1. robrain 2 days ago parent

   As someone from 1969, but with an excellent circulatory system, I just roll my eyes and look forward to the sound of bubbles bursting whilst billionaires weep.
2. robrain 5 days ago parent

   As I said, I was being lame. But I get real Terminator vibes when a very good robotics company joins forces with a company that might make those robots autonomous. Terminator and Asimov robot stories make me pessimistic.

   It was a knee-jerk reaction as opposed to detailed analysis.

3. robrain 5 days ago parent

   What could possibly go wrong? Lame, I know, but seriously can we have some good, not sinister news for a week or two? With no AI or evil tech-bro, or senile despot overtones if possible.
4. robrain 5 days ago parent

   You know you’re moving the goalposts, don’t you? I’ll grant you that the App Store and Music show ads. But that’s not what you claimed originally, is it?
5. robrain 5 days ago parent

   I said it was simplistic :). Point taken.
6. robrain 5 days ago parent

   Simplistic analysis of whether CSS sucks: this definitive guide is 1,126 pages long. On the Amazon page it also suggests the "Definitive guide to JavaScript" - it's 704 pages long.

   If you can fully explain JS (an inexplicable bodge built on a tower of inexplicable bodges) in less pages then CSS almost definitely sucks.

7. robrain 5 days ago parent

   Indeed - it’s like the last hundred years of detergent marketing: “the whitest whites ever, the gentlest wash you’ve ever experienced”. Then six months later another advance from the boffins in their lab coats. All the time it’s just soap.
8. robrain Jan 3, 2026 parent

   Self-reply addendum - individual photos can be dealt with with a simple long-press, no need for delving into the info page for the user.
9. robrain Jan 3, 2026 parent

   Messages, select user, click the user icon to get to the info page, click Photos, Edit, Select, Download -> photos are in the Photos app and you can do what you want with them.

   Not the easiest operation, but hardly jealously prevented.

10. 2 points Jan 2, 2026

    Norway reaches 97% EV sales as EVs now outnumber diesels on its roads

    1 comment robrain electrek.co
11. robrain Dec 31, 2025 parent

    With respect - bull.
12. robrain Dec 25, 2025 parent

    Since the dawn of the current "AI" I've continued to buy and read books at the same pace. Likewise downloading interesting human-created PDFs. I know I'm not the only human who takes zero interest in the output of word-sausage extruders.
13. robrain Dec 25, 2025 parent

    Thank you for remembering and sharing this - I knew I'd seen it before, I just couldn't recall where. Mr Scott is and was (and maybe will be?) the obligatory xkcd of nerd experiments.
14. robrain Dec 24, 2025 parent

    Yup, Apple user since 2001, desktop and laptop, 20ish years in an office environment used for 8+ hours a day, now 5 years retired. Total faults - zero. Desire to upgrade RAM before rest of machine needed updates (eg storage+CPU+screen) - zero. Dissatisfaction with "Apple model": zero.

    But... lately I've felt a hankering to run Linux as a first-class citizen rather than a VM and that's definitely a gap in Mac functionality. I wouldn't sacrifice the five years I enjoy MacOS on my machines for the ability to then move them to Linux, but it would still be nice.

15. robrain Dec 23, 2025 parent

    "Think “screen share, but the thing being shared is a robot writing code.”"

    Thinks: why not send text instead of graphics, then? I'm sure it's more complicated than that...

16. robrain Dec 16, 2025 parent

    British-born Canadian here. Strong spelling pedantry courses through my veins.

    But... this is just the next chapter in Canadian media (ha! it mostly belongs to the southern dictatorship) having a go at non-Trumpish politicians.

    Life continues.

17. robrain Dec 11, 2025 parent

    Discussed entertainingly here by ThePrimeTimeagen: https://youtu.be/E3_95BZYIVs?si=IY-iT1eyXKnVvpTS
18. robrain Dec 10, 2025 parent

    I've got a sudden strong urge to play Katamari Damacy.
19. robrain Dec 9, 2025 parent

    And when you’ve finally switched to the last LLM and it tells you it can’t answer you, and you decide not to use LLMs for important life-changing questions anymore, your world will be a better place.
20. robrain Nov 26, 2025 parent

    You have the choice to open the door if you wish. This choice has been removed from those who prefer privacy if the door doesn't exist.
21. robrain Nov 23, 2025 parent

    That's the basic method of retraining. I've got a bunch of essential oils in tiny jars and I regularly take a 20 second sniff of each whilst thinking strongly about the smell in context. For example, when I smell the lavender oil I recall the garden at my grandma's house which obviously was full of lavender. It's definitely helping, but there are still a lot of gaps.
22. robrain Nov 23, 2025 parent

    Thanks for the info. I'm on top of it (in the ways you described) but still appreciate it and maybe someone else will see your comment.
23. robrain Nov 22, 2025 parent

    Still have it, intermittently. A sort of nameless-but-familiar "chemical" smell that comes and goes, along with any sense of taste. That is, I have bad days with no taste, just a chemical smell. Other days I have a pretty good sense of smell, generally with a good sense of taste.

    Intriguingly some of the really unpleasant smells never get through to me - I could probably work at a sewage works now. Worryingly I have next to no ability to smell burning, though I do now get the smell of natural gas (or the additive used to make it smell).

24. robrain Nov 19, 2025 parent

    Did some major projects for my employer using Perl (coupled with Java of all things) in the 90s. Then I learnt Ruby and put aside childish things (jk). I then dropped Ruby for Elixir and Python for the sort of projects that I would have used Perl for, back in the day. As a semi-retired sort, I now keep my Elixir and Python skills up-to-date and can't remember the last time I even tried to read any Perl. I know it's still there, doing work, but then so is COBOL.

    What I miss from then are the O'Reilly books about Perl. Peak O'Reilly. Every one a joy to read and packed full of goodness. Without being 1,000 pages long. Oh, and CPAN.

    Perl 6 was only ever a distraction - I was already out of love with Perl by then and Ruby (and obviously Rails) came along at the right time for the next project.

25. robrain Nov 16, 2025 parent

    Please engage sarcasm-awareness mode.

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