While I applaud her and wish her well — writing like this reminds me of a couple of things.
First my aging father insisting on navigating using his unfortunately fading memory instead of Google maps. Some people just won’t pick up technology out of habit or spite, even if it hinders them.
Second, a quote I read here that I’ll paraphrase “you can be the best marathon runner in the world and still lose a race to a guy on a bike.” Know the race you’re racing. It often changes.
I think it’s valid and commendable to keep the old ways alive, but also potentially dangerous to not realize they’re old ways.
I don't think this diminishes your point, but, for a thing like memory, your father may be maintaining it by insisting on relying on it. It may diminish regardless, but its diminishment may slow down.
At work, we are in a certain kind of race. In life, we are in a certain other kind. To paraphrase a recent Brandon Sanderson talk about creativity in an era where AI can outpace and possibly soon, out-quality a professional, "The work you do on _you_ can be _the art_."
Strongly agree! As someone who has been caring for a parent with dementia, it's definitely a use or lose it kind of situation. See also the studies on long term cognitive health in London cab drivers
I had a significant other 20 years ago that would not use a GPS. This resulted in constant fights whenever she travelled. If she got off her route, I got a phone call. I lacked the skills to divine her exact location and what direction she needs to go based on vague descriptions of being on “some highway” for “some amount of time” and she is near mile marker “I don’t know.” After hanging up on me she would eventually stop somewhere or ask someone or figure something out or maybe never come home.
Then one day, She was on the way to an OB appointment she almost plowed into a car in front of her while she was looking at her Mapquest pages. Risking our unborn child.
Even after pointing out the danger she claimed the guy in front… He did no such thing, I saw everything from my position in the parking lot.
I bought a GPS unit “for me” and put it into my car. I just used it. If we travelled in my car she still insisted on her printed maps. I ignored them. (This was very intense.)
Then one day we took her car for a trip and I brought my GPS. And “forgot it” in her car. I claimed I would remove it “later”.
About two weeks later she gave me the look and said not to laugh. Dead serious. She then said “the GPS is ok “ and can stay in her car.
Hallelujah! The life expectancy of my wife and child just went up exponentially.
This day, I have no idea what her hangup was. The best I could come up with was she was bad with directions. Was probably taught how to read a map. And her father probably instilled her sense of pride for the ability to read a map. And choosing to use a GPS was retroactively wasting her time learning how to use maps. And devaluing a skill she worked hard to learn.
This is the KEY difference between people who are willing to adopt this technology and those who aren't.
If you are able to view your job as simply a pursuit of a craft, more power to you.
The reality is likely that over time your employer will realize you are slower than every other engineer, and that your enjoyment of the craft is actually just you being an old slow developer.
The "race" here is the race with every other developer out there. They're getting on bikes, and starting to pull away ... what are YOU going to do?
When are we going to realize these CEOs are just old slow extremely expensive humans? I want to see them replaced with AI as well. I have absolutely no doubt AI can manage a company better than they do.
I’m working on Green Tea. A open source note app built on Pi agent framework. Basically gives you the power of a coding agent harness for knowledge work in an electron app.
No accounts required, all data is yours and lives on your computer.
VPS + Dokploy gives you just as much functionality with an additional performance boost. Hostinger has great prices and a one-click setup. Good for dozens of small projects.
+1 for dokploy, it's very flexible and allows me to setup my sites how I need. Especially as it concerns to the way I setup a static landing page, then /app goes to the react app. And /auth goes to a separate auth service, etc.
Haven't been able to run any actions for the last 30 mins... also had two in progress that were cancelled. Are there any good OSS ways to self-host gh compatible runners?
I've been experimenting with their controller for k8s runners https://github.com/actions/actions-runner-controller. The awful thing about it is that you cannot run one set for all projects unless they're all under an organisation, so for normal accounts you need to provision one runner set per project.
At least on image generation, google and maybe others put a watermark in each image. Text would be hard, you can't even do the printer steganography or canary traps because all models and the checker would need to have some sort of communication.
https://deepmind.google/models/synthid/
You could have every provider fingerprint a message and host an API where it can attest that it's from them. I doubt the companies would want to do that though.
I'd expect humans can just pass real images through Gemini to get the watermark added, similarly pass real text through an LLM asking for no changes. Now you can say, truthfully, that the text came out of an LLM.
The pendulum is swinging back slightly, but I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet.
We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current regime. And the ascendancy of a non-democratic superpower.
However, the largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries and very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028.
