When AI pops, I'm looking forward to watching LinkedIn eat itself alive searching for a take.

All entirely true.

Story 112

A cartoon picture of a smoking cat Text: PLEASE DON'T EVER TRADE YOUR AUTHENTICITY FOR APPROVAL. LET PEOPLE DISLIKE YOU

Gentle reminder…

⚠️ An active phishing attack is targeting crate owners by asking them to "confirm that your email address is still active". These messages are not from crates.io, and should be ignored. (We will never ask you to confirm that your e-mail address is still active.) ⚠️

Story 100

We're on strike! Don't visit propublica.org on April 8

We’re on strike today! Support our fight for a fair contract by NOT visiting the @propublica.org website or engaging with ProPublica stories today.

Tell ProPublica’s management you won’t cross the picket line: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...

Yeah, not every place I order from does delivery points. I kinda select for using services that do, because it is just more convenient for me now and usually cheaper (and less stressful for the drivers).

I've just gone back to having my stuff delivered to a delivery point/post office. I'd rather do a 5 minute walk than have the anxiety of waiting. It also means I care less if it arrives ASAP.

I'm pretty done with having stuff delivered to my door.

Story 61

The problems of the Tech Industry have existed for a long time. But you cannot deny that gen AI has poured fuel into an already burning fire. All because the tech hype cycle now is affecting ordinary people in very tangible ways.

This needs to change, or we won't have our toys any more. /end

You riot. You have nothing to lose, so you riot. You lash out.

AI requires datacenters. Ergo, torch the datacenters. AI rn is representative of all that is wrong with the tech industry, and people are done with it. We ignore this anger at our own peril. /8

Now the waters are muddied with automated slop/misinfo, news orgs simping for billionaires who are trashing everything so they can make even more money, all while you are being rendered unemployable because *AI* with living costs getting worse.

So, what do you do? /7

We've inflicted so much shittiness on people. So many things would be easier if we could just talk to people, but we must now use apps, talk to chatbots, face labyrinthine systems that remove agency from someone trying to fix an issue. Bugs and poor ux is somehow accepted as par for the course. /6

Smokers don't realise how much they stink to non-smokers. In our fascination with tech, we have become blind to the negative effects it has been having on everyone. This is made worse by our bosses holding all the power in what is made & how. Software quality has been a problem for decades now /5

Dismissing the anger of ordinary folks because they don't like your shiny new toy is entitlement. And dismissing it won't make that anger go away, it will just make it simmer to a boil.

And ultimately, it ignores our part in making things shitty as they are. /4

Add in misinfo to the mix, and it is very easy to get "new thing bad" out of people. But that does not invalidate their anger. There is something deeply wrong with the state of things as they are now, but most folks are not equipped to diagnose the exact reasons why that is. /3

Datacenters are a very visible and tangible thing to target, because they represent the encroachment of tech into their lives. You can't protest everything becoming shitty software, but you can protest a datacenter being built in the area. Software has not made things better for a lot of folks. /2

Tech folks: Why are normies being anti tech now??

Let's have a look:

Degraded trust in news outlets, misinfo networks, things becoming slop (AI or not), shittier conditions due to capitalism on steroids.

Folks have a hard time knowing where to direct their anger. So what is visible is targeted /1

The sheer amount of AI slop videos on YT is making me irrationally angry. The particular AI narrator voice with its uncanny valley cadence is perhaps the most off putting thing.

I want out of this shitty future.

Oh yeah, and how UK standard layout means something different to actual standard keyboards vs Apple ones. So many little pain points like these

I think here is if the push is to have AGI, so basically something effectively sentient, then that should give one pause as to *why* we want actual minds to forever work for our benefit.

It's not just the Alignment can of worms, but many ethical/philosophical cans of worms of personhood, etc.

I know I am not an ordinary user. But assuming ordinary users won't at some point need to customise something is also bad. It is very difficult to account for all potential future possibilities, and all user needs.

Defaults give you a base to build on, customisation gives you tools to do so. /end

Apple chose to not care for anything not an Apple product. That made it easier for it to have "good" defaults both for users and its business.

I ended up with Linux because while defaults could be better, I can customise until they are the way I like it. Then I can forget, and it'll still work /3

Defaults first, customisation second. Having a working base from the get go eliminates *so much* stress. But not then being able to tweak things after *creates stress* if you need to fix something. Apple is egregiously bad for making customisations it does not like painful to do. /2

While this is an important lesson about the importance of defaults, having a good/easy path to customise is also important. I can't use Apple stuff because no matter how good the defaults are, I can't make it work with everything else I have out of the box, or have it work the way I like. 1/

/r/rust has many problems, the poor moderation being what allowed it to become announcement slop. And now, it reacts in a toxic way to no surprise.

My projects qualify as 100% organic, but I still wouldn't post there bc it is a toxic hellhole, lmao

Story 61

My cat is the sassiest thing, complaining whenever I have to tell him not to do things.

Don't go into the wardrobe. Meow.

Don't go on the kitchen counter. Meow.

I am trying to sleep. Meow.

*Me doing literally nothing* ... Meow

As a plus, the RustCrypto crates have made it fairly easy to end up with working encryption code, especially when coupled with reading RFCs. I'm quite impressed with the quality here.