Johz's recent activity

  1. Comment on "twitter.com" is now officially dead in ~tech

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I think we may run in very different circles then, if your peers think of these tech giants first.

    I think we may run in very different circles then, if your peers think of these tech giants first.

    3 votes

  2. Comment on "twitter.com" is now officially dead in ~tech

    Johz
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I should have written "this confused me for a moment" or something like that - I did remember that there were other Suns after a thinking about it for a bit! 😅 But yeah, exactly: having a...

    Yeah, I should have written "this confused me for a moment" or something like that - I did remember that there were other Suns after a thinking about it for a bit! 😅 But yeah, exactly: having a trademark does not prevent anyone from using that trademark at all, it just prevents them from doing business using names that could be confused with your business.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on "twitter.com" is now officially dead in ~tech

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I know, but the fact that multiple companies can exist at the same time, with names that represent common everyday words, suggests that trademarks do not strip us of our vocabulary in quite the...

    I know, but the fact that multiple companies can exist at the same time, with names that represent common everyday words, suggests that trademarks do not strip us of our vocabulary in quite the way the previous poster was suggesting.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on "twitter.com" is now officially dead in ~tech

    Johz
    Link Parent
    This confused me, because (the) Sun is about as famous as Apple, at least in the UK: it's a very popular newspaper and online media outlet. In fairness, I'm not sure if they have a trademark, but...

    "Sun" is another example, imagine the situation today if that company had become as famous as Apple! What would you be calling the orb that rises in the East then?

    This confused me, because (the) Sun is about as famous as Apple, at least in the UK: it's a very popular newspaper and online media outlet. In fairness, I'm not sure if they have a trademark, but even if they had, I don't think anyone finds it difficult to differentiate between the newspaper and the real-life phenomenon.

    7 votes

  5. Comment on Experimental real property tax basis-set rate based on usable area per person in ~finance

    Johz
    Link Parent
    LVT isn't just a flat tax for all land, though, it's a tax on the value of the land you're working with. Your land becomes more valuable if it is close to amenities or other services. So while you...

    LVT isn't just a flat tax for all land, though, it's a tax on the value of the land you're working with. Your land becomes more valuable if it is close to amenities or other services.

    So while you don't pay more tax if you improve your own property on its own, you do pay more tax if your whole neighborhood improves. This again helps encourage landlords to improve their properties: if everyone around you has improved their living conditions, then your tax is going to go up. If you want to make the same amount of profit as before, you'll need to make similar improvements.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on I gave up meat and gained so much more | A tale of one person's life, culture, and growing up in ~life

    Johz
    Link Parent
    Ah, yeah, always ignore the opinions of people online. It's like a any fan club: the most vocal people are usually the most passionate and the most hardcore. Gather a group of fans in a room, and...

    Ah, yeah, always ignore the opinions of people online. It's like a any fan club: the most vocal people are usually the most passionate and the most hardcore. Gather a group of fans in a room, and you'll hear the most extreme voices because they're the ones who want to spend all their time talking about, and the rest all want to get on with something else.

    In that regard, please don't assume that the loudest voices on the internet represent what real vegetarians and vegans think. Like I said, I'm not one myself, but I do think minimising the amount of meat and animal products we eat is important for environmental and animal welfare reasons. I'd hate it if people felt turned off from the world of meat-free food just because of a few faceless voices.

    8 votes

  7. Comment on What is a value or belief you have that is extremely outside the norm? in ~talk

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I mean, I consider myself to have a happy life. Stress-free is perhaps going a bit far, but certainly one where the balance of joy vs stress leans in joy's favour. And that's true for most of the...

    I mean, I consider myself to have a happy life. Stress-free is perhaps going a bit far, but certainly one where the balance of joy vs stress leans in joy's favour. And that's true for most of the people I know, I believe.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on What is a value or belief you have that is extremely outside the norm? in ~talk

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I'm probably the other end of the spectrum (which I think is also outside the norm in a lot of places): I think adverts should by-and-large be banned. Particularly in public spaces, but possibly...

    I'm probably the other end of the spectrum (which I think is also outside the norm in a lot of places): I think adverts should by-and-large be banned. Particularly in public spaces, but possibly more generally.

    I know this isn't a very practical belief, but I think getting rid of ads would make public spaces much more pleasant to be in, and set a better expectation that people don't need to be constantly sold to.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on I gave up meat and gained so much more | A tale of one person's life, culture, and growing up in ~life

    Johz
    Link Parent
    For what it's worth, almost all the vegans (and vegetarians) that I know are fairly relaxed about their diet and will quite happily break it if it makes sense to, or for special occasions. (And on...

    What frustrates me about many proponents of veganism (not the author of this article, fwiw) is an all-or-nothing black-and-white approach.

