Palacegalleryratio [he/him]

Red panda because Dirt Owl said so.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • Estimate the feature high level but with a 1-hour margin of error

    Oh my god so much this. “You said it would take roughly 16hours to implement, it’s now 1 hour into the following morning why isn’t it rolled out to production yet?” Or “You estimated 8 hours, it only took 5” “which you’re pleased with?” “No, now we have 3 hours of un-allocated time on this contract which has upset the client”






  • Type h for “hello” does literally nothing… ok… thought this was a text editor why can’t I even write… mash esc still no response, try typing “hello” but no matter how many time I mash h nothing happens. Right let’s leave and find a guide. Right so closing a terminal program that’s usually Crtl-c nope that’s done nothing, erm, what else works, nano uses Ctrl-x let’s try that, nope. Erm kill nope nothing, fuck this I’m just closing my terminal. - my first vim experience.





  • I can’t speak for Krita - I’ve not used it. But as someone who has designed a lot of software I agree with you fully here. Making software intuitive is the hardest and also most important part of my job. When I test with users the first time it soon becomes clear how stuff that me and my team thought made sense is totally opaque to the end users or just doesn’t fit into the real world workflow. It’s all well and good expecting users to learn the software - there has to be an element of that - but if you force thought, cause confusion or waste time every time you do that you add friction to the product. That friction ruins the users experience of the product and can ruin productivity.

    There is a balance to be made, complexity where it allows for power is fine, if you have dedicated frequent users. E.g. my favourite editor is Vim - very complicated and (initially) opaque but also extremely powerful and logical once you know it. But complexity that adds no power or complexity in software where you don’t expect users to be using the software frequently enough to be expert in it is not ok.


  • Mr Sumlenny said German post-war thinking plays a role too. “They were designed by a generation of German manufacturers that hadn’t seen war, and so tended to overcomplicate the system. “Older systems, designed in the 1960s by those who actually saw war, are far more useful on the battlefield but have weaker armour.”

    Yeah but Rheinmetall can’t charge the government megabucks for a simple system can it? They have to justify bumping another 0 on the end of the price somehow, an increase in complexity is the perfect way to do this.



  • I have also heard this line of thinking, it’s very dark and does not paint a hopeful picture for the emancipation of humanity. But I kind of see the logic to it. Europe doesn’t have the martial strength to impose a European empire, especially not in the face of the American war machine. Nor does it have the economy to make one, especially with neoliberalism ripping the copper out the walls of European economies preventing reinvestment and industrialisation (see: the Bank Of England’s policy of quantitative tightening ruining the plans of the uk Labour Party, and all of Europe’s industrial capital looting its own assets).

    In this proposed reality Europe must look to the other powers, America being the default choice, but an increasingly unfriendly one, does Europe fancy itself being an extraction zone for an exploitative empire? The boot on the other foot for them. To look the other way, would BRICS even be interested in Europe coming cap in hand? Maybe, but certainly not with terms Europe wouldn’t be too proud to accept. However individual BRICS countries maybe. Russia - a weird one, some countries may be happy to side with them (Germany possibly would consider it in a role as Russias workshop?) but I don’t see other countries like Poland going that way without a fight. China - too remote, too far away and too hated by most of Europe, maybe some nations like Turkey could look to them though. Brazil? Surely too busy with the American empire to its north to have time for Europe. South Africa - who knows? It’s a very different future to the one we grew up in.



  • My advice would be look up The Missing Semester it’s a free online MIT course on how to use the terminal and it will govern you a better understanding of how to use it and Linux more generally. Really helpful to find your way around and give you an intuitive sense of what you’re trying to achieve.

    Then beyond that installing arch is easy with archinstall but it’s probably more helpful to learn about the components of desktop Linux and what they do so that you actually know what you’re doing.


  • Haven’t you heard? China is collapsing the same collapse that the west has been wrongly predicting since the 90s…

    Western economists keep doing the “Ah! Well. Nevertheless, ” thing about Chinas economy that Libs do regarding Trump’s legal Teflon.

    “They can make cheap junk, but can’t compete with high tech manufacturing” - they are now better at high tech manufacturing.

    “They’re building railway infrastructure they can’t afford” - they could afford it and now their railways are world leading.

    “Their housing market is a bubble” - they just nationalised the companies and make houses for homes not for commodities

    “They can compete on high tech manufacturing but not do their own designs” - their own designs are now eating western designers markets (electric cars anyone?)

    “Western investment in china is drying up, which will slow their advances” - Chinese state investment makes up the slack

    “Global demand is slowing” - the domestic market is growing

    Etc… etc… etc…