crossroadsguy

Love the idea and goal being all this but what an interesting time to be in. Phones are becoming bigger and bigger while the palm, neck, eye, head, etc sizes haven't really buzzed. Digital book readers are getting smaller and smaller while the book sizes… argh… I give up. It's pointless to try and make sense of digital/device trends at this point, or any modern trend for that matter.

I don’t like it. But since when US or US entities have been doing things affecting rest of the globe that they can “legally” do or they “should” do? With US - they do things because they “can” do things. And now so does China and to some extent Russia.

And why even a “US federal” court should have such arbitrary and sweeping authority that affects other countries’ businesses and people? The world should realise that “.com” is a US domain in technicality and spirit both (like many other domains)

This is one of the extremely broken aspect of “The Internet”. Large part of it is literally controlled by US with zero oversight or shared authority.

PS. Look at how India recently moved all bank domains to https://<bank name>.bank.in. And I usually don’t agree with my Govt (and for good reason) but this is a proper sovereignty move.

(Oh by the way ICANN is “still” in the US)

One of the reasons I keep my .in domain up and running as my backup email (and just for personal use). That .com domain, if taken down/away from other jurisdictions (the ones that can easily do it) for whatever reason (including a “mistake” or slip) would mean it’s gone for good (because I neither have the capacity nor resources to appeal/fight that in foreign lands).

Had it been half a million dollars or something or say like a few hundred dollars?

Even though pollution in India is bad and getting worse everyday, smog in Delhi is/was an exception, not the national norm (even among tier 1 cities, let alone tier 2 and below). That too not year round (though I must say Delhi/NCR is increasingly becoming unliveable).

Audiobooks are great if one likes the sound, tone, speed, etc, etc of the narrator. Not very easy to land at this combination.

My informed opinion

Well, my informed (I guess? it's first hand) opinion says exactly what the PC said. And no the plan has been underfoot for so long that it really pretty much has nothing to do with the current regime even though I am sure like any regime they'd say they did it from the scratch.

I'd say we are getting really great at getting broadband to everyone than giving enough bread and education and healthcare to everyone :D (ignore the smiley, this sucks)

I'd agree with the last part of your comment. Because at least India doesn't depend upon Starlink for broadband access. Even in remote regions, now that it has seen first hand what modern economic and tech blockade means (after struggling for decades with older sanctions including related to nuclear tests and thank goodness it did that), it really isn't very keen on Starlink and wants home-grown alternatives (which definitely will take time) and also is now indicating to multiple players that they are welcome (but within limits and regulations).

Musk isn't pushing Starlink for "upside" for the people or your "central EU", or Africa, or India, or the moon (let's just assume for the time being), Musk is hoping to saturate the market and remain the only player or only major player, and Musk wants that perceived dependency as a weapon, as a tool of control. I won't be shocked if Musk later lobbies for "ah, too many satellites up there already.. it'd be dangerous to send more… ". In fact I am counting on that.

where they have <.1% the money

That's another part where, again, I'd agree with the last part of your comment. That country has so many people that just from one region if enough rich people (and sadly with the great divide there are way too many), if they need it, it will outspend too many countries from Europe single-handedly when it comes to Starlink or satellite Internet access.

Having said that, these things are not this black and white… but I've tried at least one part, or rather a fraction of one part I'd say.

Satellite Internet is one of the best things I'd say but I'd bet my spare kidney that not in the hands of Musk and Musk is trying hard that he/Starlink becomes the almost single player, first mover etc etc.

That's a very twisted kind of relative deification.

Infinite money if lawyers are accepting AWS and Azure credits. You got to store those discovery documents somewhere after all.

Yeah. I was encouraged to take the lump-sum money my company paid (like most happily did - not taxed; amount equalling latest base iPhone cost) and get MDM installed on the personal phone so that we could access email and everything on that. Laptop was company issued anyway. I, and very few, chose company phone and I got a new SIM just for the company and set it up (they had to pay the SIM bill as well).

A nice side effect of that was I could clearly control when the phone won't even be on me and I had set that expectation - like treks, or short personal vacations, sleeping hours (yes!). I had championed the "follow the sun" policy in my company when it came to on-call rotation, but somehow some of my fellow country men/women colleagues took pride in "being available". Anyway, their time, their choice.

Later some of my colleagues were surprised when they couldn't install certain apps, couldn't do certain things and often used to wonder "does the company take screenshots of my phone?" because the permission was present :D

That's just hn for you. Not that it's a good thing (as per me at least), but that's what hn is, no matter how much it (or few from here) tries to think/pretend otherwise.

Immigrants who go to Germany are not used to US mentality, they don't have a mandatory few years of pitstop in the US to pickup US mentality before they finally land in Germany. You are "certain" (literally) about a lot of things that you are typically missing (or rather ignoring) any points the other commenters are trying bring in. Maybe that's also a point?

As for work connections - someone just landed in a foreign country and spends decisively most of the "waking hours" with a bunch of people… as in literally, it's not even a metaphor… that's called being human, social, etc.

