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grapeskin

1,282 karma · joined March 15, 2022

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grapeskin··on Are Hawaii’s beach showers in violation of the Clean Water Act?
Less finite than earth’s natural resources amidst the unprecedented rapid deterioration and destruction of basically everything on earth sans colossal asteroid strikes?

Trivial to some upper class person in an air conditioned home who doesn’t want to think about bad things and who’ll survive no matter what is certainly not trivial to billions increasingly struggling to survive with no way to escape to greener pastures.

grapeskin··on Are Hawaii’s beach showers in violation of the Clean Water Act?
I think instead of bending the knee to the idea of fatigue, it’s more important to accept that humans really are screwing up things on a massive scale faster than ever. Plastic straws, chemical sunscreens, gasoline, etc are all very recent inventions. It’s not unreasonable to look at massive unprecedented changes in the world and conclude that some of these things that came into widespread existence within recents decades is also causing massive destruction that only began in recent decades.
grapeskin··on Blocking Kiwifarms
Publicly calling someone a rapist can very well get someone injured or killed. Unless you’re a victim whose pleas are being completely ignored by the legal system, it’s not justifiable and not something that should be taken as anything but a threat to someone’s life.

I have no clue who these people are or what the situation is, but I’ve seen more than enough angry mobs appear out of nowhere after an accusation of a crime.

grapeskin··on The toll of dating app burnout
> I am going to a dance event regularly but so far nothing there and even then, I can't talk while I dance as I need to concentrate on getting the moves right (it's a well known style of dance, not just club dancing)

Are you doing competitive dancing?

If you’re dancing for fun yet you’re more concerned about dancing “properly” than you are about just socializing, people are probably wondering why you’re taking it so seriously.

grapeskin··on Snap lays off 20% of employees
> In Japan, it is head-on-head as the most used social app with Line.

This is my first time ever hearing of Zenly. Line is unavoidable. Instagram and Twitter trail it and Zenly is likely up there with AIM and ICQ. There’s no way this is is true lol

grapeskin··on Could long Covid be linked to herpes viruses? Early data offer a hint
My blood pressure increased by 50% since getting covid 6 months ago and hasn’t come down since.

It’s been stable all my life and shot up in the span of a month.

grapeskin··on Gimp development release 2.99.12 includes initial CMYK support
Mentioned that in my first comment.

There’s perfectly good software out there. I’d rather get work done and use that, than spend forever trying to make sense of some mess of an ancient project’s code and trying to fix it. There are even free projects with usable UI that would be a better use of time if I were to want to contribute to something. Krita’s been mentioned here a few times and it seems to have a brighter future.

grapeskin··on Gimp development release 2.99.12 includes initial CMYK support
The fact it’s been struggling to get widespread support for decades and there’s always someone complaining about the UI is a sign.

Most people don’t even think about photoshop UI. Same with Microsoft paint: users can get in and start figuring out what they want to do just by clicking around.

grapeskin··on Gimp development release 2.99.12 includes initial CMYK support
Honestly, if there have been decades of efforts and it’s still this bad, that’s even less motivation to give them money.

It’s like: if you’re a large manufacturer, would you prefer investing in a city where government officials pocket the cash and roads don’t exist but with handwavy excuses that something might improve with a little more cash, or invest literally anywhere else where the roads improve every year and things are getting cleaner?

Gimp seems to be spinning its tires for infinity. I’ve tried it once a year or so for 15 years. It hasn’t changed much. It’s incredible. Almost no company is going to throw them cash and it’s obvious why.

grapeskin··on Gimp development release 2.99.12 includes initial CMYK support
The UI is absolutely horrendous and despite decades of opportunity to fix it, there’s been zero attempt.

Blender has made some big UI gains. I used it a long time ago, and the hidden menus and backwards control scheme made it unusable for anyone with basic computing knowledge (right click was select? Insanity) and doubly so for anyone with 3D knowledge. They revamped it a few years back and it’s usable now. I went from a blender hater to happily dropping paid 3D software and preaching about how good blender is.

Companies could throw money at gimp. But that doesn’t mean it’ll ever have a control scheme that’s usable to the 99.9% of people with prior digital art experience who go in expecting something similar to 99.999% of other software, only to find it’s completely backwards.

Literally just putting aside all other development plans and going all in for a year on making the UI usable would launch the project to success.

And comments like this always get a “well, it’s open source so you could fix it yourself if it’s that bad!” I could and so could others. But there’s usable software out there, and instead of dedicating loads of time to trying to fix a decades-old mess, we’d all rather just use a better product even if it costs money and get to work, or make something different from the ground up.

grapeskin··on Why is this colorful little wheel suddenly everywhere in Japan?
Why the random mention of dolphins? The ones being hunted aren’t at risk of extinction.

It’s not as bad as cattle farming, which is straight up destroying the environment in several ways, from clear cutting rainforests to feed them to filling the air with methane.

And dolphin tastes pretty good, too.

grapeskin··on Complete Introduction to Particles in Japanese
Then you have “I go home”, which drops not only “the” but “to”. Religious in nature? No.

This was some truly bizarre reasoning based off one example and it has zero actual foundation in language. One of the strangest comments I’ve ever seen on HN.

grapeskin··on O&O App Buster removes Windows Apps you don’t want
I haven’t touched MS Office in about 10 years. Libreoffice and Apple’s equivalents have been perfectly fine for me.

Some specialized cases require office, but for the typical document or spreadsheet it’s very easy to avoid it.

grapeskin··on Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate
Hence the point. If women don’t want kids, then that’s that.
grapeskin··on Over 90% of Medieval Manuscripts Have Been Lost, Study Says
40000 manuscripts over a period of centuries is very strange. That’d be less than a manuscript a day for the whole continent.

