• 0 Posts
  • 22 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 24th, 2023

help-circle



  • There are two very distinct categories of content aggregation/social media: The ones where you primarily “follow” people/content creators (facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube, whatsapp) and the ones where you primarily “follow” subjects (reddit, lemmy, slashdot, etc).

    The ones that focus on people are much more prone to create opinion bubbles, polarizing groups, and the obnoxious “influencers”.

    Of course in some cases algorithms (as in youtube) may take in account the subject of your subscribed content creators, and feed you other creators covering similar subjects, but when the focus is on people, chances are they’ll feed you similar opinions, not only similar subjects.

    It’s easy to see the difference if you compare subscribing to a “r/news” channel in reddit/lemmy with subscribing to a “foxnews” channel in youtube/facebook. One of those will get you a wider range of point of views (despite possible mod biases).

    So I really hope subscribing or following people never becomes relevant in lemmy, let alone having algorithms tailoring what is shown to me. I want to know other people’s opinions; not an echo of my opinions.








  • Because the tire is topographically a radially flattened torus, when you turn it half inside out, it becomes a 2D möbius strip. At this point it effectively has only one side. When you push such construct horizontally against a solid, because the z-axis perpendicular to the strip has no negative values (it only has one side), if that coincides with the orientation of the ∇Np of the solid, the z vector wraps around the solid. When the tire snaps to its rest state (inside in), it’s easy to see why it ends up around the pillar.

    This 3D animation demonstrates the concept:

    https://youtu.be/xvFZjo5PgG0


  • I’m a 55 year old senior developer. I’ve been coding since I was 12 (yeah, RPG II in punch cards and COBOL stored in 8" floppies), and I have a TERIBLE memory.

    Don’t bother memorizing and knowing every language feature and detail. Just get a general awareness of what it can do. Then when you need to accomplish something, it’s good enough that for the first times you do it you go “hey, I recall there’s a way of doing it” or at least (often happens to me) “hmm, this sounds useful enough that this language must have a built-in way of doing it”. Then you google or ask some AI, and you’ll get pointed to the general direction most of the times.

    Then if you use it often enough, you’ll remember it. (and in my case, if I don’t use it for 3 months, I completely forget about it, and even get surprised when I see how I did it in my own old code).

    In the old days, you could indeed know every feature and library (if any existed at all) of a language. Heck, I knew almost all hex op codes for the Z80 assembly by heart (still recall more of those than I recall my relatives names). Nowadays it is impossible to memorize everything.

    In JS realm, if you look at the amount of components you have available in most frameworks, for example in UI5, or existing node modules for your node.js project, even trying to “memorize” them all is a waste of time. In cases like this, you just need to assume there’s a component or module that does what you need, then be good at finding, choosing, and understanding how to use one.

    Not to mention the reduntant stuff they throw in “modern” languages, like javascript’s forEach. Some languages have 10 ways of doing the same thing, each one 0.1% more efficient for each particular case, but may catastrophically fail in some other specific case. Screw it. Learn the one that works well for every case and stick with it - you’re not coding ultra performance critical stuff in js anyway.

    Programming today is usually more an integration of functioning pieces than building from scratch (assuming that if you’re talking about JavaScript, we’re not talking about creating microcode for bare silicon).

    Worry about building an efficient and robust logic in your head. Then the programming language is just a tool, way less important than the logic you came up with.


  • …or to a diabetic person whose health plan does not cover all the insulin cost they need.

    I should have specified that I was referring to superfluous stuff.

    For basic needs like education and health, any cost is too expensive. That should be sponsored by the whole society and government, and be free.

    In some cases, they are. My bachelor’s degree (5 years Engineering) costed me zero (in monetary units). Even the printed material was free, from the uni printhouse.

    We also have the largest free universal health care system in the world, and it’s even pretty decent in some regions of the country (Brazil).


  • jsveiga@vlemmy.nettoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you use adblock? Why? Why not?
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I’ve never used them.

    If I like an app or site, but the ads are annoying me, I do one of these:

    • If there’s an option to pay the creator/aggregator to eliminate the ads, and the cost/benefit is worth it, I’ll pay.

    • If there is no option to pay, but the app/content is worth the ads annoyance, I’ll keep using the app/site and watch/skip/ignore the ads.

    • If there is no option to pay, or there is, but the price is higher than what I perceive as the app/content value, I’ll stop using the app/site.

    For example, I paid for Baconreader Premium, but I watch YouTube ads, and I removed several sites from my google home page feed because they had more ads than content.

    I’m also stop using Reddit, as I don’t think it’s worth enduring their obnoxious native app.

    And no, I don’t use pirated software, nor watch or listen to pirated movies or music. If something is priced above what I consider it’s worth, I just don’t use it.

    Yes, Baconreader Premium could be consider as a “reddit ad blocker”, but it operated within Reddit’s approval. Now Reddit changed their rules, and it’s their rules.






  • jsveiga@vlemmy.nettoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhat is always worth it?
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    You answered “trying” as something that “is ALWAYS worth it” - which was OP’s question.

    If you now say you need to “weigh the pros and cons” - which I agree - then trying it’s not ALWAYS worth it, no?

    Then as someone else commented, each person has their own risk tolerance, so once each person weigh the pros and cons, trying will be worth it for some and not for others.

    So answering “trying” to “what’s something that’s always worth it” is rather paradoxical, as what you probably meant then was “trying it, but only when it’s worth it”.


  • It was not the most important thing for me, but I agree: 15-20 years ago, veg options (and sugarless too btw) sucked. You really had to be committed to the cause to endure them.

    We’re not vegetarians, but my daughter has allergy to eggs and milk. We buy cakes, pies, brownies, cookies, etc from a vegan bakery that honestly are delicious - better than most non-vegan equivalents. We all end up eating them, although only she actually “needs” them.

    If vegan activists worked more towards kindly creating and showing the world vegan options that are as good as/better than their animal counterparts, it would help their cause MUCH more than pestering people, destroying property and making everyone hate them.