sinecure (u/sinecure)

sinecure commented on FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations ftc.gov/news-events/news/... · Posted by u/ChrisArchitect

dagmx · a year ago

Pro-tip if you ever want cheaper Adobe subscriptions is to cancel your sub and they’ll send you repeat offers at lower prices up to 60% off.

Though, obviously as per the article, this is a pain to do.

It’s really a shame there’s nothing comparable to Adobe’s products on the really pro-artist end of things.

Companies like Serif have tried with Affinity but it’s lackluster when you really need to do some high end work. OSS stuff like Krita, Inkscape and Gimp have improved a lot but there’s still a huge gulf.

Photoshop is perhaps the easiest to replace, but the rest of the suite like Illustrator really has no competition when it comes to functionality.

Affinity Designer lacks so many of the gradient tools, shape repetition, and even certain alignment tools.

InDesign similarly has many QoL features that Affinity Publisher lack.

After Effects has some competition but nowhere near the ecosystem it provides.

I guess premiere and animate (previously flash) have a lot of competition but that’s about it?

For reference of where I’m coming from , I own licenses to the full Adobe suite and the full affinity suite. I have professionally done art and programmed for features in multiple domains for a decade and my work has shipped with major products from FAANG-like companies.

I totally think the alternatives can replace Adobe products at some level, but the level of tooling I need and that Adobe has provided, is currently unmatched.

It would be great to see better alternatives someday.

sinecure · a year ago

You are spot on about Adobe's products not having adequate alternatives. I see a lot of new artists online saying to use Affinity or Gimp, but they do not compare. Even Blender lovers, myself included, who have embraced the open source alternative would be shocked to see what features they are missing compared to the top tier tools like Maya.

I'm curious why certain categories of software receive little to no competition, while others see a lot. I feel that Silicon Valley's focus on social media oriented smartphone apps has drained a lot of the talent and capital that could have been working on alternatives to Microsoft Office, Adobe's suite, Maya's 3D, etc.

Procreate is an excellent example of a young team coming in and dominating the tablet art tool market. For a measly $12 you own procreate forever, and it is easily the most functional art tool on the iPad. I don't know why we haven't seen similar attempts at Adobe's dominance anywhere else.

sinecure commented on FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations ftc.gov/news-events/news/... · Posted by u/ChrisArchitect

sinecure · a year ago

Photoshop is, unfortunately, the most comfortable art application out there for a lot of art related workflows. The pattern preview mode allows for painting tiling textures easily (a feature oddly lacking from all competitors--except asperite oddly), the filters are all top notch, the ability to do non-destructive adjustments is insanely useful and not seen anywhere else, and the brush engine is the industry standard. There are a lot of nice things about how Photoshop approaches art that others are missing. The fact that Photoshop can manipulate images as easily as it can create them is what makes it special. Procreate is great for painting, but lacks even 10% of the features Photoshop has. Gimp is a decent photo editor with terrible painting tools.

There is a massive opportunity in the market for Procreate to come out with a desktop version that expands on its functionality, but my theory is that it is probably the #1 iPad selling point for many people and Apple is paying them to keep it iPadOS / iOS only. Some big name Japanese anime studios are now working a big percentage of their workflow on iPads with Procreate.

sinecure commented on Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship after one year, citing worker safety cnn.com/2023/04/11/busine... · Posted by u/goplayoutside

sinecure · 2 years ago

Walmart also announced they are closing 4 locations in downtown Chicago due to profitability issues related to crime. Choosing not to prosecute criminals and releasing those that are caught immediately only emboldens and worsens crime. This country needs to crack down on crime swiftly and harshly until order returns.

sinecure commented on U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why washingtonpost.com/busine... · Posted by u/pseudolus

xab33 · 3 years ago

I totally agree. Where I work, in-person work became optional. Strangely, everyone 35 or younger decided to work from home (most of them don't have kids, which would be the one decent excuse), but the older people mostly come in. At 34, I'm sort of in-between, but enjoyed bantering with people my age or younger.

