Libb
A 50-something French dude that’s old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. Also, I like to write and to sketch.
https://thefoolwithapen.com
- 10 Posts
- 329 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: November 26th, 2023
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8·20 hours agoIt sounds like you’re saying buying used second hand laptops can’t have malware from the manufacturers, only new laptops can but that is wrong.
Not at all, I’m just saying that you’re wrong in supposing it must be safer when purchased new. Nothing else.
But the main point I wanted to make in this topic is about risk with used second hand laptops. Because of that I think it probably is best to buy a new unused laptop
Why would that be better? As far as I know, malware can and have been installed on brand new laptops. Ask Lenovo and Sony, if I remember well.
Imho, ‘cheapest’ and ‘useful’ are rarely a great combo for a VPN.
I mho, Mullvad is the best available, at 5€/month.
Close second, I would place Proton VPN.Most of the others are just, well, I don’t care much about their existence.
Honestly my wife & I are uncomfortable, and we can’t help but side eye the dude.
To me that sounds much more like a (both of) you issue, more than an issue for either your son or his new friend. Why do you worry so much?
Nothing should prevent two persons appreciating one another to feel free to do so, be it as friends or more if affinity. Mandatory disclaimer since we now live full time in a very bad remake of Idiocracy: Im talking about two persons of legal age.
My suggestion to both your spouse and to you would be one that has already been made: try to know the guy better, maybe?
To which I would add this (sorry if this sounds harsh, I can write it much more delicately in French, if you prefer):
Your son is now an adult and he is beginning his new live. If you want to stay a relevant part of his life remember that he most likely will not choose his friends, nor his sex partner(s), nor his spouse in order to please or to reassure you. He has started building his own life, not an extension of yours.
That said, you should also feel free to tell him your worries and any doubt you may have, obviously. Just, remember that he is not ‘your son’ anymore, I mean he is, but he is also an adult person 100% free to make his own choices, like you are. And remember that it’s one thing to share your questions and doubts with him, it’s another thing to demand explanations or to tell him what he should (not) do, and with whom.
Life is all about making choice and accepting as a fact that will we make mistakes. At all age. And it is so for all of us—not just for your son.
Who said it was a random person?
I supposed it. Probably because I would not call them ‘someone’ if I knew them. I would call them if not by their name, at least in some distinctive manner: my spouse, my parents, brother, sister, aunt, neighbours, friends, colleagues, whatever that would make them be more specific than just someone. I may be wrong, indeed.
But I should have it made clearer that I would also not care much, I mean I would not be upset or worry or whatever, if anyone I know was suddenly to decide they don’t like me. Except from one person, my spouse.
I am old enough to have seen a lot of people come and go out of my live, and me go in and out from theirs. That’s fine.
If anyone I know or I am in contact with was to tell me they don’t like me, I would…
- First, I would try to think why they wanted to say that to me since it’s very… not friendly and very much not the way adult people are supposed to behave when meeting one another.
- Then, if I can’t find anything I have done wrong that would explain their feeling towards me (and that should be something I would want to change too), like suggested, I would move on. Having already considered what I may have done wrong and supposedly found nothing or nothing that I would want to change if I could, why should I waste more of my time about someone’s else feelings toward me?
We would probably see a lot less, if at all, since I don’t need many people around me to feel ok and since I don’t see any reason to impose myself where I’m not wanted. That’s the most likely thing to happen, that and me making a note of it in my journal if I think it’s worth noting.
Edit: typos.
This.
Why should I care about someone, some random person’s opinion?
61·2 days agoIf you’re trying to sell art, it’s pretty fucking literal. Jesus!
If you say so. You seem to be a literal expert.
Alas, I don’t have any Jesus or whomever to add as an exclamation mark my reply. Probably because I’m not the religious kind and if I was I would certainly not use my god as a mere punctuation mark, woudl I? So, instead, allow me to punctuate my reply with a ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!’