    For what it's worth, almost all the vegans (and vegetarians) that I know are fairly relaxed about their diet and will quite happily break it if it makes sense to, or for special occasions. (And on the other side of things: most of the vegetarians I know, and many meat eaters, tend to use vegan alternatives where it makes sense and when they're comfortable with it.) I've never really experienced hard boundaries here - it's not like there's a vegan police running around trying to catch people drinking the wrong milk!

    I'm sure those people exist, but at this point they feel like a minority of the people who are actually vegan, and I usually only see them as part of a vegan stereotype, rather than in real life.

    Myself, I eat meat because I like it and, like you, see nothing wrong in killing animals per se. But I almost exclusively cook vegetarian (and often vegan) partly because my wife is vegetarian, and partly becauseI want to actively reduce my meat (and general animal product) consumption.

    7 votes

  10. Comment on My not so nice thoughts on Battlestar Galactica in ~tv

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I've started reading the Culture books recently, and I am surprised to see them rated so highly so often. They feel like interesting ideas, but poor stories - particularly with the abrupt endings,...

    I've started reading the Culture books recently, and I am surprised to see them rated so highly so often. They feel like interesting ideas, but poor stories - particularly with the abrupt endings, unsympathetic characters, and coincidences. Kind of like a middling Black Mirror episode, where I'd rather just read the summary on the Wikipedia page, if that makes sense.

    That said, while I disagree with you about how bad The Expanse series is, I agree that the title "the current example of excellent sci-fi" is a bit strong. It's good, solid television, but in terms of really pushing the boat out for sci-fi, I would first think of shows like Andor or Severance rather than The Expanse.

    13 votes

  11. Comment on How do I fix my (stupid) use of excessive punctuation? in ~humanities.languages

    Johz
    Link Parent
    Even then, I've just tried it out on some of my own writing and I'm not convinced (although obviously I'm biased there...) It seems to roughly search out any sentence that has a clause in it, but...

    Even then, I've just tried it out on some of my own writing and I'm not convinced (although obviously I'm biased there...) It seems to roughly search out any sentence that has a clause in it, but clauses aid comprehension by joining concepts together that belong together. The last sentence is a good example: it would be less clear and more verbose as two separate sentences.

    I suspect this would be most useful as a first pass for an experienced writer who is able to use it to highlight points where they might want to double-check their writing. But I wouldn't want Hemingway-the-tool's writing style to become the standard, even in technical manuals or articles.

    4 votes

  12. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Johz
    Link Parent
    That's what I'm doing currently, but with the addition of the toggle as an override. Which is also why I'm more okay with the behaviour where it's only a temporary toggle - most users will see the...

    That's what I'm doing currently, but with the addition of the toggle as an override. Which is also why I'm more okay with the behaviour where it's only a temporary toggle - most users will see the right thing to start with.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Johz
    Link Parent
    Those font stacks look interesting, although on Android at least, I'm getting the baseline defaults for almost every stack. But it could be something good to play around with. The light mode/dark...

    Those font stacks look interesting, although on Android at least, I'm getting the baseline defaults for almost every stack. But it could be something good to play around with.

    The light mode/dark mode thing is a Known Issueâ„¢, but it's difficult to properly fix. The site is completely static (and I don't want to make it dynamic just for theme switching) so the only way of detecting that cookie would be client-side. But if I do it client-side, I either have a situation where the wrong values are loaded initially, and I get a flash of incorrect styling, or the Javascript blocks the rendering of the page until the correct variables have been set.

    Having the switcher only work until you load the next page means that the site remains static, loads quickly, and shows the preferred colour scheme for most users, but for users who want a different colour scheme while they're reading the article, they can still get that without having to fiddle with system settings. But I suspect that's a rare case so maybe it's easier just to remove the switcher altogether?

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I specifically didn't go on a font search because I wanted to avoid loading a bunch of extra fonts files, but then I added cover images (at least to the posts I've done since I did the redesign),...

    I specifically didn't go on a font search because I wanted to avoid loading a bunch of extra fonts files, but then I added cover images (at least to the posts I've done since I did the redesign), so maybe I can also get away with a nice font as well. But I do agree that a nice font can really make all the difference, and it's usually how I start these sorts of things.

    Out of interest, are you viewing dark mode or light mode? I'm a light mode person, and I tried to also add a dark mode variant because I know people like it, but I find it so much harder to evaluate it properly.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Johz
    Link
    I finally finished my blog! It's here: https://jonathan-frere.com/ Technically, it's not much to write home about (Hugo, some SCSS, a single JS function, Cloudflare pages for hosting), but it was...

    I finally finished my blog! It's here: https://jonathan-frere.com/

    Technically, it's not much to write home about (Hugo, some SCSS, a single JS function, Cloudflare pages for hosting), but it was still interesting playing around with some different templating options, and figuring out little things like getting light mode/dark mode to work.

    The bigger challenge was getting the design to work. I'm not 100% happy with the colours (but I think I'm just going to accept them at this point), but I'm happy with the layered effect, and I'm really happy with the shadows -- it feels like the first time where I've made shadows that didn't feel like a ten-year-old drew them!

