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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "ask.survey". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. AI IT project management

      Im part of the EPMO of a healthcare system. We just got licenses and an intro to co-pilot for teams, word, excel , PowerPoint. I swear this AI will tell you all the questions asked during a...

      Im part of the EPMO of a healthcare system. We just got licenses and an intro to co-pilot for teams, word, excel , PowerPoint.

      I swear this AI will tell you all the questions asked during a meeting. If you join a meeting late you can ask it to recap the meeting thus far. Did you get a sales presentation from a vendor you need to recap and present to stakeholders. Ask co pilot to create a pdf from the documentation the vendor provided.

      AI is making my job so much easier but at the same time I kinda feel like I’m training my replacement.

      Are you using AI at your job, how are you using it and how do you feel about it use in the workplace and if it will one day replace you?

      10 votes
    2. An opinion on current technological trends

      For a while now I am personally completely dissatisfied with the direction the (mainstream)technology is taking. Almost universally the theme is simplification on end user facing side. That by...

      For a while now I am personally completely dissatisfied with the direction the (mainstream)technology is taking.

      Almost universally the theme is simplification on end user facing side. That by itself would not be so bad but products that go this route currently universally include loss of control of the user including things I would not have believed would be accepted just a decade or so ago. Forced telemetry(aka spying on user habits), forced updates(aka forcefully changing functionality without consent of the user), loss of information - simplification of error messages to absolute uselessness, loss of customization options or their removal to parts that are impossible to find unless you know about them already, nagware and bloatware and ads forcefully included in base os install. And that is simply the desktop/laptop environment.The mobile one is truly insane and anything other "smart" is simply closed sw and hw not regarding user agency at all.

      Personally I consider the current iteration of "just works" approach flawed, problems will inevitably arise. Withholding basic information and tools simply means that the end user does not know what happened and is dependent on support for trivialities. I also consider various hmmm, oops and such error messages degrading and helping to cultivate a culture of technological helplessness.

      To be honest I believe the option most people(generally) end up taking of disinterest in even the superficial basics of technology is an objectively bad one. Computing is one of the most complex and advanced technologies we have but the user facing side even in systems such as Linux or Windows 7 and older is simple to understand and use effectively with minimal effort. I do not believe most people are incapable of acquiring enough proficiency to for example install an os or take a reasonable guess at what a sane error message means or even understand the basics of using a terminal, they simply choose to not bother. But we live and will continue to live in a technological world and some universal technological literacy is needed to prevent loss of options and loss of agency of the end user. The changes introduced in mainstream sw are on a very clear trajectory that will not change by itself.

      I have this vision of a future where the end user interacts solely with curated LLM systems without the least understanding of what is happening, why it is happening or who makes it happen. The blackbox nature of such systems then introducing subtle biases that were not caught in brute force patches over the systems or simply not caught, perpetuating who knows what. Unfortunately I do not think it is sufficiently unlikely by the current trends.

      Up to a point I get not wanting to deal with problems with technology but instead roadblocks are introduced that are as annoying to get through with the difference that they will not stay fixed. Technology is directing massive portion of our lives, choosing to not make an effort to understand the absolute surface of it is I think not a sound decision and creates a culture where it is possible to introduce disempowering changes en masse.

      So far this has been a rant honestly and perhaps I just needed to vent but I am actually interested in the thoughts of the community on this broad topic.

      37 votes
    3. Getting tired of Firefox

      Am I the only one? They've made some serious improvements and I generally enjoy using Firefox but I occasionally run into issues that just shows complete disregard for end users. Assuming, of...

      Am I the only one?

      They've made some serious improvements and I generally enjoy using Firefox but I occasionally run into issues that just shows complete disregard for end users. Assuming, of course, my issues are not isolated.

      Every month or so, when Firefox updates, it completely resets itself. This doesn't happen with every update, but Mozilla pushes an update that breaks the functionality of my browser. My browser settings, my userChrome profile, my extensions and their settings, and my bookmarks are all gone. Everything.

      I do have sync but that doesn't work properly either. It only syncs some of my settings (which actually makes it harder for me to figure out what's enabled/disabled) and while I do get my bookmarks (none of which have their favicons), the extensions that manage to sync (meaning the ones that were installed from the store) don't sync their settings unless they have cloud support.

      I do not understand this. Why do I, as an end user who care about Mozilla's mission, have to deal with this? I'd overlooked many of Firefox's shortcomings in the past, but when the browser works, it works well. I have some issues, but browsers are complicated and running into issues are to be expected. I understand that, but I simply cannot understand how eager they are to break the end user's workflow. Isn't it supposed to be a cardinal sin for every software company, especially the ones trying to survive, to not do this?

      I just spent roughly half an hour of my day to get my browser back to its previous state. Adding the times I had had to deal with this issue before, I've spent hours on dealing with Firefox that I shouldn't have. I don't think I have another half an hour to spare for it and I don't want to anymore, but is there even an alternative for Windows that suck less?

      (Apologies for the rant, but I needed to vent and perhaps get a discussion going about the current state of browsers.)

      29 votes
    4. What is your favorite project that you worked on when first learning to code?

      I went to university for computer science up until the pandemic started. It was great. I remember working on so many projects that were basic but a lot of fun and others that were a lot more...

      I went to university for computer science up until the pandemic started. It was great. I remember working on so many projects that were basic but a lot of fun and others that were a lot more complex but still fun and rewarding. For example, one of the staples of beginner projects is Conway's Game of Life. I remember building that in HTML, CSS, and Java Script. One of my other favorite projects was a website for alum to visit to see alumni news and events, and also to lookup other alum.

      What were your favorite projects when learning to code?

      10 votes
    5. Does anyone else have posting anxiety?

