> In particular, for marginalized teens, social media represents a unique avenue to connect with teens in similar situations, which provides a significant support network.
Thank you for bringing this up. I was one of those 'marginalised' kids who didn't relate to my real life surroundings so much. The internet was like an escape for me, where I was able to meet many close friends with similar interests on social medias like Twitter and Discord. Not to mention, free internet access in general taught so much about the world, developed my passions and helped determine what I'm now studying and planning to pursue as a career.
If social media was banned when I was younger, it would have made me worse off for sure. And if there were internet/device restrictions more broadly, like I'm often seeing suggested, it would have been absolutely devastating for me. My life would have turned out completely different, in a bad way.
On a site like HN, I would have expected there to be much more people who also had the same experience as younger me with the internet and social media. But for some reason, most of the dominant sentiment here seems to consider social media as a cancer, with no nuance. I'm not sure why they do, but I wish that these people would consider the experiences of people like me.
>On a site like HN, I would have expected there to be much more people who also had the same experience as younger me with the internet and social media.
The majority of people who actively engage in discussions here are from generations older than ours (I assume we are similar in age) and hence are mostly unable to relate to our experiences.
This exactly. It's in the best financial interest of a homeowner to stop as much new construction of homes as possible. Until we move away from the idea that owning a home = wealth, then I don't see how this problem can be significantly fixed.
Funnily enough, the value of a home in Japan decreases over time to converge to a value of 0 over +/- 20 years.
That doesn't mean that the land it is built on has 0 value, but it vastly changes the financial dynamics of home-owning, and would also remove the nonsense linked to home = wealth.
With the reasonable assumption that the build quality of home in Japan is no worse than in the rest of the "Western world", it really puts the whole real estate financial racket into perspective.
Interesting. I'm curious, do you know if there is another asset Japanese people have that is very valuable if not their home? Or some sort of investment?
In a very short-sighted way, sure. It doesn’t even take that much galaxy-brain thinking to see how housing inequality can be detrimental to one’s finances.
The short sightedness is the problem. As far as I know, NIMBY is endemic in the USA, precisely because home owners are so worried about lowering the value of their home.
Exactly. If you stop seeing your house as an investment, and you own it, it doesn't matter if it's value goes down, if it goes along with the market. It even means it's easier for you to trade up.
For the poor souls that have decades of interest left to pay on a loan it's a different story, but somehow, someone has to lose something for most people to have decent housing costs.
Yeah, it's a very difficult situation. Either few people from younger generation will have access to affordable housing and even fewer will own a home, or we cause a lot of misery and hardship like during the 2008 crash, but for even longer. Hard to tell which is the lesser evil.
Is it possible to use this import tool for my own local files without an Ente subscription? Because I have that metadata issue with Google Photos, but unfortunately I don't have the programming skills to write a script.
Update: This comment[1] made me realize that you could run Ente locally, use our desktop app to backup your data, and then export it back out to get a clean copy.
Hi, I'm really intrigued by Ente and would happily pay for a subscription. I love to pay for things I can self-host, but don't have to self-host unless it comes to it. Especially when there's E2EE.
However, your reply gives me pause. The website says the apps are open-source, the other comment says the server is now open-source. Does that mean there's some pluggable black-box magic that the subscription enables?
To ask another way, if I self-host the server, can't I build the desktop app, import from Google Photos and then somehow export from the self-hosted server? Maybe not as ideal as a purpose-built script? Or is this not even possible?
Hey, the server was open sourced just yesterday. We are yet to update our landing page copies, and we definitely weren't ready to be in HN today (but are glad to be here!) :)
So there is no black-box magic that the subscription enables. Our live, breathing production setup is available in a monorepo here[1].
If you haven't tried single click to open before, I would highly recommend it. I used to hate it as well, but going through folders and files is so much faster now that I'm used to it. And if you think about it, a single click to open something is much more consistent UI wise.
Single click to open is great if what you want is to open the folder or file, but what do you use then when you want to select the folder or file without opening it? I've resorted to "vaguely dragging a square around the icon" (to select a group of icons containing just that single icon) on systems with single-click-to-open.
Historically, what you had was single click to select, then something else (usually the Enter key or similar) to open the selected item; this is consistent with for instance drop-down lists (where Enter activates the default button of the dialog box containing the drop-down). Double-click was just a shortcut to "select and then do the default action".
A sibling comment compared to smartphones, which use long-press to select; in my experience, both double-click and long-press can be hard for some people (for instance, I've seen people release the long-press a millisecond too early, causing it to do the single-press action instead of the long-click action).
You can just press CTRL and click the item. And on Plasma specifically, there's a box on the corner of the item with a '+' you can click which only selects the item.
Well, I don't have my desktop set up to use drop down menus, but as far as i remember, it is one click to do the action listed, not double click. Unless you mean older operating systems?
Yes, 'just'. Do you not always have at least one hand on the keyboard?
I'm not familar with Miller columns, but if you're changing the behaviour of your file browser, then I'm not sure why you're suprised single click might not work as intended.
