Sadly, I'm seeing a LOT of this kinda of usage. So much so, I know a couple people that brag about how many they have running at time same time, pretty much all the time.
THIS, I can barely remember a time with lifetimes or the borrow checker caused me undue suffering but can recall countless times that abstractions (often in the async world) did and sometimes still do.
I agree with you here, it feels like management said: "well, we have to do SOMETHING!" and this is what they chose: push more of the burden on to the developers giving away stuff for free when the burden should be on the developers and companies consuming the stuff for free.
> We eliminated download cards a while ago because the redemption rate was so low.
Oh. my. gosh. This has been driving me NUTS recently. Please please please here me out. The first dozen or so records I bought were of albums I already owned digitally, as FLAC so I was one of those kinds of people that didn't redeem the downloads. I wanted to buy my faves, stuff that I knew I'd love to listen to on vinyl forever. Now that I'm buying brand new stuff, that I don't have digital copies of I've noticed they rarely, rarely, if ever include a download link and so I had to renew my dang apple music subscription to listen to albums I already own when I'm away from my record player and its started to really turn me off from buying any records outside of bandcamp (where you always get the digital version too.)
I listen to FLAC's mostly (high quality, loseless audio files - CD quality or better) most of my collection has come from ripping CDs I owned or checked out from the library or albums bought on bandcamp, quobuz, and ototoy.
I use Rhythmbox to listen to files on my PC (Linux) - I think they have/had a Windows port at some point. VLC works too but is more cumbersome for large libraries on desktop IMHO. But VLC is actually pretty good on Mobile (iOS/Andriod.) besides the pain of syncing files over to iOS.
I splurged on a dedicated DAP (Digital Audio Player) last year that I'm mostly happy with: a HiBY R1 (my two complaints are: 1. for whatever reason it refuses to pair to my car's bluetooth, no issues pairing to numerous other devices. 2. It doesn't remember what you were last playing when it shuts off.)
I don't smoke or consume nicotine usually, but a few times over the past decade or so I have picked up a pack of nicotine gum to help boost focus for long days. I never got addicted and have mostly replaced the practice with a brisk walk for a few blocks. I might have done this like... 5 or 6 times in the past decade.
The one place I would still use it, if I ever find myself in this situation again, is on long trips involving an international flight where after being shot across the ocean I'm expected to show up in a disoriented state in front of customers and work together on something.
> Chatgpt as a teacher is seriously a super power.
I think this is by far, my favorite thing about LLMs. As a person who prefers self-learning I can significantly increase depth, breadth, and speed of learning or researching any topic now. Its absolutely terrible for a large number of topics but in the very least it can usually point me in a general direction faster than anything else.
My first laptop back in 2005ish or so was a Dell Latitude. Ran XP until Vista came out and I switch to Linux which it ran for a couple years until it was stolen from my car. I recall unimaginable pain and suffering due to wifi, which, IIRC, I side-stepped by buying replacing the stock Broadcom card with an Atheros card and I'm certain is not nearly much of an issue as it used to be.
I've had a Framework 13 for nearly a year, been very happy with it, I've taken it on international work trips but it mostly sits on my desk with external displays attached. I ran Windows on it until I switched jobs, now its Ubuntu.
I also have an X1 Nano, which I love too, its the around-the-house laptop and a great little machine but whenever it dies, if I replace it at all, it will likely be with another Framework (perhaps the 12")
The real test will be in 2-3 years when I'm itching for an upgrade, assuming Framework is still around, I'll be able to swap out the MoBo and leave everything else as-is. We'll see.
> This is the future that AI companies are pitching, to “give the boring work to the computer so that you can do the interesting work.”
The thing is, I usually don't find the work "boring", I'm feel uncomfortable handing off the thing I enjoy doing to a bot.
Like let's say I enjoyed playing video games, AI can play video games for me I'm sure, but I actually enjoy the challenge, the grind, the ups-and-downs. Why would I give that to AI to do for me?