I finally bought Claude Pro (I am not coding etc these days so I just wanted to try it). The Claude desktop app is downright pathetic. I mean they could write a better one just with their own LLMs. What's stopping them?

our justice system

Lucky you. You have a "justice" system. We all got legal system or some sort of kangaroo systems in our corner of the world.

People in this thread are slowly (or maybe not so slowly) realising "… this was also a business after all… just with a different "model"… huh". There's caring, there's caring PR, and then there's caring theatre.

I have always wondered why don't they charge at least based on storage or so? Maybe above a basic/generous tier? I mean if I'd love to pay a few USD a year for say a few tiny repos that no uses other than me, and a static landing page (like Github Pages) that no one visits except me (every few months; maybe a recruiter or two, though I seriously doubt that). I'd rather pay a place like Codeberg than Github. From latter for such basic offerings I'd expect free services, yup! (Because I already pay them in other ways, like my data and all that.. but that's really beside the point). As for funding or becoming a member, I am not there yet and also that is not regular enough for me, that is not streamlined for me personally.

How… why… what? Let's say it's like.. well… I don't know.. anyway.. people (esp. from USA), please don't be offended (discussion on this topic has felt like we are from different planets), I'd rather pay a simple restaurant bill where 2Y tip is mandatorily part of the bill than a Y tip that I would "leave at the table" or "drop in a tip jar" or "generously" "hand it" (or slip it) to the staff. I have lots of problems with the latter but let's not get into that here anyway.

Business establishments don't like to ban troublemakers. Bad for business. (Unless it gets enough bad press, then it becomes good for business).

Few alts for other platforms

https://workrave.org/ (not mac)

https://github.com/hovancik/stretchly (everywhere)

Both are open source.

Then there’s this https://www.dejal.com/timeout/ (only mac) - used this one as well.

I think the idea of public transport or rather functional public transport is completely omitted in that context of this country, isn't it? That alone can be a huge local competition as there should be.

These things are very local then. That big RED L is the only thing I know about new drivers, learners etc. I even googled what the GP said and I've still no clue what was being talked about.

In fact most of the symbols talked about in the article seemed of no meaning to me except looking unique and different and sometimes even nice.

I wish there was a clear Mac Mini alt. With lots of drawbacks of the mac mini fixed e.g. a very simple way to connect to tablets (iPads, Androids tabs) as screen and ability to connect to any keypad and mouse, natively (I am sure a linux mini pc box will have that already - at least I may not need a "connector hardware").

I really like the idea of travelling around with my iPad but have a very small but sufficiently powerful computer tucked away in my bag (along with needed cables) if I need it (because, well, Apple is not going to let their iPads unleash their capabilities).

There are some around (even in my geography) but all of them seem to be half-heartedly done.

People who like Jira (or rather want; I doubt one ever “needs” this thing), and make decisions on its implementation and payment, and force it on others, are not the people who are shopping for alternatives. So who these alternatives are really for?

In fact if you do the hard way, straight way, you might learn it all minus the hallucinations.

And if something breaks, and something will break - it's Software+Apple, their support will talk to you for 3 hours very professionally, giving you the scenic route of everything IT support has done in last 300 years and then they will schedule another call, apparently with an expert, on which you will be told to reboot your devices (yeah, all of them), and next stop will be asking you to reinstall your devices clean, of course they will remind you to backup data and how iCloud plans can help. After all that you will be asked to go to a support centre and drop your laptop there (that is, if your device is still under warranty).

Yes, they should if they are selling the land for $10. You don't want limits? Pay without limits.

It’s a double whammy in places like India where “digital push” means everything is based on your mobile number with worst of safety and regulation the planet has to offer. Push is 100%, safeguards zero (if not negative).

What makes it even worse is every policy and regulation push is just talk on paper and even it succeeds and comes in effect, it essentially stays at where it was — zero power to the people, zero accountability to others, and negative punishment to the offenders (they are not even considered offenders). There are no legal frameworks like a class action lawsuit either. As in, when you look beyond “paper regulators” (and won’t have to look hard) there is nothing at all, practically speaking.

The thing is you can’t fight it, and you really can’t opt out. Not here. It feels kafkaesque, you don’t even speak up because 90% or more of your compatriots will wonder what the hell you are on about, if you are lucky enough to be not labelled an anti-national.

I can connect with it as someone who has been trimming down his dreams, one dream at a time, one bit at a time, for so long that it hurts now and feels suffocating at times. The worst are the still lingering around, flickering once in a while.

What hopes/paths does a mere CS bachelor (not deep into stats/maths), and mid level dev (native mobile only; 10-15 years exp.), have about not only understanding it (maybe not fully) but getting possibly into this as a career? Not expecting churning out models and AI systems from the first weeks/months but entry/employment into this field?

(If I can be honest, and I am not being disparaging about anything lest it might seem so, I am looking at it from a career breakthrough/move perspective rather than an intellectual pursuit.)

I'd have loved to try this. There's a 4 letter (my short name; my favourite username) Instagram account registered by someone years ago and being squatted upon. Not private and totally unused. Oh, but then I don't use instagram. Still wouldn't have minded snatching it