It's strange to see so much of what I think of as decidedly late 90s/early 2000s internet slang ("BTW," "flame," etc) being used here.
1,121 karma · joined July 5, 2017
As always, Apple's focus is hardware-first, and I think it will once again pay off here.
Purely aesthetically, this is great. It's incredibly Apple-ish and honestly just seems like a massively simplified alternative to iPadOS -- SiriOS, maybe? -- but that's not a knock, it's extremely polished and overall fantastic design work.
But just because it's nice to look at doesn't mean it's nice to use. The predictive nature honestly just seems annoying -- there's a reason people curse at their voice assistants so often. It's a gimmick that I doubt will ever be as useful as we'd like, at least not until AI takes a massive, massive leap in the direction of Jarvis and the like.
My problem with these kinds of "declarative" approaches to user interaction -- anything that obfuscates the "how" things are done because apparently that's too difficult and scary -- is that it tends to encourage passive consumption, not active creation. Or, at best, you get toy creation apps that piddle around in the absolute most basic of the basic such that really they're better classified as educational apps rather than creation apps.
For a totally consumption-oriented device, that might be fine for a while, but eventually I'm going to disagree with either the direction a developer has taken an app, the content it's curating for me, etc, and will surely want to deviate from its "curation" in some way or another...however, this experience looks to hijack so much control from the user that they can't configure anything. You're either along for the ride, or you don't use the device.
I said this in another comment, but it bears repeating: computers are not going away, therefore computer literacy is a facet of literacy in general. And IMO literacy is a basic tenant of being free. I for one would like to see designs that give users some agency in their devices and aren't condescending in the name of offloading the "inhumanity" of...thinking about where you put your files. Come on, that's just absurd. I get what Jason is going for here, but it's completely jumped the shark from Silicon Valley into HBO's Silicon Valley. He should remember Steve Jobs' quote, that a computer is a "bicycle for the mind." The really important thing about that quote is that it's not a car, and it's certainly not a self-driving one. It's a bicycle -- it augments and multiplies what we put into it, but we still have to put something into it. If we're not in control, then who is? I would argue that it's those who are feeding you the content that you're consuming. By losing the ability to "grip" your device and actually exert some agency, and perhaps use it to create something new and novel, or at least to actively explore, you're making it so that those for whom these designs become "what a computer is" will have to climb that much higher in order to even begin to understand how to transcend the content feed, one example being that there are kids starting computer science programs today without even really understanding the concept of a filesystem, because they've never had to interact with one beyond maybe Google Drive. They're mistaking the cave for reality.
Anyways, it's late and I'm not sure how to end this rant other than by simply stepping off my stool, so -- step.
A computer really is best when it's a "bicycle for the mind," and it turns out that that's quite a tricky balance to achieve. It should augment us, yes, but we should always be the ones in control, both de facto and de jure.
I would much prefer a world where we empower people to actually learn about the tools they use, rather than one in which we jump through hoops in order to try and design around predictions about what we think "they" want when, in reality, it's like trying to hit a billion different targets with a single dart.
We should be reaching for designs that give tools to and enable people to achieve that which they can think up with their own free will and imagination, not predictive trash that more often than not simply results in annoying the user with something that is, at best, close but not close enough to what they want to actually be useful, leaving them with the frustration of not being able to do anything about it.
adam_arthur is living in a just-world Liberian dream world where markets are free and fair. They never are.
Uh, seriously? You actually want this?
I wish they would admit that, for better or worse, Linux is the desktop to corral around. A proprietary OS for BYO hardware is very simply a Bad Idea, both in terms of developers (because you're at the mercy of the OS developer's documentation only) and in terms of users (because software will always theoretically be more stable on an OS that a developer can crack open).
So, rather than creating a Windows Developer Edition and charging for it, I would love to see them sunset Windows into a legacy/Enterprise-only OS that they charge a hefty fee for. And then I'd love to see them build a Linux distro that deeply interops with their services (i.e. their real money-makers) that they release for free.
