Comment by muki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by muki | Hacker News Reader

My significant other has been using it as their primary desktop computer for over 6 months now (with a probably-too-big computer screen attached to it). They use it to work on their PhD with LibreOffice and browse the internet (we have some "smartness" in our home and some common online tools we use, but all of those work as simple websites). It's been great, this is their first time seriously living with Linux and open source software. The form factor helped a lot with onboarding (it is quite cute, and the book that comes with it is a really nice addition for non-technical people, even if they never read-read it).

Their complaint is that Calc sometimes lags/hangs with a few thousand rows of heavily formatted data (they're not a data scientist, but still need to deal with government-issued xls[x] files). It wasn't a serious problem though and a great opportunity to "look under the hood" of what was happening and introduce them to CSV files. The other "problem" is that online shopping websites are often horribly slow, but again, I'd say there's a lesson in there and it could be viewed as a feature.

So all in all I am a huge fan. I think it's a great way to onboard people on good-enough-computing and open source. There is something magical about its form factor that resonates with "non-technical" people. Also quite cheap and accessible.

Not sure why you are downvoted (edit: were downvoted I guess), I think this is a great use for it. It's much more powerful than you'd think.

You are also one of the few that specifically gives a use case for the pi 400 (basically a Keyboard with a pi inside [0]), not just a normal pi, which I think has many other use cases (more server-y). The pi 400 is a desktop computer indeed.

[0]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400/

Off-topic - beware, here there be dragons

I find the consistent use of the plural "they/their" really jarring and for some reason it stands out even more than normal in this post. I hope this fad will pass and people will finally accept that it is fine to say "he" or "she" again like has been done for centuries without problems. Considering that acceptance of differences - between male and female, between heterosexual and homosexual, between religious and secular, between "white" and "black" and between any other potential identity category - has been the focus of society for the past half century it is counterproductive (to say the least) to suddenly start hiding behind plural pronouns. This trend is even stranger when considering the fact that it has become fashionable to explicitly proclaim membership of other identity categories.

So what pronoun should a non-binary person use?

Would you prefer to use "hit" the Old English neuter pronoun?

Language changes. Get used to it. Or not, but it will anyway.

Language evolves naturally, true, but this tends to be a relatively slow process for larger changes like this. What we're dealing with here is not a natural evolution of language but a directed revolution. I prefer evolution over revolution, hence my counter-revolutionary language.

Change is change. It will stick or it will not. This seems like one that might stick.

I have to add, if someone is gay or straight, tall or short, black or white, fat or thin, or has any shade or variety of other attributes we don't immediately reveal that with a pronoun. Perhaps gender should be the same. Unless you think gender is special? In which case, well, maybe that is the problem.

Well, yes, sex - which is what I'm talking about - is "special" in the sense that it is a central and essential part of mammalian life, which we are but one example of. Without it none of us would be here after all.

The fact that what I wrote just now is considered to be "controversial" is a good indicator of the revolutionary drive behind the language change - had I written this 10 years ago nobody would have blinked an eye or if they would it would have been for me stating an obvious fact.

Honestly it kind of seems like you just want it to be controversial. You’re post was off topic (as you prefaced) and I just don’t think it’s constructive.

Anyway, “they” is a perfectly natural way to refer to a person of unspecified gender. I wish HN posters used “they” more often instead of just assuming everyone is male

Sure, but gender-neutral pronouns aren't special. True, English hasn't recently had one. Now, it seems, it does. Why is that a big deal? Just because trendy people think it's a good idea?

Well, I'm not super trendy and on balance I'm in favour of it.

But neither of our views will carry much weight in the long run. It's not up to us.

Also, I have to say, there's a lot of stuff that used to be treated as "obvious fact" that was hugely prejudiced.

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