I'm looking for a digital watch with a step counter that ideally resets every day. I've had a few smartwatches and my latest Garmin is nearing the end of its life. I've decided that time and step counting is really all I need out of a watch. Can anyone reccomend a watch like this?

I have been an Android user for a long time, but I never bothered to buy a new phone when I didn't feel I needed one, so my current phone is very old (Android 7.0). There are several annoyances I see in modern smartphones that I'm kinda hoping to avoid, the biggest one being that I want to be able to replace the battery. I'm therefore eyeing the Fairphone for being modular and repairable.

• Has anyone used a Fairphone and can talk a bit about what it's like?
• Does anyone know the best time of year to get the best deal? Should I wait until after Christmas?
• Will I still be able to side-load/use F-Droid? I hear that Google is putting a stop to this but if I get one that allows it now, will it continue to allow it in perpetuity?

Would love to hear some input from fellow nerds who know more about this stuff than I.

Edit to add: I'm in Germany.

I currently have a Netgear R6700 - Nighthawk AC1750 router that has reached end of service and am looking for a replacement.

When I set up the router, I had issues with some of my devices not connecting to either WiFi 6 or the 5 GHz band (I can’t remember which was the issue) so I had to set up a guest network for those devices to live on.

I would like, if possible, to have one network that everything in my house can connect to, but that’s a preference not a necessity. Are modern routers fully backwards compatible with older devices?

I’d also like something with a relatively long life ahead of it (though security is paramount and I’d rather have a secure router that I have to replace sooner over an insecure one that lives longer).

My house is just over 1000 square feet so coverage area doesn’t need to be huge. I do stream a lot of games to my laptop via Moonlight though, so being able to continue to do that without lag/hiccups is a necessity for me.

Let me know your recommendations and avoids, as well as any advice you have.

Hullooo, today I got updated to Android 16 by GrapheneOS autoupdater.

I'm 99.5% happy with it as I trust them more than myself with regards to privacy & security, but...

The battery icon in the status bar is invasively ugly and disturbing.

It's too big and it changes colour, makes me shiver!

So... Is there anyway to change that? Most importantly the size (to match the other icons) but also the colour stuff.

Hey, tildes - cqns here,

I work in a library and, once in a while, when I have time, I make something called a "display", which is essentially a curated selection of books for the public to check out, which lasts for approximately a single month. Usually, most people do things very linearly with their displays, a single letter-sized paper that serves as the title label for the topic of the display, and then the physical books in an array on the shelf. I, however, think that most of the displays are particularly boring in the way that they approach the public, hence my need for brainstorming.

What I have in mind is an interactive one-stand exhibit, akin to an art gallery in a museum. The title of the exhibit is "Libri Insoliti", which roughly translates to "strange/unusual books". It is a nine item list that includes the following titles in order:

1. The Road - Cormac McCarthy (BOOK, AUDIOBK, EBOOK, DVD, BLU-RAY)
2. The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker (AUDIOBK only)
3. Several People Are Typing - Calvin Kasulke (BOOK, AUDIOBK, EBOOK)
4. Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar (BOOK - as compilation, EBOOK)
5. Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges (BOOK, BOOK en espanol, AUDIOBK en espanol, EBOOK en espanol)
6. The Employees - Olga Ravn (BOOK, EBOOK)
7. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski (BOOK only - Read one page to find out why.)
8. "S" - Doug Dorst (BOOK only - some cutouts missing)
9. Finnegans Wake - James Joyce (BOOK, EBOOK)

Of each title, I have my written piece on the side that informs the public on what to generally expect when reading the specific titles...and then a QR code that links to a Vocaroo recording of yours truly narrating that which I've already written. Therein lies the rub - in my side of town, it appears as though the general public may not know how to use a QR code, hence my idea being to go a bit above and beyond.

