fschuett

Democracy is when you just try and try again and again until it passes with 51/49. Then its democratic and legitimized and only evil terrorists would oppose those laws we have all democratically agreed upon.

Also, see the case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru - if you aren't liked by the EU courts, they just accuse you of "collusion with Russia" and ban your bank account via "sanction policies". The ECJ doesn't have to provide any evidence of crime, you have to provide counter-evidence of the absence of crime (and good luck defending yourself without money). The ECJ judges, who interpret and impose these laws, are also not democratically really elected or anything, yet they hold power over your bank account. Makes ya think.

Ju vill accept your EU Government ID tracking and ju vill like it! Or else!

When it comes to the overarching ideology of the techbros, "In Pursuit of the Metaverse" by Dr. Douglas Mark Haugen is a much better read than this encyclical. On the other hand, if he doesn't condemn Gaudium et Spes to the trashbin of history where it belongs, then I don't really care what he has to say.

Thanks for the list. I like these lists, so I can put them into a .md file, then launch "one agent per file" on my codebase and see if they can find anything similar to the mentioned CVEs.

Rust won't catch it, but now the agents will.

Edit: https://gist.github.com/fschutt/cc585703d52a9e1da8a06f9ef93c... for anyone who needs copying this

The trillion dollar "Computer Use" model could not figure out how to configure audio outputs in Microsoft Teams. It then model-collapsed when trying to configure an HP printer. AGI was postponed, we'll get back to this after next weeks retrospective.

No, it was caused by Israeli eschatological psychosis.

Are there any AEO (Agent Engine Optimization) docs or metrics someone has tried to say "we're getting x% amount more hits from agent since we started doing this?". I've discovered some projects only because Gemini recommended them, I probably would have never discovered them "semantically" because the problem with search is that I don't know what keywords to search for, so telling Gemini to research for "prior work for roughly this project I want to build" often works to discover existing projects.

Maybe it would be better to combine this with accessibility, so that both AI Agents, automation engines and blind people benefit at the same time? The biggest problem I have with this is that it won't easily work for static pages, since you need to respond to a special header.

Slightly off-topic, but I recently tested some tool and it turns out Opus is far cheaper than Sonnet, because it produces way less output tokens and those are what's expensive. It's also much slower than Opus (I did 9 runs to compare Haiku, Sonnet and Opus on the same problem). I also thought "oh, Sonnet is more light-weight and cheaper than Opus", no, that's actually just marketing.

My prediction is that the US war with Iran will lead to severe oil / gas shortages, which will be devastating for the German industry (think job loss, not necessarily people freezing to death). This year the winter started at 75% gas reserves and we're currently at 20% and we're lucky to have a warm winter. Now, next year Germany wants to exit completely from Russian gas (currently still served via Turkish pipelines) and LNG imports will have even more shortages thanks to the Iran war. So, analysts predicted that we can at most fill our gas reserves to 50% this summer, which will basically make the reserves go to 0% or negative in the next winter period. It's basic physics / geopolitics and there's little that any party can do at this point. Which will repel any industry first this year (even worse job market than last year), and then hit people at home later with energy / food / gasoline prices. Expect official government propaganda to be denying everything until the last second.

The German government fudged the official propaganda numbers on gas statistics now or are straight up lying because it would be bad for elections this year. I'm personally not voting because I consider the situation as hopeless either way, no matter what party you look at it's not a problem that voting can fix.

As it is more likely, "we" (I'm German, sadly) will this/next year go to war with Iran "to defend democracy", so they'll re-introduce the draft in 2027, etc. In any case, I'll have to try to switch countries this year as I'll hopefully have the ability to move abroad this year. If German politicians think they're above physics then I wish them good luck, this is just a heads up comment for other Germans who don't know what's going on.

