Yeah that’s a big one on the list definitely, thanks!

They really seem to want to shake me out as a customer. The union busting, the trump asslicking, and now this.

Well, happy to oblige. Already replaced my macbook air with a pallet unit lifebook, and have my sight on the new framework laptops for the trackpad haptics and general principle of serviceability, even at the premium. I was an apple customer, I was always willing to pay for the premium to get a more consistent, robust quality experience. Framework really saw the writing on the wall, and I love it. Finally there are starting to be actually valid options for running Linux with the qol of apple hardware besides asahi.

On phone frontier I have zero clue where to go, but this is really just sealing the deal of me dropping apple there too whenever this one breaks. Motorola seems promising though, we’ll see…

“Veracity engine for real-time analysis” (“Vera” for short)

Sounds like normal human speech

I can give a lot of benefit of doubt to independent open source projects feeling vibecoded or ai assisted, I’ve had to partly try and get into it myself because the job market currently just demands showcases for that in the portfolio.

But the moment they ask money and get corporate, all bets are off. Fuck that. When it becomes “serious” like that, it should also be serious in how it’s built and presented. And gating something built using a tool trained on public corpus and the shared knowledge of the humankind, in good and bad, behind closed source and payments is exactly the kind of shit that makes it feel wrong too, not just embarrassing or questionable.

At this point I’ve had to accept some ai use in development is unavoidable when looking at cool projects, I use a tui editor called fresh that smells absolutely vibecoded, but it actually is decent and in my experience best in class for non-modal. So I am starting to feel less and less embarrassed or suspicious as a gut reaction, when I see one, and more inquisitive if I am interested, otherwise just move on without extra feelings about it. Unless it’s obvious slop that is. There are tiers to that shit too.

But if it’s closed source and paid for, it just feels lazy, embarrassing and actively annoying to me…

Oh fuck this is embarrassing

Yeah I relate strongly with this. Once you get used to having more time and energy for the tough problems, the interesting stuff, it’s hard to go back to the mechanical and menial.

But I’ve found it’s a lot like riding a bike. You don’t really rust, because the stuff the agents can handle today are the kind of shit that you’ve done so much and from the start, that it has become menial and boring. Which means it’s pretty ingrained into the backbone, at least that’s what I’ve found.

But damn if I don’t feel bad about it, recognizing and being conscious about the societal and environmental cost the convenience has.

But isn’t it kind of a game of chicken then for the consumer markets? Whoever gambles the other way, can win in both volume and availability, being able to cut the others off market just by pricing, enabled by the prior two points, get brand points by the ladle while at it, and kind of become a staple of the consumer market. When the bubble pops and others return, the market isn’t the same and everyone else sits at a disadvantage?

I don’t know many personally that choose the installment contracts, but I can see it can be convenient for some. But “you don’t own it” only applies to that case, which from my point of view, seems the rarer case than just you know, buying it.

Bad analogy perhaps. But I mean, sometimes games are shit, but look good, and people buy them due to that. Then the sale is made, even if the game is shit.

Perhaps the smell thing was off, but the sofa breaking right after buying or having sharp spikes under the mattress that poke you if you sit wrong, would not work because things like sofas have warranty for those kind of things. I’d bet smell wouldn’t pass so easily there.

Anyway, point was, good games need not look so pretty and “modern”. Bad games can entice you to buy even if they are bad, if they look good enough. Nothing deeper than that

The more the hardware capabilities and our expectations rise, so does the outright complexity of making the games. I’m sure some of us would be fine with less ”bleeding-edge” games if they were otherwise written and designed great, but I think it makes sense, from publisher’s perspective, to hedge the bets and try to also impress with the fidelity of presentation.

If you are looking for a sofa and find one that smells a bit off but is otherwise functional, comfortable and looks nice, you might think you’d be able to live with the smell and buy it.

You almost certainly won’t and will likely regret the choice, but the sale was made and it’s a whole thing to do returns for something so big and hard to transport and move around.