So I get the worst of both worlds: my boss can still come in my office at any random time and bug me about whatever, but not the social life or the ability to bounce ideas off each other when designing a new system. All-online communication simply does not work for creative or complex tasks.

The youngsters get practically nothing done -- I worked with them for several years before the pandemic, so I know for a fact that their productivity specifically went down 90% -- and guess who gets to pick up the slack? It turns out that even relatively motivated PhD students actually need in-person accountability and direction, or they just spin their wheels at best, or goof off at worst. No matter what excuses they make, it's not good for them in the long run, since it will be reflected in their CV. I'm not against fun, even during work hours, but you have to get the job done.

It's a medical research institution with a small clinic, so there are, as you suggest, additional issues there. I think science, in particular, requires in-depth, in-person conversations and that is where most of the really good ideas come from.

sinecure · 3 years ago

This has been my experience as well at 32. The commercial real estate firm I work at has a 4 days in the office policy, so we have a fairly robust social atmosphere. You can't design a building on a webinar, you need to sit together in a conference room, roll the blueprints out on the table and point to things, sketch changes, review pro formas.. it can't be replaced digitally.

The young people we're getting are like they're from another planet. They think it's' fine to come in late and leave early every day, they only do the bare minimum of work assigned and show zero engagement to help the firm beyond the scope of their assigned tasks. They're all coming from colleges that were remote or jobs that were work from home. How can you learn as a young professional in a work from home setting? You need to sit in on meetings, phone calls and discussions, you need to absorb the whole office around you, not just sitting alone at your computer.

sinecure commented on Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers? · Posted by u/hertzrat

whoooooo123 · 3 years ago

HN is heavily moderated, and it has a nerdy subject matter that selects for a certain type of audience. Those both help, but I think the biggest thing that makes HN so great is its peculiar business model.

I don't know if YC keep this site running purely out of love or if it's a calculated ploy to make money, but if HN is profitable for YC then it's in a very indirect and hard-to-quantify way - e.g. YC startups using HN as a recruitment platform. Dang doesn't have money-hungry VCs breathing down his neck telling him to maximize "engagement" - the day that happens will be the day HN devolves into an unreadable, unusable pile of garbage, like what happened to Reddit.

There aren't many communities like HN because there aren't many organizations that have the resources to run a site like this without running it into the ground because they have dollar signs in their eyes. The few that do exist are probably small forums focused on a super-niche topic or hobby, but if I knew of them I wouldn't post them here because I wouldn't want to spoil the secret.

sinecure · 3 years ago

Moderation is such an interesting art. There is moderation like trimming a bonsai tree... the effort is to keep everything healthy and beautiful, but not to avert the nature of the plant, to embrace its natural growth... then there is moderation like on reddit, which is politically and advertising motivated to force the community into a given shape, like trimming hedgerows. Either step in line or get pruned.

If anything HN feels like it has a lighter touch with moderation than most other places online, and I have never seen them outright censor certain political views or show any sort of favoritism towards any one company or group. I think much of that comes from having a small, passionate community that can manage the task of behaving and debating in good faith.

If someone could figure out the method for crafting communities like HN for other interests... that person would be a treasure to the internet.

sinecure commented on Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers? · Posted by u/hertzrat

sinecure · 3 years ago

I've spent decades exploring online communities (haven't we all?). From forums to 4chan, from Digg to reddit to hacker news. I would say that hacker news has one of the highest quality, most engaged and passionate user bases around... a rare feat. To replicate a place like this for other interests would be a dream.

I think the recipe for a good, interests based community is limited moderation, small scale, and a non-profit orientation. Because even once great communities on reddit have been poisoned by their massive growth and ad driven leadership combined with heavy handed, political moderation.

