As many free alternatives as there were before the rampant vibecoding, it seems that this growing collection of tools is not only functional, but a message to the large companies as well. Most of these apps are still far from what they intend to replace, however, so we’ll have to see how deep this message cuts.

Blood in the water for Adobe. Acrobat is a steaming pile of garbage. My org worked with their engineering team to track down a bug that we reported. They affirmed the bug (app hangs on launch) and then took four to five months fixing it.

I’ve worked in software engineering. I know that debugging, patching, testing, verifying is difficult. But the enterprise license costs a lot and that was a very long time with a crippling bug. The only satisfactory answer (to me) is that they don’t feel urgency because they are entrenched without real competition. They need to wake up.

(No, I don’t think vibe-coded Acrobat replacements will unseat them. I think LLM-powered real devs will come for them because the moat is smaller.)

Episode of the Better Offline podcast: The Man That Destroyed Google Search

Why not up the stakes and go decahedron? Very cool theme, btw.

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

Invisible Women

Used to be Memmy for Lemmy. That’s gone, so I’ve been using Arctic and the web.

This just inspired me to download the source code for Memmy for Lemmy. Whether I spend time updating it for personal use or not, at least I have it if I need it. Sorta like how I plan to keep a derivative of Pocket going if I decide Wallabag isn’t enough (also code available on github).

Just because their goal may not be explicitly pushing far right nationalism doesn’t mean it’s ok to ignore. They must be shunned. Their political messaging is hate and none of us should support or condone that.

This is good messaging. I’m glad someone is making it explicit. I’ll bookmark this page and share it.

What are USA numbers now? That’s the only way this is in context.

Sensible laws? That’s not the world I grew up in. What the hell is happening.

Punish users. That’s the only way they’ll learn.

Yeah, we’re all about to be fucked because so many major players are tied up in this scheme. The bottom is going to fall out and the entire world economy might be affected (USA for sure, cause WE’RE NUMBER ONE).

Set aside additional savings (if you can) to be prepared for a bad time ahead.

YES! This was a huge deal that what a lucky mishap rather than a sign of good security.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor

Btw, Jia Tan is an awesome software dev that you should hire. /s

We’re all completely pwned. That’s the only way to feel ok for me. My info has been compromised tons of times and no one notified me. I just accept it. I practice good security and I know that some of the companies on the other side don’t. I can’t change that.

Have you accepted that you’re gonna die? If yes, you should adopt this attitude. If not, I’m sorry that you’re so afraid of the natural process. Try to be healthy. Try to be secure. Accept that you’re gonna die or get pwned or both. It’s a lot healthier mindset (IMO).

Oh, cool! Red Hat! The people who run a company charging for support. This makes me feel very safe.

Ever since the ssh thing, but especially in the last few months, I really don’t feel safe with anything on the internet.

Fair point.

Comedian Daniel Sloss said something about thanking god after surviving cancer: No, it was the doctors, stupid. (We have tickets to see him soon. Check if he’s in your area, he’s awesome.)

“God” is the greatest cause of murder and war. It’s fucking stupid. In the old testament, he’s a fucking dick. Seriously, what an asshole. But “christians” who know nothing about the book they proselytize pretend they have a moral obligation to be assholes to people they don’t like.

I’ve studied and read more historical and educational books on early christianity than any right-wing republican asshole (I live in the USA), I guarantee it. I was on a serious mission for about 18 months after years of casual Wikipedia browsing. But it’s not just christians.

Any person who makes their religion known to strangers is a weak piece of shit. Wear a cross, a burka, a kippah, whatever. You suck. It should be private. Advertising your beliefs shows how insecure you are about them. I don’t need to prove a goddamn thing to anyone because I’m confident that I’m morally correct. You know why you need “god above”? Because you’re not sure what to think without someone telling you what’s right and wrong.

If it wasn’t the right code, it wouldn’t be so popular. /s

ps: rm -rf /

This is the best laugh I’ve had this morning. So good that I’m literally about to close the window to end on a high note. Awesome. Also, dupe please close.

My partner has started using terminology that I use. I think she genuinely still saw the USA as possibly a good country and now she drops words like “corrupt,” and “fraud,” in places that weren’t previously said when talking about our society.

My hope is that I’m merely providing scaffolding to articulate a thing that is felt but not discussed. I’m pretty sure a lot of USA citizens really need that.

Yes! We should feel bad! Unfortunately, there are people who think what that asshat does is awesome. My mother, who I won’t speak to because two of the ladies in her sons’ lives are now at risk. Fuck these people. They are selfish and frightened and they externalize their fear.

Ever since IBM / Red Hat ruined CentOS, I’ve been using Debian when I need Linux. Welcome in from the cold. We have hot coco and blankets.

Nope. He had the ability to control her. Nobody can stop our crimes. It’s bad.