With the QR code method, people may not realize their device's volume level is extremely high and cause distraction. The library is ideally a quiet place for people and I would like for the exhibit's audio to be non-intrusive, leading me to another idea: the purchasing of some type of equipment that allows patrons to listen to the exhibit audio with attached headphones only. There are many things to consider, because the exhibit is in an area which a plug is not easily accessible, so ideally, it may need to work with a battery pack of some kind. I do have, in my possession, a Raspberry Pi5, but, it needs to be plugged in to work. So, does such a device exist? I've searched it up extensively and came across this (https://www.digitalaudiotechnologies.com/product/soundclip-2-2-button-looping-or-pir/), but I don't know whether or not this would even work. Any suggestions?

Just looking for some indication that I'm not going a bit crazy here, but does anyone else get shown videos they've never seen before, indicating that the video has been partially watched?

It seems to be just on search results and recommendations and it picks random points in the video to be kick-off points for continuing.

If anyone has an explanation that'd be appreciated, as it almost feels like my watch history is getting mixed up with someone else's.

A few months ago, my credit card number was used in a few unauthorized transactions. The charges were reversed, and I got a new card, so overall, no big deal. But I am curious as to how the thief actually got their hands on my information.

Are there any lookup tools for leaked credit cards, similar to Have I Been Pwned, that might tell me how my credit card number was exposed? Since my card has already been cancelled, I don't even mind typing the number into a somewhat sketchy site.

She currently has apple everything, but is open to getting something like a Garmin watch.

Rough requirements are:

• Batter life of at least a few days with normal use, ideally up to a week
• Physical activity tracking for swimming. She isn't a runner and doesn't need running-specific features.
• Heart rate / sleep tracking
• Receive and view emails / texts / notifications from her iphone

Some watches she is most interested in are:

• Enduro 3 even though she's not doing multiple day expeditions, she loves the idea of the battery lasting that long, but it is a bit heavy / bulky and has a lot of features that she won't use for the price
• Another apple watch, but even the upgrade is only a day and a half of battery
• Garmin forerunner, we were taking a look at this comparison chart and if she doesn't care about all the running features, would the cheapest version like https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1611937/pn/010-02863-33/ to just act as a budget apple watch with better battery as long as she still gets all the notifications and it works with her iphone?

Also taking suggestions from other brands, I'm just mostly familiar with Garmin and have an instinct solar 2 for 4 years that I really enjoy.

Overview

If you want to see just the final result, check out my TiMaSoMo showcase post. This post does minimal amount of showcase of the final project, although it does include some pictures. If you want to see a showcase of the software, the original author has made a great video showcasing it that is worth checking out: YouTube videoBlogpost for those who prefer reading. Instead, this post is more a discussion of my experience developing a device.

Initial Planning

The goal of this project was to create a dedicated audio player, to separate that capability from my phone. The main source of audio will be streaming Spotify, not local files. Although unfamiliar with them, I felt that a Raspberry Pi was a good baseline device. For audio, I had an old USB DAC/amp that I wanted to repurpose. Using this DAC/amp would allow for some of my harder to drive headphones to work, as well as just getting cleaner audio. Then, I was planning on just using an eInk touchscreen. The rationale for eInk was so that it would feel different than my phone, and just feel like it was intended for music instead of scrolling. The logic was if I put a regular LCD screen on, it would not differ from a smartphone, and therefore I might as well just connect my DAC to my phone and use that. For software, the plan was to just use either Android or some lightweight linux distro. The initial plan for batteries was to just use rechargeable AA batteries, so that I can easily swap them out. One major reason I wanted to go with the DIY route was for repairability, especially with batteries. If I got an existing Digital Audio Player (DAP) on the market, I knew that the Li-Ion battery would eventually go bad, and existing devices on the market may not be easily repairable.

Hardware Sourcing

My hardware approach was to buy one component at a time. That way, if I ran into an issue with the feasibility of the approach, I could pivot without having wasted money on all the components ahead of time. This approach did slow down development as I was frequently waiting on hardware, but was more fiscally responsible. In January I got a Raspberry Pi 3a+, and played around briefly with some different operating systems. The next part that was needed was to source the screen.

