@drahardja@sfba.social
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

drahardja

@drahardja@sfba.social

Software since 1998. Ex-Apple. I smushed AppKit and UIKit together and never looked back.

Black lives matter. Trans lives matter. LGBT+ rights are human rights. Healthcare, security, a decent income, and housing with dignity are human rights. Abortion is healthcare. Science is our best hope as a species. Kindness and empathy are the noblest of human traits.

I block assholes and bigots.

He/him.

My posts are searchable.

Ask me anonymously: https://ngl.link/drahardja

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jsnell, to random
@jsnell@zeppelin.flights avatar

Legitimately surprised it was the "Crush" ad and not the AI-powered replacements for musicians as the thing that fed the discourse.

Me, I'm still shaking my head about the guy gleefully editing Numbers spreadsheets on BART.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@jsnell I think it’s because we expect those AI musicians to be not that good.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Counterpoint: Both Conways are grifters. https://www.threads.net/@gtconway3dg/post/C6wrA15Pxes

drahardja, to ai
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

This is anecdotal, but I now personally know two employees of -related companies whose valuations have imploded within the past month, and they are now looking to bail. One company lost 73% of their (publicly traded) value in a month. The other one is a startup whose founder (according to my friend) has “finally snapped”, and the company is now in freefall.

It feels like the bubble is bursting right now.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@brennansv IMO the root cause is that it’s now been a year since the VC feeding frenzy started, and there hasn’t been a viral hit yet that indicates any sort of “disruption” of an industry. Staggeringly expensive compute bills are coming in, and investors want to see ROI—or at least a path to ROI—before they are willing to sink more money.

But the root root cause, though, is that AI is Just Not That Good. One exception may be code-writing assistance, because it tends to be quite a narrow field with recurring problems that lend well to pattern-matching. But other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any application in which generative AI is actually any good.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Does anyone know who to contact to loan artifacts to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View?

#computerHistoryMuseum #mountainView #sfba

drahardja, to stackoverflow
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

The Stack Overflow rugpull is another data point in my head which discourages me from contributing any content to a hoard owned by a corporation.

I’m hoping that ActivityPub will one day enable SO-style knowledge bases in which the individual nuggets of content are owned by independent servers and cannot be purchased by anyone.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/stack-overflow-bans-users-en-masse-for-rebelling-against-openai-partnership-users-banned-for-deleting-answers-to-prevent-them-being-used-to-train-chatgpt

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@datarama I actually prefer that because then it’s just theft instead of a sale. At least there is some hope of litigation later.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@datarama OK, say we are no worse off when it’s federated when it comes to AI training. I don’t think I agree, but let’s say the law completely lets creators down, and all data on the Internet is free game.

There are other reasons to federate: replication, no single point of failure, no commercialization of other sorts (e.g. user profiling, targeted ads), better moderation, better data portability, etc.

It prevents a corporation from gaining control over what individuals choose to do with their creations.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@datarama On the legal front, I think there will be a landmark case soon between two moneyed parties—the NYT lawsuit is one such case—that determines whether people have a right to exclude their data from AI training, or at least charge a fee for its use. I think there is a pretty good chance that the law will fall on the side of the creator.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

A moderator of a FB group I frequent has fallen headlong into the “politeness” trap, insisting that participants observe “civility” and “manners” when they post.

Many of you probably already recognize that is a trap. It is a tool used by aristocrats and the powerful to silence dissent, by protesting how the oppressed choose to cry, instead of dealing with why they cry. Southern slaveowners were probably the most polite bunch of folks you’ll ever know.

Focus on what’s important: kindess, empathy, respect, tolerance. And tell politeness to go fuck itself.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Looks like everyone has basically forgotten about .

A friend of mine just tested positive yesterday, but yeah, just cram into restaurants indoors and whatever.

danielpunkass, to random
@danielpunkass@mastodon.social avatar

Don't go to sleep tonight.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@danielpunkass T he Ho r r or!

KingShawn, to random
@KingShawn@mastodon.social avatar

“No sane person thinks Apple is advocating literally destroying the means of artistic creation.” @angry_drunk https://sfba.social/@drahardja/112408662219659943

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@KingShawn @angry_drunk I’m…insane?

That explains a lot!

drahardja, to apple
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

I reflexively cringed when I saw this ad. Not only is it wasteful, the message sent across appears to be that Apple literally crushes all the things you like to make the new iPad.

Tone-deaf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@aardvark I don’t think so.

Besides, it makes no difference if it were. The sadism of watching poseable figures, squishy emoji faces, and cartoon characters on TV getting slowly crushed to death is appalling either way.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@boltx Exactly! ❤️

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Haha, I guess I’m not alone in feeling this way.

“Apple’s Crushing iPad Ad Trashed By Hugh Grant, Justine Bateman & Almost Everyone Else”

https://deadline.com/2024/05/ipad-ad-backlash-crushinghugh-grant-justine-bateman-1235909002/

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

“Wouldn’t it be fun if we show all the things our creative customers love be crushed and destroyed by some monolithic giant machine that represents us?”
—Tim Cook, probably

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@thomasfuchs Yeah, I cringed really hard at that scene. It was deeply unpleasant to watch, if nothing else for the sheer waste it represented.

drahardja, to apple
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

The new iPads are once again mind-blowingly amazing hardware showcases, hamstrung by software and an extractive App Store gatekeeper that limits what users can effectively do.

There is now such a large overlap of prices between iPad and MacBooks that we’ll probably never see a touchscreen Mac, because it would be a superior choice over iPad in most cases.

What I want, really, is macOS running on desktop, laptop, and tablet form factors, with a relatively open software environment not solely owned by the App Store.

I think Microsoft actually got it right with Windows 11 (minus the ads). If only they pushed more strongly on the Surface lineup…

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Looks like MKBHD agrees, at least partly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T0MGehwWvE

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@felyashono @mariani1 This is exactly why I like Windows 11. It’s fully serviceable as a desktop UI, but adapts to tablet mode by making buttons etc larger.

I would prefer to double down on the desktop metaphor with tablet-specific additions, rather than the other way around.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@mariani1 @felyashono Yes, legacy Windows app continue to run on Windows in tablet mode.

The way Win11 deals with the overlapping-windows issue is to offer snap-to modes everywhere. Snapping windows to tile or have them appear full-screen is very easy using drag gestures, and works well for tablets.

Porting UIKit to AppKit is not necessary, thanks to Catalyst (which I worked on). You can literally run iOS apps right out of the app store on a Mac desktop.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@felyashono @mariani1 I keep hearing about this superior touch interface for tablets, but where is it? What does it actually look like?

The OS doesn’t have to solve all app problems; it can rely on app authors to make small changes to accommodate additional idioms. macOS has changed its chrome many times over successfully. Given a bit of time, app makers will adapt their apps to tablet mode on macOS.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@felyashono @mariani1 My point is that the iPadOS environment sucks because it severely limits what apps can do, compared to macOS.

Touchable targets can be added to macOS. In fact, it already has. Note how huge the toolbar icons are today compared to how they used to look. Additional accommodations for touch such as touch-and-hold can be added to macOS. In fact, with Catalyst, they are already present.

General window management is just one aspect of it. An explorable and common file system is another. A means to configure, control, script, and program the OS at a variety of levels of abstractions is another.

Finally, a way to add programs without having to go through the App Store is important.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@mariani1 @felyashono An on-screen keyboard on macOS already exists!

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@felyashono @mariani1 What I’m saying is that it is a solvable problem, and a solution already exists that can be adapted to the tablet form factor.

I’m not suggesting we use macOS on iPad with no modifications.

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