Recommendations

As a long-time Obsidian user, I have to say that Tolaria is really appealing to me right now. Sure, there are still things missing, like plugin support or even just a data view.

But I’m enjoying what I see so far, and I can see myself keeping Tolaria installed for a while.

Is any of this illegal? Probably not. Is it what you'd expect from an official government app? Probably not either.

It it something you'd expect from this US administration? Yes. Absolutly!

"Wenn ein Bundeskanzler mit einer so niedrigen Zustimmungsrate keinerlei Anzeichen gibt, an seiner Kommunikation, seiner Politik, seinem Führungsstil etwas zu ändern, dann lässt er die Bevölkerung allein mit allen Problemen. Das ist einfach respektlos." — Friedrich Merz (Jan 15, 2024)

I recently had a playthrough of Red Dead Redemption 2, and this article lists all the things I felt. When I played it the first time in 2018, it was slow – painfully slow. But I liked it; today it feels like relaxation and deceleration.There was an episode of The Big Bang Theory a few years ago where Sheldon said he was going for a walk, then he went to his Xbox and played Red Dead Redemption Part 1. This is how I feel about Part 2.

I also like that we play a 40-something cowboy in the latter age of his career, and you see that his best days are over. When he runs, he runs fast, but when he stops, there's a slow moment where he's going slower, jogging out, and you feel it.
Or I feel it as I'm the same age 🥲

And then there are these explosive moments where it's fully epic - a train approaches, and we slowly step above a wagon with a rifle in hand, looking epic. This is cool, stylish, and why I love that game.

Also this time, it had the same effect as the last time I played it. Back then, I was stunned by the gameplay, by the story, by everything it offers. After that, I played an Assassin's Creed game—I think it was Odyssey—and I was getting on a horse in the game, and I hated it. It felt stiff; it felt horrible, and it was a difference between night and day. And now, after I played it a second time, I think it destroyed my interest in other games again.

(By the way, is this post‑reads different? I tried some dictation software)

This article is about the point of view of a software engineer who is critical of AI but wants to differentiate. He also highlights the point that AI companies are actually trying to scare us of AI instead of selling it to us, which is a very interesting point.

He actually comes to no conclusion, but the vibe is to keep calm and see how things develop.

Great writing, also a POV we do not see that often these days, as everyone is either enthusiastic or a Luddite.

(English below)

Ich empfehle wirklich jeden dieses Kurzgesagt Video zu sehen. Es geht um den demographischen Wandel und warum wir aktuell auf ein großes Problem zuschlittern.

"Um die demographische Krise wirklich zu lösen [...] wären Maßnahmen nötig, die bei älteren Wählern auf große Ablehnung stoßen.“

„Und sie haben keine Chance, das durch Wahlen zu ändern, denn deutsche Parteien haben keinen Anreiz, jungen Menschen zu helfen.“

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• 📉 Geburtenrate 1.4 (seit 55 Jahren unter Repro-Niveau)
• 👵 Fast jeder 4. Deutsche über 65
• 🛠️ Bis 2036: 13 Mio. Babyboomer in Rente
• 💸 25% Steuereinnahmen in Rentenkasse
• 🏛️ "Grauer Block" — Senioren überstimmen Jüngere
  🏥 Gesundheitssystem + Pflege unter Druck
  🌍 Einwanderung kann Problem nur verzögern
  💡 Fazit: "Die Lösung ist sehr schmerzhaft."

---

Btw... Man sollte darauf hinweisen wieviel Liebe in diesen Videos steckt. Einer der Kanäle die eigentlich nur Sympathie verdienen.

English

I highly recommend everyone watch this Kurzgesagt video. It covers demographic change and why we are currently sliding toward a massive problem.

"To truly solve the demographic crisis [...] measures would be necessary that would meet with great opposition from older voters."

"And they have no chance of changing this through elections, because German parties have no incentive to help young people."

Key Facts at a Glance

• 📉 Birth Rate 1.4: It has been below the replacement level for 55 years.
• 👵 Aging Society: Nearly 1 in 4 Germans is over the age of 65.
• 🛠️ Labor Shortage: By 2036, 13 million Baby Boomers will have retired.
• 💸 Pension Drain: 25% of tax revenue is used just to plug holes in the pension fund.
• 🏛️ "Grey Block": Seniors outvote the younger generation, dictating political direction.
• 🏥 Systemic Pressure: Healthcare and elderly care systems are nearing a breaking point.
• 🌍 Migration: Immigration can only delay the crash, not solve the underlying collapse.
• 💡 Bottom Line: "The solution will be very painful."