Physical art. (Not digital.) What sells? What is truly appreciated?
Pretty fucking literal, were you saying? Mmm, I reckon you’re fucking right. Good luck.
Physical art. (Not digital.) What sells? What is truly appreciated?
The question lacks context, imho.
The only answer I can propose is: whatever you can make that will appeal to people enough for them to be willing to buy it, if you’re creating a unique piece of art. Painting, sketch, sculpture, collage, and so on. I very recently read somoene sold a banana taped onto a sheet of paper for a very large sum of money. A little over a century ago, Marcel Duchamp exposed a urinal, how much is it worth today? So, really, anything can sell and can be appreciated as art.
Also, if you’re creating ‘reproductible’ physical art pieces (say a recording or some printed stuff, or whatever), I would say anything that can make some buzz and gather enough people around it.
The sales numbers are a pretty objective measure, actually.
Not really. Depends what you sell. I’d much rather sell a single painting of Van Gogh than 10.000 books (which would be considered excellent numbers by many publishers) about the same Van Gogh.
I liked the lapsus too. Maybe some scene with something Lenny/Lemmy-related could be worth a drawing? ;)
4·3 days agoYes, I could have mentioned it too. It’s such a neat feature to have.
There are probably other things worth mentioning. And then a few others that have become a real pain under macOS, imho. For example, the new settings app has morphed into a Windows-like mess ;)
Thx. Agreed. And yes, we all know why it is a thing.
When I answered to Chico Suave’s slightly less amiable comment I wanted to share a few links to what I consider interesting reads. Then I read your comment and thought maybe they would be read with a lot less hostility if I shared them here.
They’re in no order of importance and they’re a bit redundant too (there were many more, hopefully anyone will find one more exciting to read) and they may help better understand my opinion on tourism in general (and their photographic laziness in particular). It may also be worth saying that we do our best to put our money where our mouth is as, both my spouse and I, we decided some 25 years ago to quit traveling by plane to fancy places (at the time we realized the ecological crisis that was to come and because it suddenly seemed to us an inexcusable waste of energy just to satisfy our mere ‘leisure’ needs), and soon after that we also quit flying for work. No revolution mind you, and no ‘no fun allowed’ either, we made all our ‘touristic’ activities local and all our work travels/meetings virtual.
So if anyone is interested, about tourism (there are others, I simply grabbed the first few not obviously AI-written results I could find):
- https://fstoppers.com/landscapes/are-tourism-and-photographers-ruining-photography-195445
- https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/aug/17/wish-you-werent-here-how-tourists-are-ruining-the-worlds-greatest-destinations
- https://www.treehugger.com/travel-destinations-being-ruined-by-tourism-4868960
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/is-tourism-destroying-the-world
And if anyone is interested in trying to make…less touristic images (not that I’m a pro myself, far from it but isn’t it exciting to try to do better?) a few quick/easy suggestions:
- https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/tips-travel-photos-crowded-locations/
- https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-quickly-improve-photos/
- https://blog.depositphotos.com/back-to-basics-10-composition-rules-in-photography.html
- https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules
- https://www.capturelandscapes.com/7-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-images-look-better-today/ (#7 may be interesting, in the context of our discussion)
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then? You sound mad about other people being excited that they finally saved enough and took an opportunity to enjoy themselves. People go to places to see things because that’s what tourism is. Do you not try to do things yourself because others have done it before you? Did you know that tour groups are a business formed to do exactly what you think is crazy?
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun.
Let me recap your reply:
Do you not try
Did you know
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun
and
You sound mad about other people
Pardon me, but who exactly sounds mad, here?
It’s possible I’m over-interpreting the way you answered and maybe, like me, English is not you native language and you may not master it enough to express all the nuances of your deep and rich opinions and thoughts. It is such a pain, it happens to me all the time too.
So, to make it clear, I answered a question without worrying much about pleasing anyone, yourself included hope you won’t mind me saying so. And I answered what I thought was the craziest thing I see tourists do.