That’s what you want to go for, even if you think it might smell fine. If it looks good enough, it might nor matter if it happened to smell rank ultimately. Numbers must go up!

Oh god, I am almost certain I’ve had some dried residue on my hair and scalp when friends with pets have come over! The dogs are always so friendly and full of licks and smooches that I’m genuinely shocked I never thought of the residue itself, never realized it’s actually fatal! How long does the minoxidil itself last, or whatever the active compound is, that is dangerous, vs. the alcohol and others in the topical that might leave residue? No dogs or cats have died so far or been sick after visiting, but for future, I will eventually run out of luck, so better see if you’d know more, and if I have to always shower and shampoo the full scalp before any pets come by from now on 😟

Mine is a bit old already, the first m1 air, and I haven’t a bad word to say. Although I mostly live in the terminal anyway, zellij, aerospace, alacritty, fresh as my ide, very elaborate sketchybar for ricing and all that. I’ve not yet faced many problems I couldn’t solve via terminal or a temporary boot into the whatever unsafe mode the newer os versions have brought.

The aluminium chassis has been incredible and I can still open the lid with a single finger without needing the other hand. No other laptop I’ve ever tried has been able to manage that, even if it sounds so simple.

But because I already live in a riced up i3-ish environment instead of the actual macos gui, switching to linux is mostly about migrating my personal dotfiles to equivalents I already have set up for a few of my systems at home and various remotes.

So the change won’t be big in impact. Only thing I foresee myself missing is the lid and build quality and battery life

I can live with most of the other stuff, since the quality is good and they are hassle-free devices with Unix-like conventions, they last long, feel fantastic to use; Despite the price, despite the ring-kissing of Trump, despite being a mega corporate spreading its capitalistic cancer across the globe… all because the alternatives have been even worse.

Union busting is where I draw the line though, no matter if it’s in the sale or manufacturing or design side or whatever. This is the first one I hear about, I’ve not been aware of any earlier instances, mostly because I don’t follow stuff so tightly, I am almost certain it has happened before, but now that I have it in front of my eyes I can no longer abide it in my blissful ignorance.

This marks the day they lost me as a long-term customer. Perhaps ought to have happened earlier, but for me, it happened today.

I encourage others to consider the same.

Not really sure what I’ll do after these current devices die on me, but now it’s clear to me it can’t be apple. Google’s been dead to me a long time, same for Sony, Samsung, most other big players.

I guess we’ll see what the landscape is like in 5 years.

Fuck this. Fuck apple. Fuck me.

Not to defend them or completely dismiss their part in all that, pretty sure it was just someone else sending the fiverr video to them and them opening it while streaming. But the latter incident, where they shouted some slurs on air while playing some game, that’s I think more inexcusable. But I always got the impression they never were actual nazi or far right despite the subject matter of the incidents, it’s more just them being an idiot and trying to be funny and edgy for content and missing the target entirely on a couple of occasions. I think the aftermath speaks for itself, they did some reflecting and ended up changing the formula and content type entirely, and we are now seeing the fruits of that effort.

I don’t mean to belittle the shit they’ve pulled, but I also don’t want to paint anyone irredeemable, even less when they actually manage to do introspection and change. We should encourage that and highlight that instead. I’d reserve the unconditional hate and spite for those that deserve it, that don’t change, don’t reflect, perhaps actually mean the things they do and say, with passion.

Yeah, but it’s not obvious right now how. But Linux has good bones, comparatively, no reason it wouldn’t other than existing giants having a lot of incentive to maintain their hold on the market.

But should that ever change, one reason or another, Linux seems like the lowest friction alternative. It already exists and is robust.

Personally I think it’s almost inevitable, too, just not obvious right now how it’d happen.

Oh I think it’s even standard practice to do just that. But when the bully swings their dick and says there’ll be war if the don’t get their will, what’s the target supposed to do? Just bend over without at least trying something first?