Initial Plan for eInk

The original goal was to try and get a touch eInk screen, roughly 5” for a reasonable price. I spent a few weeks trying different places to try and find one, but could not find one. Since I could not find one I started thinking about pivoting to an LCD screen. With this pivot, I started defining goals of the project more. If I were to just use an LCD touchscreen potentially running Android, what makes it different from using my phone? I spent a few weeks trying to define the goals of the project, and was not able to come up with satisfactory answers if I went with an LCD screen.

Clickwheel design pivot

In the process of trying to figure out my approach, I stumbled across this YouTube video. I felt like this would be a good starting point. It seemed to solve the issue of it not being another Android device, which was my main problem I was trying to solve. However there were a few parts of the implementation that I did not like:

• It relied on using old used Apple hardware. This works for now, but over time it would become harder to source replacement parts.
• I did not already have the hardware, so I would have to buy an old used iPod and strip it for parts
• It was a bluetooth implementation, so I would have to figure out how to fit my DAC into an old iPod, which seemed unrealistic
• The battery while replaceable, was a non-descript battery so getting a new replacement with the same form factor would be harder.

Luckily, for the clickwheel, someone on the weekly programming project on Tildes pointed out this new clickwheel. Since that seemed to be a reasonable approach I ordered one and also got a small LCD screen from Amazon. Unfortunately, the screen used up all the GPIO pins and had non-existent documentation or drivers. I was unable to get the screen to work, so I returned it and ordered a Waveshare 2” LCD. I was intentional on finding one that could be a regular display without using too many GPIO pins. The Waveshare screen had significantly better documentation, and with a bit of work I was able to get it working. With that solved, I started wiring in the clickwheel, and creating basic code to detect basic inputs, which I then used to modify the original code for the Spotify player to handle my clickwheel (see below for comments on code modification). Once I had the screen and clickwheel, I could also develop the software while waiting for parts. Image showing the early iteration of the device

The last main part I had to solve was batteries. Another helpful comment on the weekly programming thread on Tildes told me about 14500 and 18650 batteries. I sourced a 14500 charger and some 14500 cells from Amazon. I had some issues with the first charger I got, and since they were shipping directly from China, it meant the second one would take another few weeks. Picture of using the 14500 battery. The cells I sourced said they were 2500 mAh. I tried one out, and had playtime of about 30mins, not enough to even listen to a full album on a single charge, which is inadequate. I used a portable battery bank rated at 10000 mAh to set a benchmark, and that lasted significantly longer (I was probably around 50% after about five hours or so of playback). This indicated that the 14500 cell was falsely claiming capacity, which is apparently a common issue on Amazon. It also seemed like 14500s rarely have capacity above 700mAh, so I realized that a 14500 would not work. So I decided to upgrade to an 18650 cell, which I could source the actual battery locally from a reputable vendor, with a capacity of 3400mAh. Since I realized that small hobbyist electronics like this on Amazon were shipping directly from China, I started ordering from AliExpress for the charger, which saved me some money for the same part (and even picked up a spare just in case). Picture of me using the 18650 to listen to music on my balcony during the summer. Since I did not need the extra power of the RPi 3a+, and the battery was taking more space, I ordered a RPi Zero 2w+. I also ordered some micro USB ends to solder to to make internal cabling, as well as a USB-C port to use for charging. By May I had all the hardware parts I needed, and all that was left for hardware was to design a case to 3D print, which is detailed below.

Software Development

The first thing I tested was installing Raspotify which this project used, and set it up with my DAC. Since that worked, I started to program the clickwheel using GPIO pins. I had never used a RPi before, but found some easy tutorials on programming the buttons of my clickwheel in Python. Once the buttons were programmed, I had to figure out the rotary encoder, but was able to find a Github repo that had a working Python code to process the inputs. I was able to add that, and created a Python class that would handle all the inputs of my clickwheel. Once that was coded, I just had to incorporate that into the code for the Spotify player frontend. I forked the repo, and was greeted with at the top of the main file this comment:

# This code is a mess.
# This is me learning Python as I go.
# This is not how I write code for my day job.”

This was not an encouraging comment to read, as at the start my Python skills were relatively low. I was able to quickly find where the inputs from the clickwheel were being handled. The original code had clickwheel inputs being handled in a separate C program and then communicating to the Spotify frontend via sockets. Since my clickwheel code was handled via a Python class I was able to simplify it, and not require sockets to be used. With that working, I just had to set up all the required steps to get the project working. Unfortunately, the documentation for deployment was extremely lacking. I was able to find a Github issues post that provided instructions so was able to get it all set up. I was able to get to this phase by the end of March.

