7.0 crashes on my Ubuntu 23.10, unfortunately. Had to return to 6.29.0.
For myself I purchase only non-expiring licenses with a one-time fee. It is absolutely fine if I have to pay again for upgrades from time to time, but I want to be able to decide to not upgrade and still use my work for another 20 years, when the vendor is already forgotten. And provided, I still have compatible hardware ;-)
A good example would be Softmaker, which I am happily paying for (but they also nag me every other day, if I wouldn't rather like to switch to subscription).
I finished my typesetter apprenticeship in 1984. Although we had the most sophisticated fototypesetting systems of the time, we were not able to produce font outlines of arbitrary fonts (we had a few specialised outline font plates, though).
To create an outline, I would typeset the desired text, put it on film, make a negative contact copy of the film and then do a series of contact copies of both the positive and negative film with interlayed dispersion sheets to the effect, that the positive would become leaner and leaner and the negative bolder and bolder. When the desired outline stroke width was reached, I would very carefully assemble both on top of each other, take a photo with the reproduction camera and do a final contact copy to a positive on paper. This would typically occupy me for half a day.
2 years later I was doing desktop publishing and it was possible to create an outline just with a click of the mouse and for any font and possibly with custom stroke width. I was presenting desktop publishing systems at trade shows, and once a dude asked me to do this and this and I complied willingly. Then he wanted me to make an outline, which I did, and then he wanted me to put a color gradient on the outline (which was not possible at the time, but shortly after) and I just had to laugh about the presumptuousness of the people that had no typesetting background. But sure enough, DTP would make all this possible in an incredibly short time...
First, I had no message in relation to empowering/networking or the like!
I told the little anecdote with this in mind: if someone found the thesis work of my former girlfriend (now spouse), and investigated its production method, and would correctly conclude that it was typeset in junks on a Berthold ads 3000 typesetting system, then pasted up on film on a lighttable, than blown up with a reproduction camera and then contact printed on A3 photopaper - the investigator might be tempted to dismiss the diagnosis, as the effort and costs are absolutely ludicrous in relation to the importance of the work. I just showed how such an obvious discrepancy can have a very plausible explanation.
For the "justice" part: my gf asked the teacher for permission to have the work typeset by her boyfriend and the teacher consented, making clear, that only text content and quality of the practical work (the colorized photographs) would be considered for grading, not the outer form as this would put her "out of competition". This was also outlined in the written assessment. In addition, every 3rd party involvement had to be declared in the preposition. It was also only possible, because the thesis subject was of artistic nature, where no strict rules for outer form existed.
That said, it does not at all seem likely to me and I am fully into the typewriter theory. Berthold was not very common in the US and it would have been very expensive. But there were similar systems of US origin and I think other possibilities should be investigated, mentioned and explicitely ruled out. Even metal type must be considered!
Regarding the effort and costs:
During my apprenticeship as a fototype-setter on Berthold systems in the 80s, my girlfriend graduated from senior highschool with a thesis work about colorized photography (analogue of course ;-). I was very passionate about typesetting during my apprenticeship and my dedication was rewarded with free access to all tools, typesetting machines and even the expensive photo papers and film for private use as long as it was in my spare time. So I typesetted the thesis work of my gf on large A3 photopaper in a nice font on a Berthold ads 3000 and she would glue the hand-colorized photographs on it. The result looked better than any photobook you could buy at the time and it was way over top for the requirements of the thesis work.
So there is no reason to dismiss a possibility just on the assumption, that it would have been too expensive or too much of an effort. Sometimes it only requires a personal relation to make something seemingly impossible happen.
For me it is dark mode on large screens and light mode on phones and tablets.
Much more important, in my eyes, and more sophisticated, is the concept of the computer "word": a professional software dev should know how many bytes go in a word, how word length corresponds with bus width, memory organisation and how types depend on word length.
And in my humble opinion, Unicode encoding is such a basic concept, that every dev should understand it on a bit level.
- Ben Eater: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0N5baNlQWJCUrhCEo8WlA
- Fran Blanche: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMLgHbpJ8qYqj3CkdbvC0Ww
This is brilliant!
If a news source does not support RSS itself and there is no workaround to get it otherwise as RSS, I will not subscribe to it.
For reading, I use Feedbro in Firefox and Flym on Android.
In Germany, the images are health data, not art, copyright does not apply, All health data belongs to the patient. Medical personal involved in the creation is authorized by the patient and bound by medical secrecy.
