I like async but dislike await. I spend entirely too much time on everything I build trying to maximize how much I can do in parallel because I find it tremendously satisfying.

Nah, this one has a margin of error. It’s just that “take down a large percentage of all computers in the world simultaneously” is quite a bit outside of that margin for a security software.

Everyone’s like, “It’s not that impressive. It’s not general AI.” Yeah, that’s the scary part to me. A general AI could be told, “btw don’t kill humans” and it would understand those instructions and understand what a human is.

The current way of doing things is just digital guided evolution, in a nutshell. Way more likely to create the equivalent of a bacteria than the equivalent of a human. And it’s not being treated with the proper care because, after all, it’s just a language model and not general AI.

Outright bans are because government bodies are scared of nuance. You can also see this in “zero-tolerance” policies that do things like punish the victim because they were “involved” in a fight, or punish a kid who nibbles a chicken nugget into the shape of a gun.

To be fair to schools, nuance is hard. Suppose that the rule is “phones may not interrupt class.” Now, what counts as an interruption may vary between classes, between teachers, and based on what’s happening in class. A student may use it during a quiet period in the class when they’ve already completed their work, and that’s acceptable. A different student will then use their phone ten minutes later, when they’re supposed to be doing something. The second student will get in trouble, but then complain that the first student didn’t get in trouble. The parent will hear, “Brayden was using his phone and he didn’t get in trouble but the second I used mine, I got in trouble. The teacher has it out for me.”

If you’ve talked to any teachers in the past few decades, a common theme is parents siding with their kids against all logic, reason, and evidence. They’ll assume that teachers are petty goblins, just looking for an excuse to pick on their kid. And parents can be outright hostile and unreasonable. When my wife was a teacher, she received more than one actual death threat from parents because she enforced rules that did NOT have any nuance or discretion. Imagine if enforcing the rule was up to the teacher’s discretion versus an outright ban.

tl;dr I agree that a ban is silly, but I totally get why schools are doing it.

On the plus side for them, they can probably use Gemini to write their apology blog about how they missed the mark with that ad.

It is legitimately useful for getting started with using a new programming library or tool. Documentation is not always easy to understand or easy to search, so having an LLM generate a baseline (even if it’s got mistakes) or answer a few questions can save a lot of time.

In theory I guess it provides better security in some ways, but certainly not all over giving you hardware and a VPN. So there’s that. But yeah, it sucks.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an ad from the OS on Android. I know some manufacturers, Samsung in particular, include ads but that’s not “Android” so much as “Samsung’s shitty skin of Android.”

The closest I’ve gotten to an ad on Pixel is a thing to review new features after updates.

It’s the downside of open source: You’re at the mercy of companies that don’t care and developers who are primarily interested in the hardware they’re using rather than the hardware you’re using.

The best experience is going to be hardware that’s built and certified for Linux. System76, Tuxedo, a bunch of other smaller names and the rare Dell or Lenovo. But that’s definitely not practical for everyone, or a good idea to convince people to buy new hardware for Linux.

It’ll be a slow transition. The more enthusiasts hop on the bandwagon, the more manufacturers and hardware vendors will care about support. The more Microsoft keeps irritating their customers, the more companies will move away. The support will come, it’s been improving for a long time.

All that said. I’d recommend CachyOS or PopOS if you get the urge to try again. I’ve tried a bunch of distributions and those seem to have the best focus on “just make consumer hardware work right out of the box.” That’s no guarantee of course, but it’s a start.

I think the problem is that search does not make money. Ads make money, and subscriptions make money. Convincing people to switch from Google ads to New Google ads would involve dumping tons of money into becoming popular enough to attract advertisers. Convincing people to pay for search, like Kagi is doing, is probably even harder.

I’m trying out something mildly nutty by putting .steam in /home/steam, then making user-neon, and symlinking so that I can try kde without reinstalling steam games. If I succeed I might try it with other files.

