It has atrocious UX. Crazy bloat from promising to support every one-off file format under the sun for the last 25 years.

Trying to get a PR commit committed is like dealing with an entire army of bureaucrats.

So I get it would be great (in theory) if people wanted to support this, but at the same time it’s too far behind —- and the team is too entrenched in bad UX decisions, ackward support mandates for obscure systems that in reality nobody ever really used.

And this is a hill I’ll die on… Permissive licenses > copyleft. If I fork your code, as long as I put your name in the credits, the code is mine to do whatever I want with. Past authors shouldn't get a say in what I build next. That's real open source.

Fired up Reddit app on my phone and here's what I saw:

1 - Post from Subreddit I subscribe to.

2 - Post from Subreddit that Reddit promoted into my feed. Not really anything I'd be interested in.

3 - Non-targeted Advertisement. (Literally an ad about some kind of medication I think, I didn't click.)

4 - Post from Subreddit that Reddit promoted into my feed. Not really anything I'd be interested in.

5 - Post from Subreddit I subscribe to.

6 - Non-targeted Advertisement.

The pattern went on that way; every 3 posts was an ad. And fully half of the posts were from Subreddit I don't follow.

1/3 ads. 1/3 content I didn't want. 1/3 content I wanted.

I think that may be the end of Reddit for me. I don't really get a lot out of it before, and I get dramatically less when they force feed shit I don't want into my feed. What even is the point of subscribing to feeds if they're just going to put slop in that you don't subscribe to?

Also, I swore you used to be able to opt out of the feed promotions, and I swore I had those disabled, but today I can't find the settings to disable them. Cool. Cool cool cool.

In honor of the way we talked on Reddit... fuck u/spez!

Look, without going into all the details... the contract the insurance company had pressured me to sign quickly so the contractor could start ("We don't want to lose them! It's so hard to find a contractor during the pandemic!") had a clause in it that said the contractor wasn't responsible for damages to my property caused by their crews.

So the 40-foot tree they killed by dumping all their paint thinner on the roots, or the paint splatter they got all over my fireplace using it as a mixing station, or the foundation that they cracked by breaking three tension cables while doing exploratory surgery trying to install a better drain in the laundry room (so the flood wouldn't happen again), or the electrical circuits they cut and put drywall over to hide the old plugs, or all the tools my grandfather left me that they stole... or the... look, the non-cosmetic issues in my counterclaim filled over 80 pages of a lawsuit, without photos. It was extensive, documented damage they did to my house.

Anyway, the contract also called for mandatory binding arbitration. So we went in, and the mediator was like, "OK, tossing all your claims. Great, now that those are tossed, pay them for their work."

The mediator said, "Look, we have to give the benefit of the doubt to these hard-working men who came to your aid in your hour of need. Was the job done right? Maybe not, but they were the ones you chose to hire. You can choose anyone, and you picked them and signed their contract."

Oof.

I had a video of them dumping paint thinner at the base of my tree, they did it 5x in one day. I had videos of all of it. I had soil samples showing the tree died from paint thinner being dumped on it. The mediator was like, "It's not relevant because of your contract, but I'll humor you... Yes, you have videos but we can't tell what they are dumping. Yes, you have a soil sample, but how do we know you didn't just do this to your own tree?" It was just so surreal.

It was a large company, more like a loose network of contractors that sub-sub-subcontract everything. The lack of accountability was a huge problem since there had been over 160 people in my home, plumbers, carpenters, tile guys, etc. over the span of the construction, and even though I had cameras it was on me to prove the people worked for the parent company I was in a lawsuit with and not just random people I had let into my house... "How do we know these problems were caused by XYZ company's staff or contractors?" And I'd have to be like, "You think I hired my own painters? I wasn't trying to a parallel remodel project... everyone was their guys..." But it was on me to prove and I didn't have IDs or full names fro 95% of them.

Anyway, I also found out afterward that the mediator was a retired judge who had done literally nothing but cases for them for the last two-plus years before my case. The contract called for them to be able to pick two or three mediators, and we could then pick one from their list... but the fact that one mediator was able to stay employed doing nothing but cases for this one giant insurance/contractor organization... well, I couldn't help but feel like they knew where their bread was buttered. =P

Anyway, I had to pay all my cost of living for 2+ years while not living in my house. I had to pay for my lawyer and all the experts I had hired to build my case. Since I lost the mediation, I had to pay for their lawyer. I had to pay them for the shoddy work they did, as well as a very high late penalty. This is where it gets super shady too, in that my insurance company mandated I use someone from that network, and the contract said I had to pay my deductible, and 50% up front and 50% on completion. Fair.

But it came out in mediation that the insurance company paid this contractor 100% up front. So that took all their motivation away from fixing my house and let them drag it out almost three years.

Also, I was like, "So if insurance paid you all up front... why are you demanding 50% of the remainder of the contract? And tell me again, why won't insurance cover that?"