      To preface, I have accounts on multiple link aggregators, three microblogging platforms, and I have my own (transiently online) blog. I'm a member of more niche Discord servers than I can count,...

      To preface, I have accounts on multiple link aggregators, three microblogging platforms, and I have my own (transiently online) blog. I'm a member of more niche Discord servers than I can count, and I'm in a few other nooks where people generally seem to gather and talk. Despite all that, I find that it's incredibly rare that I ever actually participate in any of the discussions that I see taking place, and that's something that I think I'd like to change.

      I think part of the problem is that I grew up in the formative years of the "modern" net, and was always taught that you should be careful about what you say online (and, implicitly, that saying nothing is probably even better), lest an axe murderer track you down and explodify your tibia while you sleep.

      So, does anyone else, or have stories about, posting anxiety? Anyone gotten over it? Am I just crazy?

      81 votes
    6. RSS users - how do you use, organize and maximize your enjoyment of RSS?

      It's not something I've thought about much until I had a conversation with someone who sets up their RSS reader, and uses it, completely differently to me. I self-host FreshRSS, and typically just...

      It's not something I've thought about much until I had a conversation with someone who sets up their RSS reader, and uses it, completely differently to me.

      I self-host FreshRSS, and typically just use the Web UI provided by that - sometimes I use Android RSS apps to consume from that, but I've never found one I like that much. But I just categorize my RSS feeds by broad theme, e.g. computing & tech, local news, programming, tech news, gaming, business and so on...

      For the most part, I just browse through my main feed a few times per day and see if anything catches my eye. The only exception to this is that I have a few feeds in the 'Important' feed. One example is the forum related to a university project, where I need to know about entries pretty quickly.

      The person I was discussing with never subscribes to anything noisy. No BBC, no Ars Technica, and really nothing that posts more than once per day. They split their feeds into "Important", "Casual", "Videos", "Podcasts" (I never thought to add Podcasts, as I use a separate map) and "Comics". They have it set up with the intention of reading everything that comes through.

      I respect the curation effort that it must take to have an RSS feed where everything is interesting enough that you'd want to read it all. But for me, RSS is a method of discovering content. I don't need it too clean or overly curated. For the most part, I'm just going to skim it for interesting titles and subjects. The most curation I do is removing feeds after a while, if I notice I'm never interested in their content.

      I'm very keen to hear how you use RSS.

      46 votes
    7. Word processing like it's 1993

      I thought younger people may find it interesting to experience what older, very popular, word processors were like. Here's WordPerfect 6.0, emulated in the browser:...

      I thought younger people may find it interesting to experience what older, very popular, word processors were like.

      Here's WordPerfect 6.0, emulated in the browser: https://archive.org/details/msdos_wordperfect6

      Here's a link to the instruction manual: https://archive.org/details/wordperfectversi00word/mode/2up

      Here's a bit of history: DOSDays - WordPerfect $495 in 1983 is roughly $1500 today.

      Here's the recommended specs (not the minimum specs)

      Personal computer using 386 processor
      520k free conventional memory
      DOS 6.0 or memory management software
      Hard disk with 16M disk space for complete installation
      VGA graphics adapter and monitor

      F1 is the default help key.

      Page 409 of the manual talks about menus. This is version 6 so they give you a drop down menu. To get an idea of how version 5 and earlier would appear by default (without the menubar, just the blue screen), hit alt v, then p. T (To get the menu back hit alt =, then V, then P) People might find it weird but those drop down menus first appeared in 5.1, and were a bit deal: "On 6th November 1989 WordPerfect released what would be their most successful version - WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, selling for $495 in the U.S. This was the first version to support Macintosh-style text-based pull down menus to supplement the traditional function key shortcuts and mouse support."

      I'd be interested to know how easy people find it to use. At the time I had the keyboard overlay (example for WP5) and the muscle memory, but that's all gone now.

      53 votes
    8. How to avoid making other people angry on the internet

      I have, at times, experienced that opinions I share online fails to win people over, to the extent that the essence of the thread transforms from that of an exchange of ideas into that of a...

      I have, at times, experienced that opinions I share online fails to win people over, to the extent that the essence of the thread transforms from that of an exchange of ideas into that of a shitstorm.

      Curiously, this is seldom caused by me having controversial views. I’m not especially hateful, and I don’t hold any conservative core ideas, such as advocating for an even less equal society or attacking or belittling various minority groups. If it were just that, then there would be no mystery; my views horrible, and for that reason, they provoke a strong reaction. But despite this not being the case, my views, which are truly very civilised and boring indeed, are sometimes intepreted in interesting ways.

      I think the issue is me not expressing myself as well as I could. Assuming this to be the case, what follow is my own notes on how to better get your (mine) ideas across without misunderstandings.

      Beware of the shortcoming of contemporary writing

      Most of todays readers do not read. Rather, they impatiently give the text a quick glimpse, their brain already craving the next bit of novelty. I've noticed this in myself when I impatiently select random random test when trying to get my brain to read a text online. What's more, those who write has begin taking into account that their audience does not read. This has spawned a peculiar writing style which, for the first time in history(?), is designed not to actually be read, but merely glimpsed through.

      It mostly consist of short paragraphs.

      Often just a single sentence.

      Sometimes two sentences. Maybe three. Four sentences are considered the max.

      To help readers easier skim through it.

      Read more: How can you write web content that people can skim?

      If actually read, it has a staccato-like feel.

      Almost like free verse poetry.

      There are other characteristica too.

      • Scattering links throughout.
      • Inserting “Read more about“ references to other articles.
      • Inserting list such as this one.
      • Adding heaps of headlines.

