You shoud definitely build it soon, even if just to test it.

If you don’t, it will invariably be your bad luck that a component doesn’t work and you are then past the return window…

We can’t simply say minimalism is bad, though, because the truth is “it depends”.

The iPod Shuffle music player from the mid 2000s could be considered a minimalistic design. It had no screen, with only buttons for next, previous, play, pause, volume and (as the name suggests) shuffle. The player had far less functionality than its big brother iPods, but because it had less functions, the interface didn’t need many buttons.

It was, perhaps, “truly” minimal.

In software we do sometimes have true minimalism, but more often than not we actually have a lot of features, but have to choose to hide some amount of it and have a simpler interface, and the amount we choose to show or hide may determine how “minimalist” or not it appears.

So you can have minimalism via simply /not having/ functions, or you can have minimalism via hiding.

When you open a CAD program for the first time, you are likely immediately intimidated by the sheer number of buttons and toolbars, with no idea what to press. But a minimalist CAD program would be a nightmare because it ruins any discoverability of features. Showing the complexity is necessary.

On the other hand, an image viewer which is secretly also a featureful image editor - but hides all the edit controls behind an ‘edit’ button until you ask for them - is perhaps an appropriate time to hide it.

To look at mpv specifically, my personal opinion is that the lack of any option toolbars is ‘bad’ minimalism because it forces you to the wiki to find out how to do things with keybinds, but the main interface is ‘good’ minimalism because it shows you the controls you need probably 95% of the time, and nothing extra beyond that.

I mean, it is user-friendly in some ways, depending how you define that.

Double-click a video and it opens. You get a visually appealing, sleek and minimalistic UI that helpfully appears only when your mouse is over the video, and otherwise gets out of the way. You can seek, adjust volume, select audio language and subtitles, and that’s it. Very uncluttered, obvious and easy in the way that modern applications try to be.

For most usage, that’s enough. It’s when you find yourself needing to pan/scan, or change subtitle offset, or enable looping etc you discover there are no buttons or menus for those things and you have to go hit the docs to discover what the keybinds are.

“Want to sell a lot? Just brand it Star Wars!”

The motivation for making a new show should be “We want to tell an amazing new story set within the Star Wars universe” but it’s actually “We want to make loads of money, therefore our new thing is going to be Star Wars.”

Unfortunately the ‘religion’ of believing and doing what awful people tell you on social media is stronger than ever, and only growing.

This is the cooking equivalent of the chair of clothes you can still get one more wear out of

The thing about growing up with a meat-based diet, as most of us did, is that meat is always the focal point. Meals are basically cooking some meat, and then adding a couple of sides.

And so when people try to go vegetarian or vegan they are stuck in a way of thinking that is like “what do I substitute the meat with? What’s the vegetarian alternative to chicken??” - and without meat the style of cooking they are accustomed to falls apart, their meals are pathetic, and they don’t know what to do. And so people think “I can never give up meat!”

Vegan cooking that just tries to “replace” meat will never be as successful or delicious as vegan cooking that has it’s own identity. To cook well in a vegetarian or vegan way you need to re-evaluate what kind of dishes work, and how you cook. Roasting and searing brings out sweetness and creates texture. Spices kick up the flavour. Sauces bring it together.

I am not actually vegan myself, though I try to eat meat-free a lot of the time. I am fortunate to live in a city that has a lot of vegetarian and vegan food. This is some of the menu from a vegetarian restaurant I like:

Ravioli - Spiced celeriac filled ravioli, sage brown butter, apple & chilli salsa, parmesan cheese & walnut crumb (contains nuts)

Crown Prince Squash - Roasted crown prince, seared oyster mushroom, pear ketchup, Wensleydale blue cheese & walnut crunch (ve option available)(gf)

Fennel - Confit fennel, spiced red wine poached quince, labneh & mint & walnut dukkah (ve option available) (nuts)(gf)

Romanesco Cauliflower - Roasted cauliflower, soy & cauliflower purée, walnut & red pepper dressing & crispy chilli oil (ve) (nuts)

All utterly delicious! :)

And I have to ask - what is it about vegetables that makes you need to throw up? Is that a medical issue or did you just grow up in a house where vegetables didn’t exist?

Haha, amazing. I hope they called it “Giraffe Liquor” or something

When it comes to old drives, looking is half the fun.