That so many people still think we're in a recoverable state for a near- or even mid-term return to "normal" is part of why we're definitely not. The fundamental fixes we need to make, and even awareness of what those problems are that need to be fixed, remain nerd-shit that normal people aren't even aware of, let alone pushing their representatives to achieve.
If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start:
In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026.
But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.
There's no way to stop them federally without a full coup since they are administered by the states. The US has a long history of not cancelling election but suppressing votes (e.g. literacy tests, gerrymandering, closing polling locations, etc).
I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.
Your contention only works in a functioning democracy.
Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials.
So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state.
But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that.
More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.
I'm expecting shenanigans at the state level. I'm not saying there won't be malfeasance, it's just that the "no election happening" is not really a possibility at this point without a full coup.
People keep saying "if" the election happens and it's definitely happening, it's just whether it's free and fair (the US has never had incredibly fair elections even in modern times, highly gerrymandered two party elections are really stupid, but substantially less fair than even the somewhat low bar the US traditionally sets for our democracy).
They are happening. Polling places in districts with close races will even have ICE stopping suspiciously foreign-seeming people to make sure non-citizens don't vote, since that's a real, actual, pressing problem and not made-up bullshit. Since Democrats are the ones committing these (mysteriously un-investigated) criminal conspiracies to let illegal immigrants vote, naturally ICE's limited resources will focus on polling places where the demographics lean heavily democratic.
They'll be the most free and fair elections we've had since 2016, and maybe ever!
Hungary isn't the only illiberal democracy within the EU - France, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, Croatia, and Bulgaria are all either Illiberal/Flawed Democracies or Hybrid Regimes according to the EIU ranking [0].
Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy.
Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies.
> largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries
The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029.
Functional doesn't mean "more democratic". What matters is institutions, jurisprudence, and norms.
And after having dealt with the experience of opening a large foreign office in Czechia, there absolutely is a democratic deficit (sure it's extremely efficient, but we just needed to keep a handful of decisionmakers and "phone a (now deceased) friend" in a non-democratic manner).
The index you just cited is calculated out of five sub-numbers, one of whom is literally "functional government", and Czechia for some reason gets rather low 6.4 on this, less than Greece.
First, this is not my experience, and second, much like you I don't think that this is particularly relevant to the democratic character of the country.
I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe. Most problems around opening anything are caused by bureaucracy, which is obliged to follow norms produced by the lawmakers. Some of these norms are stupid, but that does not mean that they are undemocratic. Voters have the right to be stupid and to elect stupid representatives who produce stupid norms.
The core crux of "democratic character" is providing an even playing field as much as possible institutionally, organizationally, and politically. If functioning is subpar or requires "hacks" or misaligned institutions, it undermines democratic character itself.
Chest-thumping while ignoring the real degradation of institutions in a large portion of Europe is only going to put you back in the same position as the US.
> I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe
I'd rather not given the incumbent in power and how small the Cybersecurity FDI community in Czechia is. Maybe Vsquare, just not you.
I'd expect a degradation to start in Civil Liberties scores with ANO's plan to abolition of the license fee; merge CT and CRo; and then move to a fully state funded operating model for the NewCo.
I also expect the political culture score to start steadily dropping as SPD and AUTO's competition to "own" the far-right leads to the intensification of culture war discourse, and potentially forces ANO to start opportunistically shifting right as well.
I don't expect "functioning of government" scores to shift significantly either, as the same issues that persisted when I helped my former employer enter Czechia still remain.
Our PortCos will still continue to remain in CZ because once you build that network it makes everything so much easier (and because Israeli founders and operators continue to have a soft spot for CZ), but the manner if which we need to operate in Czechia and maintain closeness with the right people isn't that different from emerging markets.
And that I feel is the crux of the issue in Czechia and much of the CEE - once you know the right 20-30 people or their friends or colleagues, you get the red carpet. Otherwise, it's an uneven playing field.
The model that is being discussed for the public broadcasters is that they will be financed by a certain fixed percentage of the country's GDP, and I don't think that there will be any merging of CT and CRo; there is no agreement on that in the coalition.
"intensification of culture war discourse" Compared to what? There isn't much space left to increase the heat.
"potentially forces ANO to start opportunistically shifting right as well."
ANO is a pensioner's party and given our fertility rate, this is their goldmine. They don't really have to expand their electorate, it expands on its own.
"once you know the right 20-30 people or their friends or colleagues"
Isn't that why people fight to get into Ivy League universities or Ecole Normale Superieure? I am not sure if there is any single nation on Earth where personal connections are unimportant.