      I guess pretty much everyone have seen this particular style, and, to some degree, adapted it themselves. So there is a tendency to naturally try to boil everything down to a single, ultra-short paragraph. However, human language is not computer code; trying to destill a deeper set of ideas down to a Xwitter-length sentence will inevitably cause its fragile essence to be lost in translation. There is a reason why books are the length of, well, books, and not just the SparkNotes summary thereoff.

      To build upon this idea, note that most dog-whistles comes in the form of a single, short sentence, as the shortness, unlike computer code, make it vague, opening it up for multiple interpretations. Indeed, some dog whistles doesn’t contain any words at all, but consists of a single emoji, such as “milk” or “the OK sign”.

      If you write about more elusive fluffy ideas, ideas where your angle runs the risk of being read the wrong way, your writing has to go all the way, fully exposing your point with absolute clarity. You have to show it from every angle to make your vision travel through the written words and into the mind of the reader.

      Sleep on it

      If you aren’t sure you got everything right, no rush. You can always wait a bit, and go over it later.

      Don’t accidently target other users

      Lets say that someone posts the notorious recipe “Chicken and ham extravaganta”, and say that they don’t think society should go vegan because a balanced diet is better than a green one. You just happen to have a bunch of replies to that. For one thing, flesh food is not traditionally balanced, but centered around the meat, with everything else being mere decoration. Also, there are lots of protein sources other than meat. But most importantly, the vegan movement is not about what is the most healthy diet, but about it being morally wrong to kill a sentient creature just to eat its meat.

      But this is a general argument about veganism. If you write it as a reply to someone recomendinging a “Chicken and ham extravaganta”, you’re essentially calling them a bad person.

      So don’t reply. If you want to push your point, at least wait a bit and then create a new post, so you don’t target a specific user.

      Don’t drink and post

      Nope. Just don’t.

      Avoid provocateur headlines

      I might have given this post the headline “How to speak honestly without being banned for misogyny, racism, transphobia, and fascism”, or maybe “I was banned and censored on tilde.net. Here’s my conclusions.” Headlines which are undeniably more juicy, more clickbaity, if you will. You can almost smell the raising adrenaline. Controversy! Read all about it!

      To me, this is hard to resist, because I really love the aethetic of blatant, vulgar marketing. But it also tends to backfire more often than not.

      Also, even if the actual content of my post is okay, people who have experienced racism or transphobia might not be super thrilled about me playing around with racism and transphobia in my headline. Saying something “jokingly” is still saying it.

      As an aside, me being temporary banned and having my posts deleted was what inspired me to write this post. I don’t have anything much to say about this itself, other than I would have liked it if removed post had a line about the reason for removal, and I would also note that, if you get banned, the red text bleed into be backgrund in a way which is aestetically displeasing.

      Diversity reading

      You might try mentally test reading your post from the perspective of groups which play a role in the content of your post. After all, if you talk about someone, you should be able to say it to their face. Also, it is entirely possible that your post will be read by those you talk about.

      Take the rules for being a good listener, then invert them

      Listening is a skill which most people haven’t learned. So when you speak your mind, it is worth taking precautions for the likely scenario that your readers will not follow the rules for the optimal listener. So let’s try inverting the rules:

      When listening to others, always give their view the most generous intepretation —> If your words can be interpreted as ignorant, biggoted, or fashy, they will be, always.

      Truly listen to others and try to understand them before giving your answer —> Assume that people will skim through your post.

      I want to point out that (in bold and uppercase just for the heck of it) I DON’T SAY THIS TO WHINE ABOUT BAD PEOPLE READING MY POSTS UNFAIRLY. Nope, absolute nope. My point is the exact opposite; I have a deeply held belief that any writer or author who is “misunderstood” could have avoided it by writing better. The writer should be expected to know his audience and know how to write in circles around any potential misintepretation.

      Got that? Ok. Let’s look at what we can do to address those two issues.

      If your words can be interpreted as ignorant, biggoted, or fashy, they will be, always.

      When writing a post, I sometimes get the notion that something I write might be taken the wrong way. But then I forget about it, because I’m busy building a clever metaphor finding just the right word. And without fail, my post get misinterpreted in exactly that way I thought it would. So always listen to that little voice. In my experience, it is seldom wrong.

      This is not just to avoid you getting trashed online. Another more important aspect which is typically overlooked, is that if your post can, somehow, be misinterpreted in horrible ways, it may also be read as such by people who truly hold those views, people who then sees you as an ally. You really don’t want that.

      Sometimes it is a simple matter of changing your phrasing. Other times, directly stating what you do or do not believe is in order.

      Assume that people will skim through your post.

      While you can’t predict exactly how our post is going to be skimmed through, It is likely that they will have read your headline. So use that as leverage to push your most important points, or the general vibe of your post. Your first paragraph is likely to be read too. If your post is longer, you can also add subheaders with key info. You can also use the inverted pyramid structure, leading with the information any reader must know, followed by things which will grant them greater understanding, and ending with the interesting nice to know stuff.

      This is what I got so far! If you got any advice of your own, please share!

      34 votes
    9. The decline of username and password on the same page

      Web devs: what's up with this trend? For enterprise apps, I get it…single sign-on needs to detect what your email domain is to send you to your identity provider. For consumers, I feel like it's...

      Web devs: what's up with this trend? For enterprise apps, I get it…single sign-on needs to detect what your email domain is to send you to your identity provider. For consumers, I feel like it's gotta be one of these reasons:

      • Users don't know about the tab key being able to move to other fields on a page
      • Mobile users don't really have a tab key, despite there being "previous/next field" arrows on the stock iOS keyboard since its inception (Android users, help me out please)
      • Users tend to hit Enter after typing in their username, leading to a form submission with a blank password
      • Security, maybe? In the past I have sent a link and a password in separate emails or separate communication methods entirely. Are you hashing/salting these separately for better MITM mitigation?

