AutoKey automation / word expander tool.

• I reconfigure ALT + i/j/k/l to ↑←↓→ globally, and more similar shortcuts.
• It expands abbreviations of one’s choice like “gCo” to git commit -m '
• One can assign scripts to abbreviations and hotkeys. E.g., when I press CTRL + Shift + [ it surrounds the selected text with a tag:

text_selected = clipboard.get_selection()
text_input = dialog.input_dialog(title="Wrap with a tag.", message="E.g., type cite to get <cite>x</cite>.", default="")
keyboard.send_key("<delete>")
clipboard.fill_clipboard(f"<{text_input[1]}>{text_selected}</{text_input[1]}>")
keyboard.send_keys("<ctrl>+v")

I’m likely not even harnessing AutoKey’s full capabilities and it’s already absolutely indispensable for being a huge time-saver and annoyance reducer.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

You mean Qalculate, right? If so, I agree.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Microsoft feigning innocence with cutesy trivia to distract us from their highly unethical business practices. Screw Microsoft. Use Linux 🐧.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Aggression isn’t toxicity.

Subjective. “A toxic person is anyone whose behavior upsets you and adds negativity to your life.”
Asking a simple question and out of the blue getting a response intermixed with full caps and “fucking” would be enough to add negativity to many if not most people’s lives. Also the unyielding need to defend one’s doing so doesn’t help to convey the converse.

Do most of those strangers know that you are receiving hundreds of requests? They’re strangers, so I’m betting on no.

Sure they do, because I tell them. The screenshot you posted is proof that I inform them.

You “inform” them afterwards, therefore they didn’t know.

The rest of this is needless language policing.

Not sure what the definition of “language policing” is, but welcome to the Internet. You’re free to be crude or toxic while others are free to point out it out, which is rarely needless.

Because the inverse of that is how people get conned. Someone blowing absolute smoke with a confident tone and a sweet word. Tone is about the worst indicator of trustworthiness

Sure, skilled sociopaths con their way up that way, or that’s how soulless marketers manipulate the populace. However, that does not mean that most people who are kind are sociopaths or soulless. On average kind people are just being kind.

You say you’re arguing in favor of less toxicity, but your example was a screenshot of a comment where I asserted my own healthy boundaries (after being needled by hundreds of demands in the form of “what about <other app>?” from strangers over the course of months).

Which is more toxic?

The one that contains the most aggression.
Do most of those strangers know that you are receiving hundreds of requests? They’re strangers, so I’m betting on no. Are they then deserving of any swearing and caps lock yelling? Even if they do know, I can recall few to no instances where unironically doing so packed a punch.

A more reasonable answer would have been: “Sorry, no idea. For my own healthy boundaries I have to refrain from doing too much of this often-requested but time-consuming research.”
Not toxic, more effective. And as I mentioned in another reply, with AutoKey you could configure that typing the word “sigh” or phrase ''goddammit not again" automatically expands into the alternative answer suggested above. Being frustrated is fine, and venting is absolutely necessary, but there are ways to do it that are healthy for everyone involved, such as the autoreply and then going for a run. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Why do you conflate politeness and trustworthiness? Seems like a weird connection to make.

Is it really that weird? Imagine someone going to a store and the owner starts swearing at them because they asked a question. Would said visitor be more or less likely to trust the owner? I agree that being impolite doesn’t necessarily equate to being ignorant in one’s subject, but I wouldn’t be surprised that on average the most knowledgeable and wise tend to be more polite.

This is the same problem as saying “an electric car with 100 mile range is totally fine because most journeys are well under 100 miles”.

Well… isn’t it? If one’s daily or most frequent back-and-forth journeys don’t exceed 100 ㎞, then a 160 ㎞ range is indeed fine.

Most of the time I’m only using a browser (or VSCode). The annoying thing is the 1% of times when I want to print something, create a shortcut, use bluetooth headphones, configure a static IP, etc.

If one can figure this out on Windoze one can definitely figure it out on a beginner tailored Linux distro / desktop environment. Gnome is not one of them.

Use Photopea instead. It’s practically a copy-paste of Photoshop but in the browser, created by one person. Or if one has never used Photoshop before, try GIMP first.

Saying Photopea or GIMP is “practically a copy-paste of Photoshop” is laughable. Paint.NET, maybe.

