One of the big reasons I went with Android and not Apple when the mobile software craze started was that Apple was "We own you and the entire pipeline you use to bring software to end-users" and Google was "We don't care as long as you use our toolkits and services - which are totally FOSS btw."

This new totally-not-the-old-Google registration requirement is a hard turn-off for peer-group opinion leaders like myself. There are still FOSS Android alternatives, yes, so anybody doing Android development isn't suddenly entirely out in the cold, but this is a serious damper for my Google enthusiasm and I'm pretty sure others are thinking the same.

This is why I stuck with Web btw., even though Android Studio, Kotlin and Co. were very enticing. You never know when some corp. is going to pull out the rug from under you. That's why FOSS _and_ cross-platform (i.e. Web) is the only way I roll. Google can go all M1cros0ft and I'd barely miss a beat with any of my software projects.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end for Google? Couldn't say but it would be a shame. Of all Megacorps they were my favorite.

I have multiple AI services in my recently purchased Jetbrains Junie subscription. Right now I'm using codex for my work. It feels like having a pro developer team of 10 API experts at your service and ready to answer any request on your code base or any complex question right away. I've already taken the back seat and let AI do must of the hard work as per my instructions andrequests.

It's absolutely amazing. I've been professionally doing webdev for 25 years now and never had this competent a colleague, mentor or even senior. I Review every change and submit on my behalf. I do sometimes catch surprisingly human slipups (a few collisions with super-strict property typings, plural and singular naming lapses, etc.) but the AI fixes those instantly when I point them out. AI in turn finds mine too and points them out and asks if it can fix them. The context window lasts the whole project and the suggestions AI makes for next steps and improvements are really good and even inspired. Seriously.

The best part is that I can discuss the more abstract aspects of the app. I swear I have never had this consistency of competences when discussing my work and projects with someone else. I do not need anybody else on my "team" anymore. Not for coding that is. True thing.

Here's an excerpt of my ongoing work discussion with AI ( this is real! ):

>>>>>>>
> Could you explain the reasoning behind implementing a Baseline service? Is this a good practice and if so, why?

> Short version: Yes, itâ(TM)s good practice here because you need the same Baseline metadata (file list + meta.name/type) in multiple places (Baseline routing + Mainview). A service is the cleanest way to share that data without duplicating fetch logic or tightly coupling components.

Why it makes sense:

â Single source of truth: one place to load and cache the list of Baselines.

â Decoupling: Mainview and Baseline donâ(TM)t need to know how to fetch or parse the index.

â Less duplication: avoids copy/paste HTTP logic in every component.

â Easier to evolve: if the index format changes, you update one place.

â Easier to test: you can stub the service.

Downsides:

â Slightly more code and indirection.

â If the data is only ever used in one component, a service would be unnecessary.

Given your setup (routing + entry generation), the service is a good fit. If you want, I can keep it simpler by moving the logic into Mainview and passing data down, but that couples the components more tightly.

If AI pans out only half of what we expect, the world will look very different in a few years time.

Disclaimer: German here.

Even with current prices for electricity the cost effectiveness of fission is questionable at best. Germans are actually capable of math and engineering and the tree huggers weren't the reason replenishing plant Wackersdorff, the fast breeder at Kalkar and eventually renewal of fission in general was cancelled. It was boring back-room clercs repeatedly doing the math and coming up short that did this.

And if you don't believe this you can ask France how their all-out "fission only" plan of past decades is panning out these days.

That there may be some marginal strategic value to fission in wartimes might be true but the tenfold of that can be said about renewables.

As QR code on paper. Twice.

Hope they learn their lesson.

USians with means moving abroad, scientific panels advising the US, tourists steering clear, regulars avoiding conferences in the US, effing Iceland and Norway suddenly looking to join the EU (certainly didn't see that one coming). ... I have to be honest, I'm a tad worried about where the US is headed.

And I have a hunch that I'm not the only one. ...

At the law firm where I'm the sole software expert we already discussed this problem. This is Germany/EU, so we (gladly) have strict data protection laws. The crew I'm with right now is a bunch of lawyers who are actually comparatively innovative and use AI daily, for legal drafts and other things.

We've already discussed the problem and the option of an anonymizing proxy that converts critical client data into spoof data and back, once the AI is finished doing it's thing. With well formatted data this is actually quite easy and can prevent anything critical being fed into AI or external services where they don't belong. So it's a good thing that we also are discussing switching our documents to markdown and our legal document repo to Git. ... Did I mention how refreshing it is to have deciders that actually know a thing or two about computers?

The AI doesn't care if our client is called Pipi Longstocking from Cloud Coocoo Land. And we don't care if we can safely cross-reference that identity with our real client. And we would have reasonable data-safety that the authorities can't complain about.

We might start implementing something like this this year. Perhaps even into our legal management product I'm building right now.

Either way: Anonymizing Proxy.
That's what I came up with and that's what I would call it and AFAICT it sounds like a solid concept.

What do you guys think?

... since the 70ies. However, sending up thousands of micro-satelites to do this should only be allowed if they have enough fuel to de-orbit. Fast. If anything goes wrong we have an extra heater for the planet that we can't turn off. And that would be a really stupid thing not to be able to prevent.

Been there, done that. EU citizen here. Duh.

It's always hilarious and/or super-annoying when people who don't have the faintest idea on how computers or digital networks work attempt to make laws to regulate these. We have this problem in the EU and in Germany quite a bit. Accidental throught-crime laws, laws that factually prohibit reading or consuming media you own, that collide with fundamental constitutional rights etc. without the lawmakers even noticing.

By and large it does get better though. The EU GDPR for instance does have the right idea and larger parts of it were built by people who (somewhat) knew what they were doing. But of course that law contains flat-out nonsense as well. It's more of an annoyance than anything else and people here violate the GDPR 20 times a day, most of which is done by the authorities themselves.

Cascading effects have already been kicked loose. It's not unlikely that the planet is already on it's way too a new equilibrium with or without us. That's the actual scary part. In short, it's likely we're already screwed. However, how hard is still up to us. So no excuses, we have to get this eco turnaround finished yesterday.

This is - as are most other problems - a problem of education and knowledge. People just need to know and be aware what sort of damage lead does and change the way they handle it. If that awareness is there, well built lead-batteries are actually quite useful and affordable and can last a lifetime and longer if well built and maintained, turning an ecological hazard into something that eases the strain on the environment.

... is _soooo_ overdue. Can't we just build an alternative to E-Mail already? Seriously, "outdated" is a serious understatement. Let's redo DNS while we're at it, that shit is 2-3 decades overdue for a reimplementation as well.

Hard asymetric encryption, digisig, OIDC Ident/Auth/Auth with anonymous true identity tokes, etc. This isn't rocket science, we know what needs to be done we just need to effing do it already.

This is one of the points where I actually would say "This wouldn't have happened with Steve Jobs". Ever since he died they've been somewhat neglecting that one affordable price-point option they always had since the iMac days. It has been a very long time since I've been this interested in an Apple product. Will check if out, might get one. If I ever again get a laptop that is and convergence doesn't happen before that.

EOM

... going the way of bullshit. How predictable. And how poetic.

... language. It's almost a rippoff if you ask me.