This is such a good write-up and something I'm struggling with very hard. Does quality of code in the traditional sense even matter anymore if e.g. CC can work with said code anyway. I haven't had imposter's in a long time, but it's spiking hard now. Whenever i read or write code I feel like I'm an incompetent dev doing obsolete things.
What's more likely is that a significant number of people will start having most/all of their meaningful interactions with AI instead of with other people.
Having worked with cvs and svn, git has been an absolute blast.
That said, the first thing I do now in a repo is jj init --colocate. The fact alone that there is an operation log in jj, so you can easily revert your last command, or go back to any point you want, is mind blowing coming from git and having experienced frantically digging through the reflog.
But that aside, the way to work with branches ahem bookmarks, commits, conflicts, just makes so much sense in a world where simultaneous feature branches are a thing.
It's happening on a different level as well. More and more developers are moving from the US to popular startup hubs in Europe, e.g. Amsterdam, Copenhagen. They were often higher up in the FAANG chain, so they are immediately quite high up where the arrive, and they are bringing the American culture with them. E.g. what do you mean you're taking a month of holiday, or what do you mean, you're staying at home with your wife to take care of your baby. And yes, you have a right to that, but it's different to take that time when you feel it's accepted or frowned upon.
Service intervals. Other OEMs will prompt a service interval at X thousand miles/km to go pop in and have it looked at by a dealer, probably swap out your cabin air filter, upsell you on some new wiper blades, etc.
ICE vehicles would normally catch these issues sooner because you'd be pulling in a lot more often for oil changes (and a quick mechanical inspection is typically a courtesy at that time).
If I understand correctly, what this project does is take the actual postgresql sources, which are written in C, compile them to wasm and provide typescript wrappers. So you need the wasm to be able to use the C code from js/ts.
That adds extra unnecessary complexity. The code is written in C. There are C compilers for all CPUs. So just call the C code from <other language that's not JS>.
There is a very loud part of HN that strongly dislikes mozilla/firefox. It's disproportionate imo, I don't understand why they're singled out so often.
I don't think it's disproportionate at all. Nerds very badly want a viable alternative to Chrome and "Chrome with s paintjob". The only alternative is Firefox, but Mozilla has been a pretty shitty company and very bad stewards of an open web.
People are mad at Mozilla and Firefox because they're squandering resources on PR and "optics", shoveling in ads and AI crap instead of focusing development efforts on making Firefox actually competitive.
People are mad because Mozilla wants us to think they're a good company who will bring back a fair and open web, but their actions say they're just a profit motivated company who is content to put in the minimum viable resources into Firefox without investing in a real competitor to Chrome. Mozilla is just gobbling up google money and is content to let google and chrome continue operating a near monopoly with a browser and internet that are actively bad for and hostile towards users.
Yes, this exactly. Firefox became the one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web and Mozilla just completely fumbled the opportunity again and again. This isn't about one or two screwups, it's been a decade or more of the same problems.
It sucks. I absolutely don't want Google to have total control over the web and still want Firefox to succeed, but at this point it's clear they have failed. I still use Firefox, but much less than I used to and I stopped recommending it to non-techies a while back when they broke a bunch of functionality on mobile.
>one good avenue for preventing a Google monopoly over the web
This may be a canard but I was under the impression that Google maintains Mozilla through default search payment in order to have a bare minimum competitor to head off regulation. By that interpretation, dysfunction at Mozilla is preferred if not explicitly part of the plan.
Speaking for myself, it's really irritating to support a chrome alternative precisely because it's a chrome alternative and have it constantly shoot itself in the foot.
It sucks that I can't even attempt to convince someone to use it beyond "it's not Google", and data privacy. The vast majority of users won't ever give a damn about either of those by themselves.
A dozen years ago I was installing it on every computer I touched for more than a few minutes. Now I can't recommend it to anyone convincingly, especially because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable as it is for me (and what people see when they see me using it) is nothing that I could expect anyone normal to put up with. I honestly don't even want to use it at all without Debian standing between me and them.
But the sad part is all the hassle I go through gets it to about 80% of where it was a dozen years ago. A lot less crashy, though, I'll have to give them that - although everything is less crashy now. But they haven't destroyed the browser.
That's in a way even sadder: they decide every day to wake up and be bad, when any day they could decide to be better. Instead they've entered the modern massive predatory nonprofit space. Which usually is a vehicle for insiders to get rich off government grants, but Firefox have chosen the even eviller alternative of running interference for google as a product.
