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Rotundo

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Using PWM to dim lights should be banned wholesale. Many people, me included, get crazy headaches from the worst lights and mild discomfort from the best ones. It's also completely unnecessary as non-flickering bulbs do exist and are readily available for the same price.

The point of the article is that the EU should have moved faster to achieve energy independence after 2022 gas crisis. Dependence on foreign oil and gas is a limiting factor for the EU. So, more heat pumps and more electric vehicles.

What the article does not mention is that, renewables notwithstanding, most electricity is generated with coal (base load) and gas turbines (for fast load changes). This solves nothing in itself. Nuclear is taboo in some countries and a hot topic in others. Either way it will take a long time to solve this.

The manuscript starts with:

All men by nature desire to know.

I'm not sure if I can take this Aristotle guy serious or not. In present day most people are not interested in knowledge at all, some are actively pursuing to stay ignorant. I suspect that wasn't too different in ancient Greece. Just that Aristotle moved in academia where knowledge was appreciated.

Even so many years ago, broad sweeping statements are more often wrong than right.

The blog post sums up why users of Windows might want this.

However, this is not what Microsoft wants or needs. Microsoft is doing just fine by providing businesses what they need: a platform that can be tightly controlled and is easy to administer for large user counts.

It's hot. Temperature is at or near an all-time high.

But also, the sun feels a lot stronger! You can feel your skin starting to burn in a couple of minutes. That's new.

Is the air cleaner than it used to be? Is the sun at a maximum in its cycle? I don't know but the difference is startling.

If this is only the beginning of an upwards trend in the coming years, there's going to be big issues...

how do you stop yourself from hoarding tasks and decide what to work on next?

By realizing most tasks aren't important, if you let them mature for a bit. Things only seem important in the moment.

Three days later the world (or project, or whatever) has moved on and nobody will miss the skipped task.

I got back to writing longer texts by mentally separating writing and editing. When writing, just write. Even when you think the paragraph could be better, keep on writing.

Only start editing when a substantial piece is ready. Clean up some wording, rewrite a paragraph or two.

Even then, don't overdo it. There is always something to improve, you'll never be done that way. Good enough is good enough, hit publish and go on write the next thing.

I'm not sure I agree with the article, or at least not its title. It argues mostly about things the Pope didn't say.

I'm sure he could have said a lot more, but he wasn't wrong.

I would like an audio device which can play mp3, podcasts, internet radio.

Get a second-hand Apple iPod Touch, remove all apps you don't need.

For just mp3 and podcasts: get an iPod Classic (or Video) and install Rockbox.

Rockbox is amazing.

Creating more software does not solve anything if that software is mostly a functional duplicate of other software. Or, in other words, all companies re-invent the wheel many times over. It doesn't matter if you 10x the development of software that brings nothing new besides being written in a shiny new framework.

We should, IMHO, start getting rid of most software. Go back to basics: what do you need, make that better, make it complete. Finish a piece of software for once.

Software will be even more a commodity than it already is. A hundred apps that do the same thing, what's the point? Rebuilding everything in a new framework every three years, why? The money is gone, or will be very soon.

We've been automating people out of a job for decades. And now we've outfoxed ourselves.

I've blocked some sites in /etc/hosts in the past. That gives just enough friction that opening the site isn't an automatic reflex anymore.

It would be trivial to automate this: block HN in the hostfile and only unblock for an hour or two on Saturday evening, for example.

How I estimate work 6 months ago

If work on a house was specified like a typical software project, no builder would even return your call.

"I'd like to have my roof reshingled, but with glass tiles and it should be in the basement, and once you are half way I'll change my mind on everything and btw, I'm replacing your crew every three days".

Of course vi/Vim is used for programming ('coding').

I've been doing that since the early nineties. First vi, later Vim.

I like it better than Visual Studio, better than Eclipse and way better than VScode.

Why use C++ when you can use BASIC?

The learning curve can be steep but once you learn vi/Vim you can never go back to an IDE like VScode because it is so unbelievably limited.

When you get comfortable with vi it really begins to feel like you can type text in VScode but you can't edit it.

Tip number one in marketing: make it easy for the customer.

I'm not going through the hassle of installing something if I don't already know I want or need it. No screenshots -> "Next!"

It's the same effect of all the (no doubt wonderful) tools that begin their website with "Foo is the next Bar, now at version 3.1, here is the changelog:...", without ever mentioning what Foo even is. So many customer/users lost through bad marketing.