I believe, in Germany, the images are not considered pieces of art to which copyright would apply.
They are rather defined as patient's health information which is very rigorously protected by law, especially, but not only, by General Data Protection Regulation. The patient authorizes the doctor to create the images (a written consent that is secured during patient admission). All medical data, including the images, are object to medical secrecy! They are typically not even accessible for the health insurance - a clearing organisation ("Medizinischer Dienst") will resolve disputes between insurance and medical provider in an anonymized way.
Any use of medical data for research, publication etc, needs to be authorized by the patient and anonymized. Any transfer of medical data from one medical provider to another (for example between hospital and GP) needs to be authorized. There are clear legal rules, how long the technical creator has to keep the data and who is allowed to access them for which purpose. Violation of medical secrecy is defined as felony and penalized accordingly under criminal law (copyright violations, in contrast, are considered delicts under civil law).
The strict laws about medical secrecy are one of the major difficulties for digitalization of the German Health System. Any software that deals with medical data of any sorts is legally defined as "medical product", which has to apply to strict rules of security, secrecy and quality management. Failing this rules as a software developer/company or service provider can have severe legal consequences. Critical components - for example for the electronic exchange of medical data between providers of medical services - are therefore developed on a federal level with large complexity and endless delays.
In any case, the patient is the sole owner of the data and can request it at any time from the medical provider. The handover might come with a fee, especially if the data has to be prepared in an elaborate way - like the production of Dicom-CDs or the like and this depends on the contract with the health insurance company. The patient is not paying for the data or the creation of it, though, but for the effort of the handover (could even be postage).
Average life expectancy in the 18th century was around 30 years and certainly not much different in the thousands of years before. It just exploded to our modern values in the last 150 or so years. Germany introduced old age insurance in the year 1889, applying at age 70, where the average life expectancy was only 40.
I am convinced: when the members of our species used to pass away between 30 and 40 over a duration of some hundreds of thousands years (more or less after the reproduction and upbringing phase) that is somehow built into our minds and cultural awareness and souls and bodies (and probably genes). We are aware of our life expectancy and are scheduling our lives accordingly - on a subconscious level - according to our biological legacy, not today's statistical figures.
But now we turn 40, and we don't die. We go on for another 40 to 60 years, but there is no plan for that time in our souls.
In my believe, the mid-life crisis is actually an end-life crisis. It was for me, 15 years ago. I had no urge to buy a muscle car or look after younger women or whatever is considered typical for the mid-life crisis (but it might be one quite logical model to just start over with life if it doesn't end as unconsciously expected)!
In my case, I developed a very strong feeling, that I have lived my life, found my love, fathered two lovely children, seen some nice parts of the earth, liked my work, made my errors, had my woes and that if faith would hit me here and now and I would die of illness or accident, that would actually be ok. This feeling was not depressive at all and absolutely not suicidal! Just accepting, that what one would expect from life has been granted and from here on, everything else is an addon or a reward. My wife and my kids do not like me talking like this as well. It makes them afraid, that I might be tired of life.
But I am not. I still have a million ideas and plans for the future. But I realized with 45 that I will only fulfill a small fraction of them, no matter how old I will get. I made peace with it. I am not so driven any more, and less afraid of death and both are good things.
Everything you describe makes complete sense for me! Try to project it into my model of the end-life crisis: our species knows what to do until we are 40. After that, we have to invent ourselves anew. That is why you feel lost. You are! Accept the challenge, try something different, do not fall for mid-life crisis cliches and do not hurt your beloved ones on the way!
But, with 30 years experience in software development, I won't even look into primary development tools that are not cross platform. I am mainly on Linux, often on Windows (usually because clients force me) and sometimes on Mac (for iOS development and cross platform testing). I want the same toolset no matter the hardware or OS.
I wonder, what is "Org PDF"?
I learned Rust at age 55.
But! Programming is not only about learning a language. There is this huge background of methods, practices, technologies (network/ip/socket, data formats, databases, unicode, regular expressions, xml/xsl, markup languuages), Operating Systems, procedures (CI, VC...) and so forth. This vast amount of knowledge is gained by experience over decades. The young programmer does not have the experience either, but has enough time ahead to become a senior eventually. It will be very difficult to reach a senior level when starting at 50 or 60 - there is simply not enough time to catch up. I started programming at age 16, btw.
So I would definitely let him dive into programming just to see how it goes and support him on this challenge. It will also serve mental fitness in high ages. Getting into programming at that age, with the need to make a living from it and no plan B - I consider this too risky!!