No I don't. And I think that people who aren't developers have workflows where they use the mouse a ton and the keyboard less.
Miller columns have been one of the default views in OSX Finder for about two decades, opening and selecting at the same time is how they are supposed to work. Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ7trdpY9MI
I think miller columns was part of KDE file manager for some time, before they decided they were too complicated for developers.
I don't really understand where you would put your hand instead. In your lap? Why not have it on the keyboard?
Ok, I see what you mean by Miller columns now. I guess I wouldn't consider that image preview on ths side 'opened' though. 'Opened' to me would mean launching a dedicated image viewer with that file.
I mean, there's a reason why the default in most operating systems is a double click. Having to combine keyboard and mouse gestures is weird and hard to remember for most users.
When using miller columns in Finder, you will open a folder at the same time as you're selecting it. Files will only preview.
Well, that's why Plasma has that box I mentioned, so you can select without using the keyboard. But selecting multiple files requires you to press CTRL anyways, so I'm not sure why it why you think it would be weird to use CTRL for just one file.
Same here. This is one change that they made that really does not make any sense to me. Also with smartphones being so used these days and they all have this single click mode of doing things, well it would also make more sense to me to keep single click for opening in KDE Plasma.
Smartphones are a really limited input device in a way that desktops are not. IMO it doesn't make a ton of sense to mobile-ize all desktop UX to the minimum smartphones are capable of.
Well, I can understand why KDE made it default since it's the behaviour everybody else expects now. But it's weird that it became standard in the first place.
I use Gnome (and Sway, depending on which computer I'm on). I use Gnome because it works great with wayland, and I just need to get work done, and Gnome does a pretty alright job of staying out of the way. KDE's integration with Wayland feels too clunky for me at this point. Plus I get rendering artifacts on the edge of the screen when I use plasma with screen scaling.
I believe improving Wayland support was one of the major goals of Plasma 6. So if it was just the Wayland integration putting you off, then maybe consider trying Plasma again soon.
I experience some random visual bugs occasionally with Wayland, but yes generally it's decent. But I could understand if someone would want a more stable experience.
Isn't it great, that unlike Windows or Mac, we have a choice! We don't have to try to create something for the lowest common denominator of user, and we can find something that works really well for us, individually.
I like its simplicity and the straight forward workflow it provides. Years ago, I used to use KDE and enjoyed it but these days, I want something that is functional while being vanilla and standard as possible and personally, that's what GNOME gives me.
Fair enough. I guess I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't be interested to make the workflow fit better for yourself on a device you spend hours per day using.
It's just a personal thing. I try to stick to using tools that provide me the best defaults + being open source. I don't want to spend time customizing my desktop or getting overwhelmed by the amount of different choices I have available. Don't get me wrong, KDE is a beautiful and great project, it's just that, a very personal thing.
I can't agree with this more and that's the beauty of KDE. If I'm sitting down using this thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, little niceties and optimizations go a long way to making me happy and productive. And it doesn't take very long to make these little tweaks.
You install a distro that includes Gnome. Did your distro choose not to package a taskbar extension? That’s a good hint your distro is not intended to be an end user distro.
Well it's not a hyperbole, my productivity would suffer immensely if I had to use GNOME. And since GNOME doesn't offer much customisation, I couldn't make it work better for me, which is why I use Plasma. That doesn't mean I hate GNOME or something and I'm glad it exists for the people who do like its approach.
In what ways does Gnome hamper your productivity? Are you really using the DE a lot?
Most of my day is spent in applications. I launch an application and that's where I'm spending my time. I'm not using the desktop environment all that much. I really don't find much difference working in Windows, macOS, KDE or Gnome or even iPadOS as far as interacting with the graphical environment goes.
Yes, absolutely. Perhaps not directly with the DE itself, but the DE affects how I work.
On Plasma, I have it set up so I have all title bars hidden and I use custom keybinds to close, minimize and maximize windows, which saves screen space and reduces clutter. On GNOME you cannot minimize windows at all if I remember correctly.
I have virtual desktops disabled and only use one desktop to manage all of my windows, while GNOME fundamentally works around using multiple virtual desktops as far as I know.
GNOME doesn't have a system tray, which I find essential. For example, I can see just by looking if Discord has an unread notification. Or I can close OBS to the system tray without quiting the application, which reduces visual clutter. I know you can add this with an extension, but I'm just referring to vanilla GNOME.
I often use KRunner to temporarily write something while still seeing the contents of my screen, while GNOME's equivalent is full screen I believe.
I'm sure there are many other ways, but these are the ones I can quickly think of.
> On GNOME you cannot minimize windows at all if I remember correctly.
This is incorrect. You can minimize windows on Gnome, but the button to do it is hidden by default. It can be re-enabled in Gnome Tweaks, and there is also a keyboard shortcut (Super+H) for minimizing.
Gnome is however indeed fairly workspace-centric.