      Did your UX team make a decision? Are my password managers forever doomed to need a "keyboard combo" value for every entry from now on?

      Non-devs: do you prefer one method over the other? If so, why?

      Tildes maintainers: selfishly, thanks for keeping these together :)

      71 votes
    10. Battery life of AAA batteries that come with the original products seem unusually long

      Hey folks of tildes, I wanted to see if anyone has similar experiences as mine and if they know the reason for this. I've purchased a few items which came with AAA battery pre-installed...

      Hey folks of tildes,

      I wanted to see if anyone has similar experiences as mine and if they know the reason for this. I've purchased a few items which came with AAA battery pre-installed (Chromecast from Google, Weighing scale from Xiaomi). These batteries lasted for an incredibly long time, Chromecast lasted over 1.5 years and Xiaomi's scale lasted for a similar time. Any third party battery I've purchased (Energizer, Duracell, Panasonic, Eveready and few others which I can't recall) last for a couple months at best.

      I've now switched to rechargeable batteries, to reduce the waste I was creating. Still, I was really curious if anyone has a similar experience, and if they know the reason for it.

      28 votes
    11. Microsoft Teams is/was down. What's your fallback?

      Teams is down or was down for pretty much everyone I know (work context). Thinking in terms of business continuity, what is your fallback plan. Is your fallback a managed, enterprise class...

      Teams is down or was down for pretty much everyone I know (work context).

      Thinking in terms of business continuity, what is your fallback plan. Is your fallback a managed, enterprise class service?

      Might get everyone internally to install Signal since it's end-to-end encrypted, has a desktop client and can handle file transfers. That's just off the cuff.

      Thoughts?

      21 votes
    12. What do you guys think of these AI-generated stand up comedy specials?

      So I came across this new dudesy video titled "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead" and it put me down a weird rabbit hole. I'm not a Carlin super fan but I know some of his famous bits and respect...

      So I came across this new dudesy video titled "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead" and it put me down a weird rabbit hole. I'm not a Carlin super fan but I know some of his famous bits and respect his work and maybe that's the perfect setup for watching this because... I'm honestly blown away. I planned on listening to 3 minutes of it to make fun of stupid AI but ended up letting it run for the entire hour and actually laughed quite a bit. It all makes sense. It does sound like him. I don't know how much editing went into it, how much prompting and discarded material. I especially don't know if it just dug up old jokes somewhere else and copied them. But still.

      It feels like we just had awkward AI-wordsalad experiments and things like the infinite Seinfeld stream which was fun in a so-bad-it's-good kinda way but... I mean, it obviously was bad. The funny part was that it was unpredictably bad.

      But only a year later we're having some uncanny valley shit. I looked it up and apparently this started with a comedy podcast with an AI co-host which produced a clip for a fictional Tom Brady standup routine which turned out popular enough to get them sued, apparently.

      There's this part in the fake Carlin special where he talks about the future of entertainment being 24-hour streams where an AI comedian comments on daily news events in real time or something and I can't say I wouldn't watch that. Just to see what it's like. But I also get people calling it disgusting. It kinda is. I get [his daughter says "machine will ever replace his genius"](machine will ever replace his genius), she's right of course. But that video got close IMO.

      You can still point at little flaws here and there with AI generated content but with this trend, it will be 3 or 5 years before we get perfectly polished content machines that don't trip over any of the easy and obvious stuff. What place would such content have in the entertainment industry?

      What do you guys think?

      27 votes
    13. G-Sync/Freesync - What's your opinion?

      This was tempting to post in ~games but think it suits ~tech better. What are your thoughts on these monitor frame sync technologies? Have they made a big difference to your gaming experiences?...

      This was tempting to post in ~games but think it suits ~tech better.

      What are your thoughts on these monitor frame sync technologies?
      Have they made a big difference to your gaming experiences?
      Could you do with out it?
      What about G-Sync vs Freesync?

      20 votes
    14. Core Internet – what sites and services should we permanently preserve?

      Looking ahead, the commodification and degradation of the Internet is continuing to take away digital resources that we have come to depend upon over the last 20 years. Whether it’s email or...

      Looking ahead, the commodification and degradation of the Internet is continuing to take away digital resources that we have come to depend upon over the last 20 years. Whether it’s email or Amazon or YouTube, the decline of all our favorites has been well documented.

      But we don’t want to live without these sites and services. Tildes itself is an attempt to preserve one such resource but in a better and more stable way. What other parts of the Internet deserve similar treatment?

      Whether it’s open source eBay or community banking or nonprofit versions of Facebook… what would you choose and how would you go about preserving its character and making it workable in the long-term?

      36 votes
    15. What are some corporate websites that you consider extremely reputable sources of information?

      I had a conversation with someone who teaches research skills at the university level. They said that incoming new students seem to start with the assumption that .org and .edu domain names can be...

      I had a conversation with someone who teaches research skills at the university level. They said that incoming new students seem to start with the assumption that .org and .edu domain names can be trusted for accurate information and .com domain names will be unreliable.

      I didn't find it hard to find dodgy nonprofits and sketchy colleges but do you know of any extremely reputable corporate sites that they could use as counter examples to this misinformed theory about how to find reliable sources online? I'm thinking maybe Bloomberg but would love to hear more.

      30 votes
    16. Do you have or know of fun domain names? Do you think it's worth having them?

      I'm interested in domain names that are remarkable in the sense that they are short or easy-to-remember. This idea for a topic started because I find myself window shopping for domain names. Thing...

      I'm interested in domain names that are remarkable in the sense that they are short or easy-to-remember.

      This idea for a topic started because I find myself window shopping for domain names. Thing is, the only use I have for a domain is for my personal website. That's why I hesitate picking up these fun quirky domains.

      What are some interesting domain names you've encountered?