What I never tried to answer is this question you pulled out of the fleshy sitting part of your anatomy:
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then?
To put it politely, it’s quite unfair to change the question and then criticize my supposed answer to it. What was it you were saying? Oh, yeah: there is a remarkable detachment between you and the actual facts.
So, once again, I was only talking about tourists doing tourtisty things, and nothing else. I was not talking about people in general or crazy things in general. But since you asked, let me tell you you probably don’t want to know the craziest shit I’ve seen people do. And, no, they were not mere tourists behaving like mere tourists. Unless the tourist you know have a tendency to end up in jail, too?
That said, I’m grateful for the time you spend trying to help me realize the absolute dick I was by daring sharing my unflattering opinions on tourists behaving like tourists. Allow me to oblige in return. I insist.
- To recap, all I did is express my personal unflattering opinion on a question about tourists, right?
- To which you answered by expressing your own and rather unflattering opinion on the kind of person I must be, right?
But then, if 1. makes a dick out of me, what does 2. make out of you? Right.
So, to summarize, it seems we both have diverging personal and unflattering opinions. That’s great! I am always so happy to meet people willing to discuss without anger or being dismissive to one another, even more so when those two persons have slightly diverging opinions on very delicate topics.
Once again, from one dick to another, thank you very much for what I consider a very enriching discussion.
The problem of unintuitiveness is sadly very common in Free software, but it’s getting better… in a few spaces anyway.
It is getting better and even if it was not, I would still be ok with it: I may have been slow but I learned to favor my privacy/freedom over comfort ;)
That said, I know from talking with people around me (and from myself) that it can be a huge obstacle, no matter if they’re older like I am or much younger people. If it doesn’t just works, it plain sucks.
Thx for the suggestion ;)
The point of a photo is to remember something you did. Not generally the photo itself.
Why then share it? I don’t share the (very few) photos I take.
Resharing someone else’s photo is not even similar to going somewhere and capturing the moment.
I should have added a ‘\s’ to my sentence ;)
When you’re old those photos might be all you have left.
Sure, memories are priceless and they may differ for everyone. I mean, I’m old(er) and I much prefer words to images myself (I’ve been journaling for almost 50 years). Also, I don’t care to remember seing the Eiffel Tower (even less so since I live in Paris, which is a privileged place to observe tourists), or NY, or Bangkok, or any other place in particular. I wish to remember people.
Note that I simply answered the OP question (what is the craziest thing you have seen a tourist do). I may be wrong, like I hinted to in my previous comment, but to this still is the most mind boggling stupid thing I can see people do over and over again every singled day… the moment I pass in one of those few Parisian streets full of tourists ;)
Spend money (waste fuel, and worse: waste precious time) to go to touristic places so they can take the exact same picture/video everyone else has taken, and share it on the exact same social networks everyone else has done. Why not just buy a postcard or repost a photo already shared. Why not, you know, look around and suddenly realize there are many other things worth looking at… things that may not even be that remote from where they live.
For me, that’s one of the most extreme demonstration of generalized craziness, if not worse. Or maybe it’s just me who’s crazy (or worse)?
Edit: added a missing word.
- Prepare for a shock, I miss… Apple Notes.
Like, really. Imho it’s a great note-taking app that is also performing really well even on large number of notes, that also natively syncs between the Mac and iOS, with full-encryption. It’s also an app that, well, does not expect its user to become an engineer and/or a dev unlike some certain others text editors out there ;) - The other one basic app I do miss is Apple Photos.
Like with Notes, I miss its simplicity while still including those very few more advanced features an amateur and very occasional photographer like myself seldom needed access to. Sure, there are excellent Libre alternatives, much more powerful and more complete, but they are all also much more clunky and complex to use which make it so that I use them a lot less than I used to use Apple Photos. - Pixelmator Pro, for the even fewer more advanced photo edits I need. Here too, we have Libre alternatives but I have yet to find a one that is as intuitive to use as Pixelmator is.