As for customization, out of the box Gnome is quite rigid, but its extension ecosystem far surpasses that of KDE. You can use extensions on Gnome to for example get a dock or system tray back.
Oh, I didn't know that shortcut for minimizing. Is there a reason the button is hidden by default?
I never really understood how to efficiently use virtual desktops or what their benefits are compared to one desktop. Would you mind to explain?
Well, I would imagine that is because you generally only need extensions on KDE for niche things, while GNOME needs extensions for more 'basic' things. Obviously you don't need an extension for a system tray if one already exists by default.
> Is there a reason the button is hidden by default?
Because GNOME developers mindlessly pursue "minimalism" with religious zealotry, finding an outlet for their frustration of not being good enough to work for the Church of Apple.
I think I see one difference - I'm not trying to use each environment the same. My iPad wants everything to be full screen, so that's how I use it (although I have been playing with Stage Manager). Windows has good support for tiling now, so I use that. On Gnome I lean into the workspace stuff. KDE I don't know as well, so I use the mouse for just about everything.
I enjoy learning the ins and outs of the different environments and frankly I wish the differences ran even deeper. I often think about how fun it would be if Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, BeOS, SGI IRIX, OS/2, Sun CDE, and all the other systems were still being developed. But then the Electron / web app people would probably still try to pave over everything cool and unique on each system to run one mediocre app everywhere.
I understand that GNOME has a clear way how it wants you to use the desktop, but I don't like that way for the reasons I described. And it's not just a 'different' way, I feel like I lose functionality and flexibility in a lot of regards. Although, I guess it's hard to say for sure since I never used GNOME for an extended period of time.
That's the beauty of different systems. You always lose functionality no matter which way you switch. A Windows user might miss PowerShell + COM on Linux. A Linux user would miss having access to the filesystem on iOS. An iOS user misses the ubiquitous URL scheme for sharing code and data when they switch to Windows or Linux. I still miss Rexx and the object-oriented workplace shell of OS/2.
I'm sure if you gave GNOME an extended trial, you would adapt and find some things you actually prefer.
> This type of hyperbole is what feeds the DE wars.
You not liking something is not the same as it not being "usable." You simply don't like it as much.
Your comment would be a lot less interesting if it were written without hyperbole. It would simply be "I don't like GNOME as much as KDE." And no one would really care about that, it wouldn't be a notable comment.
You're the only one who takes this 'war' seriously. The rest of us here are adults who can appreciate all desktop environments, even if we don't personally like to use them.
My entire point is that both desktops can be appreciated for what they are. I can use KDE or GNOME, I just prefer GNOME. I would never call KDE unusable, because it works just fine for those who like it.
People who go around saying they "can't use GNOME" because it's "not customizable" without ever even trying would be the ones that are not appreciating all desktops, like an adult.
No one here said that GNOME shouldn't be appreciated. Just because I said GNOME is unusable for me personally doesn't mean I can't appreciate it.
I have tried GNOME before, thanks for your assumption, so I know for a fact it's less customisable than Plasma. But less customisation doesn't equal less value anyways, so I don't even know what your point is.
Same, Firefox on Android is extremely buggy for me. I experience frequent crashes because I have too many tabs open at once. Multiple times per day, I have to restart the app because the theme will bug between light and dark, which makes some of the UI text unreadable. And sometimes when I restart, I lose some of my most recent tabs for some reason. Very frustrating, but Firefox Sync and extension support are essential for me, so I deal with it.
By the way, I actually use Fennec from F-Droid and not Firefox from the Google Play Store, if that matters.
FWIW I also use Fennec from F-Droid and I'm getting very slow behaviour and crashes with lots of tabs open (between 10-30). I don't have the theme change or tabs missing though.
I've been meaning to try different Firefox distributions though because switching away from Firefox isn't really an option for the reasons you've stated.
YouTube search is so frustrating to use. You search for a specific title, but instead you're usually shown vaguely related popular videos first, and then the actual video you want below those.
But what bothers me the most is that YouTube's data can't be fully indexed by search engines. Recently, I was trying to find the video of a comment I had a picture of, but it was impossible to find because comments aren't indexed at all. While Reddit's search also sucks for example, at least search engines can index Reddit's data and make it possible to search it.
Thank you for bringing this up. I was one of those 'marginalised' kids who didn't relate to my real life surroundings so much. The internet was like an escape for me, where I was able to meet many close friends with similar interests on social medias like Twitter and Discord. Not to mention, free internet access in general taught so much about the world, developed my passions and helped determine what I'm now studying and planning to pursue as a career.
If social media was banned when I was younger, it would have made me worse off for sure. And if there were internet/device restrictions more broadly, like I'm often seeing suggested, it would have been absolutely devastating for me. My life would have turned out completely different, in a bad way.
On a site like HN, I would have expected there to be much more people who also had the same experience as younger me with the internet and social media. But for some reason, most of the dominant sentiment here seems to consider social media as a cancer, with no nuance. I'm not sure why they do, but I wish that these people would consider the experiences of people like me.