Once I had it all working, I could start on expanding the software to fit my use case as well as start working on any bugs I encounter. I felt a good starting point in handling this was to start addressing the issue of “this code is a mess.” Cleaning up the code would be a good way to gain familiarity with the code as well as make it easier for me to address any bugs or future enhancements. I started work on creating a class diagram, but it was really tedious to do it from scratch with such a large codebase, so I deserted that plan quickly. I am thinking of creating some sequence diagrams from some features I implemented recently, which would help in general documentation to refer back to in the future. I did find some classes that would make more sense in separate files, so did do that. I also started adding in new features as well. The first was to implement a “hold switch” which turns off the screen and disables the clickwheel input. Before, the screen would be on a 60sec timer to turn off, but I felt that sometimes I would want to have the screen stay on (like if I am just sitting in a chair listening to music). This was a relatively easy feature to implement. One bug that kept on appearing is that the screen would frequently freeze on me, normally about 60sec into a song, but would update once the next song started playing. I spent several weeks tracking down this issue, thinking it was software related, as the screen used to timeout after 60sec. I also thought it might be a configuration of my OS, so did some debugging there as well. Finally, I plugged in my main desktop monitor, and realized when the small 2” screen would freeze, my desktop monitor would not. This lead me down to investigating the driver for my screen. I found an issue with someone having similar issues with the original driver that Waveshare forked. I then realized that there was a setting that the screen would stop updating if less than 5% of the pixels were changing. Once I changed that in the config file, the screen freezing issue stopped. I was able to solve this major issue by late July.

The last major feature I have implemented is to create the ability to add new WiFi networks from the app itself. This was a needed feature if I wanted to bring it anywhere outside of my home, since 3rd Party Spotify apps cannot download music. Luckily, there was a search feature, which gave me a baseline for text input using the clickwheel. I was able to create a basic page that prompts for the input of a SSID and the password, and then adds that to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and then restarts the wireless interface. I added this feature into the overall settings page I added, which also included other useful dev options, like doing a git pull for me to avoid having to SSH into the Rpi to do it. The settings page features were a part of my project for TiMaSoMo.

Case Design

I started work on the case in late May roughly. The plan was that I was going to design the case and have my friend who owns a 3D printer print out my design for me. To continue with the project goal of repairability, I wanted to avoid using glue for the case. Instead, I wanted to use heated inserts to hold all the components. I had not used any 3D modeling or CAD software before, so it was a learning experience. I settled on using FreeCAD, which I was able to learn the basics of what I needed relatively quickly. I started with a basic case design for a prototype, to help plan out how I would lay things out. On my computer screen, having the device be 40mm thick sounded fine, but after receiving the prototype I realized I would need to be aggressive in thinning out the design. However, this protoype in early June was very helpful in getting a better understanding of how I needed to design it. Case prototype pictures.

The first iteration I was able to get down to 27mm, which was a significant improvement. I received this iteration in mid July. However, there were parts that did not fit properly. Most of the mounting holes were not aligned properly. However, the bigger issue was that at 27mm the device would not be thick enough to hold the DAC and screen stacked on top of each other. This iteration still had the DAC keep the original metal housing, so that I could easily remove it and use it as originally intended if I did not want to continue using my audio player. First case iteration pictures.