- Affinity Designer. Inkscape is on its way to replace Designer for me, that’s one thing.
- My spell checker/dictionaries/grammatical guides, for French and English: Antidote.
It used to run offline (no Internet required) on Linux, on Mac and Windows, and I happily paid for its license to be able to do so. But the latest version has dropped its support for Linux, unless one is willing to use the coud version, which I’m not.
All those apps are very different but they share one thing: they are not complex and unintuitive apps (I reckon it’s at this point I should get flamed to death, so be it).
I mean, even the most ‘complex’ apps I mentioned (like Antidote or, say, Affinity Designer) most users should be able to start using them quick (not master them, but start using them) because they’re not that complex and not that different. Mmm, I’m not an expert UI designer, it’s difficult to explain my feelings around that notion: many things are familiar if not similar between those apps, heck some are even so simple that there is no such thing as a ‘save’ button. I know it’s also very much a question of education and of acquired habits, but still this matters a lot to me and probably to other people like me. I’m getting old (and I’m not in good health) and I want to spend as little as possible of the time I have left learning new apps, to tweak them, or search for workarounds just so I could do what I’ve known how to do for many decades already. If I was to summarize what I failed to say: I switched to Linux not because I’m interested in learning new apps or in changing my desktop look (it’s really cool, I just don’t care much). I switched because I worry about the lightning fast erosion of our privacy in this digital world. It’s the ideology that attracted me to GNU/Linux. I have no major issues using apps under macOS/iOS, I only have major issues with Apple (and MS, and Google, and Facebook, Twitter, and so many other corporations) acting like assholes willing to destroy our societies and even the world itself so they can make a few dollars more during the next quarter. F. that, that’s my motivation to use G/L ;)
Also, thx for reading to that point without burning me (you will find a box of matches in the second drawer over there, you know where to find me) ;)
- Prepare for a shock, I miss… Apple Notes.
I pay for three subs:
- For my spouse and I, two 15€/m, 200GB, unlimited SMS/calls. Without yearly contract.
- 35/m for fibre Internet, unlimited + a landline (we don’t use) + TV (we don’t have one) ;)
This reminds me I wanted to look for cheaper alternatives since neither my spouse and I use data much on our phones. I subscribed to those at a time we had a lot of issue with our fibre Internet so we could still work using our phones as hotspots… and I forgot about it :/
4·4 days agoDans les deux cas, on finira par les manger. Tout va bien.
Thx!
You make a lot of interesting points/questions. By all means, do not hesitate to use them to open new discussions if you ever feel like it. Hopefully, it will encourage others around here to share their own experience and questions.
What I can say is that it has worked fine for me, so far ;)
It’s not that weird and without taking too much risks, I think can say most of us can relate. It has bothered me for years, no, for decades.
What’s great is that you’re not completely stuck. I mean, you can decide to test one medium for a short period of time to see how well it works (while doing so, it’s best to completely ignore the alternatives, imho). Then uoi will know what could be improved and how, or if it just sucks. That’s how I generally try new things.
And the work you may have put in during that test will not be lost:
What can’t be done is scan or print a non-written journal, no matter it’s format ;)
(BTW, that’s how I left DayOne: I exported my entries into one huge PDF file. I had been using DO since it was first introduced, years before it become a subscription-based app, so there were a lot of entries. The page layout of their exported PDF is rather meh, I have hoped for years they would give us more export options, or at least various layouts to choose from, but they never did. It’s still readable though.
This, 100%. And that’s the main reason I wanted to try ‘revitalize’ this community. Keeping and then re-opening a journal can be such a unique experience—not always an easy or a comfortable experience, but an enriching one. Even more so when done on the (very) long run… Even when switching between various media ;)
That’s a neat idea. Something I should try as I always find my pages messy with too many different types of texts. Not sure I could keep a clear separation, though.
Thx for commenting!