A Time-Traveler's Guide to Affordable Computing
Greetings! If you are reading this, it means you were selected by TODD (the Temporal Observation Directorate Division) for a temporal excursion. Since you're a member of the Computing Sciences History Reading Room, you will no doubt want to brush up on how to procure computing resources in your assigned …
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Technology has promised so much, has *delivered* so much, and yet, I'm horrified.
I was an 80s kid. I grew up in a booming and optimistic time. The future held so much promise: all kinds of cures for disease, technology and automation would free humanity from the drudgery of labor (heh), and the Information Age would bring an acceleration to learning and innovation …
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Responding to The Linux Cast's Vitriolic Diatribe
The Linux Cast is one of my favorite Linux youtubers, as he usually posts very interesting videos and isn't afraid to share his off-the-cuff opinions of things in the Linux world, yet is usually not toxic, unlike some of that space's more infamous members.
He published a slightly ranty …
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I kinda hate "apps"
I'm talking mostly about terminology, but of course, when in doubt, "I don't want your dumb app."
So, as I briefly alluded to in yesterdays blog post, most mobile apps are pretty terrible. They're generally chock full of spyware (trackers), and are inherently user-hostile.
But I want to talk about …
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You can *never* be apolitical
Content Warning: This post deals with religion and politics
Last Sunday, I did something that I really don't like doing.
I left church early.
With a heavy and conflicted heart.
The Sunday prior, I walked into church and spoke briefly with the pastor. I told him I was shocked to …
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"Online" documentation should be offline
I'm noticing a troubling trend among FOSS projects, even terminal-only utilities: no manpages (or a 1-paragraph useless one), barely any help screens, and a link to a wiki site like a github page or "readthedocs."
The thing is, the whole ethos behind so many terminal utilities is a hearkening back …
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My Favorite Bosses
Across three decades working in I.T., I've had the opportunity to observe some spectacularly good and spectacularly bad managers. I feel like writing an homage to the three that were the most memorable.
Name obfuscation methodology
I will be using the real name of the individuals mentioned, but I …
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Android Messaging, Part II: Life Limped Along at Sub-sonic Speeds
In Part I, I discussed the state of "Native Messaging" services in FOSS Android forks/builds, and why RCS might never be coming to these OSes.
What does that leave us with? Well, SMS and MMS, of course, but using what client?
Unfortunately, there is (of course) no one good …
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FOSS ROMS and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad State of Native Messaging on Android
Now that I've piqued your curiosity with an reference to a children's book I've never actually read (because I'm an alien, apparently), let me pause the narrative train by carefully defining some terms:
- FOSS: Free and Open Source Software
- ROMs [sic]: Custom builds of the Android mobile operating system from …
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LLMs are Perfect
LLMs (Large Language Models, colloquially referred to as "A.I.") are perfect...
Perfect exemplars and the very embodiment of the brain-rot of our society.
Much like so many loud voices in society today, the LLM is incapable of discerning reliable from unreliable sources, identifying the origin and validity of a …
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