The second iteration I decided to remove the metal housing of the DAC, which freed up a lot of internal space, with the main limiting factor of thickness being the 18650 battery. So I kept the thickness around 27mm, but had more internal space. Removing the metal case of the DAC was relatively straightforward, except figuring out how to secure it to the print. Luckily, there were two roughly 2.5mm holes in the PCB, that I was able to use to secure it. I also started to do a more complex design, since I was getting more experienced with FreeCAD. I also moved the RPi to the top of the case, so that the two parts of the case could easily separate, with only micro USB connectors being used between the parts in the top and bottom part of the case(Picture of third iteration showing this feature). For anyone who has had to repair electronics that did not fully separate due to ribbon cables (laptops are the worst for this it seems), you understand the quality of life improvement of having the two parts easily separate. I got this iteration of the case in early September, and found a few issues of parts conflicting. However, with the use of a dremel, I was able to modify it to get it to roughly fit (although janky in some parts).In this picture you can see the power switch, which I had to modify to sit outside the case. I wanted to fully assemble it, so that I could start using it and figure out where it needs to improve. The biggest issue aside from conflicting parts was that the top of the case was bulging, so I wanted to add another point of connection to prevent it. This bulge was partly caused by the screen cutout causing a weak point in the top of the case. Second case iteration pictures.

The third iteration was part of my TiMaSoMo project. This was a relatively simple minor tweaks, as well as fix some minor pain points of the previous iteration. I reinforced the top significantly to prevent bending, as well as add a fifth point to secure it. I also added a recess to make accessing the switches for power and hold easier to use (although I think I messed up the hold switch one). Overall, this print worked well, and there is currently no plans for a fourth iteration. Fourth iteration pictures.

Here is all four cases compared side by side

What I learned

The first lesson I had to learn was how to define project goals. Not being able to source an eInk screen had caused me to pivot, and in doing so I had to reflect on what truly mattered for my project. I knew that DAPs existed, so why build my own rather than buy one? Most DAPs on the market seem to be Android devices where they removed the phone functionality and added in quality audio components. Part of a dedicated audio device was to not have my phone be the everything device that they are, but a second Android device with an LCD screen and better audio components is not the solution. Luckily, I encountered the clickwheel based approach, which did solve that issue (and probably better than an eInk would have). Also, I wanted the device to be easily repairable. Li-Ion batteries go bad, which was another major concern for me with the current options of DAPs. Repairability was something that mattered to me, but I had to embrace what that meant for the form factor. If I went with a non-descript Li-Ion pillow battery, I could probably significantly reduce the size. Understanding that I wanted to avoid just being another Android device and have repairability and replaceable parts as the defining features were useful to keep in mind. That approach did result in compromise though, primarily in physical size at the end.

The second big thing I learned was just the process of sourcing parts for a project like this. The closest project to this that I have done in the past is create a DIY cable tester. That simply just involved some switches, resistors, LEDs, and some AA batteries that I could all source locally. So having to buy more complex electronics where the documentation mattered was a learning curve for me. Luckily, early on I was ordering from Amazon, where returns were relatively easy. The problem with Amazon though was false advertising for batteries and some components were shipping directly from China. So, switching to AliExpress saved me money without adding any additional in shipping.

Learning 3D modelling and getting stuff 3D printed was also a huge learning curve for me. I am glad that I got a very rough prototype printed early on in the process. In designing the prototype, I just was not concerned about saving space. However, once the prototype was printed and off my screen and into my hand, I realized how aggressive I needed to be in compacting things. The other thing with using FreeCAD is I learned too late in the process about part hierarchies, and I still do not fully understand them. Not using part hierarchies properly led me to have to do a redesign on each iteration, as moving mounting holes over a few mm would shift every part added after it. Luckily, my designs were relatively simple, but having hierarchies handled properly would have helped me iterate quicker. On top of getting prototypes in hand quickly, using imperfect prints and just adjusting the parts that didn’t work with with a dremel was useful. If I didn’t do that with the second iteration, I would not have dealt with the issue that the top of the case would bend out over time. Spending time using the imperfect device helped me figure out the issues to make the next iteration better.

Future Goals

The first goal I will add in future expansion is to add better documentation and create a better development workflow. Right now, my process includes pushing any changes I do (luckily I am using Github branches now), then pulling the updated repo and starting it on my Pi. However, I never test if it compiles properly before pushing, so I end up sometimes doing five pushes in ten minutes, playing whackamole with compilation errors. Being able to run a dev version on my desktop with keyboard emulation for inputs would be beneficial.