Any day they could choose to center the user and the health of the internet again. Every day they choose not to. They're just a valve that keeps paranoid and aware techies from going berserk and seriously competing against chrome, and that keeps antitrust away from google (not that there's anything for big business to to fear with horrible Obama judges like Amit Mehta on the bench.) It's their only serious source of income.
>> because what I have to do to it to keep it as usable
I find this confusing. Why is Firefox so much effort? Install it + badger + adnauseum. Done. Why so hard for you? I am not a power user, is that why I don't see the effort?
Gobbling up hundreds of millions of dollars to finance non-core missions and fat director bonuses while you sack the Servo development team might be a cause.
Agreed, though I think that spectator-sports-fandom (if that's what you meant) analogy also has emotional team-identification connotations that don't apply to the majority of HN strong opinions about browsers. (But apply more to, say, Emacs vs. Vim, or tabs vs. spaces.)
I think lot of the HN browsers strong opinions more akin to "Why do historians have strong opinions on geopolitical intrigue X" or "Why do doctors have strong opinions on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical Y". Strong opinions, because they are experts who care for important objective reasons.
Betrayal has that effect. They're supposed to be the good side. They abandoned that, and now they're just like any other unsuccessful tech company, desperately clinging to relevance while discarding all the ideals that made some of us support them.
Fire 80% of the C-level employees (make them justify their positions, DOGE-style); investigate and publicize the internal decision-making processes that lead to Mozilla becoming a de facto subsidiary of Google; do a full auditing of the financials and determine how much money the organization really needs to fund browser development (Servo and Ladybird seem to be getting shit done with a lot less money than Mozilla. How is that possible?); do an auditing of all non-browser related initiatives (stuff like MDN is worthwhile, but what other BS is sucking up money and time?); talk to the existing development staff about what's working and what's not and what opportunities exist that an outsider wouldn't know about. I would listen to the developers. Developers are often an underutilized business resource.
This would give me a basis to start thinking about revenue. Once it's clear what fat can be cut (and I think the cuts would be huge), then it'd be clearer exactly what revenue model might work.
At this point, it's worth going for broke. Mozilla is effectively dead, so there's nothing to lose. If it fails, that's still better than the status quo.
It's a bit futile with the current structure. But if you really gave me the keys, I'd make sure we cut out Firefox to the properly nonprofit side of Mozilla. And then I'd probably have to fire a lot of people. Anything that isn't laser focused on improving the browser is slashed. No vpn services, no privacy services. It's a browser, with docs to maintain to keep a browser running. There's still too many problems to solve to branch out to more.
Monetization definitely isn't easy. It'd be a mix of donations, fundraising, and corporate deals that align with the mission. With a very lean team it should be sustainable, though. The goal is to become an objectively better experience than any other browser, and there's still a lot of jank to work on to achieve that.
You have to separate the browser (I'm using it to type this), and the Mozilla corporation / C-suite. The C-suite at Mozilla took the Google firehose of money, spent most of it on their own salaries, followed by idiotic vanity projects, and spent least of all on the browser itself. Never mind building a warchest or anything responsible like that. It's quite rational to dislike what Mozilla managers are doing, while supporting Firefox as a browser and the developers and volunteers who make that happen.
They fired the inventor of Javascript as their CEO. They hired some grifter as their CEO who just keeps giving themselves more money. They keep throwing money at vanity side hustles. They purposefully confuse the Mozilla foundation with the browser, and have increasingly made the foundation redirect their funds to C level salaries and their own personal political passion projects that are not aligned with the Mozilla Firefox project. If there were actually focusing on being the best browser and web privacy, it would be good. But they aren't.
At least part of the Mozilla antagonism on HN comes from highly motivated culture war participants. The Brendan Eich situation was a seminal event, but the underlying reasons for it are why the grudge endures.
If Mozilla were consistently making good decisions in the years since then, nobody would be wasting their time with "What if Eich were still in charge?" The only reason anybody still talks about that ousting is because they have other more current grievances with Mozilla.
Also, the reason HN has so many people ready to gripe about Firefox is because HN still has a large number of people using Firefox. I never complain about technical or policy decisions from Chrome or Safari because I don't use those browsers! The only reason I have complaints about Mozilla is because I actually use Firefox.
I used to give money to Mozilla foundation, even when I didnt have much. Then I learned none of it goes to firefox. I think if Eich was still in charge there would be more focus on Servo, Rust, etc. making a better browser and less on selling AI and channeling money to absurd NGO causes.