I know literacy was low, but that’s just unreasonable. “People only use 10% of their brains” territory.

grapeskin··on Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate
What are men morally supposed to do when women simply do not want kids?

It’s not an issue of financial struggle since the trend is most pronounced in wealthy countries, especially in those with small wealth divisions.

grapeskin··on Things people blamed on bicycles
Appendicitis is desirable now?

I’m more out of touch with modern trends than I thought.

grapeskin··on Nobody wants to teach anymore
Being around kids all day isn’t fun. It’s stressful. Part of the job is appearing to be calm and approachable to the children and it absolutely wears out most people.

It’s just like thinking enjoying having a pet means you’d love working with dozens of dogs all day. If you’re lucky to have well behaved dogs, it’s okay. But you’re most likely going to have some barking all day, one’s going to vomit, some are going to fight, and any time anything happens the owners completely blame you and will threaten you in every way they can imagine.

grapeskin··on After 50 years, Michael Heizer is finally ready to unveil City, his life's work
You could support a shitload of artists with 30 million dollars.
grapeskin··on After 50 years, Michael Heizer is finally ready to unveil City, his life's work
Articles are mostly promo pieces. The artist’s press team sends some quotes they want writers to use, and they tweak the wording.

Same with launch articles about any other content—movies, games, whatever.

grapeskin··on The erosion of the Mac experience
1 is preference.

2 is something I haven’t experienced. I guess maybe you’re using low resolution monitors? I find Windows to be incredibly blurry or text painfully sharp.

3 is something where I think the Mac mindset is to not really use full screen windows. I personally always have part of my desktop visible and most Mac users I’ve seen in the wild seem to do the same. Probably a consequence of the drag and drop mindset (which Windows is painful to use due to it doing the opposite of MacOS when it comes to drag and drop)

Enable the file path setting in your finder options. Super easy to navigate up then.

Disk images are nice in that usually they contain a drag and drop application install process, while windows often has some messy installer that leaves a trail of shit in its wake that’s sometimes impossible to fully remove when you’re trying to uninstall the program. But… I think a zip file would do all a disk image could and make more sense to people. Sometimes I do encounter zips, though.

grapeskin··on High-speed rail board completes environmental clearance in northern California
Worth looking at Japan’s Toukaidou Shinkansen. The route could take a direct path from Tokyo to Nagoya to Osaka, being super fast and hitting up only the main cities.

But it doesn’t. It hits up the southern coast through Shizuoka and a bunch of small cities.

grapeskin··on Benefits of the Danish transfat ban for coronary heart disease mortality
Olive oil actually isn’t a seed oil. It comes from the flesh of the olive.

I was surprised to learn that myself recently.

grapeskin··on Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook
Imagine telling poor Americans to just move to Guatemala to do poor people work since it’s not that different and you’ll realize how insane that sounds.
grapeskin··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
You can move wherever you want. But on a forum where people frequently talk about the harm humans do, I think advising people to move to an area that exists basically for people who are just struggling to start their adult life seems like a bad move.

Moving somewhere because you like the scenery, the food, whatever is fine. Moving there because there’s a college while you’re 15 years out of college is just strange.

grapeskin··on WaniKani, a Kanji Learning Application
If you’re learning a language only for money, your studying efforts are probably going to burn out fast.

Most people I know who learned a second language on their own volition did it because they were interested in the country or some cultural element. Or, frankly, had a fetish for the people in that area—that’s an absolutely massive motivator that most people won’t openly state.

One language I learned was motivated simply because I liked the food there. I like traveling in that country, eating new stuff, and looking up recipes in that language to make those dishes authentically at home. Money would be nice. But I have zero plans to get a job speaking that language.

grapeskin··on Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?
The first year, yeah. After that, people start moving out. I don’t know anybody who lived in a dorm from the third year onward.

But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere.

Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wanting to be near noisy, drunk, high college kids as an unaffiliated adult is honestly just weird.

grapeskin··on Slab City reaches its boiling point
I think the emphasis was on being prepared.

If you grow up in the area surrounded by people who know the area, you'll do fine.

If you're casually wandering into an area like that coming from San Francisco or London expecting a fun weekend, you may very well pass out or worse.

grapeskin··on Irishman arrested in UK for 'causing anxiety' by retweeting meme
Imagine a man being visited by the police for eating a ham sandwich, which his neighbors found morally questionable.

Being released is better than what it could’ve been. The fact he was visited at all is terrifying.

grapeskin··on I’ve Contemplated Suicide Every Day of My Life Since the Age of Eleven
I had extreme social anxiety (would only go shopping minutes before closing time or the moment they opened to make sure I was the only person in the store) and had just enough money to buy a plane ticket and hotels for a week. I’m still generally solitary, but have no worries about being outside and around people and money is no concern either.

Pushing yourself far outside of your comfort zone can be a massive shock to your brain that forced you to adapt quickly. If you’re going somewhere with a job already lined up, savings aren’t really a problem. Outside of the US, most employers are eager to help you get your living situation set up.

Plus, as a foreigner, you’re somewhat exempt from social norms. People judge you less harshly for minor cultural things. Eventually you’ll adapt, and at that point people will generally accept you as one of them.

It’s easy to worry about the negatives, but for the most part, living in another country is generally a good experience for self-growth. There are undeniably hard times, but it’s easier to overcome them outside of your home country due to your brain switching to survival mode and having less time for trivial anxieties.

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