I choose my punctuation marks carefully. I did not say GIMP is practically a copy-paste. However, Photopea, for what many if not most people use it for, is.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

but I think even after literally decades of development the actual desktop is still far behind Windows XP in many respects. […]

This argument is incomplete and unnuanced. Gnome ≠ Linux. While I use EndeavourOS and Linux Mint’s Cinnamon as a desktop environment, I am completely confident that if computers shipped with Linux Mint*, then 95% of the population would have a far more pleasant experience compared to any other Microsoft Windows, especially the schizophrenic bloatware-laden Windoze 10/11 versions. Why such a high percentage? Because most users simply use the browser and don’t need advanced proprietary software such as AutoCAD, Photoshop (†), nor specific driver software for niche twenty-something-button gaming mice.

*Linux Mint or any other Linux distribution that uses Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, Budgie, Xfce or similar desktop environments.
Caveat: Xfce hugely depends on how the distro configured it. Some, like Debian, badly configure the taskbar to have a—to me—unintuitive / unresponsive to shortcuts menu.
† Use Photopea instead. It’s practically a copy-paste of Photoshop but in the browser, created by one person. Or if one has never used Photoshop before, try GIMP first.

✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

The simplest thing for Soatok to have done would be to ignore the message

Which also happens to be the simplest thing you could have done, even simpler as none of the toots you quote were addressed to you. Instead, you are dragging this one random exchange into this thread about something else entirely.

Does it really matter whether or not it is addressed to me? And, the simplest route is not necessarily the most virtuous one. To take an extreme example, if I see someone being bullied I will interfere to stop the bully and console the target. Here, I am simply arguing in favor of less toxicity for it improves credibility.

I’m not saying arguments necessarily become invalid because of impoliteness. But to me it doesn’t convey trustworthiness on first impression, especially when not knowing someone. The world / the Internet already contains so much toxicity, there’s no need for needless additional discord. Especially when encountering something frustrating on the Internet—as opposed to real life—it is trivial to just take a breath, go for a walk, and come back and respond peacefully. The simplest thing for Soatok to have done would be to ignore the message, or use AutoKey to paste a generic neutral response denying the request.

I would most definitely not recommend Matrix for private or sensitive communication, no.
https://soatok.blog/2024/07/31/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-signal-competitor/
https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-olm-library/
Matrix is fine as IRC replacement, it might also be a decent replacement for Telegram’s channels thingy, sure. But I would not trust my family photos to it. Much less anything actually important.

Regarding Soatok, I am prone to completely ignore impolite individuals. As far as my experience goes, and for most of the general populace, Matrix is fine. And it is likely to continue improving. Compared to Signal and Telegram, who both incentivize crypto"currencies", a.k.a. tech bro multi-level marketing pyramid schemes, enshittification has already begun.

Roy says: August 6, 2024 at 4:28 pm
Interesting post! I would be really interested in knowing your opinion on SimpleX Chat.

Soatok says: August 6, 2024 at 4:55 pm
See, this is exactly the fucking problem. I never invited anyone to query me to look at YET ANOTHER fucking chat app. Yet this still keeps happening. Doing security reviews is labor. You’re asking me to work for free to satisfy your curiosity. This is annoying to do. I don’t have a fucking opinion about SimpleX. I don’t have an opinion about a lot of apps. If I want to share my opinion, I’ll blog about it WITHOUT being prompted. Until then, please stop asking.
By Post Author

Try Cinnamon, best of both worlds.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

I was ready to read the paper—“oh this could be useful”—until I realized I got got.

Cesspool, not circus. Don’t slight the extraordinarily skilled circus artists.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Well of course, you should watch bathtub streamers instead. Idiocracy was a manual, not satire.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Anyone have a change log?

Considering the at least 200+ hours I invested in give or take ten* games throughout my childhood / adolescence / young adult past, then even €100 would’ve been a steal.

I’ve always thought games were expensive until studying game development in college. From programming to 3D modeling, and boy can I confirm that it takes a lot of work to do well. The developers and artists that do it well, and ethically, deserve to be fairly compensated as such, provided no one becomes disproportionately rich.

*Age of Empires 2, MU Online, Unreal Tournament 1999/2004, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2/3, Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, R.O.S.E. Online, Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, Battlefield 2, Insurgency.

Alt + F4 does not fail to quit the terminal window where Vim is running in if that shortcut is configured so. But if that terminal has other things going on in it, they’ll be closed as well. It’s like demolishing a house to undo some text written on a fridge note, albeit exaggerated.
If Vim is not running in a terminal window, then that shortcut will indeed fail and users without knowledge of the commands below become stuck, sometimes to the point of a hard reboot.

Vim Cheat Sheet

:wq or :x or ZZ - write (save) and quit
:q - quit (fails if there are unsaved changes)
:q! or ZQ - quit and throw away unsaved changes
:wqa - write (save) and quit on all tabs

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

Chess.

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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.