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Abstractions
Abstractions episodes
- Someday You & I Will Be Dead
Web sites try to thwart “A.I.” bot scrapers, Stack Overflow is almost dead, bot slop may soon plague GitHub, and Apple may need a new CEO in order to change.
- Neal.fun
- Internet Artifacts
- Deep Sea
- Stack Overflow is almost dead
- My new hobby: watching AI slowly drive Microsoft employees insane
- Apple Turnover
- Apple Turnaround
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
1 hr - Some Real Side-Eye
Cotypist autocompletion for MacOS is available in beta, Google wrecks search results on purpose, SoundCloud adds “AI” training to TOS, and authors imprison themselves in Substack’s walled garden.
- Cotypist: Local LLM-powered autocompletion on MacOS
- Google made search results worse on purpose
- SoundCloud claims the right to train AI on your songs
- Don’t call it a Substack
- Substack alternatives:
- Ghost
- Buttondown
- Beehiiv
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
57 min - Nerds Less Welcome
Redis is open source again, Synology wants to restrict you to their own branded disks, and someday the “A” in “A.I.” may stand for “advertising”.
- Redis is open source again
- Synology drive lock-in
- Alternative storage drive arrays
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
46 min - Sea Monkeys in a Pool
Facebook tries to convince us that we love ads and that their new name is about the “metaverse” instead of an attempt at whitewashing their toxic brand, while Google’s “AI Mode” confabulates wildly.
- Five Songs Daily
- Facebook expands ads in Threads app
- The real reason Facebook rebranded
- Google’s “AI Mode” meaning slop
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
52 min - Rich in Cultural Tapestry
The Humane “AI” pin is a $700 brick of e-waste, everything is an app now, and the Hyperspace Mac application has interesting pricing options.
- Floor 796
- The Humane AI Pin: A $700 Brick of E-Waste
- Archived article
- Original article (probably paywalled)
- Hyperspace Mac application
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
53 min - iPhone-Related Foofaraw
iPhone may lose its USB-C port, and Tesla sales in Europe go off a cliff.
- Hostile government takeover song
- Know Your Meme
- Original song by @AGiftFromTodd
- EDM remix by @VeryVeryVinny
- Link Unshortener Mac Application
- Link Unshortener
- Link Unshortener announcement post
- Future iPhones might ditch the USB-C port
- Tesla sales are down in Europe
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
55 min - Them’s the Breaks
WordPress and WP Engine lock horns in a drama-filled dispute, and open source projects experiment with various monetization models.
- WordPress drama explained
- Automattic is doing open source dirty, by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)
- Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s response to DHH post
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
47 min - Some Yaks Are Worth Shaving
Justin engages in “yak shaving” with varying degrees of success, and open-source enthusiasts grapple with what to do when projects are abandoned.
- Definition of “yak shaving”
- Yak shaving comic by David Revoy
- Home Assistant: Open-source home automation framework
- Pelican static site generator
- AutoPub: Python package release automation
- Justin’s article on Converting reStructuredText to Markdown
- Microsoft’s GitHub Unit Cuts AI Deals With Google, Anthropic
- How much agency do you really have when open-source projects are abandoned? (Fediverse thread)
Folks mentioned on the show:
- Chris Rose
- Honza Javorek
- Hynek Schlawack
- Giampaolo Rodola
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
39 min - May or May Not Be Charlatans
The Bartender Mac app changes ownership in an abrupt and unnerving manner, and renting software continues to feel very different from buying software.
- Bartender app’s new owner burnt years of goodwill due to lack of transparency
- Original Bartender developer responds to furor
- Open-source Mac menu bar organizer (Bartender alternative)
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
49 min - Falling in Love with SALAMI
Large language models (LLMs) and other generative “A.I.” software are based on text, images, and videos created by humans. Should they be? And what impact does this have on artists and creators?
- Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI)
- Stop Calling Everything A.I.
- The Chinese room argument by John Searle
You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.
Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
1 hr 3 min
About Abstractions
From the publisher's feed
Abstractions is a podcast about technology, software, hardware, and the Internet, and the way the ever-increasing layers of these technologies permeate every aspect of our everyday lives.