I think the difference is that generative AI is allowing the spammy bullshit to outpace the anti-bullshit measures faster than before. I don’t think it’s demonization to point out that it’s a problem.

I feel like we always do things exactly the opposite of whatever rational would be.

“These people aren’t using the land to it’s full potential so we’re justified in murdering them and taking the land.” - About the people living half naked off the land.

“You can’t just make people move, even if you compensate them and are doing it for the greater good.” - About the people who drive a pickup truck to Walmart.

I know there’s more nuance, it’s just funny to me.

I tried it, then uninstalled pretty quickly. If I say, “Play music” then 10% of the time it would play music, and the other 90% it would tell me it can’t. Same with many other assistant commands like controlling lights.

What even is the option here? When Google got rid of adding things to lists, I started my official transition away from them by moving to Proton, self hosting more stuff, etc. But for a voice assistant it seems like open source just isn’t there yet, it doesn’t have the hardware, and my only remaining option is to switch to Amazon (no.) Or Apple.

This seems like an overly complicated explanation when the alternative explanation is so simple: More call center employees can answer more phones, but call center employees cost money to hire, and businesses do not like spending money.

I don’t quite understand. Are you saying it’s immoral to sell a business? Is it retiring that’s immoral? I didn’t say that everyone secretly anything, I just don’t understand why the hate.

Look, there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire. I get that, and fully believe it. But I don’t get why people think “selling out” is a thing when it’s often basically short hand for “retiring and letting someone else make the money.”

TBH I don’t get why people criticize selling out as if they wouldn’t do it, too. I don’t want to sit and amass wealth indefinitely, if I have a company and someone comes along and offers “retire rich forever” money, I’m taking it and fucking off to somewhere fun. Especially if we’re talking billions, no one will ever hear my name again.

It’s unfair to discount Google’s early days. They DID have technical excellence. Search was leagues better than the competition. Gmail was an amazing leap from other providers. Android started as trash but improved rapidly. The Nexus line of phones was amazing. Google Maps was a huge improvement over what else existed. They did a lot right.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when the fall started. Was it when Pichai became CEO? When they removed “don’t be evil?” I remember a speech Pichai gave where he talked about “more wood behind fewer arrows” as why they were getting rid of employee child projects, so maybe it was that.

It’s a bit of both! Certain commands to the car can be done locally via Bluetooth OR via Tesla servers. The tricky bit is that status always comes from the server. If you are on a VPN that is blocked (like I use NordVPN and it is often blocked) then the app can’t get status and as long as it can’t get status it may not even try a local command. It’s unclear to me under what circumstances it does local vs cloud commands, and it may have to do with a Bluetooth LE connection that you can’t really control.

When you don’t have service, or you’re on VPN, it may be worthwhile to try disabling and reenabling Bluetooth. I have had success with this before. If you’re using android, it seems like the widget also uses Bluetooth, so you could try adding the widget to your home screen and using that. You can also try setting the Tesla app to not be power controlled, so it never gets closed.

Either way, there’s a definite engineering problem here that feels like it should be fixed by Tesla. But I can at least confirm that, even in situations with zero connectivity, you should be able to perform basic commands like unlock and open trunk without data service.

I’m a solid thousandaire who bought a used Model 3 in 2019. I’m one of those fuck cars people, but living without one is not currently possible for me, so I went with one with a high safety rating, low maintenance, and no need for gas. Since then, I’ve bought one set of tires, refilled the windshield wiper fluid, and had a few car washes. It’s been pretty great, as a car.

The only problem is… random pickup trucks and Dodge Chargers act crazy around me because the existence of EVs apparently threatens their masculinity. My mom sends me random articles where someone who has no idea what they’re talking about complains about the car being a death trap. And now that Elon Musk won’t shut the fuck up, I get to read the random ramblings of petulant children online who can’t fathom that people might like something they don’t.

Fuck me, though, I guess I’m a member of the bourgeoisie now.