jskelly (u/jskelly) - Readit News

jskelly commented on What's Not to Like? theamericanscholar.org/wh... · Posted by u/wyndham

galaxyLogic · 25 days ago

Since this is about language and similes, what about "You can't compare apples and oranges"? People say that frequently, but why in particular is that so?

I think you can compare any one thing to any other one thing. You can discuss what are their common features and what features they have that are not shared.

So it seems to me "Can't compare apples and oranges" is often used just as a polemic device, trying to attack your opponents by claiming what they are saying cannot be said.

jskelly · 25 days ago

The Czechs say that you can't compare the sky (or the heavens, depending on how you want to translate it) and bagpipes.

jskelly commented on Operators, Not Users and Programmers jyn.dev/operators-not-use... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

bigpeopleareold · 2 months ago

This is exactly what I have been thinking lately, starting with looking at Oberon. It seems to me that writing a simple GUI should be the same as writing a simple text-oriented script. GUIs have their own challenges, of course. However, doing the GUI equivalent of print() statements to show calculation output is a think a modern operating system should do, not have a distance between user and the graphic system. At the moment, it's a pretty ideal, but there are cases I wish their was less friction with it.

edit: I never tried, but isn't this where Smalltalk comes in?

jskelly · 2 months ago

I've never worked with Smalltalk either but I think you are right. The conversation here reminds me of the the Unix-Haters Handbook = )

jskelly commented on Don’t use “click here” as link text (2001) w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHer... · Posted by u/theandrewbailey

rerdavies · 2 months ago

Their recommendation is very different.

W3c says:

    Get *Amaya*
    Read more about *Amaya*

The home office says:

    *Get Amaya*
    *Read more about Amaya*

which seems much more sensible, but suffers from a different problem when used in context.

Personally, I think both are confounding two different use cases. Links are often used inline in text. The use case that W3c and the Home Office are addressing are use cases that would be better address by out-of-line buttons:

    [Download]
    [Documentation]

But both seem broken when the use case is hyperlinks in inline text.

To use a concrete example, how should one rewrite the following?

    PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs 
    on Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, *click here*.
    To read the documentation, *click here*.

I get the objection. But the fix seems unacceptable:

    PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs 
    on Raspberry Pi. Get Pipedal. Read the documentation.

Nuh uh. Not happening. I'm not sure what you would call that. Meta-grammatically incorrect? Whatever it is, it is not idiomatic English.

   Pipedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on
   Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, visit the *Download
   Page*. To learn more about Pipedal, view the
   *Documentation*.

Perhaps. That is the actual text I used in my documentation. But, speaking from personal experience, the challenge is that it is often very difficult to nounify "click here"

   Ubuntu Server installs don't suffer from this problem;
   but before choosing an Ubuntu Server install, you
   should read the *Ubuntu Server* section of the 
   "Installing on Ubuntu" page.

Which makes one wonder, what exactly is the foul that's being committed when "here" is used as a pronoun for the content that's being referenced? In this use case, there is not an actual accessibility issue, because the the link sits inline within a sentence that provides all the context that's necessary to indicate what to expect when you click.

And in the very first example given, the text is from a lede in a web page where concision matters.

   To download PiPedal, click *here*.

Is that really an accessibility issue? particularly when there's are buttons right above it that say

    [ Download ] [ Documentation ]

The actual metric that counts here is: how many times will people visit the Download page? And from that perspective there is significant doubt in my mind as to whether the following text will be better.

  To download PiPedal, visit the *Download Page*.

jskelly · 2 months ago

    PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on 
    Raspberry Pi.
    *Download PiPedal* now (MIT license) 
    or read all about it in the *PiPedal documentation*.

edited in an attempt to fix my bad formatting (4x and I'm not doing it anymore no matter if I finally got it right or not)

jskelly commented on Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down apnews.com/article/climat... · Posted by u/geox

fnordian_slip · 2 months ago

The sole reason Germany annexed Czechoslovakia was was that there were atrocities being committed against the Sudeten[0].

He even made a speech at the Sportpalast in Berlin in which he stated that the Sudetenland was "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe". So all's fine, and we don't have to worry about Germany.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_Munich

jskelly · 2 months ago

The article you cite says nothing about the /alleged/ [by Hitler as a pretext for annexation] atrocities against Sudeten Germans. The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia _after_ World War II was an ugly chapter, but really -- there were no 'atrocities' being committed against that population /before/ the war. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_German_uprising

jskelly commented on Dilbert creator Scott Adams says he will die soon from same cancer as Joe Biden thewrap.com/dilbert-scott... · Posted by u/dale_huevo

BJones12 · 3 months ago

My quick search suggests that slogan only showed up in 2019.

jskelly · 3 months ago

I think all three of you are right. The official Bernie campaign did not use this as a slogan until the 2020 campaign (so 2019-2020)-- however, it was in use by supporters during the 2016 campaign (source: I was in the crowd of Bernie supporters at the 2016 Democratic National Convention when the guy standing next to me started the chant & it quickly spread. It was so interesting to see how quickly it spread from just one guy.)

jskelly commented on A Formal Mathematical Investigation on the Validity of Kellogg's Glaze Claims old.reddit.com/r/theydidt... · Posted by u/ZeroCool2u

jskelly · 3 months ago

I am reminded of the claim put forward by the Quaker Oats Company, in the 1980s, that Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch had developed (and was distributing, in exchange for box tops or something similar) a timepiece that could keep time 'here on Earth and in outer space.'

jskelly commented on We need to rewild the internet noemamag.com/we-need-to-r... · Posted by u/robin_reala

Repulsion9513 · a year ago

You know what, I'm gonna go find an "under construction" animated gif to add to my website now. Thank you.

jskelly · a year ago

Here you go: http://www.textfiles.com/underconstruction/