Eich's own company, Brave, is pushing AI plenty hard: the Brave browser promotes a "smart AI assistant" called Leo. That's much more AI integration than I see in Firefox.
I don't speak for everybody but personally I like applications experimenting with ways of using new technology instead of taking some sort of political stand against AI. Firefox's translation extension is based on such technology I believe, and works well enough, I like it. Going further, like Brave is doing, also seems interesting. I think people who get upset about ineptly implemented AI features are being a bit unreasonable. It's new technology so people still have to. figure out what does or doesn't work. Mozilla using funds to develop new browser features is something I want more of, not less.
Experiment if you want. But leave it at that until it's polished. I shouldn't have alpha features forced on me as a default.That's the primary problem with this AI push. Google keeps trying to push "AI mode" in my face, Microsoft tries to stamp Copillot on my main Taskbar.
At least when Rider asked me about it, I say "no" once and that's the end of it.Cool, no hard feelings. You're $15 a month is earned.
If there's anything that the Steam and Apple cult has taught me, it's that people will forgive a LOT as long as they feel like they are being appealed to. Both companies had their fair share of culture war issues, but it's water off a ducks' back as long as they respond fast, offer a basic apology, and then continue to push out exciting features.
Mozilla has had 13 years to do that post Eich and they just don't. Every step forward has an asterisk to it if you dig a little.
Not wrong, but that comes with promoting yourself on ideology grounds. If you want support because you are the plucky underdog community project that cares about people and are running ad campaigns how you are not evil big tech, then don't be surprised if people hold you to it. Mozilla is in this weird space where it wants to be both the good little guys and a proper Silicon Valley tech company, and those don't necessarily mix well.
From what I've seen in my direct circle, childhood trauma leaves deep deep traces, and not in a good way. The idea that childhood trauma encourages growth to me sounds like pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of rhetoric.
It’s attitudinal. Some people just don’t want to stay stuck in their childhood forever because there are too many things they want in life. Is it better to just carry your childhood around and relive it all the time? Some of that is probably fine but do it to the exclusion of your present moments and it’s probably maladaptive.
It sounds like you're trying to argue against a trauma model, but you're basically just describing the state of someone having PTSD and a typical end goal state of therapeutic treatment for it.
And where did I say that? You seem to be purposely misreading my posts.
I said growth is the important part. If you are focusing people on identifying themselves as traumatized, you are doing it wrong. You want to focus them on how to grow. Be that be letting go, coming to terms, whatever. Really depends on the trauma.
Am I missing something here? 4chan is available in the UK so has to follow UK laws there, where is the problem? Regardless of whatever it is they are enforcing.
Here's an example demonstrating why this is insane:
Suppose North Korea sends you a letter demanding that you take down a blog post joking about Kim Jong-un being chubby, because that's illegal in North Korea. Do you feel obligated to comply with that demand? After all, your blog could possibly be read by someone in North Korea.
I don't have anything against the UK. They've been our good buddies since a spat we had a couple hundred years ago. But I feel every bit as obligated to follow UK law as to obey North Korean law, which is to say, not at all.
4chan, the owner/company, does not operate out of the UK. It’s a US company. They are only bound to US laws.
Just because UK internet users are able to establish a network connection to 4chan’s server via ISP peering agreements does not mean 4chan are subject to UK law.
This is the right framing. No site, including 4chan, is forcing their content on innocent Brits. The only way people in the UK see 4chan is by proactively establishing a connection to the site and requesting the download of data. Those users, not 4chan, are the active agents. If the UK government wants to control what its subjects request online, they should pass laws regulating that behavior.
As long as 4chan sells 4chan passes to UK citizens, they do business in the UK. They sell using crypto so there's not much for the UK to go after, but they do more than just "be available".
Two counter points. First, crypto is not part of the UK government's financial systems or institutions. They don't automatically hold jurisdiction over all crypto transactions, or more specifically, crypto service providers.
Second, again, 4chan does not operate in the UK. If someone in the UK purchases a 4chan pass, they have electronically transmitted their "money" over to the US to buy it. I would compare this to a UK citizen flying over to the US and buying a ticket, and bringing it back with them to the UK.
It's very clear, 4chan did not perform any business or transactions within UK jurisdiction.
Great! If this is so, then you should be able to prove that UK citizens are using crypto to purchase their services and that 4chan is expressly aware of this fact. I'm sure this proof will be forthcoming presently...
4chan is available. As far as I know, it is not operated in the UK. If anything, it is the UK-based user that is acting unlawfully. If the UK wants to block 4chan, it is free to do so.
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