There’s no motivation for the bully to see any reason there, their stance is that if they wanted, they can just take all they want, they are more powerful. Any “peace talks” before actually testing the merits of that assessment in real battle consist entirely of them demanding whatever they want and only path to “peace” is the smaller one just accepting to get fucked.

So, then when the bully comes around, it’s only sensible that the one in the right there defends their rights to exist and their right for sovereignty and all.

Just reflecting on Russia vs Ukraine here, but I suppose the same is true for Iran vs Israel/US too.

This is universally true, so, it’s implied they are a bad cat unfortunately

Yeah doesn’t sound like vibe coding if you actually go through the necessary dances anyway, i.e double-check the produced code and validate it and actually understand it and the domain.

Edit: But almost nobody does. Because then you’d rather just write it yourself and save time, money and energy…

Yeah, but you do not seem to grasp that good service and agreeable progresses e.g with proton and the nice hardware is worth the money.

I don’t really get your point. Epic already offers free games and more money to devs, but isn’t working out. Steam isn’t forcing exclusivity on third parties here. And they’re not using tricks like the crazy good (for the devs that’ll find it hard to say no to easy money) exclusivity deals or paying for the free games in desperate attempt to get anyone even look their way.

If my reliable old grocery store that says hi to me every morning and always delivers when I ask them for anything, add nice features to make the shopping just feel smooth and welcoming, then also, on the side, made huge contributions to open source in a consistent basis, being one of the sole corporate interest driving the current Linux gaming paradigm forward…

If they suddenly had a shop pop up next door with cheaper prices and free food stuffs every week, I would be very fucking suspicious. Nobody greets you there either. No nice features. It’s cold and lacks accessibility features. Goes out to buy all the bread from the old reliable shop and then sells them with big signs on the sidewalk saying “this is the only place to get bread!”, I would 100% not go there. Ever. Just from principle alone. They can give out all the free shit they want, do whatever sleazy tricks they want, but I’ll go shop in the place that is friendly, listens to me and others, helps the community and does not go buying other shops out of bread as a cheap ass trick to force customers there. It may cost more, they may pay a little less to the producers, but it’s very rarely just about money. If the volume alone covers the producers’ wants and needs so they are happy to remain, and customers are more than happy not getting free shit or occasionally having to wait a year or so before they can get bread again because the fucking rats next door keep buying some out of existence anywhere else.

Sometimes it’s just a service question. Money isn’t everything. This is true almost everywhere. I almost exclusively shop in co-op groceries where we the customers are owners. It’s more expensive, but I have a say in everything, it’s inclusive, does not do sleazy marketing or exclusivity tricks or other ratty stuff, so I’m more than happy to pay the premium for it.

And I’m not the only one. Not by a mile.

Same’s true for steam, at least for now.

The second they sell out or stop contributing good around them or start ratty shit, I’ll be looking to shop elsewhere. But that’s still not going to be the rats next door…

Yeah, the fundamental issue here too, ultimately, condenses down to tolerance and acceptance. Of other faiths, of other customs, of foreign ways to present or identify, of anything your faith or culture might not allow or actively do.

Just being able to accept or at the very least tolerate others, as they are, without trying to turn them, or, kill them if they won’t turn…

I can’t figure out why this is so hard for us humans, the majority of us at least, when it seems so… easy? Unless the difference is offensive to you, which, again, is just intolerance of difference. Just let them be and be your best self yourself. I can understand having a few words to try and sway them to be saved according to your faith or whatever, but failing that, just live your best life and I don’t know… maybe pray for them on your own or something if you’re truly worried about their soul or something. But dont go bothering them with that shit if they aren’t receptive. It seems so simple?

Fair enough, that’d explain it. I did expect air conditioning to be a big part of it, kind of makes a lot of sense that you do run servers as well.

Still, that’s a huge bill to eat each month.