Oddly enough, I have found /lit/ on 4chan to be one of the best communities for discussing books and writing. They are more grounded and passionate than most of the other Chans and while you'll still find the occasional edgy post or nonsense, the censorship free and open community has some brilliant minds engaging there.

Discord has potential, but the constant flow of information and the reliance on typically heavy handed moderation make it just a faster version of popular writing subreddits.

I wish someone could make a cheap and easy shell to quickly make "hacker news" like clones that people could run for given interests, to create communities like this one geared towards other interests.

sinecure commented on Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/s... · Posted by u/alsodumb

sinecure · 3 years ago

I think covid's lasting impact will be one of vastly growing mistrust in the political and scientific organizations that society looks to for guidance.

From the CDC's ever changing guidelines, the liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission, the labeling of media pushed medical hypothesis as "science" and any debate as heresy, the effortless militarization of common citizens to socially pressure and attack their neighbors into compliance, and the coordinated "fact checking" campaigns of powerful organizations that have turned out to be complete lies. It's all done lasting damage to societal trust... from our own families and neighbors, to the heights of academic and governmental leadership.

People are rightfully asking many questions. Are the FDA, CDC, and the WHO corrupted by big Pharma companies and political groups that care more about saving face and profit than the truth? Is academia similarly corrupted to create research that supports the chosen narrative? Is "trusting the experts" really the embodiment of science... or one of religious zealotry?

sinecure commented on The coming tsunami of fakery grandy.substack.com/p/the... · Posted by u/finetuner

shuntress · 3 years ago

I know it's not really the point of this comment but public pools historically have been places to enjoy the pleasantries of community and pastime.

As an additional aside, you should spend some time considering the implications behind your selection of two significant hallmarks of institutionalized racism as your poles for opposite ends of a spectrum from "the pleasantries of community and pastime" to "pollution and grime [of the masses]".

sinecure · 3 years ago

They're a perfect example of how in America we have these public services that get overloaded and degraded in quality (because they are public), so the rich go and make their own private luxury versions to enjoy a more selective and high quality experience.

Reddit will be the future ghetto of the internet while the elite hang out in private discords!

sinecure commented on The coming tsunami of fakery grandy.substack.com/p/the... · Posted by u/finetuner

radford-neal · 3 years ago

Yes, the article mostly assumes that the initial effects of AI generated fake content will be the same as the final effects. This is silly.

People will change what they do in response. Though at the very end, he does say "We should learn to be skeptical of content", that belongs near the beginning, before an analysis of what the effects of increased skepticism will be, rather than what the effects of blindly believing fake content will be (since that won't happen, after a short initial period).

Smaller communities are one possible response. But just more critical assessment of arguments and reported facts is another. For arguments, it doesn't really matter whether or not the argument was AI generated - if it's valid, it's valid, if it's not, it's not. For factual reports, critical assessment might be more difficult, though I think it will be a while before AI generated fake facts have the the right sorts of connections to common-sense reality to withstand critical examination.

sinecure · 3 years ago

Content, info, arguments, etc. are all propagated online based on their deliciousness. Is it dramatic? Easy to digest? Shocking? Emotionally powerful? Bright and alluring? Sexy or disgusting? These are the elements that push information to the top. Reality, truth and logic can't compete.

Advertisers figured this out in the middle of the 20th century. Prior to Edward Bernays' (Sigmund Freud's relative) revolution of advertising, products were marketed based on their functional qualities: how effective they were, how efficient, etc. Bernays realized from war propaganda and Freud's ideas of the unconscious, that selling with emotional coercion and sex was far more effective. In fact, you could make people buy things they didn't really want or need, by making them unhappy without them. He was able to convince women to smoke cigarettes by having trendy, independent women smoke openly at a parade, followed by a branding campaign calling them "torches of freedom". This concept of emotional manipulation trumping factual data is how our entire society now operates.

If we want a skeptical and thoughtful populace, our entire education system must be restructured and information dieting will have to become an innate part of the online experience.