This new "Windows" would be the new OS that comes pre-installed on laptops by HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. It could look essentially the same -- perhaps their desktop environment could be called Glass (get it?) -- and it could still run win32 apps via Wine (which they would be a massive contributor to in this fantasy world of mine). A headless version could of course be available for servers running Azure. Etc etc etc.
They could charge for support (i.e. the FOSS playbook that's been pushed the 70s). They could of course continue to create proprietary apps and modules that they charge for, I don't care -- for example, a CoreAudio/CoreMIDI competitor that only audio professionals would really need. I'm not naive enough to think that proprietary/non-free software will ever go away, but the OS is simply not the place for that. Platforms of all kinds benefit from being FOSS.
I know that there's a great kernel down there, but Windows is just a mess. Just kill the damn thing. Let it die. I ran Windows 11 since it was released and recently switched back to 10 because 11 is just so unbearably bad, and I still only use Windows at all as little as possible, only when I have to for certain work.
None of this will ever happen of course, but a man can dream.
All of these can cause setbacks, some permanent (for instance, a random fire alarm permanently increased my hearing sensitivity/pain). Wearing earplugs full time isn't a solution, partially because that's just an untenable way to go through life, and partially because your brain will compensate by turning up its "input gain," effectively making your hyperacusis even worse.
Most people with severe hyperacusis have no choice but to become shut-ins. A large percentage eventually kill themselves, to the point that I had to stop going to support forums because it happened to often.
It is truly a hellish condition. I've thankfully always come back from the points in which you could describe my condition as "severe" -- there have been times where even my own speaking voice caused me pain -- but many, many people don't, and I'm always walking a tightrope, fully aware that my somewhat normal life I've clawed my way back to could be over at any moment.
At least use a native toml file as an example.
I know that I'm a data point of one and am really just unlucky, but regardless, I am quite simply never checking my luggage ever again.
I have to imagine that if carry-ons were banned, and thus the amount of checked baggage increased, more luggage would be lost. Also, more time would presumably be spent waiting on the tarmac while the luggage is loaded, so all this "saved" time would really just amount to more time spent sitting there doing nothing.
So yeah, this suggestion is a hard pass from me.
It is the most horrible condition you can ever imagine. I'm over two years in and am only recently back to being able to live a somewhat normal life, but I easily get "setbacks" due to loud sounds. In the hyperacusis community it's well known that these can become your new normal -- it's happened to me multiple times.
Protect your ears and try your best to not get concussions, folks. Though I can't confirm that one or either is the cause, it's my best guess and is good advice anyway.
The device was fitted by apparently one of the best docs of their kind in SoCal. And yet, after looking into it, my experience seems quite common.
At this point I've just accepted my TMJ and mild sleep apnea. Nothing I've tried has helped at all.
We were talking about a recent problem he was having, getting his IDE and build server and virtual environments talking to each other, and it became immediately clear to me that if he knew what an environment variable was, he’d have solved this in about 5 minutes. Instead he’d been stuck for days, kind of just flailing.
I also suggested spinning up a dev VM or container so that he can make snapshots, nuke it and start over, etc as he makes progress figuring it out. He flatly stated that that “wouldn’t work” for reasons he couldn’t articulate.
I am almost obsessively curious about how computers work, and that curiosity led me to Linux and a nearly 100%-CLI workflow. That more than any other skill has paid off, even if viewed completely dispassionately: at least half the tools you’ll be using will have been written from this same POV, where a CLI-centric workflow and Linux are both first-class citizens.
A lot of people just want to “write code” but seem to completely ignore the reality that that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’re using tools, and those tools very often require some understanding of the computer they’re running on.
There’s some meme floating around out there about how “easy is hard” —- exercising is hard, but enduring the effects of not exercising is harder, etc. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I absolutely believe that working in the command line, ideally on Linux (but macOS will do fine as well), is the best way to pick up all the “glue” knowledge that allows you to reason your way through just about any situation you find yourself in. We do ourselves quite a disservice by calling most of these skills those of “sysadmin” or “devops” or what have you —- to me it just seems like it’s “knowing computers,” and when you’re spending your days writing instructions for computers to perform, that can surely only be a good thing.