Another big issue that I want to solve is that I need to clean up the audio on lower resistance headphones like my IEMs. There appears to be some electrical noise, that only sensitive devices like IEMs detect. The solution I am currently considering is to add in a capacitor on the voltage rail between the Pi and the DAC to hopefully get cleaner power.

Another issue is that I currently have no indicator of battery life. Since it is an 18650 Li-Ion battery, I should be able to just detect the gradual decrease in voltage, and calculate battery percentage. However, GPIO pins appear to be unable to do that natively, so I may have to add in a small controller board to do it. I have not looked too much into this.

There are a few UI/UX decisions that do not match my preferred way of listening to music. So over time I plan on gradually tweaking the UI/UX to match what I want it to be. A prime example of this would be that when I select an artist, I want it to present a list of their albums, instead of playing their most popular songs.

I want to be able to use Spotify Lossless, since that has rolled out near the end of this project. Unfortunately, it seems that currently it will not be supported. Seems like Librespot (which is the basis for Raspotify) does not currently have a solution that does not involve working around Spotify’s DRM.

Conclusion

Overall, I am really glad I took on this project. It took a long time for me to get it to a finished state. However, the experience has been really fun, and I have learned some new skills. Also, having a dedicated device that all it does is stream Spotify is really nice. I always found myself whenever I was listening to music ending up scrolling on my phone for a bit more stimulation, and then realized I have not been paying attention for the past couple of songs. Having a device where all I do is just listen to music and leave my phone behind has been nice. Also, modifying the code to fit my preferred use case has been nice. There are points where I realize I do not like how something is laid out, but then I have agency to change the layout. Here are some pictures of the final device.

If you want to build the device yourself, I will warn you that it has some rough edges. Also, the DAC/amp is discontinued, so sourcing that to fit inside the case would be tricky. However, my Github repo has all hardware listed, the code needed, and easy to follow software deployment instructions.

A simple question. I know LLMs are currently not a replacement for authors. Will that remain true in 5 to 10 years?

EDIT: No. I never expected to earn a living either mostly or exclusively by selling books. There are however many "side gigs" in my country that can greatly benefit from being published by a real company. Ultimately though, I'm not in it primarily for the money. But I wonder what the future holds for fiction as a whole.

This is really just a follow-up update to my old post, Did NPR just shut down support for RSS?, but that post is a week old and I wanted to make sure this update gets eyes on it.

I heard back from NPR this morning, and they indicated that this was not a policy decision, but an issue that they have now fixed. NPR RSS links once again work outside of the US/Canada.

Passingly curious how this kind of thing happens accidentally ... any informed guesses? My best guess is that they intentionally geoblocked something else, and it accidentally got extended to the RSS.

I'm looking for a USB hub that:

• Has at least 4 usb ports
• The USB ports are all along the same edge of the device. (For easy access even when the hub is behind my monitor)
• Can be bus-powered (i.e. doesn't need to be plugged into an outlet)
• Has a detachable cable for the connection from the hub to my computer

It'd also be nice if it:

• Was USB 3.0
• Cost less than $50 USD
• Had a mix of USB-A and USB-C
• Didn't look ugly

I've spent a couple hours looking, and the only hub I've found that hits my hard requirements the 4 port and 7 port variants of a hub from StarTech.com . I was curious if anyone was aware of anything better in this price range, before I just pull the trigger.

I stay current on tech for both personal and professional reasons but I also really hate hype. As a result I've been skeptical of AI claims throughout the historic hype cycle we're currently in. Note that I'm using AI here as shorthand for frontier LLMs.

So I'm sort of a late adopter when it comes to LLMs. At each new generation of models I've spent enough time playing with them to feel like I understand where the technology is and can speak about its viability for different applications. But I haven't really incorporated it into my own work/life in any serious way.

