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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: May 15th, 2019

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  • Conflicts over language have been tied to other conflicts (political, cultural, war) for a very long time. Cultural genocide against indigenous people has targeted indigenous language use among young people. Many people in India have objected to the establishment of Hindi as a UN language because they fear it will advance the extinction of their own language. I’m not saying some Replacement Theory bigot kvetching because someone dared speak a language besides English is equivalent. It’s more that language does have a special place in culture in a way that is very common.



  • I wouldn’t say it’s a point of pride in the US usually, because it does make life difficult and limited. In the US, a lot of situations simply require English. It means relying on friends and family as translators, so the person can be at their mercy. They also can become very isolated within their immigrant communities while they watch the younger multilingual generations be able to integrate. My impression is that it is usually older people who struggle most learning English that remain in this group. I can’t think of anyone who is even vaguely younger who didn’t make an effort to learn English.

    I remember a middle aged Iranian woman who was taking ELL courses at my university. We happen to be at the gym at the same time some nights. I could tell it was a struggle, but she was clearly picking up more of the language.


  • I used OkCupid for some dates before I found my now husband. It took quite a few dates on my side, but I just considered that par for the course. For him, I was his first date on OkCupid. For that matter, I was the first man that he dated, though he had dated a girl in high school.

    Unfortunately, in the decade since we’ve met, I think both straight and gay oriented dating apps have probably taken a turn for the worse. We both had extensive, descriptive profiles and talked for a long time before meeting up. I keep hearing that the gay apps have turned into mostly hookup apps, but I can’t speak for straight apps.



  • I wasn’t able to get a good read on it either. I didn’t spot anything obviously wrong from a technical standpoint, but I’m not a systems developer. It just doesn’t have much that distinguishes it on a non-technical level. The design is neat, but other OS projects like Redox have shot past it in a shorter period of time. That tells me something’s broken, whether it’s technical or social.






  • This is so hard to answer because so many of these things you don’t miss it until it’s gone. I’m going to say physical keyboards. Like, not that physical keyboards will disappear entirely, but I think they will continue to get much, much less common. I think a lot of people will miss the tactile advantage of a good keyboard, though.

    One thing I think we’re in for a rebound on is how we deal with batteries. Currently, the paradigm for many devices is that manufacturers put a rechargeable battery in and that’s it. When the battery wears down or breaks, the device is done too. This can’t go on forever. It’s creating too much e-waste, expense, and pollution.

    I think the deal that customers are getting from streaming services is probably too good to last, in general. It’s already starting to degrade, with companies all going to start their own streaming platforms with smaller and smaller catalogs. You have to really plan for what you want to see. The rise of exclusive shows really damaged things. Vertical integration like that hurts competition.




  • Tertiary education: IT (software developer)

    Same theme for my LPT, different area. Are you having a problem? Housing? Tuition? Health issue? Ask about it! Likely you’re one of many and we (support staff) have systems in place to point you in the right direction. If you’re the first to run into a problem, we need to know so we can fix it. Don’t worry about bothering us, that’s what we’re there for. Many students wait until they have no other choice but to get in contact when it would have been easier for everyone if they had brought it up sooner. I totally understand the impulse, I’ve been that kid.





  • Replace the Pop! Shop with the COSMIC Store.

    sudo apt install cosmic-store cosmic-icons
    sudo apt remove pop-shop
    

    Pop Shop is kinda slow. COSMIC Store is part of Pop OS’s new COSMIC Desktop Environment (DE). Everything is just a lot faster. It’s an alpha so there are a couple of rough edges, but it’s great overall.

    Speaking of, get hyped for COSMIC. It’s a DE written in Rust. It’s not quite as complete as GNOME, but hopefully it will have better performance than the current GNOME mod that forms Pop’s UI.