      Do you think it's worth it (in terms of utility and/or entertainment value) to have a more remarkable domain name for a personal website?

      30 votes
    17. How do you feel about AI and the future?

      Off the back of all the chatter and conspiracy theories being thrown around because of the OpenAI Boardroom drama, I thought I'd ask how people are feeling about AI in general. For those of you...

      Off the back of all the chatter and conspiracy theories being thrown around because of the OpenAI Boardroom drama, I thought I'd ask how people are feeling about AI in general.

      For those of you with your head in the sand, have you heard about AI or interacted with anything knowingly?

      Those of you surfing the AI world right now, what are you looking forward to AI doing and are you fearful of where it's leading?

      I'll start by saying, as I've said before, I'm looking forward to living in a world where the start of "I,Robot" is a reality. Robotics and generative AI are going to be amazing, as shown in its infancy by Boston Dynamics. If we stick to the way things are going, we could end up very Star Trek with our very own "Data" androids.

      My fear is that the human race isn't ready, and we're too stupid as a whole, so we end up more with T1s being actually made by the military and at some point, AI will become cognitive and conscious.

      So come on, folks of Tildes, where do you stand?

      34 votes
    18. Has anyone used a e-ink smartphone as their main device

      Looking up the Boox Palma device right now, it seems to be very handy actually. The only point where I may not be able to use it for everyday use would be that it seems to struggle with playing...

      Looking up the Boox Palma device right now, it seems to be very handy actually. The only point where I may not be able to use it for everyday use would be that it seems to struggle with playing Spotify music. But I wouldn't mind picking up one of those 4G dumbphone devices that Nokia puts out for that usecase.

      24 votes
    19. If you use ChatGPT or other LLM, how do you use it?

      I am interested in how people are using ChatGPT, especially in a professional context. Any tips, tricks or pointers? I would appreciate if the discussion didn't revolve around the technology's...

      I am interested in how people are using ChatGPT, especially in a professional context. Any tips, tricks or pointers?

      I would appreciate if the discussion didn't revolve around the technology's negative aspects or future perspectives.

      43 votes
    20. Do you think you'd use a hardware-based file sharing solution?

      All major operating systems have their own file-sharing protocols (AirDrop, Nearby Share, etc.) which are incompatible with each other. There do exist apps for "cross-platform file sharing",...

      All major operating systems have their own file-sharing protocols (AirDrop, Nearby Share, etc.) which are incompatible with each other. There do exist apps for "cross-platform file sharing", however, they require installation on both the sender and the receiver devices, which makes it a bad solution for quickly sending files to other people.

      I was thinking about making a file sharing solution that acts as a bridge between those different protocols and only requires action from one of the parties. However, there's a huge issue with AirDrop - it uses a custom networking protocol called AWDL. There are open implementations like OWL, but they still require low-level wifi access, so it can't be run on Android without kernel modifications.

      This means that the only way this can be implemented is by using a physical device, eg. a Raspberry Pi Zero W or a similar microcomputer that runs a custom firmware. An obvious problem is that it requires a lot of effort - you need to buy a Raspberry, flash it with the firmware and carry it around with you, just to be able to send or receive files to other devices without using third-party websites.

      So I'm personally not sure if that's worth making. But maybe you'll still be interested? Is this a big enough problem for you to want to use a hardware solution?

      21 votes
    21. Thoughts on the Meta Quest 3?

      The release of the Meta Quest 3 seems to have been slowplayed but my take is that Zuckerberg is still going full force ahead with MR but doesn't want to have a fiasco like the last round of...

      The release of the Meta Quest 3 seems to have been slowplayed but my take is that Zuckerberg is still going full force ahead with MR but doesn't want to have a fiasco like the last round of publicity about "the metaverse” when people were mentioning it in the same sentence as blockchains and NFTs.

      I read a lot of very positive reviews about the hardware

      https://www.theverge.com/23906313/meta-quest-3-review-vr-mixed-reality-headset

      https://www.reddit.com/r/QuestPro/comments/17631ja/24_hours_in_my_quest_3_review/

      https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/meta-quest-3

      so I got one and I am really impressed. It comes with a very convincing demo where cracks appear in the ceiling and walls of your room opening views onto another planet and then aliens come into your room that you have to shoot with the controllers to stuff them into a tube. I am showing this demo to people on the hopes I can sell some kind of MR exhibit to a local museum.

      Karl Guttag could show that the MR quality is "awful" from an eye chart perspective but the motion-to-photon is really excellent, you can throw and catch a ball just fine wearing it, and it is totally practical to walk around the house, interact with people, read (large) text to copy, use a touchscreen, etc.

      I get the feeling too that they are doing many of the right things to market it, for instance, it comes with a license for a major game that comes out in two months which will might give people who don't click with it right away a chance to re-engage. There is intensive notification based marketing with discounts and stuff which is totally textbook for a new app store and that I like at the moment but it is possible it just won't connect if the product isn't up to snuff.

      I tried Horizon Worlds and ran into the problem of not being able to succeed at the fishing minigame (in real life I've only been able to catch sunfish and smelt, but you really can fill up your freezer with zero skill with the later) and also the way it is weirdly empty. I have some content that I think could be put in there which I think is often a good idea on a new platform that is heavily promoted (e.g. easy to get free publicity and other benefits from the platform) but that emptiness might mean they don't feel pressure to get content. VRChat was more fun but showed me the challenge of onboarding people to that sort of thing, I got into an entrance room where I met one person who was actually attentive and trying to communicate and I think a lot of kids who were "doing their own thing", I figured out some of how to interact in that space but the problem of "getting gud" while sharing the space with other people who might be annoyed seems tough.

      My take is that the software is not up to the hardware right now but as a software developer I think that’s a great problem to have.

