FWIW, I am back on my FP4 after returning a FP6. The hardware on the 6 is definitely an upgrade but there were some quality control and design issues that were frustrating. Chief among them is the decision to go from a toolless access to the internals to one requiring a screwdriver.

I liked the idea initially as I understand it allowed them to improve the IP rating, but it introduces multiple points of failure, ie. the screws. I’m sure there’s going to be people frustrated when they inevitably strip one of these screws and can’t get the back cover reinstalled, but mine came from the factory with two of them stripped.

That is to say nothing about the fact that not everyone has a screwdriver or will carry one with them in case they need to open the phone while away from home.

For my purposes that’s a fatal flaw I hope they address with a FP7 someday. Until then I’ll stick with my FP4.

Quiet time at home with my pupper and partner.

My understanding is that Interpol doesn’t grant them direct access to the data. It just allows them to search other participating police agencies databases, a search that simply returns whether a hit was found, not the underlying data. If a hit is found they then have to request the relevant data from its custodian. I’m unaware if there’s some sort of legal process there as well, like they have to get a warrant from a judge or not, but I assume there is some form of paper trail.

What the US is asking for here would give them direct access to the databases. So there’d be no checks and balances on what data they receive and when, and it’d give them access to data on individuals not related to any crimes the US may be investigating.

[Edit: typo]

By in large you are correct, but let’s not forget about WebKit, which, I believe, browsers like Gnome Web (Epiphany) uses. I don’t think Gnome Web is on par with Firefox features and standards compliance wise, but I’ve found it usable for most of my day to day.

I skimmed the paper

👍

but if you pretend it’s a junior developer

Where do these geniuses think they’ll get senior developers from when the current cohort retires? How does someone become a senior developer? Surely not through years of experience as a junior developer under the mentorship of a senior.

This mentality is like burning down an apple tree after one harvest. Fucking idiots, the whole lot of them. I can’t wait for the day all these people wake up and start wandering around confused about why their new talent pool is empty.

o_-

This has to be one of the worst designed data visualizations I’ve seen in a long time. God knows social media isn’t wanting for shitty dataviz, but this one is particularly awful. It’s an assault on my senses trying to read it.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised from a company called “visual capitalist”.

I think there will be a “return on ai” eventually, just not with this race to the bottom with chatbots. It’ll come from machine learning applied to solving problems in medicine and sciences and other areas of complexity.

Admittedly machine learning and “ai” get lumped together these days but I think there is a difference.

Also, thanks for reading my (long) rant. 😆

shipments of PCs could shrink by up to 9% in 2026

I’ll be shocked if it’s not at least double that. Thing is, this is going to be like the covid-19-crypto-bro-GPU-pocalypse that drove up GPU prices so much we now just collectively accept paying double.

Except this time it’s not just GPUs. It’s now hitting RAM, SSDs, HDDs, CPUs, Laptops, probably next year’s smartphones, and who knows what’s next. Motherboards? Power supplies? Cases? Everything else?

It’s not just that these companies are all cannibalizing their consumer capacity for AI customers and it’s not just the hardware they’re buying. As consumer demand plummets because they can no longer afford PCs, companies will reduce consumer production even further because waning demand. It’s a feedback loop whose only killswitch is economic collapse.

Sure we might be able to seek refuge for a while in the secondhand market, but that won’t be our saviour either. As demand increases in the secondhand market, a market with a largely fixed (and likely dwindling) supply, expect sellers to increase their prices too. Whether they’re trying to recoup costs from the first-wave price increase they paid buying new hardware, or just because they know the market can bare inflated prices that are somewhat less inflate compared to new.

And what do we have to look forward to? Prices will “settle” to 2-3x what they were last year compared to 5-6x as today. That’s if there’s a manufacturer left who hasn’t abandoned the consumer segment by that point.

I’m just coming to terms with the fact that the computer I built 2 years ago is probably my last, and my ability to help my neighbours fix their computers probably has a near expiry date. This has been a hobby of mine for decades that the rich have always fought against. With the AI bubble, they may have finally found a way to kill it completely.

I hope I’m wrong but I’m genuinely worried about this. For now I’ll have to wait and see how things go, look to the secondhand market for my next build, and maybe, start learning to solder.

Having a photo I took accepted into a public gallery exhibit for the first time.

Who?

Good thing I’ll never tire of distrohopping then.

Yeah, I stopped using Nvidia like 20 years ago. I think my last Nvidia card may have been a GeForce MX, then I switched to a Matrox card for a time before landing on ATI/AMD.

Back then AMD was only just starting their open source driver efforts so the “good” driver was still proprietary, but I stuck with them to support their efforts with my wallet. I’m glad I did because it’s been well over a decade since I had any GPU issues, and I no longer stress about whether the hardware I buy is going to work or not (so long as the Kernel is up to date).

If they’re going to release things under a proprietary license and send lawyers after individuals just trying to get their hardware to work, then yes, yes I can.

Don’t want to support it anymore? Fine. Open source it and let the community take over.

How do you define “cancelled”?

As far as I can tell both Sebastian and Torvalds are just as successful (if not more) in their respective roles today as they were before any “controversies” surrounding them were made public.

Your skyview.social link returns “invalid url” for me.

Assuming a full-time employer engineer works 20 days a month, that’s 50,000 lines of code a day.

Assuming an 8 hour work day, that’s 6,250 lines of code per hour, or 104 lines of code per minute.

This is humanly impossible without using AI and automation at every stage of the process. Good luck with that.

I’m guessing where we’re headed is software “engineers” becoming AI prompt “engineers” for design, development, review, testing, and shipping.

Buckle up, shit’s gonna get wild.