25+ yr Java/JS dev
Linux novice - running Ubuntu (no windows/mac)

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  • 18 Comments
Joined 16 days ago
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Cake day: October 14th, 2024

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  • I’m trying to figure out what that means. Like if I were to imagine a wishlist of things AI might do in a browser:

    • generate user-scripts to modify styling and perhaps even layouts through natural language.
    • Use AI to automatically detect and remove advertisements, nsfw, etc. as desired
    • identify spoofed websites and prevent them from opening
    • search through browser history by natural language so that you’ll always be able to find that one page where you read that thing
    • scan through a massive website (Wikipedia, corporate confluence or sharepoint) to find pages relevant to a natural language search
    • identify fake content (lies, veiled advertisements, seo spam, satire)

    Okay that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Those would in theory be nice features to have, although I’d be worried about the ability to reliable deliver.

    I also think all of that could be offered as a plugin for a regular browser. So I’m at a loss as to what would make the whole browser AI-centric.

    Also I’m only reading the quote here, but I’d they are referring to the original vision of the web, it has nothing to do with any of this shit. But if that’s not the original vision being referred to then never mind.


  • I hope something in that word salad helps.

    It doesn’t come across through the frustration, but I love my wife very much. And if this is just how life is, I accept it. And I’m no fucking paragon of wise living, either. I’m just as hard to deal with as she is. I wouldn’t want to do this thing without her, but fuck if I know how to do it with her either, you know? Without her and the kids, I think I would only eat, sleep, work, and stare at pointless things. Maybe I need someone to tell me to get out of the fucking house and go to Barbados or wherever we’re going.

    Good luck, man. I’m glad you’re in therapy. And just because I disagree with him… well he knows you and your situation a hell of a lot better than I do.


  • I relate to some of this. Probably more than I’d like to. I could vent and commiserate, but I won’t. I just wanted to address this:

    I have to find a way to break through to her that it’s unfair without letting her make me the bad guy

    I could be wrong, but I really believe what your therapist is suggesting here is impossible.

    The two of you have adversarial positions here. Both of you see the situation you are in. She considers it and thinks seeing Taylor Swift is more important than having $3k (or whatever) more money. In your estimation it is not.

    Do you have any objective, undeniable facts that, when added to what she already knows, will alter the balance for her? If you do, will she accept that they are objective and undeniable coming from you the “opposing party”?

    That’s hard. One of the hardest things I’ve done is to disagree with my wife, and to truly believe she is wrong, and to accept that her viewpoint is correct and mine is wrong. And sometimes that’s the case (or it at least turns out just fine). But there is a lot of resentment when she is wrong.

    Our oldest daughter got married last year. I knew we’d wind up doing some things for the wedding and paying for them. Maybe a few thousand dollars. In April of this year two things happened: I lost my job (and I remained unemployed for 5 months) and I discovered she had spent over 30k on the wedding. Our wedding cost under $500. Our credit cards were maxxed. Her dad gives us ~$10k per year of money he has to withdraw from his retirement but he can’t spend (he gives equally to all the siblings) and that was all spent on the wedding a year in advance.

    5 months out of work drained my retirement to $0. I started working about 2 months ago. Our 15th wedding anniversary is next year. She wanted a trip I okayed ~$5k. She is spending ~$11k. (It’s a nice vacation and I did agree to it because I’m a fucking sucker for it and she has long held this to be an important anniversary.) Now she wants to spend $4k putting up permanent LEDs around the house. Night before last she was wondering why our phone bill was so high, so she goes to Verizon to look and 30 minutes later lets me know she bought a new phone. I asked what new features she’s looking forward to. And she gets pissed and says her phone is 3 models old and she wants a new one.

    I lied about not venting, sorry. And you know… if everything works out great with this job, none of this shit will kill us. But meanwhile we’re spending $1600/year on a maxxed $5k credit card between interest, late fees (hopefully that should stop at least), and annual fees.

    Anyway, all I have to do is just non-judgementally ask her reason for wanting a new phone and we fought for like 12 hours over it.

    TL;DR There is no way she will hear a reasonable argument from you and see it as anything other than a manipulation of facts in order to prevail in the disagreement. You need a neutral third party or someone she respects and will listen to.

    Trauma is a real thing. My wife’s mom died at like 59 years old, just after she retired and was looking forward to spending all the money my inlaws had saved over their lifetimes on travel and such. Now my wife thinks it’s critical that we live while we can because she isn’t going to live past 60.

    Sometimes trauma needs to be assuaged, but other times it will lead someone to self-destructive behavior that feels like what they need to cope with their trauma.


    I’m sorry for writing a book. I’m honestly not sure if I wrote it because I think something in there will help you, or because I just needed to get it off my chest.







  • This is one of those things where home users just default to PC = Windows. But apps are all online now. Probably 99% of the time all people need is a browser. Yeah some people think they have to have MS Office or some other niche windows program, but I consider myself a power-user and the only apps I open on my PC are Games, Discord, IntelliJ, VSCode, and then maybe fool around with local AI stuff. Photos and stuff are usually on our phones, but they can also all be backed up to the cloud from a computer easily enough.

    I’ve already switched over to Linux because all of that stuff already works. (Caveat: I also have a PS5 for most gaming).

    Most people just need someone to install Linux Mint or whatever and they wouldn’t even notice the difference. The only thing really slowing Linux adoption is folks who don’t want to field support calls from their friends and family.






  • I would’ve upgraded to 11, but either my computer doesn’t support TPM or I just refused to turn it on. So instead I upgraded to Ubuntu. There are probably better distros but I had a limited about of time to fuck around trying them.

    Mint is pretty nice, too. It felt familiar, as a windows user. But I kept installing stuff that broke the updater. So I switched and found it’s me, not the updater, and I just need to do apt update/upgrade and dpkg -i regardless, but anyway now I’m on Ubuntu.

    I still have my full windows install on an SSD somewhere if I had an emergency, but I haven’t had any such emergency in about a year.