So, real talk, be completely honest with me - how usable is GIMP these days? I’m not trying to pick a fight, I think it’s great that GIMP exists, but while I may not be a professional artist, I am a developer with an interest in graphical design and I would say that I am an advanced user of the Adobe Creative Suite tools - the main three that I use being Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

I would be willing to learn to use GIMP to replace Photoshop, and Inkscape to replace Illustrator, for example, but only if they’re actually good enough to put to real, productive use.

I need my tools to get out of the way and let me work. If it crashes and loses my work EVER, then it is completely beyond consideration for me. If it’s good enough for light users but not really ready for professional use, then I don’t think I can really consider switching.

I do not use any of the 3D or AI features of any of those tools, if that helps.

I would really appreciate your opinions and advice. Please don’t be optimistic - I know it’s hard sometimes to be critical about open source software because of our ideological beliefs, but please try your best to be realistic.

Oh, and if you’re going to just tell me to try it, please try to contain that impulse. It would be a huge undertaking for me to relearn basically everything about how I work with these tools, so if I went through all that just to find that I couldn’t actually make use of them because they’re not ready yet, it would be a huge waste of time and energy, both of which I have in quite short supply these days.

Thank you so much for your time :)

This is one of those things where I think lots of us have this preconceived idea in our heads that social media can’t be good for kids, like… to me, it can be really depressing and isolating, and a really negative place to be.

But it absolutely has its benefits as well. I have learned so much from interacting with people different from myself. Honestly, I think that if it wasn’t for social media, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as compassionate and empathetic as I am today - or at least, as I try to be.

The research into how social media affects young people does not, in my opinion, justify any sort of restriction or ban. Yes, there are kids for whom social media is a really negative experience, but there are also lots of kids for whom it is a vital lifeline.

As a queer person, growing up in the early internet age actually gave me hope that there was some place in this world for me, and that I could love and be loved. If I didn’t have that, I cannot imagine that my mental health would have been good.

I think, if anything, there should be restrictions placed on algorithmic curation, because that’s where social media is doing the harm really.

So for those reasons, I am absolutely opposed to nationwide blanket bans on social media. Kids have rights too, and we should not unnecessarily restrict their liberty, even if we are acting in their best interests.

I am against all organised religion, but I think that we should all fear the authoritarian oppression of the state far more than any religion.

It’s a bit like the death penalty - I oppose the death penalty not because I think that there aren’t people who we would all be better off if they weren’t alive, but because we cannot trust the state with that power.

I remember reading somewhere that there are copies of bits of archive.org distributed across the globe, but the majority of it is in US data centres. It’s incredibly big, though, so it’s hard to just take a copy of it and move it somewhere else.

I completely understand your frustration. It sucks knowing that things are going to get worse and it could have been much better if those who didn’t vote, voted for Kamala. And we’re all definitely going to need time to fully process this.

In my opinion though, and I’m not saying that I’m definitely correct - but the feeling I get the reason that the democrats lost is because lots of people felt completely disillusioned with the democratic party. I want to be really clear: Fuck Trump, he’s a fascist in a party of fascists doing fascist things. they will undoubtedly cause death and harm. If there was any justice in this world they’d be on trial for crimes again humanity. But the democrats did not offer enough hope for people to get out and vote. They basically ran on a campaign of “vote for us because you have no better option, the other guy is the worst”, and that is just not an inspiring campaign. Their ongoing support for the genocide in palestine, their lack of interest in fighting for the rights of trans people, all of these things and more left many people, myself included, feeling absolutely abandoned by the democratic party.

I still think that leftists should vote, and they should vote with their heart and with thoughtfulness and think about harm mitigation. But I also cannot blame anyone who just couldn’t muster the energy to go out and queue for hours to express their support for a candidate that they felt very little love for.

I really hope that my love and compassion comes through. It’s hard to express over the internet, and it sometimes feels a little silly, but it’s what we have left. Our love for each other and our hope that the future can be better, even if we may not live to experience that better future.

You’re way more likely to be killed by a far-right terrorist than a muslim terrorist. If you want to protect public safety, I feel like a far better way to do it would be to outlaw far-right content on social media and other online platforms.

This may be a controversial opinion, but I think instances and communities should just ban people for acting in bad faith. There’s very little actual insightful discussion that you can have without someone trying to just win some unilateral debate with some really obnoxious comments. I hate seeing people arguing and being rude all over the place.

I try my best to be the change I want to see in the world, but it’s really tough sometimes to try and stay positive and constructive when you’re just enduring endless personal insults

Yeah, lemmy.world has way too many communities and users for the good of Lemmy’s health, really.

Thank you for bringing it back online, I was worried it might be down for a while! Welcome back :)

Nice to meet everyone by the way, I’m new to SDF, just getting to grips with stuff.

Actually, the history of why women divisions arose in sports is far more nuanced than you seem to believe. The main reasons for doing so were primarily rooted in sexism. Historical records show that women were able to compete with, and win against, men in sporting events during the early middle ages.

Anyways, I see there’s no reasoning with you, so I hope you have a pleasant evening

There’s plenty of speculation that YouTube has never turned a profit. We have no way to know for sure, though.

TikTok is quite different since it’s shorts only. I can totally see that being a viable model, because you can more comfortably cram ads between pieces of content. That’s why YouTube is pushing shorts so heavily.

Nebula is propped up by private investment. I had a quick look and found SEC filings which indicate they have raised over $9 million dollars in private investment in the past 3 years.

Patreon has almost no video hosting compared to how much revenue they have.

I understand how you feel, and you’re not totally wrong - society is changing and shifting power away from men towards historically marginalised groups.

The hopelessness and pain that men is feeling is coming from capitalism, though. It’s corporations stealing your future.

The thing is that men held almost all of the power historically, and a small shift away from men doesn’t mean that women have extreme power now. Don’t let yourself be scammed by the rich and wealthy into fighting their battles for them.

You need to recognise your true enemy.