Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 11

@tahajin That's racist! McTexas is a widely recognised alternative spelling of the traditional Scottish-Mexican surname MacTejas.

@skypage The native UI toolkits on iOS and Android aren't exactly wonderful either, which is why so many people are resorting to React Native. For the sort of thing a GUI programmer typically needs to do, statically typed compiled languages sort of just get in the way and force you to think. I mean, we're not really seeing this huge pressure to move away from JavaScript. In fact, I'd say the opposite is true.

@skypage Modern JS offers a very low resistance path to writing front-end/GUI code unlike anything I've used before. I don't actually miss trying to write apps in C++ and Qt with umpteen classes and layout managers.

@skypage I never really liked writing GUI code in any of the compiled language toolkits. It's much easier to just use something like React. If you could offer anywhere near the convenience and power of modern JavaScript in a purely native environment, then we're talking.

@skypage That's a compile target, yes. The issue, I think, is that a lot of people actually like at least certain aspects of JavaScript. I'm not sure if I like the idea of writing front-end code in Rust...

@skypage I'm not sure what I'd replace JavaScript itself with. It's a very low-friction yet powerful high level language now, and it's not really well suited to compilation.

I have a billboard on a fence next to the road advertising my IT services in a matter of fact way.

Thousands of drivers pass it daily.

It should work, but it doesn't, and I know why...

Simply informing people about what you're selling doesn't work. What you need to do is to hypnotise people. Imply that your product makes them smarter, sexier or classier. Use slick design and typography. Add a striking, attractive photo backdrop. Use light and animation. Then they will come.

@enkiv2 Open source code offers a hypothetical solution to abandonware, missing features and hostile takeovers.

In practice, it doesn't work that way.

Even building a codebase is too much hassle for most IT professionals and package managers have become ubiquitous. Adding a single feature to a codebase usually requires hours of exploration, trial and error.

Script engines and plugin systems are the best solution we've come up with so far, which is why browser extensions are wildly popular.

It's very handy to look to China to see what unintended dystopic side effects new technologies might have, because the Chinese government is so good at finding ways of using them for surveillance and control.

I keep wanting changes to the software I'm using, and you'd think the open source model would be the perfect answer to that, but no. If you want to make anything but a cosmetic change to a piece of open source software, you are going to need to make a large time investment in that codebase. The world is not my oyster. What I want is the ability to modify or extend an app quickly with a few mouse clicks and only general programming knowledge. That's more useful to me than open source code.

@ellotheth Hummer, yes. Rhymes with lommer and tommer (but not kommer or sommer).

@ellotheth I'm going to half recommend that you get the clue.no dictionary. It's not free, and their apps aren't exactly top notch, but their dictionaries are very complete and go as far as including technical, political and medical terms.

@ellotheth That is indeed the joke.

@finiteattention Vedlikeholdes ikke. Jeg stiftet den opprinnelig og samlet en gruppe folk som skulle vedlikeholde den, men ingen orka, og det var noe korrupsjon i databasen i tillegg som gjorde det umulig å migrere til ny server.

@ellotheth Almost. "kjære" is dear. "kjæle" is to stroke, clap or touch tenderly. They're similar in sound. They could be linguistic relatives.

There is also the completely unrelated word "kjele", meaning kettle.

Cats and dogs are kjæledyr. Lobsters? They are... kjeledyr? 🙂

*introduces Hippocratic Oath for developers*

*Internet is now free of ads and dark patterns*

*developer profession dies due to lack of available work*

When you think about it, the Baby Boomers weren't the best animators. That honour belongs to the WWII generation. The Baby Boomers actually made some of the cheesiest animation. All the low quality stuff that began to appear in the 1970s and 1980s? Baby Boomers did most of that.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam? Very smooth animation, but also extremely cheesy, made in the manner of Baby Boomer Golden Age fanboys with too much money on their hands.

In the Norwegian public discourse on abortion and biotechnology, there is a term "sorteringssamfunnet", the exclusion society, a horror vision of the future where all undesirables are eliminated.

Some people say that our society is already an exclusion society. In Norway, it's legal to have an abortion after the first trimester if the fetus is disfigured.

"Disfigured" includes several syndromes, including Down's syndrome, and this is highly controversial and currently up for debate again.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/05/tanzania-gay-people-in-hiding-lgbt-activists-crackdown

Tanzania is cracking down on gay people, and the reason is partly legal (old British colonial law) and partly religious.

What this tells me is that Tanzania is doing better. Why? Because you're not going to waste precious energy being cruel to gay people if there are more pressing concerns to address, like war or famine.

Certain things, like democracy and human rights, are not really transferable as knowledge, because they are opinions and are not self-evident.