She/They

  • 0 Posts
  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 30th, 2023

help-circle
  • I am entirely sure it is area dependent and very very different if you are male presenting, but I have no idea how to deal with the extreme anxiety of public transit. The tube in London was great. The subway in NYC was confusing and anxiety inducing, but my phone made up most of the confusion. I am terrified of buses. I need a clear display of the next stops and hopefully a route posted, as I usually can’t hear or understand any instructions over a speaker, if anything is broadcasted at all.

    The worst part is being completely unable to relax. Having to wear headphones without music, and firmly not look at anyone to hopefully avoid harassment and block out the overwhelming noise. I can’t even draw on my iPad in peace without someone wanting to look at it and ask questions. I have to make sure I am not in the way, don’t take up too much room, and don’t miss some cue that I was supposed to do something. I hate being a woman. I hate that being in public is an ordeal and I can’t just go for a walk without having to prepare battle gear of sorts to protect myself.





  • I think this view is a little short sighted. I am glad that you don’t seem picky about your peripherals, but they are very important to others. As someone with a disability, if my mouse didn’t work on Linux, I wouldn’t even bother trying. I have spent a lot of money on peripherals and them working in Mac and Windows, but not Linux would be utterly rage inducing. It is irritating enough that I can’t adjust the dpi in Linux, but it is at least usable. I am still salty that every single pair of headphones I own use proprietary codecs that are not supported.

    I absolutely do not blame anyone for not using Linux if their peripherals do not work. I get that it is the “fault” of proprietary drivers. Unfortunately, some devices are not popular enough or too difficult for someone in the Linux community to want to work on it. I don’t blame the community either. However, telling someone they can’t use their mouse or keyboard the way it was intended isn’t going to convince anyone to use Linux.

    My point is, hardware costs money, is a physical device that you touch for hours at a time, and is configured to make your life easier. Tactile and ergonomic comfort is important. Macros, lights, and dpi settings are important to some people. For me, it is just dpi and smooth scrolling. Not everyone is happy with a cheap mouse and keyboard or wants to throw perfectly functional electronics in the bin.


  • UL certification can mean different things, depending on the product and type of mark. It also isn’t that expensive to get UL listed as it isn’t like every single item you produce is tested. Each product you design is tested, but not each item you produce.

    There are 3/4 types. UL listed, UL recognized, and UL classified. Certified is newer and more stringent.

    • Recognized is mostly for machinery and components within machinery. It isn’t terribly difficult to get, but annoying. I have dealt with this type as we design and build electrical panels. Usually you hand the design to a panel builder and they will get it certified before delivery.
    • Listed is for products and appliances, and is fully tested for safety. This applies to most consumer electronics.
    • Certified Enhanced is also for products, and you can read up on it here: https://www.ul.com/news/qa-uls-enhanced-certification-mark
    • Classified is for products and is half ass tested. All it means is that some requirements for UL were tested and passed, but not all.

    If a product is Classified by UL, this can mean its testing meets the particular requirements for a single test with a published result, but has nothing to do with all the other tests that may form part of a Standard (i.e., UL 181).

    As for pricing for UL listed, it can be just a few grand for a single product. Not much when you are selling thousands. I am sure Classified is even cheaper. I wonder how many of these cheap ass lamps say Classified.




  • We had a student run server for piracy at my University to get copied textbooks from, but even then we had to sometimes look elsewhere. I often couldn’t afford books and not all professors allowed the cheaper used previous editions.

    Science textbooks were the worst with their stupid fucking online code bullshit so we could do homework. They even made it where you could buy just the code, which was something like $70. Still better than 300+, but JFC. Having to spend over $1000 for books that you are only going to use for 10 weeks was nuts.

    The last saving grace we had is all textbooks were required to have at least one copy in the library that could not be checked out/removed. You could photocopy the homework pages that way. If your classmates were nice, they would let you borrow theirs to copy any pages too. You could also buy your textbook, copy what you needed, and return it within the return window.












  • I think I vaguely remember something about that, but I would be pretty upset if the keyboard navigation was unusable. It is almost as bad as the stupid mouse enabled BIOSs that never work. It doesn’t even work on the Dell laptop I have for work. The keyboard navigation is always extra special in those cases and involves a lot of button mashing to get to the correct thing, if I can figure it out at all.

    I don’t use wired mice either and had to dig the old gaming mouse out recently so I could get to some menus on a new machine to pair the mouse. I have done the mouse pairing thing through console and it isn’t the best experience, especially if you are trying to figure out if things are working in the first place. For me, I could figure it out. For a new user, you are asking a lot.

    Just give me an old school OS installer with simple menus, easy keyboard navigation, and the bare minimum guidance needed to not entirely fuck it up.