I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.

Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!

It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.

  • oceane@jlai.luEnglish
    1710·
    1 year ago

    Oh, definitely not a purchase, but Emacs. My life was a mess because of Twitter and it was anti-Twitter in every way – no characters limit, offline, insanely powerful. While Twitter would prevent me from prioritizing, Org-mode could handle task lists, spreadsheets, text documents, with academic citations support, and could export them to .ics, .odt, .pdf, .md, etc. Ideas are affordances and Emacs has let me focus on these instead of trying to build a picture perfect online profile.

    Whereas Twitter isn’t meant for most people’s use cases so it runs a long-term scam called “optimization for engagement” (which is actually abuse by definition), doing everything it can to prevent its victims from taking hindsight on and conceptualizing what’s happening to them, Emacs is letting me channel all of this frustration into reading and writing my master thesis. Which deals with how social media increase social inequalities. Highly recommended.

      • Cowabunghole@lemmy.mlEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        I’m also struggling to understand how and why it’s being compared to Twitter. How are they even related?

      • oceane@jlai.luEnglish
        31·
        1 year ago

        It’s free software, funded by donations. Anyway, no, not where I live, and I’m autistic, you’re comparing the way I communicate with an ad.

        • Raven FellBlade@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          It’s not the communication that is being critiqued, it’s the unsual leap of contextual logic made to connect Twitter to Emacs. The Enties don’t follow it, because they can’t see how the unusual comparison paired with a strong recommendation for Emacs could be anything other than an “ad”, and not just an enthusiastic personal endorsement for a thing you’re passionate about.

          Edit: I never knew Emacs had a built-in IRC client! What a rad bit of software.

    • flubba86@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      I’ve used Emacs off and on a few times over the years, and know some people who use it daily. I’ve never seen it compared to Twitter.

      • oceane@jlai.luEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Sure, I’m a sociology student, not a developer. We compare everything to anything – Jesus to Hitler among other examples.

    • flubba86@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Oh, not really a purchase, but Mum gave me an Air Fryer. My life was a mess because of Twitter and it was anti-Twitter in every way – no characters limit, offline, insanely powerful. While Twitter would prevent me from prioritizing, Auto-cook mode could handle potato chips, chicken nuggets, hash browns, with support every hot pocket flavour, and could cook them to soft, medium, crispy, etc. Ideas are affordances and Air Fryer has let me focus on these instead of trying to build a picture perfect online profile.

      Whereas Twitter isn’t meant for most people’s use cases so it runs a long-term scam called “optimization for engagement” (which is actually abuse by definition), doing everything it can to prevent its victims from taking hindsight on and conceptualizing what’s happening to them, Air Fryer is letting me channel all of this frustration into preparing and cooking my favourite meals. Which deals with how social media increase social inequalities. Highly recommended.

      • oceane@jlai.luEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I’m not going to watch the entire video, but Magit actually makes it easy to collaborate on text, even in humanities. No sane Emacs user would use FTP with someone not working in tech and this actually feels like what someone who doesn’t work in tech but wants to flex upon non-tech workers would do. And putting a fake fireplace or I don’t know, a silly hollywood program is contrary to the Emacs culture, this is rather what you would see among e.g. suckless communities.

    • fuzzybee@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I just started working as a software developer again after a 15 year hiatus, and I’m irrationally excited about using emacs on a daily basis again.