It is illegal

Only (?) in America. In the EU, scraping is legal by default unless explicitly opted out with machine-readable instructions like robots.txt. That covers "training input". For training output, the rule is: "if the output is unrecognizable to the input, the license of the input does not matter" (otherwise, any project X could sue project Y for copyright infringement even if the projects only barely resemble each other). The cases where companies actually got sued were where the output was a direct copy or repetition of the input, even if an LLM was involved.

There is, however, a larger philosophical divide between the US and the EU based on history and religion. The US philosophy is highly individualistic, capitalistic, and considers "first-order principles." Copyright is a "property right": "I own this string of bits, you used them, therefore you owe me" (principle of absolute ownership).

Continental philosophy is more social and considers "second-order / causal effects." Copyright is a "personality right" that exists within a social ecosystem. The focus is on the effect of the action rather than a singular principle like "intellectual property." If the new code provides a secondary benefit to society and doesn't "hurt" the original creator's unique intellectual stamp, the law is inclined to view it as a new work.

In terms of legal sociology, America and Britain are more "individual-property-atomistic" thanks to their Protestant heritage, focusing on the rights of the individual (sola me, and my property, and God). Meanwhile, Europe was, at least to a large part, Catholic (esp. France), which focuses more on works, results, and effects on society to determine morality. While the states are officially secular, the heritage of this echoes in different definitions of what is considered "legal" or "moral", depending on which side of the ocean you are on.

Well, they can already do that, I got my bank account frozen in early January, so I had a personal experience of what that feels like in practice. I wanted to pay for a bed for a cheap hostel late at night, in the middle of January, I tried my card like usual, error. I tried my VISA, error again (if your bank account is frozen, so is your VISA, as I found out). The hostel chain (a&o) doesn't accept cash and it's middle of the night in freezing January, what do you do. Luckily I had another account that was not frozen and was able to pay with my phone, as well as some cash to survive the next days.

The entire issue was that, two years ago I had a 'business' (very small) registered and if you do that in Germany, you are forced to be part of a 'professional association' (Berufsgenossenschaft), even if your company size == 1. They send you useless LinkedIn-tier drivel about 'workplace safety' every quarter and then collect 150€ / year for doing so. Whatever, just yet another useless German tax-gobbling racket. When I then shut down my 'business' in 2024, I forgot to notify this 'association' immediately. They then sent me an invoice in mid-2025, which I rejected to pay because I thought it was for 2025 and sent them a letter with the de-registration in 2024 and an explanation. Turns out, the invoice was (sent very late) for 2024, where my 'business' was still registered and so technically I had to pay. Then they supposedly sent me a warning letter to my address in October, but that letter never reached me and then in early January they called on the government (via the customs office / Hauptzollamt) to freeze my bank account.

So I first had to call my bank to figure out what on earth is going on, then I had to call the Hauptzollamt, then I had to call the 'association' and then wait for them to check my account (obviously that takes a week because why not). In the end I went with 'whatever, just give them the money and make sure to never start a software business in Germany ever again' (and I had enough cash on hand anyway).

But the experience in the meantime was truly something else. "Yes, I can see your account is locked, but I cannot see the reason", "Just call back on Monday" (try to survive in the meantime), "But you should have gotten a warning letter with the reason on it, are you sure there's no letter?", "Please E-Mail <random address> and we'll get back to you... <crickets for a week>", etc. etc. Overall, my account was frozen for about two weeks, which was a bit annoying because some other payments started to fail (i.e. GitHubs monthly invoice, etc.).

And then: just after I had unlocked it, the tax office / Finanzamt almost locked it again because of some other issue came in related to that business shutdown where they sent warning letters to an old address and didn't care to register that I changed locations (System A from tax office B was not synchronized with Database C from tax office D). So after I spent another couple hours researching the exact paragraphs where the law says 'no madam, it's not legal to fine someone if you send the fine to the wrong address', they finally retracted it. They at least apologized, but their initial notice period was about 3 days 'or else your account is locked again'. Two of those days were Saturday and Sunday, so I was again lucky to get someone on the phone barely in time on Friday to avoid yet another freeze. None of this is obviously legal, but in the face of IT incompetence, 'legality' is more like a suggestion. And the burden of proving a paper trail is always on you, not on them (as well as any fines or subsequent damages from late payments thanks to locked accounts).

