pxoe

It's not an allegation https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/01/27/anthrop... (if you're talking about the "rare or unique" part, yeah that might be bs)

But in my opinion, treating mass produced books like they're this sacred untouchable object is ridiculous. They're not "source" material, they're just a copy as well, and they're not "priceless" by any means. They're very reasonably priced, perhaps even so cheaply priced that books can be bought in bulk in these amounts. Buying used books and doing whatever you want with them is just legal. Used books, that would probably be just laying in some warehouse, or recycled anyway.

If there's anything to have gripes with, it's the copyright system that makes it easier to take this legal route.

It's not so much "waiting", but rather semi-curiously checking roughly every year if anything changed whenever there's a new 1.x release popping up somewhere like this, and then promptly going back to the old version that actually works.

One thing about pen tool that can be kind of tricky to adjust even in 0.92 is Mass parameter, where even in that version there's not enough granularity literally just between 0, 1 and 2 (it honestly could use about a 100 levels to adjust between just 0 and 2), and the lack of granularity and pen control is made even more severe in 1.x where there's not enough granularity even between just 0 and 1, and even 1 already feels much slower than higher settings in 0.92. Though I'm not sure if fixing that would even be that pressing at all if it was just brought up to 0.92 level of performance.

I don't know if anything is solved in 1.5 dev build yet, but the calligraphy pen there seems to be even worse than before and worse than even in 1.4.4. It's frankly impressive. I take it nobody actually uses that tool for drawing at all (which would explain a lot really), otherwise the issues with it would be immediately glaring a while ago.

Yeah, I'm keeping it in mind. 0.92 still works great. There's basically nothing that's so severely lacking in 0.92, or anything that would be so enticing in 1.x, so there's no pressure to switch at all, and it may as well stay broken forever.

It's a little odd to me that the tool regressed so badly in 1.x and stayed the same for five years though, even despite some apparent attempts to fix it, for something that i assume is a core tool (it's right there on the toolbar), though maybe not so much if it's so low priority that it stays unaddressed. It's not a situation where people are asking for something new to be added, it's a feature that worked fine before that got broken years ago and stayed broken. It's frankly bizarre to see hot new releases get touted year after year, while a part of core experience just stays broken.

But again, it's kinda fine because the old version is just there, it just makes for a bit of an odd caveat when recommending it to people, for them to stick with the old version because it works better (well, actually works at all). It's a little unfortunate for the new users that might not know that and will just get the latest version and won't experience a feature properly though. (like, if I was a new user to it and picked up any 1.x version and tried the tool there, it would be clear that it's unusable for drawing and it'd be immediately dismissed, even though it actually works pretty great in older versions)

Calligraphy pen/tool is still unusable, messy and less responsive (lower resolution, more angular, etc), much worse than in 0.92, and it's been this way ever since 1.0. It also now requires windows ink to be on, and they removed devices panel so you can't even tell if your device is recognized properly. It's bad with a tablet, but it's still just as bad and much worse in comparison even with the mouse. It's kinda disappointing to see this bad of a regression to just linger there for years. Here's the issue for this problem on their gitlab https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/1473#note_...

also, 'Coming up in the graveyard' makes it sound like something's gonna arrive here like it's newly dead, like it's about to be shutdown with a deadline, when it's just anniversaries, which really should be clearer at the top of that box

Maybe there can be some kinda suggestion box and a voting system for suggestions or existing things? Like an open suggestion box, where people could submit potential entries and vote on whether they belong there and are dead or not. And for existing entries, to vote on whether something is truly dead or not, like 'yep, this is dead', or 'nope, this is still alive' (some things may be less popular, but that's not them being dead/actually completely discontinued and defunct). Not necessarily for ranking or putting it together into one score, but perhaps just showing a number of how many people think either way about something

Especially americans? The popularity and demand for homogenous american products and services (and other similarly homogenous things from other countries) overseas shows that it's not just "especially americans". What point would that even make? If anything the amount of people and customers of such things worldwide could easily outnumber just the people who live in one country, even as big. Desiring a level of service is not really a "uniquely american" thing. Perhaps there's also some impression that there's some "international homogeneity" that blurs things and makes it seem like it's coming from one place (even though it's a mix), but seemingly "cultural and local" things in other countries can be no less homogenous. Going from one japanese ryokan to another you're gonna experience the same level of homogeneity.