> Isn't that why people fight to get into Ivy League universities or Ecole Normale Superieure
Going to Harvard or Yale doesn't mean I have the ability to call a couple people who can pressure someone at the SEC to speed up the review of an S-1 or can pressure a city council to re-zone agricultural land to residential land to build a housing complex, or (using your earlier Eton example) find a SpAd who can put pressure at the SFO to get them off my back.
And more critically, if I find someone to do that, then my competitor will find out and take me to court, and 2-3 years are burnt in negotiating a settlement.
On the other hand, if someone even finds out that I do something like that in CZ, they have no choice but to roll with it because otherwise they will be frozen out from dealflow or ignored when asking for a favor.
And this is why institutions matter, and degradation of institutions are worrisome, becuase they increase the risk profile of opportunities and incentivize zero-sum thinking.
> The model that is being discussed for the public broadcasters is that they will be financed by a certain fixed percentage of the country's GDP
Yet the power of the purse will be removed from the media and given to the state, thus reducing CT and CRo's independence. This disincentivizes the publication of politically controversial statements.
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Just becuase the US is seeing degradation of institutions does not mean much of Europe is not facing similar problems.
There are hundreds of elderly people in prison right now in the UK charged with supporting terrorism because they opposed a racism inspired nazi-style genocide. Greta was among them.
0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever.
Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.
Why does that always need to be told like it's an either or thing? Why can't the stance that the Hamas are a terrorist organization, that is ultimately also screwing the local population and that Israel is committing war crimes, be accepted by "internet posters". I would say that is the position, that a lot of governments and people have.
Not one of those people expressed sympathy for Hamas. They were imprisoned exclusively for protesting racism inspired genocide that mirrors the holocaust.
They supported a group that spray painted some planes. That was the extent of the "terrorism".
Most of the people who think they deserve to be in prison are racists.
In my opinion, that's kind of the other side of the coin. For one side, anything that criticizes Hamas is a Genocide sympathizer. For the other side any criticism on Israel is terrorism. Both sides are extreme and problematic.
Some people did (and still do) say "sure, hitler was bad but something had to be done about the jews" thinking that this is somehow a moderate position.
Im more of the opinion that you are either anti genocide or you are a racist/racist sympathizer. There isnt a moderate middle ground.
The European countries leaderships were each put in place by its responsible CIA compartment supporting liberal candidates/parties and undermining the competition.
With the current conservative US admin they are supposed to interact with they don't know what to do and likely will do nothing.
CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy. Aside from gathering intelligence, they just take the State Department's lead.
A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power.
I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.
> CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy
From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker.
Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.
I'm sure fights happen all the time over inter-service autonomy. There was a book written recently about very nasty fighting between the CIA and DEA over whether to support a group of anti-communist guerillas who financed by running drugs.
The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops.
The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about.
But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State.
I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA.
I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.
> I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation
It's much more gray simply because there are multiple agencies per department that can interpret and conduct intelligence operations.
The current administration also decided to adopt the private sector practice of letting "middle managers" conduct and implement what they want on their own and only disturb "upper management" if there are irreconcilable differences.
This is why policies change on a dime in the current administration.
Where would you say the "CIA influence" is the strongest, so I could see better what you mean?
I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).
Agreed... also fwiw I don't think that langauge-dependent games are as much of a barrier as it used to be. I've built a game recently that I easily localized first with real-time AI translations and then later with more static language translations.
Anyway I think this would be an amazing thing to let other people contribute to as this is an entire industry of hypercasual games which could easily be ported to this minus the annoying ads
I think the issue with language-dependant games is not just knowing the correct translation - as OP points out, it's more about being funny or clever on the spot, which usually requires a certain level of understanding of the nuances of the language.
Exactly this! Translating the games themselves is not a big deal as that can be automated (although the quality of LLM-translations is not always the best) but when it comes to user generated responses given in a quick timeframe, that's when non-native english players struggle the most, at least in our own friend groups.
First my aging father insisting on navigating using his unfortunately fading memory instead of Google maps. Some people just won’t pick up technology out of habit or spite, even if it hinders them.
Second, a quote I read here that I’ll paraphrase “you can be the best marathon runner in the world and still lose a race to a guy on a bike.” Know the race you’re racing. It often changes.
I think it’s valid and commendable to keep the old ways alive, but also potentially dangerous to not realize they’re old ways.
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