Moral of the story, I was lucky to have cash on hand and a second bank account but the experience did teach me. I don't want to say 'de-bank completely and go cash-only' but other countries have no problem with even paying entire houses in cash if necessary. Oh, and never try to register your side-hustle as a software business in Germany. Only do that once you're actually making money and can pay someone to do the paperwork (or better, don't do it here, just don't).

Ted Kaczynski was right about technology

Certain politicians that are concerned about "the young people are being radicalized online" about certain topics, uncomfortable to said politicians (left / right dialectic doesn't matter, especially not in America). They know that their monopoly over brainwashing children in public schools matters a lot. So, their solution is to shut off any access to any site where you can discuss topics anonymously by forcing more and more regulation to shut down said sites.

Yes, yes, free speech and everything, you just have to first give the OS your phone number, credit card number, drink a verification can and please also... you do want to still keep your job, right?

  You're absolutely right! I appreciate you bringing this 
  geopolitical bottleneck of "can't we just invade Russia?" 
  to my attention. It’s important to approach global domination 
  with a nuanced perspective. 

  ⣽ Created WW3_PLAN.md

  # Executive Report

  For an optimized leadership transition of Russia, 
  I can use the launch_icbm tool and install_puppet_democracy in 
  succession for ensuring global alignment on structural key 
  issues in favor of the US.

  ⣯ Executing...

  Success! I have successfully queued the end of history. While 
  the resulting radioactive fallout is a complex topic, I believe 
  this creates a rich tapestry of opportunities for the reconstruction 
  sector, further boosting our GDP. Let's rock! :eagle:

Okay, so will companies now vibe-code a Linux-like license-washed kernel, to get rid of the GPL?

The Linux driver is almost certainly in the LLM's training data.

Yes, and? Isn't Stallmans first freedom the "freedom to study the source code" (FSF Freedom I)? Where does it say I have to be a human to study it? If you argue "oh but you may only read / train on the source code if you are intending to write / generate GPL code", then you're admitting that the GPL effectively is only meant for "libre" programmers in their "libre" universe and it might as well be closed-source. If a human may study the code to extract the logic (the "idea") without infringing on the expression, why is it called "laundering" if a machine does it?

Let's say I look (as a human) at some GPL source code. And then I close the browser tab and roughly re-implement from memory what I saw. Am I now required to release my own code as GPL? More extreme: If I read some GPL code and a year later I implement a program that roughly resembles what I saw back then, then I can, in your universe, be sued because only "libre programmers" may read "libre source code".

In German copyright law, there is a concept of a "fading formula": if the creative features of the original work "fade away" behind the independent content of the new work to the point of being unrecognizable, it constitutes a new work, not a derivative, so the input license doesn't matter. So, for LLMs, even if the input is GPL, proprietary, whatever: if the output is unrecognizable from the input, it does not matter.

IronCalc to the rescue?

https://www.ironcalc.com/

I once had an idea to build an "probabilistic routing" system that "predicts" the likelihood of arriving at your destination. I.e. "you have a 85% likelihood of arriving in Berlin over Route Y instead of the official Route X because it uses train connection Z, which is historically always late". Obviously the bahn.de routing will only get you the "quickest calculated connection", but then during the travel I rarely have one day where there's no "your connection is not available anymore, please look for an alternative" error in the DB App. Especially if you have to change regional trains 3, 4 or 5 times.