A Note on the Production

It is worth highlighting how much love and effort goes into these videos. Kurzgesagt is one of those channels that deserves nothing but respect and support for their work. They mentioned that this specific script took two years to finalize due to its complexity and the emotional weight of the topic.

The developers who will thrive are not the ones who write the most code. They are the ones who best define the problem, split the work, and verify the result.

Your job title still says Software Engineer. But the actual work has shifted. You define the task decomposition. You set the agent topology. You review the output. You are the orchestrator now.

As I see Code Review as the lesser interesting part of this job ... I do not like the future of software development

Warning: the link goes to Threads

Software engineering cultures often reward performative complexity because overbuilding provides a more impressive narrative for promotion packets and design reviews.

This post argues that the "simplest thing that works" is frequently overlooked or dismissed as uninteresting, even when it is the most effective solution.

To combat this, we must change our incentive structures to treat simplicity as a hard-won virtue, making the avoidance of technical debt a visible and valued career milestone.

I highlighted the sh*t out of this article! It's not the usual "AI slop = bad" post, it's a fundamental critique of the current staus quo.
If this piece was a conference talk it would get standing ovations.

(Also the first time I ever felt bad for using the freemium service for medium, support the author!)

From my perspective, this is nothing more than hype marketing, because "Our product is too good to release it yet" is something I have seen many times before.

For instance, back before the release of the PlayStation 2 (!!!), it was claimed that the high-performance Emotion Engine in the PS2 could be used for weapons guidance systems. - Source

It is also interesting—and enlightening—that the same security exploits could be found using smaller (and cheaper) open-source models.

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

I had a lot of love for GitHub Copilot in the past, but you cannot stop enshittification.

Nobody: Enshitification?
Anthrophic: Hold my Spyware.

This app has a lot of potential. It's like Numi, it's like my scrappad on the right bottom corner of my Mac, it's math, it's a to-do list, it's cool. And only $5.

I've read a lot of articles like this in the past months and there seems to be a really big problem with bots, ai slop and open source projects.

Genuinely the idea this guy had is great; everybody should do it as long it is working.

I was in the crowd at the Beyond Tellerrand Conf in Düsseldorf in 2014(?) when Brad showed the world his Atomic Design Framework and Patternlab. For that time, it was something we (the UX/UI engineers) needed. The next couple of years, atomic design was my way to go... and then it slowly faded away.

This is a nice, comprehensive read about that, kind of nostalgic...

I am not happy that they (finally) read the room and added vertical tabs. Not that I dislike the feature, but I am kind of annoyed by Zen Browser as it randomly deletes all my cookies, storage, and credentials.

Welp, I might return to chrome for a while...

I've noticed the same trend Paul Kinlan describes. We're at a point where React isn't just the most popular JavaScript framework anymore — it's become its own platform.

New frameworks are "dead on arrival." React has become the platform because LLMs generate React by default. It's a self-reinforcing loop: more React in training data → more React in output. For LLMs, a prompt like "build me a website" is basically synonymous with "build me a React app."

That said, I've found that Vue.js and Nuxt work just fine too — though you occasionally need to point the LLM back to the documentation. The model doesn't default to them, but it can be guided.

React's top position will likely stay for a long time. And honestly? That makes me a bit sad. It means fast-paced frontend development is probably going to slow down significantly. We shouldn't expect many major innovations in the near future.

A wonderful film – based on a great book that I have already written about here. Sure, probably more than half of the things that made the book so special were left out, but the fact that the movie still works so well speaks volumes for the story.

I honestly didn't think Ryan Gosling could play such a convincing nerd, but... chapeau. Maybe I'll start wearing my glasses like him now – on "standby," just dangling loosely from one ear. Another positive note: the film naturally uses a lot of CGI, but also many practical effects, especially in one specific area that I won't go into because of spoilers. Oh, and avoid the trailer! Just go to the cinema!

After you have seen the movie, you'll understand why the movie is so 👎 ... in a good way!

Is this _AI slop? Yes. Is this uncanny and weird af? Also yes. Did I watch it completely? Yes Yes.

(Have I googled "Balenciaga" after watching it? Yes.)

I think I can justify linking this video because its heavily edited and there is an intention behind it. I guess

An alternative title for this article could be "How we destroyed the web by listening to marketers and advertising people."