• 7 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 11th, 2023

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  • Yeah unfortunately this is a real issue. I also think it’s an issue that experienced users don’t really want to help newbies, especially those who can’t or won’t do research by themselves. Ideally experienced users would be more helpful, but at the same time that isn’t their job. There are many who learned Linux more or less on their own so it’s understandable they don’t want to help given they didn’t use any help when it was their turn. I think now that the community is growing this might start to change a bit, as the newcomers are more likely to have had help and be willing to help others.

    I sometimes try to advocate for using Linux, and I don’t mind giving friends advice from time to time. That being said I don’t want to be stuck answering stupid questions all the time that could have been solved with a google search or a YouTube video. I have my own stuff to worry about both technical and otherwise.

    That’s why I think teaching new users how to access resources like man pages, gnu info pages, google, and so on is the correct approach to take. It is empowering having the skills to work through your own issues. That being said I also think it’s important for experienced people to give advice on more complex questions.










  • I don’t think this is strictly true. They do tweak parts of the kernel such as the CPU scheduler to deal with new CPU designs that come out which have special scheduling requirements. That’s actually happened quite a bit recently with AMD and Intel both offering CPUs with asymmetric processors with big and little cores, different clock speeds, different cache, sometimes even different instructions on different cores. They also added ReFS not long ago, which may have required some kernel work.

    I can understand though if they have few experienced people and way more junior devs. It would probably explain a lot to be honest. A lot of Microsoft stuff is bloated and/or unreliable.





  • In a world where this fake shit didn’t take hold we could have had real wireless charging by now, if you think the “wireless” charging is good now, just think what true wireless would be like. You could walk into a room and your phone just starts charging with 0 effort. None.

    You know this is possible how exactly? Wireless power distribution has been considered since Tesla’s time. Yet it still hasn’t been done outside of laboratory environments or very short distances. It’s definitely possible, but making it practical might not even be possible within physics as we currently understand it.

    For example a very power light beam like for example a laser beam can transfer a lot of power over some distance. It would also cook you, burn you, or make you go blind. It would also require precise alignment between transmitter and receiver, as well as very expensive transmission equipment.




  • I am from the UK. This idea of states having an influence over their education system seems weird to me, though I guess we might allow something similar with Scotland, Wales, or Northern Island.

    As I said we really don’t teach handwriting that well. They give kids either ball points or these triangle grip things that are actually designed to increase the force it takes to write. Why? No idea but someone thought that was a good idea to stop people who write too quickly and mess it up. Weirdly that actually helped some people. Even though it makes no sense to me.

    It’s interesting though that you say cursive is more legible for dyslexic people. I think for everyone else print handwriting beats cursive. Not that that’s the issue as it’s still perfectly readable when done right. I am talking about people with typical doctors handwriting who can’t actually write it properly. I am also talking about the difficulty of the technique needed and how that could be a problem for some students. You say teachers adapt but my experience is that they don’t. If making students use cursive improves grades though it might be worth it. I am wondering why that’s the case that it improves grades.

    Either way I think typing should be much more of a focus in modern education. People type more often than they write by hand, yet there is almost no education on how to use a keyboard. Heck lots of modern school students apparently don’t know how to use a computer. I’ve heard of people going to University and not understanding how files and folders work, because it’s just presumed that new generations actually know this stuff without being taught.


  • Feathers are the things birds have that are part of their wing and help them fly. Pens were made from feathers at sorme points in history. I think the term you are looking for is nib, if you mean the metal part of a pen that touches the paper.

    You have pens like the platinum Preppy and platinum plasir which have double seals around the nib. I left my preppy for an entire year and it still didn’t dry out. They aren’t the only brand to use tricks like this, my TWSBI Eco was also left for a year and was a-okay. It’s always good before buying a pen to check the reviews and see what their cap seals are like. Rollerballs do require less maintenance though you are correct. If you do leave a fountain pen and it gets clogged there are ways to fix it, as I had to do with two more of my pens that did clog when they were left with the others.

    I’ve used cheap mechanical pencils before but not expensive ones. How much better are more expensive mechanical pencils?


  • Maybe I haven’t explained this but with regards things like handwriting and special education my country isn’t that well put together. They hand kids ballpoint pens for the most part unless you are in private school. Some schools force kids to use pencil even.

    Cursive is fundamentally less legible and harder work for most students to learn. It should be taught yes, but not as the only way. Schools often force people to use cursive even when that person doesn’t have that skill, and the school isn’t willing to give them proper lessons on it or the lessons they give aren’t of good quality. It was a whole thing in my primary school.

    I have actual clinical issues in several different areas of development, not just coordination. You can’t remove all issues before primary school starts, I am entitled to some help even now as a 23 year old PhD student and still have issues. I wouldn’t even have been accepted into primary school if my parents hadn’t gone out of their way to get me tested by psychologists as I had issues the school weren’t willing to get me tested for that were picked up on in preschool.

    I can write pretty well now including cursive. It’s not clear to me how much of the problems I had were because I was younger and at a lesser stage of brain development or how much was bad teaching. Maybe if you know more developmental psychology than I do you could answer that question, but I suspect that answer will be different on a case by case basis.


  • I too think ball point pens are horrible. Fountain pens are not that expensive, last a lot longer as they are refillable, and just write better. There are some rather bad fountain pens out there though lol. Platinum Preppy is pretty much the gold standard for cheap pens under £10 or $10. Platinum plasir is a little more expensive but has a more durable body and cap made of metal using the same nib and feed as the preppy. You can also get disposable fountain pens now that aren’t half bad.

    Liquid ink roller balls are a good product too and are a nice middle ground between ball point and fountain pen. Although to be fair I wouldn’t be against a return to good old fashioned dip pens as these are the best for calligraphy and honestly look cool as heck in my opinion.