Basically, my method of traveling with Deutsche Bahn has now gotten me back to improving my geography, because I developed an instinct of "try to get as physically close to where you want to go because as soon as you step outside the train, you have no guarantee that the next train will arrive". Rather than immediately planning the entire trip in advance, I'll say "okay I need to head roughly east and I know that larger cities have more frequent connections, so if anything happens, I prefer being stranded in a large city rather than being stuck in No Mans Land just because bahn.de says it's the fastest connection". This is very important when traveling late in the day, to not spend the night at a station.

The downside is obviously that German traveling has now degraded to a state of "medieval mode" traveling, where you have to plan your overnight stops at the local inn while fighting robbers, peasants and bicyclists for a spot in your horse carriage (sorry, I mean "RE3"). But when you are eventually stranded in Knitschendorf-Unteroblingen main station at 23:59pm because bahn.de said that there should be a train here and then staring into the night sky above you, at least you remember that traveling beyond the horizon has finally become magical again. Onto new adventures, travelers! See y'all at Mt. Doom.

You are looking for https://azul.rs - which I wrote to finally fix this whole "Electron" situation: https://azul.rs/reftest

It's not ready yet (it does layout HTML semi-properly, but it still needs some polishing and the desktop integration is currently not working, only the layout), I hope can get a release of it out before Christmas.

"You can't do free volunteer work for unrelated party A and then turn around to unrelated party B and demand that they pay you for that."

The parties are absolutely not "unrelated". You are missing that, at least in Germany, the state is effectively a majority shareholder in every single company. For an average German SW dev salary of €80k, the state gets: €16k in social contributions (calculated on top of the salary) + about 32k in corporate tax, income tax, social security (again, on the worker side), sales tax, etc = 48k in total. So, in total, the German state gets about 50-60% of all money earned. It's not like in the US where taxes are lower.

Now, I "live on the dole" (because nobody wants to hire me for some reason) and create infrastructure that German companies use. I receive about €800/month (subsistence + health insurance), which is €9,600 per year. That is the cost to the state to keep me alive while I maintain infrastructure used by German companies.

Looking at the ROI for the German State, if only one single developer at a German startup saves a few weeks of work using my code, or if a startup can launch faster because of my open source work, the state makes that money back instantly. That is, assuming only a single company uses my code, while in fact, many do so silently.

And on top of that economic unfairness, the current system classifies Open Source work as "unemployment/leisure," whereas economically, it is unpaid R&D that fuels the very companies funding the state. There are strong differences in how "tech infrastructure" gets built in Germany vs the US:

- In the US, corporate taxes are much lower. Monopolies (Google, Meta, etc.) amass massive capital reserves. They effectively privatize public R&D (Go, React, PyTorch). They can afford to hire devs to work on OSS full-time because the state leaves them the money to do so.

- In Germany, the state takes ~50% of the money out of the ecosystem (between high income tax, social security, and corporate tax). Small and medium businesses (the "Mittelstand") do not have the surplus capital to fund "public good" R&D like Google does.

Since the German state extracts the capital that would otherwise fund this innovation, I can argue that the state has indeed an obligation to reinvest it into the ecosystem. Currently, they don't and they just waste the money on complete nonsense, wars, etc. and then tell OSS maintainers to also "get a real job and do OSS in your spare time".

Not really, I mean I don't "complain" about companies using my code and I don't demand much. I'm happy if they're honest enough to send me patches back. But if I know that my code is being used by German companies, then, as a German, it's only fair to ask for some breadcrumbs back (about 40-50% of your income goes to the state in Germany, it's not like the US). We could make "everything private only", but then it becomes very hard for people to start their own startups as they have to pay for every little thing, like in the 90s.

I do take responsibility for the code I write, often way more than some company CEOs ("just sell it bro"). I try to make efforts, but in the end I have physical limits. And many open-source developers are like that. It's more "well if we would put some miniscule effort to supporting open source, we'd all be better of, more sovereign, more independent of Big Tech, more innovation, etc. etc." - sure, not every GH project is "innovation", but many are, so just make some org where you could more easily apply for public funding, problem solved.

