cabbage

Fellow Dvorak user here. Can’t recommend it enough.

In one of my classes at the beginning of my doctoral studies we talked about parth dependency, and QWERTY was used as an example. All studies showed that even experienced typists would increase their typing speed within just a few days of switching, and that it’s just a superior set-up. But because of path dependency we all write QWERTY.

I changed my layout the same day and I haven’t looked back. If you want to start messing around with your keyboard and you use it for typing, switching to Dvorak should be the obvious first step. Colemak is a compromise solution that is still a lot better than QWERTY and probably quicker to learn.

No need to get a new keyboard. Dvorak is designed around touch typing, you won’t be looking at the keyboard anyway.

Pretty deadly for the sherpas though, who have to deal with the shit of the rich idiot tourists going there in massive numbers. So if they want to insist it’s extreme, at least there’s that.

Well, it’s expensive technology to develop, and there’s no other business model behind it than surveillance. So I think it’s fair to expect the surveillance part of it to be difficult to neutralise.

A Fairphone with /e/OS would do.

I don’t currently run /e/OS on mine - for now I’ve just disabled the Google app instead. But it’s a solid option, and last time I used it my banking apps and everything worked with no problem.

It’s a bit trickier to have a stable and efficient disinformation apparatus in place when you change governments every 4 years. Whatever is directly supported by the government would have to be supported by both the Trump and the Biden cabinets, or start from scratch every fourth year. The Kremlin doesn’t have that problem.

Of course, the US military and certain other institutions tend to run their own side show. We all know the US was tapping phone lines in Berlin for decades, and there’s little reason to believe they have fundamentally changed.

As a European, I’m just somewhat more worried about Russia at the moment, considering their support for the far right, successful effort to get Trump elected, the war in Ukraine, and all that. But by all means, I’m not naive to the US either, and I’m not sure why you would assume that I am.

Russian disinformation campaigns are basically everywhere in Western democracies at this point, they’re just hard to measure and to formally pin on the Kremlin directly.

I think it’s unfair to the hard working people of the Kremlin to exclude any election featuring Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, or Marine Le Pen from this list.

Sometimes it seems to know that the paths are not the best, and I really force it to take the path I choose instead of more convenient ones. So it only suggests the rugged paths when I insist it goes “there, but via there there and there”. Generally I can make it through, and how overgrown a path is can change by the season, so it’s a bit tricky. At one point in Italy though I ended up at a Via Ferrata, at which point I obviously had to turn back.

I have Street Complete installed, so I’ve started leaving notes using that whenever I notice any issues. And to make contributions now and then, of course. :)

Organic Maps is fantastic. I particularly use it for hiking, and it’s fantastic. It finds some amazing trails that I would otherwise never have gone to. Sometimes they can be challenging or overgrown, so you have to know what you’re doing and be prepared to turn back if necessary, but I owe a lot of truly incredible experiences to this app.

It originates as a fork of Maps.me, from when Maps.me changed to closed source. Since then Organic Maps has grown to become a lot better than the project it originates from, at least according to my preferences.

Genuine compliments on personality are always cool. Like, “you’re good at making people feel comfortable around you” or whatever. People often wonder what role they play in social situations, being told they’re doing good is nice. At least I appreciate it whenever it happens.

This might not be on account of your mother’s cooking, Jamie Oliver, or your evolving taste buds. Rather, Dutch scientists managed to breed tasty brussels sprouts back in the 90s, and the tasty version has since become the standard.

That’s why everybody hated brussels sprouts in the 80s, and everybody loves them today. They’re just not the same vegetable.

The French embassy in Wellington denied involvement, stating that “the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways”.

The poor ambassador must have been so fucking annoyed to learn that this is, in fact, how the French government deals with its opponents.

He would perhaps have been less surprised had he ever been randomly arrested or beaten up by cops at a political protest.

It takes time to build friendships. If you meet people for an activity that’s a start, but if you don’t feel like any of them are friend material (or they’re too busy) you need to branch out. Try finding a larger/different group that does that activity, or better yet, try out something else.

Volunteering tends to be a great starting point.

Friendships often start with a leap of faith of sorts - you hang out in a given context, and at some point somebody takes the next step (wanna grab a beer/grab lunch/come for dinner/go to the game/whatever)

You kind of do things that are a bit ahead of your current level of friendship, and then if it works out you’ve managed to upgrade.

Progressive tax is normal in most functional countries, it’s not rocket science.

Basically you define X as a base sum that needs to be controlled for inflation. Minimum wage can be 2X, whereas 100% taxation might be reached at an income of 300X. In this scenario, nobody could earn more than 150 times minimum wage, and manipulating the calculation of X to make the rich richer would also benefit everyone else.

A bigger challenge is that billionaire scum tend not to have income, only loans, so they don’t pay tax at all. But that’s also easily fixed if there’s political will.

When you play it louder the silences hit so much harder. What an experience.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King.

It’s just exploding with creativity and craftsmanship throughout the album. The opening tune (21st Century Schizoid Man) was unlike anything anyone had ever heard at the time it was released, and there’s honestly still not much like it out there. And the transition to Moonchild after it is equally mind-blowing just for the contrast alone. The title track remains one of the most incredible things I’ve heard.

Zappa also has a lot of good candidates for this list. I’m soft for Freak Out, where the madness started, but some might argue something like Joe’s Garage is a better example.

Shoes. You don’t end up saving money and it’s not worth the pain. I tried for years back when I couldn’t afford a thing and concluded that there’s simply no such thing as cheap good shoes.

I think Hank Williams III with the Grand Ole Opry Ain’t so Grand deserves a shout-out. Basically a song about how the institution that chewed up and then expelled his grandfather can eat shit.

Unlimited supply!

Which is a radical act to fight tech billionaires like Zuckerberg and Musk. Who have both been reasonably accused of enabling some incredibly awful stuff.

Contributing to the fediverse is probably not the most efficient way to fight for human rights and against billionaires and fascists, but it certainly makes some sort of tiny contribution. So I wouldn’t call it pointless. :)