Notices by Alex Schroeder 🐝 (kensanata@octodon.social), page 41

@JordiGH Ohh, I don't remember ever seeing this before. Either it's new, or I never looked.

@Belchion I don't think it contradicts the things I liked about the article: a short essay on the two dimensional field between chores, hobbies, convenience, and struggle. As such, the article works very well for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay 3/3

@Belchion Even if I concede all of this: "Most of the conveniences the author mentioned are time-consuming,
boring, backbreaking chores that wealthy people used to dump on servants till about 100 years ago. The rest is nostalgia-tinged anxiety about the future, which could have been written as well in the late Roman Republic or the 19th centuries fin de siècle." Where does that take us? 2/3

@Belchion I just had a more inclusive impression when I read it. Other examples he gave: "Playing the guitar was not convenient. Neither was growing one’s own vegetables or fixing one’s own motorcycle." I think that was precisely the point: saying that some things are not convenient and we enjoy them.
I'm not sure this discussion leads anywhere. 1/2

@gargron I wouldn't use it because it is inconvenient. For my own picture galleries, I use a tool that detects faces and center preview images on faces. That works for almost all the cases I care about. https://www.thregr.org/~wavexx/software/facedetect/

@Belchion @wrenpile Well, to me it seemed that this was exactly what the author was saying: we already like to struggle in some situations instead of choosing convenience and we call it a hobby. Thus, before choosing convenience, consider whether you actually like the struggle you're about put aside. Perhaps you like cooking, for example.

@Belchion @wrenpile And yet, when he talks about sports, climbing, biking, running, or programming, or social media where we click +1 instead of replying, or when we think of people gardening, or chopping wood because they like doing it, then I think he is exactly right? I think the author is exactly trying to show some changes are for the good (laundry, vacuuming) but that does not mean all changes are for the good.

@kelbot This is great! This is the kind of thing I was looking for.

@natecull I have a separate RPG account because of these considerations.

@sajith @hisham_hm StackExhange and friends indicate that unlink is just a wrapper for the system call which tells me it was probably first. rm got all the features.

@JordiGH I mean, keep showing notifications of type mention and hide notifications of type boost and favorite (I’m assuming that’s what you are trying to do?)

@JordiGH if you are using the website I hear user style sheets can hide the notifications using CSS but I’m not sure about the beeps and system notifications.

@kitoconnell I think it's covered right at the top: "I don’t want to suggest that convenience is a force for evil. Making things easier isn’t wicked. On the contrary, it often opens up possibilities that once seemed too onerous to contemplate, and it typically makes life less arduous, especially for those most vulnerable to life’s drudgeries."

@RussSharek https://github.com/kensanata/bitlbee-mastodon

I second the recommendation by @wrenpile to read this post about convenience and struggle and how we must realize that making everything convenient robs us of life experience. We run, not because it is easy but because it is hard. We went to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was hard. Let’s recognize that « hobbies » and « passions » are just inconvenient things we like doing anyway. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html

@ckeen Well, for sitelen sitelen this already exists: http://livingtokipona.smoishele.com/examples/liveinput/liveinput.html (includes GitHub link)