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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • If you work a lot with plain-text files (markdowns, office documents CSV etc.) try learning Git. It is a version control tool - it keeps timestamped versions of your documents, so if you edit something wrong, or delete a wrong file you can bring it back by “checking out” a previous version.

    It’s a software development tool originally, so learning it might be daunting for a lot of folks - fear not, download a graphical Git client app and look up some tutorials.

    I promise once you get the hang of it, it will be hard to imagine doing anything without it.

    One of those tools I wish were more popular among people who are not into software/engineering.



  • My first encounter with Linux was in 2007, I installed Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon on my dad’s computer out of curiosity - I was intrigued by a notion of free OS you can deeply customize.

    I have spent countless hours fiddling with the system, mostly ricing (Compiz Fusion totally blew my mind) and checking out FOSS games.

    Decades later I switched to Linux full-time. After 12 years of daily driving OS X and working as a developer, I wanted a customizable and lean OS that is easy to maintain and control. Chose Arch, then Nix, havent looked back ever since.
















  • Y’all just have no idea how complicated the process is. In 2004 it was OK to just “ship a working game”, - in 2023 you have to include all of the software stacks you have partnering contracts with, deploy an entire cloud infrastructure to deliver updates and short purchases, design and launch automated targeted ads campaigns, pay union-busting lawyers, accommodate for all the “fun” senile execs want to put in the game, pay handsome compensation to these senile execs, pay more lawyers to bury workplace toxicity-related incidents. At the end of the day, you have to sustain the company somehow when 95% of your workforce goes on a sick leave after a 3-month-long crunch period. All of that takes money, time and effort. And y’all don’t get a lot of time in-between autumn release windows.

    Hey, we’ve been at it for 20 years, and we have just managed two months of 16-hour workdays without anyone dying, it looks like it might be one of those projects we actually manage to ship - what an important internal milestone!

    PS: I don’t actually work at Ubisoft, I love my life too much - this entire comment is a satire


  • Brace for a hot take.

    Most of these points are completely void, not because Linux is the bestest ever, but because the domination of proprietary systems has conditioned most users to comply to a lesser image of “personal computing”.

    Things evolve too quickly? Sorry, we have to stay on top on security updates, new standards, hardware support, new features and ways of working - the world is changing, and our tools follow. It’s not a problem, but a natural consequence of progress. The fact that so many people view this as a source of pain in their personal computing is a problem.

    Things break? Well too bad, it’s tech - it’s supposed to break. And we a are supposed to be able to fix it. If most users think that fixing tech is “black magic” - that is a VERY big problem.

    Way too many choices? No - you just don’t know what you need. It’s silly to expect a Windows or an OSX user to make an informed choice when it comes to software, because they had these choices picked out for them all their life by the proprietor. An abundance of options is never a problem - our inability to orient ourselves among them is.

    TLDR: proprietary computing has normalized a lot of brain-dead practices and expectations, so we crave silly and shiny while turning away from smart and pragmatic. We need better computer literacy, better education and better default computing for everyone.