archevel's recent activity

  1. Comment on Burnout, A(u)DHD, and what next in my life & career? in ~life

    archevel
    Link Parent
    I don't know how it works in the US, but I would guess it is similar to here in Sweden. The main benefit of an LLC is really in the name. Limited liability. I.e. typically me personally is not on...

    I don't know how it works in the US, but I would guess it is similar to here in Sweden. The main benefit of an LLC is really in the name. Limited liability. I.e. typically me personally is not on the hook for e.g. debt that the business has (I think there might be a few exceptions here). If I was just self employed my personal finances (eg. my house) would be on the line if I have a debt of some kind. I see it mainly as a way to separate my business's financials from my own. Apart from that, here there are tax benefits when paying out dividends compared to paying out regular salary, but this might vary a lot depending on where you are!

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Burnout, A(u)DHD, and what next in my life & career? in ~life

    archevel
    Link
    In 2023(?) I startedy own consulting company as a software developer. I had been employed as a dev full time since about 2008 for various companies and wanted to try something new. By contracting...

    In 2023(?) I startedy own consulting company as a software developer. I had been employed as a dev full time since about 2008 for various companies and wanted to try something new. By contracting through a kind of broker I got a contract with a bank at a quite good hourly rate filling a role as a lead dev for a small team. It was nothing exciting tech wise but I enjoyed it. The main benefit looking back at it was the sense of freedom. Even though I was essentially working like a full-time employee it felt like I had more freedom. After a few months I had managed to generate enough income that even if I walked away I could keep paying out my salary for a few additional months. To me, building that capital reserve in the company was great. Not all businesses will have that kind of margin and it isn't something you get actually rich doing (unless you start hireing, which bra ngs it's own headaches), but if you manage to land enough contracts and generate some additional income it can be very fulfilling. You end up working for yourself... Downside is that you can always work more. It is easy to see that if you work more hours in this setup you make more money. So taking a step back can be a challenge. An alternate way would be to charge a larger fixed fee for a delivery, but that has other risks associated with it.

    What I would recommend is to:
    a) see if you can try it out in a limited fashion while still employed. That way you can fall back on your employment if things don't necessarily work out.
    b) if things seem to fly, incorporate. Not sure how things work where you are. But, here it is much more beneficial to run a business as a limited liability company than to "just" be self employed. YMMV. This will probably involve having to do a bunch of extra work (eg. accounting, salary payments, taxes etc). For me that was worth it though.

    Good luck whichever way you choose to go. There is no wrong way to live a life :)

    5 votes

  3. Comment on Sweden may oppose Tesla's supervised self-driving tech in Europe over speeding concerns in ~transport

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Who's behavior should it encode? Even looking at the messages here there isn't a singular behavior that everyone would agree on. Having the vehicle follow the local laws seem like the least...

    Computer driving systems should encode human behavior first and foremost.

    Who's behavior should it encode? Even looking at the messages here there isn't a singular behavior that everyone would agree on. Having the vehicle follow the local laws seem like the least arbitrary and most easily predictable behavior... Besides, you know, it is the law.

    6 votes

  4. Comment on Sweden may oppose Tesla's supervised self-driving tech in Europe over speeding concerns in ~transport

    archevel
    Link Parent
    I mostly tend to speed if I am passing someone. It's more of a judgement call, but strictly speaking this is still speeding.

    I mostly tend to speed if I am passing someone. It's more of a judgement call, but strictly speaking this is still speeding.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on Sweden may oppose Tesla's supervised self-driving tech in Europe over speeding concerns in ~transport

    archevel
    Link
    To me it seems a bit strange to have "break the law" as a feature, but maybe that's just me. I can see there might be a point in some emergencies, e.g. someone is bleeding out in the car. So MAYBE...

    To me it seems a bit strange to have "break the law" as a feature, but maybe that's just me. I can see there might be a point in some emergencies, e.g. someone is bleeding out in the car. So MAYBE have an emergency mode that also alerts the authorities? A general go 10kph above speed limit seems bad (even if that's what the general populace does).