That changed recently when I decided to lean all the way in to agent assisted coding for a project after getting some impressive boilerplate out of one of the leading models (I don't remember which one). That AI can do a competent job on basic coding tasks like writing boilerplate code is nothing new, and that wasn't the part that impressed me. What impressed me was the process, especially the degree to which it modified its behavior in practical ways based on feedback. In previous tests it was a lot harder to get the model to go against patterns that featured heavily in the training data, and then get it to stay true to the new patterns for the rest of the session. That's not true anymore.

Long story short, add me to the long list of people whose minds have been blown by coding agents. You can find plenty of articles and posts about what that process looks like so I won't rehash all the details. I'll only say that the comparisons to having your own dedicated junior or intern who is at once highly educated and dumb are apt. Maybe an even better comparison would be to having a team of tireless, emotionless, junior developers willing to respond to your requests at warp speed 24/7 for the price of 1/100th of one developer. You need the team comparison to capture the speed.

You've probably read, or experienced, that AI is good at basic tasks, boilerplate, writing tests, finding bugs and so on. And that it gets progressively worse as things get more complicated and the LoCs start to stack up. That's all true but one part that has changed, in more recent models, is the definition of "basic".

The bit that's difficult to articulate, and I think leads to the "having a nearly free assistant" comparisons, is what it feels like to have AI as a coding companion. I'm not going to try to capture it here, I'll just say it's remarkable.

The usual caveats apply, if you rely on agents to do extensive coding, or handle complex problems, you'll end up regretting it unless you go over every line with a magnifying glass. They will cheerfully introduce subtle bugs that are hard to catch and harder to fix when you finally do stumble across them. And that's assuming they can do the thing you're asking then to do at all. Beyond the basics they still abjectly fail a lot of the time. They'll write humorously bad code, they'll break unrelated code for no apparent reason, they'll freak out and get stuck in loops (that one suprised me in 2025). We're still a long way from agents that can actually write software on their own, despite the hype.

But wow, it's liberating to have an assistant that can do 100's of basic tasks you'd rather not be distracted by, answer questions accurately and knowledgeably, scan and report clearly about code, find bugs you might have missed and otherwise soften the edges of countless engineering pain points. And brainstorming! A pseudo-intelligent partner with an incomprehensibly wide knowledge base and unparalled pattern matching abilities is guaranteed to surface things you wouldn't have considered.

AI coding agents are no joke.

I still agree with the perspectives of many skeptics. Execs and middle managers are still out of their minds when they convince themselves that they can fire 90% of their teams and just have a few seniors do all the work with AI. I will read gleefully about the failures of that strategy over the coming months and years. The failure of their short sightedness and the cost to their organizations won't make up for the human cost of their decisions, but at least there will be consequences.

When it comes to AI in general I have all the mixed feelings. As an artist, I feel the weight of what AI is doing, and will do, to creative work. As a human I'm concerned about AI becoming another tool to funnel ever more wealth to the top. I'm concerned about it ruining the livelihoods of huge swaths of people living in places where there aren't systems that can handle the load of taking care of them. Or aren't even really designed to try. There are a lot of legitimate dystopian outcomes to be worried about.

Despite all that, actually using the technology is pretty exciting, which is the ultimate point of this post: What's your experience? Are you using agents for coding in practical ways? What works and what doesn't? What's your setup? What does it feel like? What do you love/hate about it?

I didn't watch the whole video and I'm not familiar with the channel so I don't want to make this a link post, but here's the source: The Lunduke Journal

I watched up to the point where the author explains how Microsoft tends to turn on all the privacy invading settings every time they push an update (not surprising). I guess if I had to use Microsoft products, I'd try to disable automatic updates and just do them twice a year in one go, while also turning off the settings I want off. Would it be practically feasible? I don't know. Having to go to those lengths to use some software just seems ridiculous.

I'm getting a little bit worried these days about the tracking features in chrome and was looking into Zen Browser. Does anyone here use it? Any thoughts?
Also looking for any simple non tracking browser alternatives!

I'd say that on Tildes as on other platforms, you see a lot more posts responding to a topic than you see comments on existing posts.