I spent three years of my life reading this book from cover to back three times and it was a different experience every time.
That was in 1985 and in Germany, during my education as a typesetter. I was 20, into computers (ZX81, C64), the Internet was still years away and this book just mesmerized my brain.
The German version of GEB is also a typographical marvel (printed by Klett-Cotta, fonts Syntax and Weidemann) - much nicer than the US version.
My parents wouldn't know what to fill in the contract identification field of the cancellation form.
Plenty of room for dark patterns.
The entire procedure is described very explicitly in the law and breaks down to a 2-step process:
1. mandatory cancellation button, which, if pressed, leads to a
2. confirmation page, where a defined set of parameters is requested and a confirmation button then cancels the contract.
In my eyes the defined set of parameters on the confirmation page can easily been abused to make the process more difficult for the user.
The parameters required are:
1. Type of cancellation
2. Unique identification of the user
3. Unique identification of the contract
4. The desired end date of the contract
5. Means of electronic communication for cancellation confirmation (email)
Topic 2 can be made very difficult and is in my eyes superficial - if the user logged into his account, he is identified IMO.
Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract? By title and date, by ID? In my eyes there should be a popup with existing contracts to choose from (which can easily be done if the user is logged in).
Topic 4 is prone to errors, because many contracts have notice periods. So the user has to do research on his contract and if he gets the lifetime/notice periods wrong his cancellation will fail.
Information (unfortunately only in german):
https://www.voelker-gruppe.com/stuttgart/kuendigungsschaltfl...
Yeah, insane!
> People looking into Dvorak are often warned that it isn't a magic bullet to make them faster, only possibly more comfortable.
That is an important point!
First, being fast in a competition is not only a question of fast finger movement, but also endurance and ability to focus. I would classify myself as a "burst" typer - pretty fast (about 460 characters per minute), but only for a short time. Because my typical typing operation is throwing out emails, short reports, jotting down notes and typing junks of code. I am lacking endurance when it comes to continouos typing. Sean Wrona certainly has everything it takes!
And then, of course, comfort is a coequal factor. Comfort means health! Because, when I look at Sean Wrona's shoulders I see a serious malposition. It might not originate from typing, but if it does than the comfort factor has been neglected.
So you are right! Improvement in comfort/health might justify an alternative keyboard layout, even if some speed is lost.
This keyboard sure looks extremely nice! The price tag, though!
On the other hand, the keyboard is my main tools of trade, and the perfect solution is certainly worth a price between 250 to 400 bucks.
I would want to try the hardware before doing the investment. That could actually be a business: renting out keyboards for evaluation.
This is really fast and a true improvement. I am currently at 90 wpm and do not feel I could improve that much (German has special characters äöüß and a lot of capitals).
> I rarely type QWERTY nowadays, but whenever I have to it clicks after a few minutes and I can type at maybe 70% the speed I typed at before.
Interesting, so it might actually be possible to have multiple sets of muscle memory for the same thing!
> It can be a bit annoying to change keyboard layouts each time someone else wants to quickly use your computer.
Someone else will face much more difficulties using my computer than just the keyboard layout. 30 years of customization have made my computer very individual. ;-)
Thanks for sharing!
- I have been using standard german QWERTZ for about 42 years now, in average certainly not less than 3 hours every day. I was originally educated in proper 10 finger blind typing in a dedicated typing school as part of my typesetter apprenticeship. I am typing really fast. Today I am even using "daskeyboard ultimate" - a completely unlabeled keyboard. Is it really possible to improve 42 years typing practice with a new layout?
- Is it possible to be proficient in two keyboard layouts at the same time? I have a partial answer myself. For one, I managed to learn standard Emacs shortcuts (a lot of them!) some of which contradict common OS shortcuts (like copy/paste etc) and I have both sets in muscle memory and I can seamlessly switch between both sets as I switch applications (most of the time that is). And I use three computers with three OSs (Linux, Win, Mac) with one keyboard per Synergy software. Same layout for the standard characters, but different OS specific layouts for special characters like "@", "€" etc. I can seamlessly switch between them as well and that is the reason for the unlabeled keyboard. A labeled keyboard would show only one layout and puzzle me if I had to enter special characters for another. So, while I know I can handle some number of characters in alternate layouts in muscle memory - will this be possible for the entire character set as well?
- If you get accustomed to a non-standard keyboard layout, isn't it a problem if you have to use some other computer (where you cannot change the layout) for whatever reason, for example in an Internet cafe?