    12 votes

  7. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Got me thinking... If you express the shape of a slime as a function that operates on a line then you get an arbitrary wiggly line. Then you turn that line into a circle by connecting the ends. If...

    Got me thinking... If you express the shape of a slime as a function that operates on a line then you get an arbitrary wiggly line. Then you turn that line into a circle by connecting the ends. If the line ever crosses itself when it is bent then you could treat that as the slime splitting at that point into two slimes. Two slimes colliding at a point would merge the slimes functions in some way. Slimes could naturally then grow by combining the length of their circumference line. Anyway, fun project!

    1 vote

  8. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    archevel
    Link
    I realized that there has been quite a few good games that I haven't played. One YouTube video I watched mentioned Kingdom of Amalur as a hidden gem. I have an old PS3 so I went and bought an old...

    I realized that there has been quite a few good games that I haven't played. One YouTube video I watched mentioned Kingdom of Amalur as a hidden gem. I have an old PS3 so I went and bought an old original copy of the game for ~$15 and have been working my way through it.

    I really could care less about graphics, I enjoy good gameplay and an interesting story. In this particular game the gameplay is quite nice and the quests/story is of varied quality. It is nice that they've built up quite a bit of lore for the game and I've been playing for +40h and I'm guessing I am about 1/3 through it.

    Anyway, I can highly recommend just getting really old good games! There are plenty out there and if you are like me and not really bothered by dated graphics it is fairly cheap.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Why emoji picker default on? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link Parent
    They seem that way to me. I use the almost exclusively in chat applications. Not in any type of searches, not editing spreadsheets, not managing files on the filesystem, not when playing audio or...

    They seem that way to me. I use the almost exclusively in chat applications. Not in any type of searches, not editing spreadsheets, not managing files on the filesystem, not when playing audio or video, not when editing code, not when using blender or gimp/krita/inkscape... So to me chat apps and possibly social media seems kind of niche... YMMV!

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Why emoji picker default on? in ~comp

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Thanks! I had tried a rebind with gtk.css, but my syntax was off. I think it's rare in e.g. Thunar that I actually would ever want to use an emoji... but maybe people really like it. I could see...

    Thanks! I had tried a rebind with gtk.css, but my syntax was off. I think it's rare in e.g. Thunar that I actually would ever want to use an emoji... but maybe people really like it. I could see the use in e.g. a text editor, but anyway the snippet worked nicely!

    Playing a bit of the devil's advocate: Ctrl+. is likely a niche bind to have pre-existing, while easy access to emoji is desirable for many users these days, even if it may not be for the average Tildes user.

    Fair enough, I didn't pick the shortcut the extension has it as its default. I think my main gripe is that it doesn't respect a specificity hierarchy. I.e. if it's on by default it should be canceled if there is a more narrow binding.

    Eg. gtk bidning < firefox shortcuts < extension short cuts < web page shortcuts (i.e. keypress listeners).

    But, again, that could just be my preference.

    3 votes

  11. Why emoji picker default on?

    ~comp Ask
    I'm running a nixos linux machine with Hyperland as my window manager and a few month back (likely after an update) I noticed that firefox started showing a emoji picker when I pressed ctrl+.....

    I'm running a nixos linux machine with Hyperland as my window manager and a few month back (likely after an update) I noticed that firefox started showing a emoji picker when I pressed ctrl+.. This was a bit annoying since the firefox extension for my password manager is activated by that key shortcut. I figured this was some update for firefox, but now that I dug into it to fix it it turns out that it is a gtk thing that apparently each app has to opt out of! I could disable it by flipping widget.gtk.native-emoji-dialog in about:config, but this seems like a really bad choice by gtk. Two gripes with this:

    1. Them adding a global keyboard shortcut for all gtk apps that is ON by default (for a kind of niche usecase).
    2. Overriding shortcuts on a desktop wide basis with no meaningful (afaict) way to disable it.