But mastodon has algorithms. (trending feed, news feed, suggested accounts, etc.) Maybe they're just kinda bad or the posts are lacking.

File - Overwrite file, that's been there for a while. It can be turned into a hotkey, it's unmapped by default, and I don't think that'd change nor should it change, given how user hostile that'd be, the long history of how it works in editors like that, and with how they lean towards non-destructiveness of it all. Also, that just sounds like perhaps a simpler editor would be a better fit, like Paint.

4) The Bluetooth standard is just kinda bad. Technically there should be enough bandwidth for better quality audio, but the existing profiles like headset mode drop audio quality down to 8-16 kHz sampling rate in mono, not just for mic but for audio you're listening to as well. It's a huge flaw and it's been bad for decades with seemingly no improvement at all (at least certainly not in a way that could be widespread and commonly used).

It's so bad you'd almost wish for a brand new wireless connectivity or wireless audio standard, or even resort to some proprietary 2.4 GHz nonsense, because it's genuinely so horrid. You could have the best most expensive headphones in the world, but because of Bluetooth and its ancient profiles and mic support it's gonna have baseline absolute garbage mic quality no matter what.

windows shit show

And yet on Windows 11, hit Win key, type display, it immediately shows display settings as the first result.

Why is it that some people are so hell bent on limiting how people communicate? Ironically, this is also seeking to control people.

Tech companies are involved in lobbying, so maybe it's not as irrelevant or unconnected as you might think. Fees are how they make the money that goes into it.

Fedora is the better example there. (i literally say that it's the glimmer of hope there lol.) It's an actual utility slash app that will do everything, and not just a file that's just thrown at you with no pointers.

(Though even fedora's download page could use a more clearer "How to install" link next to the iso links there. cause even clicking on Documentation there isn't gonna lead you to an installation tutorial or even let you easily find one there without digging. and even what's written where is either not that great or just doesn't exist lol. like, i would just straight up disagree on docs being friendly in regards to install process. though maybe that's not even necessary cause you're just gonna boot into the installer that'll take you through it. and again, it links out to github instead of actually downloading it right there, which only adds unnecessary confusion. how hard could it be to actually split links per platform? this is again the sort of thing where some people there might presume that 'users will just figure it out', that they will hunt out the correct file there on a page that looks nothing like previous one and is more geared towards devs, even though it could've been streamlined further. putting media writer higher up on the page is a nitpick, lack of a prominent installation guide is not, cause it's not linked to, and it also seemingly doesn't even exist. there's https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/f36/install-guid... but not for a more recent version, i guess it just got lost in the shuffle.)

Some Linux distros aren't really doing as good as they could be at making things more accessible to a wider audience and less proficient users. And so the install base stays where it is. I don't think it's extremely nit picky to point out that just linking to an iso and expecting people to just figure it out without even clearly linking to a tutorial is not very accessible. And it really could be as simple as just actually having a link that says "How to install" or "Installation guide", and it's baffling when that stuff is buried. People could use trying to look at these things from a perspective of a new user who's not familiar with these things, and not just from someone who's in the know. Cause it's not actually intuitive or accessible having to dig around a website, trying to guess which of the links would take you there. (other downloads? documentation? support? none of these are an actual guide, and sometimes you won't even find a link to a guide there either.) There seems to be an assumption that just giving an iso file is enough, and that assumption is incorrect.

