Grumpy old computer nerd aka programmer, mostly working in fraud detection and prevention these days, (former) writer on a long hiatus, enthusiastic (but not very good) gamer, lifelong metalhead. \m/
I've been eagerly updating #macOS since 10.4 Tiger (which required buying a physical box of DVDs!) running betas whenever possible. Until Tahoe. I haven't touched it.
Apple has lost taste.
Not just the OS. It's Tim giving a golden turd bribe. Tasteless.
I've been unhappy about being in a walled garden, but now they can't even keep a nice garden.
The key weakness in AI agents is that they're a lie. They don't work. They just don't fuckin' work. You can't set a hallucination engine to work doing tasks. It's pants on head stupid. The hype pretends this isn't the case and hypothesises a fabulous future where they work *at all*. This is a lie.
A useful model for "AI agents" is that they're the current excuse meme for AI. They're not a thing that works at all, now or in the fabulous future. But they're *such* good material for hypecrafting. No sausage at all, but *my god* that sizzle.
@giesbert Oh?! Ich bin damit eigentlich recht zufrieden, seit Marco Arment sein Overcast letztes Jahr vor die Wand gefahren hat. (Was er inzwischen wohl ein stückweit korrigieren konnte, aber ich bin fertig mit der App.)
Kurzes Fazit, nachdem ich Disneys „Daredevil: Born Again“ nun endlich gesehen habe:
• Daredevil war bei Netflix in deutlich besseren Händen.
• Foggy und Karen (fast) komplett rauszuschreiben, war ein großer Fehler.
• Vincent D‘Onofrio ist ein lausiger, todlangweiliger Bösewicht.
• Die Story ist dünn und blah und bleibt am Ende (natürlich) vollkommen offen.
Das alles lässt einen fast hoffen, dass Disney die Finger von Jessica Jones und dem Punisher lassen wird.
Was bei Gerüchten und Kommentaren zu #Siri und #Gemini geflissentlich übersehen wird: Auf Android-Geräten wurde der Google Assistant schon vor einiger Zeit durch Gemini ersetzt. Und das ist kein Fortschritt. Klar, das Ding ist deutlich eloquenter bzw. geschwätziger als Siri, aber wie jedes LLM halluziniert es ständig kompletten Unsinn. Und es macht kaum weniger Fehler als Siri – nur eben weitaus wortreicher und im Brustton der Überzeugung. Ich sehe nicht, wie Siri das retten soll.
Forget Meyers-Brigg, this is the real personality test:
The DVD (1996) is now as old as the original 8-inch floppy disk (1967) was when the DVD came out.
Many of us here have issues with Apple right now. I have assembled my thoughts and, as I see it, there are two main problems.
https://troz.net/post/2025/apple-has-two-problems/
#Apple
As a kid, I learned English from English language cartoons on FilmNet. I learned from German TV shows. My passion for Swedish crime series taught me Swedish.
But now, the largest tv medium of our time, YouTube, has begun auto-translating everything. Future generations will not be exposed to foreign languages and be inspired to take an interest.
There was no public review of this, no democratic vote. One company just decided to turn foreign cultures off and make the world dumber.
For profit.
«The time is running out to wake up to the real threats posed by generative AI, and recognize no hyperscale data center or OpenAI office is worth the costs to the public of allowing this technology to gain a foothold in our societies. We don’t just need to throw off US tech, but the entire model of digital technology that Silicon Valley has pushed on the world»
🎯 Paris Marx
@parismarx
Full article: https://disconnect.blog/generative-ai-is-a-societal-disaster/
About syntax highlighting https://tonsky.me/blog/syntax-highlighting/
Clever cartoon but I also really love the color schemes here
This is the best piece I’ve ever read about the systemic problem with app stores. I wish I had written it myself.
https://infrequently.org/2025/10/the-app-store-was-always-authoritarian/
„Innenminister Dobrindt“ klingt noch immer nach einem armseligen Scherz.
Kinda wild Apple will kick ICEBlock out of the App Store on safety grounds but the Saudi government app that lets men track women (their “property”) and control their travel is fully allowed even after the Human Rights Watch AND members of the Senate begged them to ban it.
Obscenity everywhere.
I don’t mean fucking language.
Obscene wealth.
Obscene politics.
Obscene waste.
Obscene justifications for it.
And even good work runs on platforms owned and managed by corporations invested in such obscenity.
What digital media does is drown us in obscenity at scale
My daughter, who has had a degree in computer science for 25 years, posted this observation about ChatGPT on Facebook. It's the best description I've seen:
I have installed https://wero-wallet.eu and connected it with my bank account. I hope that #Liberapay can add support for #Wero so that we have a #Paypal like solution for Europe without Paypal :) An alternative to Apple Pay and Google Pay. To Master and Visa. Wero is located and licensed in Belgium and is proud to be bound by the GDPR and other EU regulations that protect us EU citizens.
Currently banks in Belgium, France, Germany have joined. More to come. It'll take time.
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