    And then of course I wrote a blog post about the design of the blog post, because that's like the standard thing to do with a new blog... 😅

    6 votes

  16. Comment on Ireland can’t blame its anti-immigrant problem on Rishi Sunak – The sudden arrival of European-style populism in Irish politics is the result of thirteen years of government complacency in ~misc

    Johz
    Link Parent
    The sort of thing that worries me, though, is stuff like the recent poll where roughly 50% of Ireland would be okay with border checks along the Irish/NI border to stop immigrants from coming...

    The sort of thing that worries me, though, is stuff like the recent poll where roughly 50% of Ireland would be okay with border checks along the Irish/NI border to stop immigrants from coming over. That's a significant shift, and it's a dangerous one - if there is anything that Brexit has taught us, it is that open borders within the Ireland/NI region are necessary and need to be protected.

    In fairness, I'm from the UK, so I'm only getting a filtered perspective on this, but it seems pretty significant to me.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Zendaya-Palooza box office weekend pushes ‘Dune: Part Two’ to $700M WW; ‘Godzilla x Kong’ to half billion as Legendary Warner pics count $1.2B WW in ~movies

    Johz
    Link Parent
    I would go as far as to say that some of the best adaptions take the core themes and ideas and tell them completely differently — consider Blade Runner, Children of Men, Jojo Rabbit, etc. In...

    I would go as far as to say that some of the best adaptions take the core themes and ideas and tell them completely differently — consider Blade Runner, Children of Men, Jojo Rabbit, etc. In contrast, you can do a really good job with a more scene-by-scene adaption, and still produce something that's not as good as the original. Good Omens, to me at least, is a good example of how just telling the same story is often a bit disappointing. It's a good TV show, don't get me wrong — David Tennant and Michael Sheen work brilliantly together — but it's the sort of TV show that falls out of your head once you've finished it. In contrast, there are so many examples of scenes or ideas from the book that have stuck with me for years.

    There are definitely some exceptions to this rule — Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings both kept largely to the books and were still (mostly) great film series in their own right. But if you're going to adapt a book into a new medium, I think I'd much rather you think about how to adapt the themes more broadly, rather than trying to replicate each plotline exactly.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on The await event horizon in Javascript in ~comp

    Johz
    Link
    Structured concurrency is on my list of "probably really useful ideas that I should explore when I get the chance". I think a lot of discussion about async/await (particularly in languages like...

    Structured concurrency is on my list of "probably really useful ideas that I should explore when I get the chance". I think a lot of discussion about async/await (particularly in languages like Rust, which are currently exploring what that should look like), would benefit from a deeper understanding of structured concurrency.

    I think this article kind of does structured concurrency a disfavour by concentrating on the divergence issue — i.e. what happens if I call a function and it just runs forever. This can be important, but it's usually important in the context of other things. After all, most servers essentially act like infinite loops once they're started, and that's okay in that context.

    I think the better example is when you create a new promise without necessarily awaiting it. If you await the promise, then the function you're in becomes bound to the promise you're awaiting — the function can only progress when that promise has completed. But if you don't await the promise, then the promise is unbound, and the function execution and the promise execution no longer have anything to do with each other. The function can return with the promise still hanging on somewhere. And if the promise never resolves as described in the article, then we essentially end up with a leaked resource floating around.

    The problem in Javascript (and many other languages) is that it's very easy to create these unbound promises, and you need to use discipline to keep track of what resources are being controlled. Structured concurrency, at least as far as I understand it, is a tool that prevents us from creating unbound executions, and ensures that resources are always owned somewhere in the call stack.

    6 votes

  19. Comment on Zendaya-Palooza box office weekend pushes ‘Dune: Part Two’ to $700M WW; ‘Godzilla x Kong’ to half billion as Legendary Warner pics count $1.2B WW in ~movies

    Johz
    Link Parent
    Did we watch the same movie? The whole point of the changes to Chani's character is to emphasise the tragedy of Paul's decisions: he gives up on the values that they share together early on in the...

    Did we watch the same movie? The whole point of the changes to Chani's character is to emphasise the tragedy of Paul's decisions: he gives up on the values that they share together early on in the movie in exchange for the ability to take power, and thereby avenge his house and family. Ultimately that choice will cost him everything, but in having his and Chani's relationship grow more organically, Villeneuve shows that cost at the smaller scale as well.

    10 votes

  20. Comment on UK asylum seekers will be deported to Rwanda in ~news

    Johz
    Link Parent
    No worries, it's presented in a confusing way there! Yeah, I didn't quote the 75% number because I couldn't tell exactly where was percentage was coming from, and I didn't want to include...

    No worries, it's presented in a confusing way there! Yeah, I didn't quote the 75% number because I couldn't tell exactly where was percentage was coming from, and I didn't want to include overlapping groups there, but certainly the majority of cases in the UK will get approved.

    2 votes