    Anyone knows if this is intentional? Maybe it's already been reverted upstream and I just need to update... anyway end rant!

    17 votes

  12. Comment on Smartphones arrived just before the US fertility rate plunged. One study says it’s a direct cause. in ~health

    archevel
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I fully agree. I just have a dark sense of humor!

    Yeah, I fully agree. I just have a dark sense of humor!

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Smartphones arrived just before the US fertility rate plunged. One study says it’s a direct cause. in ~health

  14. Comment on Arch User Repository compromised, 1500+ packages affected in ~tech

  15. Comment on Arch User Repository compromised, 1500+ packages affected in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    I don't think there's really a secure way of getting software that doesn't involve trust. It goes beyond distros as most developers will just pull down code and run it on their usually highly...

    I don't think there's really a secure way of getting software that doesn't involve trust. It goes beyond distros as most developers will just pull down code and run it on their usually highly privileged machines. Since you can basically get code execution going by someone running git status in a repo (commonly done to get a nice status line), you can't even trust an "inert" repo. That is essentially the first command I run after git clone and it's basically muscle memory at this point! TBH for most users at this point never leaving the walled garden for the bazaar is probably advisable. For devs I think we need to rethink dependency management fundamentally. The supply chains attacks the last few months should be enough to convince even non paranoid CTO/CIOs that dependencies are bad. It's either that or maybe run organisations with an acceptance that you are breached (which might be a good idea anyway).

    7 votes

  16. Comment on What's a game you're dying to play that doesn't exist? in ~games

  17. Comment on What's a game you're dying to play that doesn't exist? in ~games

    archevel
    (edited )
    Link
    I would like a game that is a MMO, but instead of being an RPG it is more like a squad based tactics game. It should be turn based (everyone sets up their turn in parallel), but each turn is...

    I would like a game that is a MMO, but instead of being an RPG it is more like a squad based tactics game. It should be turn based (everyone sets up their turn in parallel), but each turn is limited to e.g. 30 seconds. Out of combat there's no need for turns.

    I've imagined this heavily inspired by Necromunda. You essentially control a gang in the underhive. You send out gangers to collect resources from your safe house. If they encounter combat you can opt to control it (or potentially auto resolve).

    2 votes

  18. Comment on "Teachers are going to hate it": How social media apps hooked teens at school in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    I don't think that is a given outcome from removing section 230. Sure, it is a possible outcome, but you frame it as something absolute. I would believe it would be possible to frame a law...

    I don't think that is a given outcome from removing section 230. Sure, it is a possible outcome, but you frame it as something absolute. I would believe it would be possible to frame a law replacing Section 230 along the lines of if you are filtering or selecting content based on who is the recipient (again without active choice by the receiver), then you take on the responsibility of expressing that information. Sure you'd have to settle the details about exactly what constitutes filtering and active choice by the receiver, but I think something needs to change in this respect. The current rules cause genuine harm.

    5 votes

  19. Comment on "Teachers are going to hate it": How social media apps hooked teens at school in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    In my view just anull Section 230 for social media companies or any entity that filters and select content they promote (excempting active filtering by users through e.g. search).

    In my view just anull Section 230 for social media companies or any entity that filters and select content they promote (excempting active filtering by users through e.g. search).

    4 votes

  20. Comment on When AI builds itself — progress toward recursive self-improvement and its implications in ~tech

    archevel
    Link Parent
    A very casual search didn't bring up any immediate results about anthropic Most of the results seem to indicate they support lobbying for increase regulation. Again, I just did a very cursory...
    • Exemplary

    A very casual search didn't bring up any immediate results about anthropic

    lobbying with actual money against said regulation already.

    Most of the results seem to indicate they support lobbying for increase regulation. Again, I just did a very cursory search, but do you have any references?

    13 votes