For example, Debian does kind of a bad job there cause it just throws an iso there and leaves you to poke at other links and guess, the installation guide there is buried under a bunch of clicks for some reason. Ubuntu is pretty good (though im still baffled why won't they feature their desktop version even more prominently on their front page. now that's an actual nitpick), and it actually outlines 'how to install' right there next to the download, and has an actual link to a more comprehensive tutorial too, that's laid out pretty nicely as well. (that's pretty much perfect really. though some other flavors of ubuntu might not be as great there.) Compare https://www.debian.org/releases/forky/amd64/ and https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop (both also first results from google on 'distro name how to install'). Debian's idea of a guide is kind of diabolical in comparison. It looks intimidating, it's plainly a pain in the ass to navigate, it's not laid out well whether you a new user or even if you know what's up, it's easier to just give up on that page and look elsewhere for something better formatted. But hey, maybe Debian isn't even really meant to be all that accessible or to be for the kinds of users that ubuntu might cater to. Or rather, it just won't be, if it's gonna be like that.

Windows is quite easy to install. They have a media writer too and their installer is pretty straightforward. It'll even do an in place upgrade that will just work. They clearly have considered OS installation, and have a couple of different tools available for it. They also still sell usb sticks with an installer on it.

So it wouldn't be incorrect to refer to Arch and Arch based distros as 'well, if you want to have fun with a broken system, otherwise avoid', just so it could be mentioned in a succinct way when talking about what distros one could try.

Even if they pick a distro and decide to install it, more often than not the install process is still overly convoluted even in just making installation media.

Going to a distro website and trying to find where to get it (ubuntu has a habit of leading with literally anything else other than regular desktop distro on their front page). Finding a download page, and having it just spit out an iso file, with no explanation on what to do with it, or 'how to install' link in sight (debian, it's very nice that there's a big download button, but like...then what. where's the explanation link. it's buried under other downloads, but that's not very intuitive). Getting to a 'how to install' page and having it be intimidatingly long, perhaps even needlessly. Sites, pages and explainers being laid out in confounding ways, and install process sometimes laid out in a bit of an overcomplicated way. (debian has an installation guide that's presented perhaps in the most intimidating way possible to a new unwitting user, and also buried under click on a click on a click. somehow writing the iso is not even among the first dozen of pages there. ubuntu mate gives you links to iso downloads, and yet the installation process is buried under 'faq' (again, not very intuitive or straightforward), that faq only has a bunch of oddly laid out 'making installation media' pages, and the rest of actual installation process is just somewhere else.)

That's before someone even gets to the actual install process. Somehow all of that stuff hasn't gotten more streamlined or user friendly. If you try to see how one would go about getting and installing any distro, you'd quickly see that it's very confusing and convoluted, way more than it has to be, or needs to be to appeal and be simple for new users.

There's glimmers of hope, like fedora which has its media writer, which is gonna hold your hand through the whole thing. Even that links out to github for a download, despite clicking on a seemingly specific 'windows/mac or linux' button. It's a little buried too, below iso downloads, when it really should be brought up more forward, and explain a little bit better on how it's gonna guide you thru the whole thing.

It really should be an app that's gonna guide you thru it, or a dead simple 1-2-3 step tutorial that's gonna guide you thru writing an image (download writer, download iso, write an image - laying it out more than that is just overcomplicating it really, at least in the initial quick install guide), with a clear, visible link to it - and yet somehow even this is too high of a bar for many distros to clear.

What has done a number on the ease of installing linux is how compact discs have just went away, because having a compact disc, burning it, or having it be just sent to users was making that step of the process simpler. Sure, writing to a USB is easy, but the expectation that everyone's just gonna have a spare usb is naive (and you're never gonna hear that you actually need to buy a usb stick in any of those guides lol), and there's just a little more opportunity to fuck up there (overwriting other disks, unless the writer app is laid out nicely and fail-proof). Distros might as well start selling usb sticks with installers on them. If someone's gonna be brand new to the whole thing and they're gonna have to buy a usb stick anyway, they might as well buy it from the distro with the distro on it already.

