David Mayerich

Do Swiss warrants have a lower bar than the US? I wouldn’t expect a company I work with to disobey a warrant.

It was issued as part of a treaty, so I’m really interested in what a legal expert has to say. I’m curious what sort of threshold the Swiss government places on stuff like this.

Oh, btw, we both use it for languages (Japanese for me).

That’s sort of its designed purpose, though. I can *see* how it could apply to other stuff but haven’t tried it.

It doesn’t gamify stuff like, say, Duolingo. You have to stay on top of it. But it has great ways of tracking your progress.

Wife and I both own the phone app and synch it with the desktop version.

I really think it’s the only way to memorize reams of stuff. Nothing I’ve found compares.

You’ll have to tune the parameters, which is intimidating at first. So is making a deck from scratch.

This seems as invasive as a “Click If Over 18” popup but you do it once.

Maybe I’m being optimistic, but I would hope this gives companies like Discord legal cover to avoid using or implementing janky software.

If a parent or government wants to sue, Discord can claim they signaled the device.

The device just transmits a signal based on what it’s told at account setup.

It *defines* the account holder as an adult, but that seems like an assumption, not requirement (not a lawyer!).

As far as I can tell this is consolidating the “I Am Over 18” clicks for websites to one click at install.

That’s one thing Proton isn’t: fast.

It also looks like it has masked email, which is an awesome feature I never knew I wanted until I had it.

PowerPoint was my weird prison. I used a subset of features that it does well.

Tried Linux on and off for decades, but last year it was finally “there” for me. Main holdouts were (1) video games and (2) PowerPoint.

Proton (Valve) solved #1 and I found an obscure Swedish program that solved #2.

If you haven’t already get a domain. It’s cheap and lets you switch between email services without impacting your social life.

One feature I like w/ Proton is its alias generator. Like a password manager but generates random email addresses. If you look for a service find one that does that.

I’m an engineer but ffs I feel like I’m clawing my way back to the 90s:

I pay for personal email (Proton)

I pay for a search engine (Kagi)

I use Discord because it’s more like a collection of BBSs

My daughter’s begging for a mechanical keyboard b/c she’s jealous of mine.

I’ve been slowly switching everything to smaller more specialized companies and finding a good CalDav service (or self hosting) is next on my list.

Device-based confirmation is something I’ve seen requested. That way websites don’t have to do it themselves using sketchy software or companies.

This seems to be implementing something privacy advocates have been trying to resolve: shifting the burden from the app/website to the device owner.

The owner of the device sets the age of the user (no ID or independent verification). Am I missing something nefarious?

My wife runs a fencing club and, well, you can imagine…

"2026 is the year of the horse"

The horse:

To be fair who would have imagined the most powerful branch giving away all of their power?

Actually wrote a rant about Rise of Skywalker but then realized I mixed it up with Last Jedi. 😔

I’m actually in a tiny minority that’ll defend Ep. 9. I think the premise was fine, they just didn’t have enough time to stick the landing. Partly because they had to retcon away Ep. 8.

I took my lab to see it, which included 2 (postdoc) Star Wars fans and several innocent students.

I think the students had more fun watching the three of us yelling about it afterwards.

Funny thing is we were all mad about different things…

I can see a world where any command-line tool (ffmpeg, dd, chmod, etc) includes a help option specifically trained on their options.

I’d love to do something like:
ffmpeg -h “convert an image stack into an mp4 video”

and confirm the recommended arguments.

Counterpoint: my kid just fell asleep watching you shoot the shit with your kid…

Stayed in Terlingua, TX once where it was warm enough to sleep outside on a cot and I’ll never forget it.

Got to take my kids back when they’re old enough to remember…

I’m so tired of “But they said some correct things!”

Surviving for a day on Earth requires being right about most things!

If an idea has merit, you don’t need a lunatic to explain it. Asking me to listen to random nutcases on the off-chance they say something insightful is bonkers.

Even if this doesn't affect the vast majority of users (which is probably true), I'm glad it gets people thinking about alternatives.

Hopefully some open protocol emerges. It's just so exhausting having to re-build every time a company crosses my "crappy service" threshold.

I’ve been thinking about this as I’ve grown skeptical of centralized platforms.

Closed servers seem straightforward if you can authenticate. I *think* the main problem is integrating peer-to-peer stuff (like direct messages and group chats). Discord does a good job merging those two things.

LLMs waste so much of my time at work.

At this point I ask a few pointed questions and send it back if I can’t get an answer.

Blank stares from “What does this sentence mean?” or “What does this line of code do?” are a dead giveaway.

My advice is useless if they didn’t actually DO the thing.

The article seems to make an opposite argument to the headline. I think everyone knows that autonomous vehicles can trigger faults that and receive feedback.

I can’t imagine *looking* at a Waymo and assuming it’s not in communication with the Mother Ship.

Writing a continuation surprises me.

I guess it avoids having to select what gets “canonized” to screen, which seems like an impossible task.

Still, the main BG3 story arc is so good. Setting it aside to write new material had to be a tough choice.

I grew up a dog person but my kids wanted cats so we got cats. The difference in effort is beyond anything I could have imagined.

We’ve got a Litter Robot, but I refuse to get automated food dispensers because I’m afraid they’d see us as redundant...

I’ve tried it on-and-off for years and it hasn’t been there.

Now it’s there.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a barrier to entry. I’m a computer scientist and can deal with that. But my family has been using CachyOS (I’ve managed updates, etc) for months on our gaming PC with very few issues.

It’s a tiny irrelevant point, but I can’t get over the fact that these millionaires were sending all of their scandalous personal information to a GMail account.

Not everyone has the spare cash, but I've been using Kagi (subscription-based search) and I don't see myself ever going back. I absolutely save the monthly fee in reduced search time.