otl

otl, 6 months ago

Ironically this site serves koko analytics, which now ignores the Do Not Track header (as per Mozilla’s recommendation, mind you). See commit 6890f3c.

Thankfully uBlock Origin blocks loading the scripts.

otl, 6 months ago

They even have a term for this — local-first software — and point to apps like Obsidian as proof that it can work.

This touches on something that I’ve been struggling to put into words. I feel like some of the ideas that led to the separation of files and applications to manipulate them have been forgotten.

There’s also a common misunderstanding that files only exist in blocks on physical devices. But files are more of an interface to data than an actual “thing”. I want to present my files - wherever they may be - to all sorts of different applications which let me interact with them in different ways.

Only some self-hosted software grants us this portability.

otl, 6 months ago

Looks like that will happen later. From Mozilla’s original article:

Following a period of testing, these packages will become available on the beta, esr, and release branches of Firefox.

otl, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Thankfully uBlock Origin removes those parameters for us. The default filters include a whole bunch of removeparam filters; e.g. privacy.txtSee also removeparam.

Maybe you could help your friends and family install Firefox and/or uBlock Origin? Every little bit helps :)

otl, 8 months ago

and log files eating up storage space was a common culprit.

Another classic symptom of poorly maintained software. Constant announcements of trivial nonsense, like [INFO]: Sum(1, 1) - got result 2! filling up disks.

I don’t know if the systems you’re talking about are like this, but it wouldn’t surprise me!

otl, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

I worked in a big German car maker’s EV division. The waste of resources put in to not actually developing a good electric vehicle was staggering.

I was part of a 100 person team who was responsible for one cog of a data ingestion pipeline which read in analytics data from each EV car. It was already about 2 years’ in when I joined and it was a total failure. Why the fuck they were spending so much money on something so inconsequential to making a car was initially frustrating; now I think it’s just sad.

The reality is that the leadership didn’t really care. The brands are so strong that they can afford to move slowly on this. There is also a gravy train going on where money is being pumped into these projects and middle leadership are happy to sit back, do nothing, and still earn free $$$ rather than develop good tech.

Here’s one of the stories from my experience (software development perspective): www.srcbeat.com/2023/08/sbt/

otl, 8 months ago

Yes, by design: docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/accounts/

IMO, the problem is not them taking the information per se, but in abusing that info to further the massive surveillance apparatus that harms society.

otl, 9 months ago

Absolutely agree with you. The point I wanted to make is that there are different ways to summarise, say, in this example, a 50-page memo. The sad thing here is how the official needed to resort to the good versus evil false dichotomy. This oversimplification to have been required because, unfortunately, Trump is stupid.

I guess I’m saying that it’s a shame that there are probably a lot of smart people trying to make sense of all the geopolitics, picking things apart, critical thinking… but in the end it was all for nought; they had to appeal to someone - Trump - who never really wanted to, nor was able to, internalise or contextualise it.

otl, 9 months ago

A very gifted programmer I met from Iran had to do the same. Originally from Iran, he wanted to marry a girl from Myanmar. This was forbidden for some reason so they said “fuck it, let’s go to where there is loads of tech jobs”. I was working in the Netherlands at the time when I met them. He’s now flourishing in the open source software space over there. Brain drain 100%.