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The tools I love are made by awful people

ankursethi.com

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Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#111

Post by wink »

pjerem wrote: post #51
mergy wrote: post #3

Switching to Linux is not easy. You almost have to hit a wall when you are just done with the bargaining to keep something like Apple or Windows. It kind of takes a major jump. You also need to be persistent after that jump and not retrench when you can't pull from the familiar. You'll get there at some point just don't think or care about the awful people - think about how and in what way you want to operate directi…

> Switching to Linux is not easy. Which is a shame because in itself, most Linux distros _are_ easy. The ergonomics and the rationales are, imo, better/easier to understand than Windows or even MacOS. In fact, even _installing_ a modern distro is easier than installing Windows 11. What’s hard is not Linux, it’s switching. It requires to, well, think different :) Having said that, I honestly think switching from Windo…

I think that's personal preference and circumstances though.

I have used Windows on the desktop since 1994, I have used Linux on desktops since 1998 (work machines being 50% or exclusively Linux since 2010ish) and I got my first mac last autumn. (Planned Linux but some unimportant things stood in the way, so I gave it a shot).

Working on Windows is pure pain for me. I use it as my gaming/browsing machine and every time I have to touch code I hate it.

Linux is 100% fine for work, but I noticed I am having problems with games with my usual setup with tiling window managers (i.e lots of fullscreen usage and non-easily-resizable windows, also getting my Logitech's G keys recognized).

macos is... 90% fine actually. I hate some small things but otherwise it just works, the windows key as cmd is actually in a nicer position than ctrl, but that might be my weird hands.

So if I wasn't playing certain games with certain keybinds, switching to Linux fulltime would have happened like 10y ago for me.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#112

Post by geniium »

bhaak wrote: post #62
geniium wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me the main reason is that mac just works. I spent less time configuring my OS and tinkering around and just focus on my work.

For low levels of "it just works". Every major OS update Apple changes something that breaks either specific programs or restricts the OS further which leads to breakage. The "too many files open" error could be fixed by raising the limit of open files (there are instances where a tool really does need lots of open files and isn't leaking) but nowadays I need to break the security of my own hardware to maybe be able…

you're right - lately mac seems to have been doing bad moves. In "lately" I mean since 5-10 years

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#115

Post by jsiepkes »

imgabe wrote: post #105
jsiepkes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the rebuke then the whole comparison is silly. Since if you buy clothes at some chain like Zara you know before hand what the conditions are which they impose on their workers. You don't need "future sight" for that.

You personally know the conditions? You know that the workers would be better off not having the option of working in the Zara factory? I don't mean a choice between working for Zara and a hypothetical fantasy option of them working in an office with 40 hour work weeks and air conditioning, I mean their actual other option like subsistence farming or whatever they did before there was a Zara factory. You feel you are…

And how does that same reasoning apply to your first example? Giving money to someone who you know is going to buy a bullet to murder someone.

"You don't have all the details, he could be murdering a bad person"? Something like that I guess?

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#116

Post by imgabe »

jsiepkes wrote: post #115
imgabe wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You personally know the conditions? You know that the workers would be better off not having the option of working in the Zara factory? I don't mean a choice between working for Zara and a hypothetical fantasy option of them working in an office with 40 hour work weeks and air conditioning, I mean their actual other option like subsistence farming or whatever they did before there was a Zara factory. You feel you are…

And how does that same reasoning apply to your first example? Giving money to someone who you know is going to buy a bullet to murder someone. "You don't have all the details, he could be murdering a bad person"? Something like that I guess?

The example is deliberately contrived and hyperbolic. In real life, if there is reliable evidence that someone is murdering people, the police conduct an investigation, we have a trial, and they go to jail. You know what we don't do? We don't go "Hey, I think Bob the pen-seller is a murderer. Nobody buy his pens so hopefully he runs out of money and can't afford to murder people anymore". We don't do that because it would be a really stupid and ineffective way of stopping murderers, and it's really stupid and ineffective for most other things too.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#117

Post by akho »

adastra22 wrote: post #32
Animats wrote: post #8

I've been entirely on Linux for over fifteen years now. And I used to develop for Win32.

Most people I know who are 100% Linux users are like you. They don’t know what they are missing, and they are happy.

This is a very arrogant take. Linux users don’t live in isolation, and are exposed to Win/macOs daily.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#118

Post by ryandrake »

imgabe wrote: post #4

There’s this modern affliction where people believe they are morally responsible for the actions of every person they buy anything from. For your own sanity, please let this go. You are responsible for your own actions. If you buy a pen from a psychopath and he uses the money to buy a bullet and shoot someone, that’s not your fault. He’s responsible for his actions. It’s like everyone somehow forgot that other humans…

This individualistic attitude is how we got to our current situation, and why we are perpetually stuck here. Everyone in any position of corporate power is a psychopath, because the system will replace them if they are not. Every purchase you make has the downstream effect of encouraging whoever you bought it from to continue doing what they are doing. And, what everyone is doing is "throwing everything possible (morally, ethically, and legally) under the bus to grow profits." Individuals don't get to dodge culpability just because we are only indirectly funding all this bad behavior.

Absent government will (which has been the reality for decades), we have no way of stopping this bad behavior than to stop funding it. But since nearly every company is engaging in bad behavior, "stop funding it" means becoming a hermit and not buying anything, which is also not feasible for enough people.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#119

Post by jerome-jh »

I experience some of the same tension being a SW engineer and seing how much SW is dysfunctionning on a day to day basis, sometimes not being able to help relatives having issues with their phone/PC.

Actually most of the time this is SW business which is dysfunctionnal. I totally agree with the phrase "asshole companies", which make people's life miserable on purpose.

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