      If you're excited about Apple Vision I think you should be excited by this. Any thoughts? Anyone tried the MQ3? Anyone developing content for it?

      19 votes
    22. For those who have tried YubiKey for personal use, is it worth it?

      I saw people talking about YubiKey here a few weeks ago so I got curious. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing a lot of helpful reviews for it. I’m personally getting tired of having to take my phone...

      I saw people talking about YubiKey here a few weeks ago so I got curious. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing a lot of helpful reviews for it.

      I’m personally getting tired of having to take my phone anytime I need 2FA for Okta but I don’t have a lot of super important accounts to secure so I’m going back and forth in deciding whether the 100+ euro investment (to get two so that there’s a duplicate) would be worth it.

      How do you use your YubiKey in your personal life and do you think it’s worth your use case ?

      35 votes
    23. Anyone else have horrible user experiences with Piped?

      With the Youtube adblock debacle going on, and my account on Firefox+Ublock getting the dreaded popup, I was trying out the Piped alternative frontends for Youtube. If you're unaware, this is...

      With the Youtube adblock debacle going on, and my account on Firefox+Ublock getting the dreaded popup, I was trying out the Piped alternative frontends for Youtube. If you're unaware, this is basically lets you browse Youtube without using the actual Youtube site or your Google account, and there's no ads. Whenever this adblock issue comes up, everyone starts pushing other frontends like Piped as the solution. There's also a dedicated bot that automatically replies with the Piped link when anyone posts a Youtube link on Lemmy. People seem to think very highly of this site! The simping for it can be very strong.

      I tried using the main instance, https://piped.video, but it was laggy! Completely, unusably slow. I've also had it crash whenever I try to watch certain videos. I heard there were other instances that would have less users and less pressure on the servers, so I tried out the other public instances. One of them worked great for a couple days, now it just stopped loading videos all of a sudden. All the other instances I've tried either don't load videos, or the domain is down.

      Are they cracking down on Piped now, or are all these instances just not good and you need to self-host to get anything out of Piped? Are there any other alternative frontends that you've liked?

      20 votes
    24. What are some of your daily use/most important apps?

      I just got a new phone, and I opted to download all the apps I usually use manually, rather than having them transfer over automatically. It's like a nice cleanup thing that I get to do every...

      I just got a new phone, and I opted to download all the apps I usually use manually, rather than having them transfer over automatically. It's like a nice cleanup thing that I get to do every couple of years. I feel like I partially should just have a list somewhere of the apps I usually use and was wondering what people would download first (plus if I forgot anything)

      For me, this was my process yesterday:
      Password manager - Bitwarden - mostly so I can copy/paste my logins for everything
      Authentication - Not listing these but ya know
      VPN - MozillaVPN - just something for hostels and travelling
      Browser - Firefox Beta or Nightly - for downloading my new wallpaper and general use (including Tildes!)
      Sleep + Alarm - Sleep as Android
      Car things - My car app, EVGo/Electrify America - getting around and things
      Rideshare - Uber and Lyft - When I'm in a new city!
      Food - Doordash, Grubhub, asian specific food apps - to eat when I'm lazy!
      News - Boston Globe, AP News, BBC - Kinda obvious what they're here for
      Todo - TickTick - Checklists and all that
      Fitness - Fitbit, my smart scale app, and my gym app - general fitness stuff
      Language Learning - Duolingo and Lingodeer!
      Banking + Investment + Payments + Insurance - not listing these but yeah!
      Music + Podcasts - Spotify
      Streaming - D+, Netflix, Vudu, Peacock, Max, Movies Anywhere, Dropout, Hulu, Prime Video, Twitch - General Streaming
      Books - Kindle and Audible
      Messaging and Social Media - Signal, Beeper, Messenger, Discord, Slack, Instagram, etc. - just daily entertainment and connections
      Games - Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Nonograms, Don't Starve, Cards of Terra, Bloons, etc.

      Bonus Q: I've been thinking of trying to add Obsidian to my general day to day, how? Might ask a question about this later though!

      49 votes
    25. What compensation will make you accept on-call without regrets?

      Recent article How can I get my engineers to accept being on call? sparkled some discussion, so I was become very curious. If you can choose between working without any on-call duties or working...

      Recent article How can I get my engineers to accept being on call? sparkled some discussion, so I was become very curious.

      If you can choose between working without any on-call duties or working where every second/third day you will be 24h on-call, what compansetion will make you accept second options?

      Im in my early middle ages, and personally, I think

      x2 of my current compensation
      will make me choose on-call without regrets. I'm quite enjoying my stress free hours outside of work, so quality of sleeping is not something that I can easily surrender.

      49 votes
    26. Are you using WiFi 6E in a home/home office setting? Have you seen any benefit to the 6GHz channel?

      I'm curious if anyone here is currently using the 6GHz channel with WiFi 6E devices and whether you're seeing a benefit in your experience. Do you feel it was worth purchasing a router/access...

      I'm curious if anyone here is currently using the 6GHz channel with WiFi 6E devices and whether you're seeing a benefit in your experience. Do you feel it was worth purchasing a router/access point with WiFi 6E over WiFi 6? I've been following the rollout of WiFi 6E for a while but I haven't heard much real world feedback.

      Context: I have 3 access points at home all at the WiFi 5 standard and I'm considering updating each to WiFi 6/6E. I have few (if any) 6E devices at the minute but would plan to keep the access points for at least 5 years or more.

      P.S. this is my first post so apologies if it's in the wrong location or a duplicate. I searched and found no other WiFi 6E discussions ✌️

      33 votes
    27. How do you keep track of your subscriptions?

      We recently had a big thread about all of the subscriptions we find valuable. This is a follow-up to that: how do you keep track of and manage your subscriptions (if you do at all)? I’d love to...