I never got a great answer, but I was told by my insurance company they wouldn't reimburse me for the final amount because the work wasn't "done." I don't know. I asked my lawyer, and she was like, "Yeah, you signed the contract, so you're on the hook. Insurance doesn't have to pay you the remainder of the claim, especially if you don't 'finish' the work."

Feels like the contractor either got paid twice, or likely got paid up front and then, once they got my money, were able to reimburse the insurance company... who was, in truth, their real client. They had some sort of collusion going on the whole time. Insurance companies should not be allowed to own, or partner with, any contractors they recommend. It's all so dirty.

Oh, and, "Why didn't I have a better lawyer?" you ask... Well, I had to go through over 50 in my area just to find one that would take my case. Any firm I wanted to hire gave me a polite decline, "Sorry, we're not taking on new clients." A friend of mine was a lawyer in another state, he said, "They probably all have consulted with the parent company, or want to, so they are declining due to conflict of interest." Then, just to add some bad luck, my original lawyer had a heart attack and had to pawn me off on to another firm last minute. I don't know, the first first wasn't very good either, but the second really didn't care.

And... "Why didn't you go to court?" Well yeah, I could have walked from mediation... certainly couldn't have done worse than I did at mediation. But my lawyer said, "If you want to take this to trial, you'll need to give me a retainer in the $150k range, and it'll likely be 2-3 years before the case is heard, and you will be required to document the state of the house monthly and not move back in until this is all over..." And she ended with, "And,as much as you want to fight this... you're going to get the same result due to this contract in court that you'd get here. Cut your losses and move on." God bless the Texas legal system.

All of it felt crooked, man. It's not good for my rage levels to think about this. Ha. Live and learn, but insurance companies and especially their contractors are shady people. Out to screw you any way they can.

macOS Tahoe (26) was the one where they introduced transparent everything, and it flat out sucked from a usability standpoint.

Design was busy for the sake of being busy, glossy for the sake of being glossy. And no attention at all was paid to usability.

* It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons @ tonsky.me // https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/

Anyway stay on Sonoma mate, upgrading has killed my productivity and that just makes me way too angry. Ha.

But seriously, the real advantage to open-source software I think will be that you can just tell Claude, "Make this work the way I want it!" and boom it does.

I have loved Apple products for so long, and I can't imagine a world where I don't love their hardware, but since they shat the bed on usable design, and shat the bed on testing, I am starting to fantasize about a world where we could just send our PRs to fix MacOS. =P

How does this get by testing? Like it's a great feature, and it's just broken now. All the things you said, and half the time when I bring up virtual desktops various windows freeze the original size and can't be moved to a new desktop. Plus, when I resize a window, all of the virtual desktops lose their preview thumbnails, so I can't tell what's running where. It's just so maddening. And worse by the fact that they waited what a week to do a "hotfix" OS release and still didn't bother to fix this.

Edit: A few versions ago they finally got Spaces working correctly for people with multiple monitors. It was a buggy mess since launch as soon as you had 2-3 monitors. And I get it... Apple has always hated anyone who plugged in a few monitors at once -- wanting to get work done isn't cool enough for them. =P

But yeah now it doesn't even work right on one monitor.

Spaces... the windows don't layer right. So I can't always move them to a new space. When I bring up the various desktops, some windows just freeze at the original size and refuse to move.

Similarly, the desktop previews for other desktops don't work. They start out working, but as soon as I resize a window, the previews in the virtual desktops go blank, so I can't see which desktops have files and applications running.

Also, probably the most annoying, my laptop (M4 Max MBP) battery life is just gone from what it was a week ago. It used to last a day; now it's maybe 4 hours -- I've noticed the fan is on a lot more which is likely the cause.

The laptop went from always being quiet, cool, to being warm when I pick it up.

And yeah, I've tuned all the settings, fixed what I could, but Spaces and virtual desktops are just broke.

As someone who has been using virtual desktops for as long as Apple has had this feature... man, it's just a total drain on productivity to try and shoehorn everything into one desktop. I hate it. Might as well be using a computer that isn't my own.

And as someone who has used Mac for 40 years at this point... I'm just not used to Apple breaking this much. They were sticklers for detail, and that's why I love their products. But this latest OS feels untested. Do they only care about users using one application at a time? Feels like they just gave up on advanced users. Anyone running Spaces / virtual desktops would have noticed all these bugs.

The last OS added a ton of bullshit transparent glitter; this one broke how I use my computer. It sucks knowing that even Apple can't get things right today. Flat out just sucks.

Wish I could just roll back. Left waiting for them to maybe, hopefully, someday put in a patch to fix all the stuff they just broke. Just maddening.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49924387

Points: 50

# Comments: 51

Where did it come from? Well, I was curious how Bitcoin worked, so I set up a little mining rig and let it run at night on my work computer. So, other than my time, which I think I did on work's time, and the power, which I think I used work's power... I saw it as a free cup of coffee.