What I do at least demand is that the Jobcenter stops bothering me to "get a real job" (thankfully they're very lenient at least where I live). Or that there are more opportunities for funding Open Source. There are initiatives like the Prototype Fund, which is at least a start, but they are only spending about €1.8 million per year, which is literal pocket change for the German government. Meanwhile literal billions go to weapons development for random foreign countries.

Of course! This is actually very straightforward and easy, what you need is just:

- One MongoDB collection (`government_stuff`) to store employees, rodents, cardiac arrest surgeries and other items as JSON

- Core `/handler` API that forwards all requests to ChatGPT, figuring out if you're tracking a rodent or processing payroll

- AI Vision to analyze CCTV feeds for rodents, monitors employee productivity and verify hospital equipment status

- Blockchain layer for transparency (every rodent sighting minted as NFT).

Estimated timeline: 2 weeks, 1 junior developer. Cost: ~$10k including token credits. Should I start implementing the main.js?

I mean, porn completely ruined my teenage years and it took me 8 years to get rid of my addiction. It warps your expectations of real-life relationships, it ruins marriages, it ruins both women and men, it's garbage poison and should be outlawed. So I would be in favor of such laws, but then again, I also know, it's not really about porn and more about the whole "we can't let the youth become radicalized by this Internet thing" stuff and just more censorship.

The aim is to protect young people on the internet from age-inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, hate speech, incitement, and misinformation.

Hmmm, I doubt they really care about pornography and more about censoring certain stuff that politicians do not like. But what do I know, I'm probably just a conspiracy theorist.

Update VSCode to the latest version and click the small "Chat" button at the top bar. GitHub gives you like $20 for free per month and I think they have a deal with the larger vendors because their pricing is insanely cheap. One week of vibe-coding costs me like $15, only downside to Copilot is that you can't work on multiple projects at the same time because of rate-limiting.

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbhJjXl9Rk

Location: Germany

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: Anywhere, as long as the salary matches the local living costs, I'm not bound by family or similar

Technologies: I have about 6 YOE in Rust, so that's my daily driver and it's what I'm best at. Other than that, Python, general frontend tech (JS / HTML / CSS, but I don't use frameworks), SEO and graphic design

Resume/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17pG-DUswO19foUCrctVR40jE5S-..., https://www.linkedin.com/in/fschuttmaps4print, https://github.com/fschutt

Email: See Resume.

I am mostly a self-taught Rust engineer who tried (unsuccessfully, so far) to build a cartography startup. But I still need a regular day job, even if everything goes well, but I have lots of experience in Rust by now. After school, I only had some training in government administration, but never wanted to work there. Learned C++ in my free type, then switched to Rust in 2017 to create my own GIS / graphics applications. That work resulted in the https://azul.rs GUI framework (still working on it).

I finished multiple smaller projects for the German government (had to get "some" job because I ran out of money building Azul), but sadly all my designs got rejected due to German bureaucracy. I am good at thinking through systems, ownership and understanding the entire product, as well as rendering, performance, Linux / open-source and software architecture.

Not interested in crypto or defense sector.

Well, Tantacrul did answer that objection: it just shows you a popup dialog on first start: "which theme do you want" (colorful or colorless, light / dark) and "which experience do you want" (classic / new). So if you pick the "colorless, light, classic" option, it's going to look pretty much like the current Audacity, except that they moved from wxWidgets to Qt.

Free audio editing software that requires hours of learning to be useful for simple tasks.

To be fair, the Audacity UX designer made a massive video about the next UX redesign and how he tried to get rid of "modes" and the "Audacity says no" problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38

So this problem should get better in the future. Good UX (doesn't necessarily have to have a flashy UI, but just a good UX) in free software is often lacking or an afterthought.

If possible, please make a Linux version.

Just in case any Canva engineer is reading this.

Azul.rs is making lots of progress now and it'll have decent C / C++ / Python bindings (so it won't be Rust-only). But I guess for now GPUI is more mature.