      We recently had a big thread about all of the subscriptions we find valuable.

      This is a follow-up to that: how do you keep track of and manage your subscriptions (if you do at all)?

      I’d love to have a sort of one-stop subscription management tracker where I can toggle things on and off and it can email me when something is coming due soon, but I’ve yet to find something like that I love.

      If anyone has any tips, tricks, or pointers, I’d love to hear them!

      20 votes
    28. What online subscriptions do you pay for?

      In the corners of Tildes that I read on, I’ve noticed that a lot of us on here subscribe to online services like - Netflix, Kagi, Spotify, Dropbox, Mailbox.org, Patreon, Twitch, Bandcamp, etc. I,...

      In the corners of Tildes that I read on, I’ve noticed that a lot of us on here subscribe to online services like - Netflix, Kagi, Spotify, Dropbox, Mailbox.org, Patreon, Twitch, Bandcamp, etc.

      I, myself, am kind of stingy about subscriptions but lately I’ve been considering subscribing to some online services.

      So I’d like to know which online services (like those with monthly and annual fees) have you subscribed to (which tier if applicable) and which ones do you think is worth it and which ones are not?

      To get the ball rolling, the only regularly recurring monthly payments I have right now are with Namecheap for the domain and IONOS for my server (the cheapest tier).

      I’ve managed to avoid subscribing for entertainment like Disney+ or YouTube Premium or even music streaming platforms. Though I’m considering Deezer for the hifi option.

      I’ve at some point subscribed to Patreon, Bandcamp and Twitch for artists I really liked.

      And I’m currently looking into productivity apps that might be worth it to me.

      —-

      PS: It’s my first time posting and if this post would be better elsewhere, don’t hesitate to move it. Thank you!

      86 votes
    29. Are the memes about setting up and troubleshooting printers overblown nowadays?

      I haven't really messed with printers in probably 15 years or more, but it felt like any time they were brought up, there were two flavors: Older printers, which decided if they wanted to work or...

      I haven't really messed with printers in probably 15 years or more, but it felt like any time they were brought up, there were two flavors:

      • Older printers, which decided if they wanted to work or not based on absolutely nothing at all
      • Newer printers, which are covered in DRM and mostly a nickel-and-diming scam

      Now, for the former I remember having some issues, but generally just clearing the printer's cache (or whatever it was called) would fix most of the problems. I think the bigger issue is that I always helped people set up cheap Walmart-sold inkjet printers that had more hardware issues than software, along with ink that would go to shit instantly.

      But I was out today at a thrift store and they had a Brother for $25, with an entire extra unopened toner cartridge (I think that's what it's called?). I asked them if it worked, they said it did, but if it didn't I could return it by tomorrow.

      So I brought it home, assuming something would be wrong with it, but in about 10 minutes I had it plugged in, connected to my wifi network, and connected to my computer. I tried scanning-- it worked fine. I tried copying-- it does that no problem. It took longer to install the drivers on my PC than set up the printer itself.

      So are printers really as straight-forward as I experienced with this cheap used one, or am I just lucky?

      21 votes
    30. What do you do with old electronics?

      I'm making an effort to declutter and trying to get rid of my old electronics. I have a bunch of old Oculus hardware, my old gaming PC with a Ryzen and a RX480, an old Xbox console and other...

      I'm making an effort to declutter and trying to get rid of my old electronics. I have a bunch of old Oculus hardware, my old gaming PC with a Ryzen and a RX480, an old Xbox console and other things around the house. Do you recommend going through eBay, or Swappa or another specialty website, or if there may be a hobby shop willing to take things off of hands, or just go to Goodwill and accept the resale value as sunk cost?

      27 votes
    31. What's your method for shopping for laptops?

      Just wondering how other technically inclined individuals go about this. For my daily driver machines I usually buy Macs and build towers, which are simple enough — on the Mac, figure out needs...

      Just wondering how other technically inclined individuals go about this.

      For my daily driver machines I usually buy Macs and build towers, which are simple enough — on the Mac, figure out needs and slightly overbuy, and on towers put some research into parts to find those with the best reviews and bang for buck. Pretty straightforward.

      I also keep around a generic x86 laptop though, and I might be replacing the one I have currently in the coming months. Shopping for its replacement unfortunately is not so clean and simple. There is to my knowledge no laptop-shopper analogue of PCPartPicker for laptops for instance and retailer search tools are terrible (especially Amazon's), which makes filtering out the noise practically impossible. It gets even harder if you're looking for certain features and especially less tangible things like build quality, QC, and battery life. Review sites often aren't of much help, with skin-deep reviews that frequently miss major points and pay little mind to things that may become issues in long-term usage.

      And yet clearly, plenty of people are buying laptops, which brings me back to the topic question. How does everybody go about their laptop shopping?

      26 votes
    32. What is everyone using for managing their contacts?

      Hi everyone, I'm struggling with contact management and was wondering if anyone could recommend some good solutions. My Google Contacts and iOS contact management has become unmanageable and I...

      Hi everyone, I'm struggling with contact management and was wondering if anyone could recommend some good solutions. My Google Contacts and iOS contact management has become unmanageable and I personally find them very awkward to use.

      15 votes
    33. Where is everyone hosting their email these days?

      This is more focused towards those that use custom domains for their email. My current plan is up at Zoho for my team in a month, and even though I've used them for the past few years its been...

      This is more focused towards those that use custom domains for their email. My current plan is up at Zoho for my team in a month, and even though I've used them for the past few years its been hit-or-miss (especially when using third-party apps or programs).

      Who do you use? Who do you not trust? Who would you never go back to?

      Sidenote: I hope this might eventually kick off a ~privacy group, one day.

      72 votes
    34. Any people here who are also interested in a "low-tech lifestyle?"