Honestly, I was just so happy to find a booth at a convention that actually took Bitcoin that I didn't mind the crappy exchange rate.

But anyway, I don't think regret is a particularly useful thing to hold onto. You can regret things you did, and you can regret things you didn't do. Either way, there's nothing you can do about it. It feels like baggage. Hold on to too much of it and you sink. You have to find a way to rise above it and keep moving forward. If you don't, you'll drown.

I say that as someone who learned this lesson the hard way.

I spent 3+ years in a legal battle with an insurance company and their contractor that ultimately cost me more than $500,000. I was right. Period. I had been wronged. Period. The contractor and insurance company both lied and I had ample documentation of them doing so, and doing shoddy work. What I was asking for was completely reasonable. But who cares? That's not how the courts or the legal system work.

What I learned from the process was that most people just get screwed over when they go up against big companies. And it's not even close. I'd guess something like 75% of people who get into a fight with an insurance company end up losing -- and it's probably higher than that if you factor in the people who simply give up. Eventually, you have to decide whether continuing to fight is worth what it's costing you.

There will always be another "I almost caught the fish!" story to tell. Life is long. Learn from the mistakes, let go of the things you can't change, and do your best to keep moving forward.

Some situations just suck. Best not to think about it them too much.

* The Free Software Media System | Jellyfin // https://jellyfin.org/

He doesn’t want the details, he just wants someone else to tell him what they’re gonna do. But if he doesn’t know the details, he won’t understand if the plan will make things better or worse.

So… what exactly is this presumably valuable person there to do? Just to gage the confidence in the room? Presumably everyone was confident before the mistake happened.

What does this person who just wants a solution add? Why isn’t he fostering a discussion and adding his insight? Why is he in the room at all?

I have a suspicion that we'll find a lot of alt-right Trump-donors on the list.

Or at least can we find and shame the chicken-fuckers? Ha!

* FBI’s Kash Patel defends hiring policy change on bestiality, prostitution | Human Trafficking News | Al Jazeera // https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/15/fbis-kash-patel-def...

But seriously... the way things are going, I'm glad some motivated third party is backing this stuff up for the future. We're going to need all the data we can get for the next round of Nuremberg trials.

I understand that it's their bosses telling them what to do... but I'd be fully in support of a ban of anyone who had anything to do with the FBI under Trump from ever holding any sort of law-enforcement position ever again. As far as I'm concerned... they're all guilty of conspiracy to commit pedophilia, conspiracy to solicit bribery, likely hundreds of other crimes by hiding the truth from the American people. Wouldn't surprise me at all to learn they've been using all this time to destroy evidence. And I really don't care if they are "just following orders" -- anyone left in the building is in on it at this point.

AI chatbots give wrong answers to financial queries 'most of the time' (ft.com) // https://www.ft.com/content/c0cd359d-df84-4208-a789-ffa864b43...

I was somewhat OK not having as much regulation until the people in the industry started saying they didn't need it... now I know 100% that we need it and we likely can't have it soon enough. We likely needed it years ago even.

The fact that they got away with stealing every book in the world... faced no repercussions at all, should tell you they need a parent-figure to monitor and supervise or they'll keep making selfish and bad decisions that hurt others.

> Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations

> https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...

Fitting way to commemorate 9/11. =P

Just saying, there are plenty of good CMSs out there now.

WordPress is junky AF, and the spat with WP Engine over... of all things... how they store backups... it was all so cringe. Felt like it boiled down to WP Engines saying, "We don't need to keep backups on the live server..." And WP saying, "Oh hell yeah you do, you can't have your own way to do rollbacks!" It was literally insane for them to fight about that.

TThe only reason we got to learn it at all was because one of the daycare workers was a graduate student at the University of Washington. She somehow got permission for any of the kids who were interested to use the school's computer lab. Which, I think, took some doing on her part.

Back then, computers were treated like sacred objects. They made a huge deal about kids using them. The whole first week of the class was basically some grumpy old guy with a white beard telling us, "These are not toys! These are expensive machines!"

We had to wash our hands before we were allowed into the computer room. The old guy would literally "hand check" us at the door. You had to hold out your hands and show him that they were clean before you were allowed anywhere near the computers.

Logo was a lot of fun. We had a competition to see who could draw the coolest thing. Just like foundation for a "hackathon" really. Every day, "OK, Kids, you have 30 minutes, let's see what you can do!" Was a lot of fun.

I had to ask my mom for a floppy disk. "Mom, I need $5 for class supplies..." And then I had to explain that it was for a computer disk... and she had to call the school to make sure I was getting the right thing... even though I told her 100 times that I needed an un-formatted 5.25" disk! Ha.

Anyway good memories here. Logo and HyperCard were gateway drugs.