I get it. Responding to a prompt with a thoughtful, top-level comment is expressive, can often be therapeutic and comes with the bonus of possible comments by others on your entry.

Comments on existing thoughts are less sexy and possibly less fulfilling because you're riffing off of another person's idea, but as a reader and a community member, seeing user to user interaction is the best part of a social network.

I'm a perennial commenter - at best because I love conversation, at worst, with the hope that I can digress from the mainline conversation.

Where do you fall?

*Edit: I've just learned the difference in terminology between a top level comment and a comment. Edited to avoid confusion.

I had an interesting experience this week. Not all union meetings are interesting, even if they are useful. Yesterday was a pleasant exception where it was both useful and interesting. For the first time, I witnessed AI coming up as a topic of conversation. There is no secret that people fear losing their jobs due to AI automation, and sure enough I saw proof of it to the extent that the union may consider adding some clauses around protecting jobs from AI.

How is it at your workplace? Where I work, this year I witnessed a very strong push to use AI. Messaging around using AI at town halls, messaging around using AI in team meetings, articles on the intranet site, IT events around how to craft good prompts, etc. I would not be surprised if they tied some leaders' bonuses to how much they can get their teams to use AI. This part is quite annoying to me, not to mention deceitful. If I were a leader I'd straight up tell my team about it. I am not a leader - leaders are not part of the union to begin with.

The whole thing made me also think about how my colleagues use AI. It really is a mixed bag. I see everything from the person who runs a 2-line email through AI five times to finetune every word, to myself who only reach for AI when I am stuck and it's just much faster than a search engine/forums/videos to solve my issues (for example needing a script in a programming language I am not familiar with).

I was trying to find out why Lidarr wasn't matching my copy of The Cure's Greatest Hits. Found out I've got some bootleg Russian release that's catalogued on discogs (I eventually found the musicbrainz release and updated my profile to include bootlegs). So I search "Lidarr use specific discogs release" and the duck duck go search assist spat out some text about Lidarr not using discogs and cited this Tildes post.

It's curious because that post is 3yrs old and doesn't talk about discogs integration in Lidarr, just one mention of discogs in the post and some folks talking about Lidarr in the comments (It did cite a relevant GitHub issue about it though). The AI response mentioned that some users track new releases with Lidarr and downloads disabled, while covered in the post, it seems fairly tangential to my query.

I'm curious why it decided to check or cite a tildes post. No tildes posts came up in the first couple pages of search results. I use tildes from the same location, though on my phone where this query was on my desktop, and have done a couple DDG queries using "site:tildes.net" on my phone.

Has anyone else seen a search assist cite an unexpected site? Not unexpected as in irrelevant, that's all too common, but small and specific sources.

I have a Starlabs Labtop in great shape that I would like to sell. Problem is, I can't garner much interest on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. Are there any computer Buy/Sell sites in Canada such as Pinkbike.com for used bicycles?

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw

My current phone is about 6 years old and has a lot of signal problems and I replaced the battery about 6 months ago and the new battery is even worse than the original one was and I think it's time to get a new phone.

Things I want in my phone:

• Android
• I would love to have a microSD card but that seems impossible
  • if there's not microSD then I need min 512GB of internal storage and I would prefer 1TB if that's not like +1k to the cost
• Headphone jack
• If there's AI, then I can disable it
• Excellent battery life
• On the smaller end

Things I don't really care about:

• Camera quality (I'm a shitty photographer, the camera wont help)

Things that might be nice:

• Having a stylus but not at the cost of the phone being enormous. Reason I want this is because it gets cold in the winter in Chicago

I hope this phone lasts another 6 years and will be pissed if it lasts under 4 years; at that lifespan and amount of use I get out of it I'm pretty price-agnostic. I live in the USA but expect to travel to Europe a few times next year so it should do decently well when traveling. Network is T-Mobile.

This is not SUPER urgent right now so if your advice is "wait til January because the XYZ phone releasing then is probably better than anything available right now" I would be willing to do that. But my current phone is really not doing great.

Happy to answer any other followup questions if anyone has any!

Thanks!