      As an ex-Redditor, I only subscribed to 3 subreddits: /r/dumbphones /r/nosurf /r/simpleliving As someone who is incorporating more of an "offline" vs. "online" life, and downgrading some elements...

      As an ex-Redditor, I only subscribed to 3 subreddits:
      /r/dumbphones
      /r/nosurf
      /r/simpleliving

      As someone who is incorporating more of an "offline" vs. "online" life, and downgrading some elements to live a lifestyle that's more focus on the present and get out of the house more (family, kids, pets, walking, etc.) instead of just reading and absorbing tons of information on my laptop.

      Are there any people here who are interested in this or is there a section on Tildes for this already? (I know Reddit is a much bigger site, just dipping my toes in the water to see if there is something like that on here already.)

      36 votes
    35. What "lost" web page would you like to find again?

      What was your favorite web page back in the day that you would visit religiously and tell all your friends about but have since lost? Did it shutter permanently or did you lose the bookmark when...

      What was your favorite web page back in the day that you would visit religiously and tell all your friends about but have since lost? Did it shutter permanently or did you lose the bookmark when switching computers never to find it again?

      Back in the days of printed web page yellow pages and search engines you had to submit your page to be reviewed before it was listed, I had found a page about movie easter eggs, errors and insider information. It had factoids about nearly 1000 movies ranging from obscure facts, mistakes in editing, anachronisms, funny on-set stories and the like.

      It was fun to read that this character was named after the art directors niece, the stunt car is visible losing 8 hubcaps in the main chase, etc. It was amazing to read how different movies would interact (IIRC, Kim Bassinger's gasp/jump reaction to opening the door in "Batman" was real due to them having a xenomoprh from Aliens there instead of Jack Nicholson since they were filming at the same time). It was also cool to read that certain characters made cameos in other movies (most people caught that Randolph and Mortimer Duke from "Trading Places" were in "Coming to America" but there are so many other not as obvious blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos). I never would have noticed the car visible in the background of Johnny Cage vs Scorpion in the orchard fight in "Mortal Kombat" without this page--and now I can never unsee it when I watch it.

      I don't know if I lost the bookmark or if the page shut down so I deleted it but any search I've undertaken for this page in the last few decades only seems to return listicles like "21 obvious anachronisms in modern movies!" but not my all comprehensive target.

      Honorable mention to Damn Interesting (although I did find that one again after a few years). Although it's underwent some turbulance and changes since I first disovered it, I would often reread the articles and gleefully looked forward to each new article when I was younger. With article names like Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom it was hard not to be intrigued.

      79 votes
    36. How often do you go through your bookmarks/favorites?

      I recently switch browsers from Safari to Orion after many, many years. I imported all of my bookmarks and then realized that I couldn't remember the last time I went through them to see what was...

      I recently switch browsers from Safari to Orion after many, many years. I imported all of my bookmarks and then realized that I couldn't remember the last time I went through them to see what was still useful (or even around).

      I also realized that I don't save a ton of bookmarks anymore as I keep all of my browsing history available and search through that.

      How often do you all go through your bookmarks/favorites?

      34 votes
    37. What is your favorite small internet forum? Whats your favorite story/drama from it?

      About a week ago i made A post asking people what their favorite BBS board is, so I'd be curious to see what people answer to his question. Personally the only one i remember is emptyclosets, a...

      About a week ago i made A post asking people what their favorite BBS board is, so I'd be curious to see what people answer to his question. Personally the only one i remember is emptyclosets, a forum for queer people.
      Edit: By drama/story, it doesn't have to be something someone did that pissed people off. You can also include something interesting that happened on there (e.g on a Nirvana forum that used to exist, theres a micro-famous story about a user who went to a prostitute and talked about it on there)

      64 votes
    38. Nostalgia -- what programs do you miss?

      What are those programs that you used back in the day (or even recently!) that you look back on fondly and think about how they once were-- or worse, programs that seemed to have just up and...

      What are those programs that you used back in the day (or even recently!) that you look back on fondly and think about how they once were-- or worse, programs that seemed to have just up and disappeared?

      What made me think of this question, for me, was Opera. It had everything: browsing, RSS, and torrenting all in one browser. However, a lot of sites loved to break in it since it was the least supported and I eventually moved to Firefox (then Chrome, then Firefox...). Looking at the browser now-- and unsure if I'm just picky or its a case of enshittification, or both-- I'm just "meh."

      99 votes
    39. If you are using Android apps on Windows 11, what is your preferred installation method and use case?

      I've seen some tutorials that suggest installing the Amazon app store and then using a workaround to sideload apks. There's also emulators like Bluestacks. I'm curious as to what people prefer and...

      I've seen some tutorials that suggest installing the Amazon app store and then using a workaround to sideload apks. There's also emulators like Bluestacks. I'm curious as to what people prefer and what apps they've found useful.

      6 votes
    40. What webhost and software do you use for your personal website?

      In the 2000s, I had Blogger or a subdomain on some random free host. I even tried Ning at some point. Since 2012, I’ve had a personal site at a custom domain, on Squarespace, then WordPress who...

      In the 2000s, I had Blogger or a subdomain on some random free host. I even tried Ning at some point.

      Since 2012, I’ve had a personal site at a custom domain, on Squarespace, then WordPress who knows where, then Tumblr, then WordPress on Linode, now a combo Bear Blog and GitHub Pages.

      I dislike WordPress for how clunky it is, Squarespace for how expensive it is, Tumblr for how obviously Tumblr it is (I could say the same about Squarespace and many WordPress sites), GitHub Pages for making me use git to post. Basically, I’m not happy with anything.

      So I thought I’d ask los Tildeños—do you have a personal site? What web host and tech stack are you using for it? What do you like/dislike about it? What else have you tried?

      47 votes