Never had a single problem, venv + pyenv is a great combo. As far as I can tell, like so many sources of frustration in tech, the issue typically lies with user error/not fully understanding the tool you're using. That isn't saying that there isn't room for improvement -- most notably, package management in Python flies in the face of "there should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it" -- but the tools we have work quite well.
How did you go about querying this?
The answer to this question is a resounding "yes." As far as I can tell, the prisoner's dilemma, as well as a wide-spread ignorance of it, can pretty much explain the totality of human behavior.
This is what I do. Specifically, I use Canonical's Multipass, and treat tmux as my "window manager," -- I even mapped my iTerm profile's Command+[key] to the hex code for tmux-prefix+[key], so that Command essentially feels like the Super key in, say, i3. For example, rather than having to type Control+p h, Command+h selects the pane to the left.
The Multipass VM is flawless. Closing the laptop doesn't shut it down, and with the tmux resurrect plugin, sessions persist between Mac restarts (which are rare). If I didn't know better, I'd think it was just a native terminal session.
If I need proper x86_64, I just ssh into my super beefy Linux NAS at home via Tailscale. Both Linux machines are identical in terms of dotfiles/etc, so it feels exactly the same.
I've truly never been happier with Linux. I no longer obsess over my window manager (which used to be a serious time sink for me), and I still get what is IMO the best desktop experience via my Mac. The only tinkering I do is checking out the occasional new neovim plugin, but I really enjoy doing that, as it has a tangible benefit to my dev workflow, and kind of feels like gardening, in a way -- I like the slow but persistent act of improving and culling my environment.
I still have a PC, but I actually recently uninstalled WSL2. It never felt truly finished or "right", and Windows Terminal can be incredibly sluggish -- keystrokes have far more latency than iTerm. I've actually started to embrace just letting "Windows be Windows," even learning Powershell (and enjoying it more than I'd expected).
I've also pretty much moved from gaming on a PC to PS5. So, for me personally, I don't really see a place for Windows anymore. Every single time I boot into my PC, something is wrong -- most recently, it literally won't shutdown unless I execute `shutdown /s`, and no amount of troubleshooting has been able to fix it. I know Windows like the back of my hand, and still it's a constant feeling of death by a thousand cuts.
This right here. One of the failings of remote work being talked about in the comments here is, IMO, easily attributable to the company's focus on spoken (whether in-person or via Zoom) communication rather than written.
I have a strong preference for written communication with regards to work, whereas most of the companies I've worked for have preferred spoken. My preference isn't superficial, it's based on what appear to be obvious advantages -- past communication can be referred to again later, planning and documentation kind of organically occur via written communication, complex ideas can be given more time to be developed in an email vs off the cuff/probably worse explanations when spoken. The few times I can get people to actually just read the long email I just wrote, outlining a whole plan and my justifications for certain decisions, everything is super smooth.
But most of the time, peoples' eyes glaze over and they go "wow this seems like a lot, let's plan a Zoom meeting to discuss." The meeting happens somewhere within 1 - 10 days, usually being pushed at least once, I explain everything I wrote (often times just reading straight from the email), but then at a certain point peoples' eyes glaze over once again and they say "sounds like we're really getting into the weeds here, do you mind typing this up into an email that I can read later?" I then proceed to scream into the void.
Rinse and repeat, and after literal weeks, finally the contents of a perfectly cogent email that could have been read and understood in ~10 - 15 minutes have finally sunk in. It is absolutely maddening.
A strong culture of written communication is now one of the single most important things I look for in a company. I'm not against spoken communication, far from it -- having actual in-person or at least Zoom time is nice, and for brainstorming or discussing a plan, written communication isn't as good (though I've had quite a few great Slack brainstorming sessions). I'm not a shut-in, very sociable, and I enjoy a nice balance of remote and in-person work. But for work, which is by definition something for which I strive to minimize time spent/sanity lost and maximize income received, written communication is far and away my preferred method.