Some distros may want to get real about how a new user would even navigate their websites in order to get the thing. Like just trying to go thru that process themselves and see what's that experience like.

If the expected way and the attitude is to just break user installs, then that's no better than Windows, perhaps even worse.

What does notepad have to do with web based apps? case in what point?

New Notepad in 11, with tabs and autosave (and dark mode), is so much better and more practical to use over old one, it just stays open all the time and become my main notetaking pick. It may take a beat to open a big file (1+ mb) with line wrapping, but it's pretty much just as fast as anything (and may be even faster than some other editors). It's just very easy to reach for and quite snappy.

There are some apps on Windows with actual gripes, but Notepad, Paint, Snipping tool, they're quite solid and have become everyday tools that eliminated the need to reach for some other third party apps.

Well yeah, US healthcare system is already pretty close to just being an AI kill chain as is. Maybe they could make some cool ads about how they're ruthlessly optimizing that as well, with a little more of a mask off kind of sociopathic approach that they do.

It doesn't matter whether they do or not, the desire to keep separate things separate could be there as is. It might as well not be any of that but just about the kinds of things some companies are involved in.

Again, kind of amusing how that immediately devolves into "are you making an accusation".

Perhaps it would be preferable at least to not mix civilian health data or regular business data, with mass surveillance data, and with military industrial complex and kill chain data. It would make sense to have an interest in keeping different kinds of personal data in separate places and not have it thrown around companies with quite different interests or collected together within some company that's involved in quite different industries. So why does it not make sense to apologists of this company?

Wonder if they'll also have an AI kill chain for healthcare. Would be a neat little trick to reduce costs.

It still starts very fast, even with quite large files and line wrapping. (pretty much on par with lite-xl, though lite-xl did get much faster with some recent version. prior to it though, it was easier and faster to launch notepad)

there's probably a chance

It's this completely unfounded barrage of making shit up about energy consumption without any tether to reality that makes the whole thing with complaining about energy use seem just like a competition on who makes up the most ridiculous most hand-wringing analogy.

I almost believed that they just did, they aren't without their share of quirky and unusual projects and sponsorships.

Apple Pencil compatibility chart, for comparison https://f.nooncdn.com/cms/pages/20250530/31608d4ea3ae92b5bbe...

This "but it's too hard to implement" excuse never made sense to me. So it's doable to make a system like this, to have smart people working on it, hire and poach other smart people, to have payments systems, tracking systems, personal data collection, request filtering and content awareness, all that jazz, but somehow all of that grinds to a halt the moment a question like this arises? and it's been a problem for years, yet some of the smartest people are just unable to approach it, let alone solve it? Does it not seem idiotic to see them serve 'most advanced' products over and over, and then pretend like this question is "too complex" for them to solve? Shouldn't they be smart enough to rise up to that level of "complexity" anyway?

Seems more like selective, intentional ignoring of the problem to me. It's just because if they start to pay up, everyone will want to get paid, and paying other people is something that companies like this systematically try to avoid as much as possible.

Normalizing effective abolishment of consent for imagery, or just consent in general for just about anything, when it can portray anyone doing anything.

This just sounds like two different sets of standards, although for two different platforms, but one is getting goalposts shifted to 'but flashing is scary and nobody does it and also what if other phone makers spy on people' (just spreading FUD, really), while the other gets a pass pretty much on every one of those things while blindly buying into privacy marketing. Kinda reminds me of those lawsuits about app stores on ios and android that were running in parallel, where ios also kinda got a pass pretty much just because it's more locked down.

While regular people probably aren't going to mess with custom roms on android and it's kind of self-selecting situation there, they very much might pick a Samsung phone, or Motorola phone, or some other phone, that will have different flavors of android, and may have some meaningful differences and will have some amount of control over them that phone makers have be spread out between their manufacturer and not just google.

Some people also aren't really gonna be any less susceptible to scams that aren't tied to app stores or apps at all. Might as well lock down the browser and phone app then as well.