cybercitizen4

Excerpt:

In an article for Contraption comparing Ruby on Rails and Next.js, Philip I. Thomas writes:

The truth is that the new wave of Javascript web frameworks like Next.js has made it harder, not easier, to build web apps. These tools give developers more capabilities - dynamic data rendering and real-time interactions. But, the cost of this additional functionality is less abstraction.

Using cutting-edge frameworks introduces instability through frequent updates, new libraries, and unexpected issues. Next.js applications often rely on a multitude multiple third-party services like Vercel, Resend, and Temporal that introduce platform risk.

This problem has been exacerbated by developers themselves. I don’t like Vercel, Resend, Temporal, Prisma, or any of the SaaS platforms whose business model seemingly relies on ~~abstracting~~ obfuscating away control of an application by selling their services to new and impressionable developers who hear about them for the first time from their favorite social media personalities. Indeed, all three links in the paragraph I quoted above from Thomas’s article are affiliate links. (This is not to say Thomas is doing what these creators do, I’m just pointing out how deeply rooted this economic model has become).

As an industry, we’ve shifted from the millenial devlog to the YouTube tutorial. And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with video as a format, the incentive for monetizing content makes developers-turned-creators perpetuate this cycle of overcomplicating software through third-party services, because at the end of the day, advertising these services and not architecting software is what pays their bills.

This trend of aggressive advertisement for a fragmented app ecosystem preys on the ever-present FOMO in the industry. If Meta and Netflix and the rest of the FAANG companies are using the latest technology… why not me?! But FAANG companies solve unique problems for their products, and thus write solutions that work for them. See also: Ruby on Rails is slow and doesn’t scale. When your app reaches a large enough amount of users to bring Rails to its knees, you’re not going to regret choosing Rails, you’re going to laugh and feel proud and incredulous that so many people have found value in your work.

Hi all,

I don’t really know how to ask this question. On one of my devices, I downloaded a web browser (Opera) and one of my friends made fun of me, saying that “you better like China knowing all the stuff you do online”.

I read the Opera website and it says it’s a Norwegian company, but on Wikipedia it does say it was bought by a Chinese company.

My question is: what does “China” do with my personal browsing data? Why is it useful for them? (and who are we referring to here, is that the Chinese government, a private company, who?)

I’m looking forward to learn more about digital privacy, but I don’t currently understand the “obviousness” of how it is wrong to use Opera.

I’m a tech enthusiast (hence why I’m here), but I’m cognizant that I have large knowledge gaps in some of these topics.

Thank you in advance.

Some of my coworkers were talking about using RSS to read blogs, which made some of the younger folks in our team ask what it is and why we keep using it.

Some still use iPods to avoid subscriptions and streaming services, my favorite was one of our sysadmins who showed me Gopher.

I’m curious about others though, thanks!

What kind of websites did people visit? Were people friendly?

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"

"So... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"So what does the meat have in mind."

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat?"

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we can marked this sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."

A vignette is a short (< 1000 words), descriptive literary sketch, usually capturing a single scene or a brief slice-of-life moment in a character’s experience.

Usually in people's comments to some crazy AskReddit questions I used to read really cool stuff like that, then just online I began coming across vignettes written by authors and artists. One of my favorites is "A Choice of Three" by Alex Turner (frontman of Arctic Monkeys), Leonard Cohen also writes good ones, Ernest Hemingway, etc.

If you have any similar ones I'd love to read them!

In the tunnel I noticed I had a choice of three. While I thought it very kind of them to offer me this, I do wonder if they realized what a dilemma they were sending to face me.

The trouble was, if I looked at your reflection in the left window I missed the actual image of you and your reflection in the right. And if I looked in the right I had the same problem but the other way around. At first I thought I should probably settle on one of the mirrors as they were soon to disappear, but that idea quickly wilted, and my attention was drawn back to the center, occasionally checking on either side. I must say I did question the authenticity of your nap a few minutes before. As the train left Loughborough I suspected it could've been a device to avoid conversation. I'd barely considered this for a moment, however, when a heavy breath and a gulping sound that I decided would be too embarrassing to fake led me to conclude that your nap wasn't fraudulent.

I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else as you slumped beneath your coat. Delighted that we'd waited until this hour to travel so the evening sun got its opportunity to skip across those sleeping cheeks, but unnerved by the prospect of being removed from the opposing chair to yours. I knew it was reserved but hoped that whoever had reserved it had fallen over.

It looked as if today I'd be safe. The train wasn't too busy but I did take a moment to recall the time when I was less fortunate.

I remmebered it with a chilling vivivity we were on the way to Brighton. I knew it was going to be his seat as soon as I saw him on the platform, unzipping, checking, zipping, and rechecking things. Something about his face suggested that he had for years had a mustache and had not long since removed it. He wasn't going to think twice about disposing of me, especially considering then he'd get the chance to sit with you. Though his hiking boot-march through the carriage was rather revolting, it wasn't this that made my hands tense up into sour claws of nausea. It was the way he said it.

"You're in my seat."

No "excuse me," no polite uncertainty, just the rigid, hideous fact. The thud with which it landed expelled all my preparation. Before I remembered my plans to pretend to be asleep, deaf, French, or only sat there because someone else was in my seat, I was walking to find another vacancy.

I ended up dwelling unhappily beside a girl with a boys bum. I knew that because she walked too far past when she returned to one of what I thought to be two empty seats when I sat myself there. I fidgeted until our reunion on the platform, where you brutally informed me "That man was really rather pleasant, actually."

Today I thought I'd better make sure that couldn't happen again and I pulled the ticket from the top of my seat. It took a few attempts and the facade of hanging a jacket to finally complete. I was terribly cautious. There's a threat of punishment for such deeds by fine as far as I understand, but those shackles were at the back of my mind as I crushed the reservation in my hidden fist. Folding and squeezing as if it were that beast on the way to the seaside.

Fortunately, there was no retribution. If anything the train got quieter as the journey continued.

And so in the tunnel, unable to decide, my head flicked through this trilogy of angles, angel after angle, until we were out the other side. My frantic twitching no doubt caused the man at the adjacent table to narrow his eyes at the very least, I imagine.