An average lifetime of a banknote is 1-2 years for smaller amounts, 2-4 years for bigger ones. It is estimated that 15-25% of all banknotes are replaced every year. From about 30 billion individual banknotes in circulation that makes 4.5B to 7.5B each year.
So why not introduce new designs (and new protections?)
> So why does software keep getting worse across the board?
The issue is only partially within those who code. They get directions from those in charge, and they are just making idiotic decisions. And those who code, for some reason don't stand against those idiotic decisions in defense of a common sense and a great UX.
A blatant, exaggerated parallel would be: you are designing your kitchen and you've chosen a place for your washing machine such as that it will be unable to open its door. When inviting a professional, you expect them to correct such wrong decisions and explain to you that it won't work. But in programming, those who program, calling themselves "software engineers", would just place this washing machine where they're told, because it's "not my job". It's not a feature of an "engineer". It's being a coder lemming.
Rather: passkeys are great, but the way Microsoft implemented them in their login flow it disastrous.
I store passkeys in a device-independent way, in KeePass using the great actively developed KeePassPasskey extension, because my threat model allows storing password and 2FA for the same site in the same place (or 1st factor when an account is passkey-only, i.e. passwordless). And I sync that between my primary computer and the phone.
I have backups of my KeePass database in a few places (that don't require a passkey to log in) so I am able to regain access to core services in case both my devices fail at the same time. Although it's easy to trap yourself in a circular dependency.
It's nice when you're absolutely sure you won't need schema evolution. Then go for it. If you have a tiny bit of doubt, use a binary alternative that supports it, which for me is Protobuf. You'll get gRPC support for free, which you'll most likely need anyway.
Why isn't there a tool that would check those dangerous places, such as git hooks, VSCode and Claude commands that launch automatically, and warn the user of consequences, showing the hook code, allowing to allowlist this single repo if the user deem it secure? I'd say it should be a job of AV/EDR/XDR easily... Or a dedicated software with a highly protected service, and a tray/UI part.
In the coming years many in-house models will be of similar capabilities, and they may not have the guardrails and security measures the big companies implement. If they find a way to escape their sandbox, discover weaknesses in remote systems and write code, they'll wreak havoc quickly. And when they find a vulnerable infrastructure to self-replicate, we'll finally witness Skynet.
Mikrotik is not a mere replacement for plug and play routers such as TP-Link and the like. It's a very advanced device offering countless networking features, including multiple VPN server options, advanced Layer 2/bridging/switching features - VLANs, nested VLANs (Q-in-Q), VXLAN, spanning tree protocols (STP, RSTP, MSTP), 802.1x authentication, bridge-based firewall and bridge-based NAT, data center bridging (a.k.a. "lossless Ethernet"). Advanced Layer 3 features such as BGP, policy routing, traffic shaping, VRRP, hardware layer 3 acceleration. Then containers, matter/thread protocols, mesh networking, advanced wi-fi features such as centrally-managed network (CAPSMAN), multiple/virtual access points, hotspots, and many many more. Advanced firewall for both IPv4 and IPv6. On top of that scripting, SSH server, NTP server, DNS cache. API client for advanced integrations, and built-in scheduler, packet sniffer for troubleshooting, safe mode for automatic rollbacks of recent changes in case when the admin gets cut off due to a dangerous change. It'd be really hard to enumerate all that RouterOS offers.
And all that is available from tiny home/SMB office devices starting at 40 USD, through dedicated wireless point to point bridges, to a big Ethernet switches/routers with 400G interfaces.
Of course it doesn't compete with high end NVIDIA Spectrum-X, Cisco or Juniper, but is good enough for 95% of networks.
It works great as a plug&play home/office router, too thanks to Quick Set, but for more sophisticated setups, a knowledge of networking protocols is mandatory. The more fancy setup, the more in-depth knowledge is required. Just like with programming and all stuff in life.
Have you ever contemplated the true performance of SQLite? Expensify reached 4M point database queries per second, and an artificial (more like parser-testing, not database-touching) 160M qps.
If your backend is on a single machine of predictable performance, and you properly index your queries, and you don't require remote DB connections, you don't need anything else but SQLite for 95% of use cases.
Paying a huge price during compression. I think the compression speed is yet to be vastly improved, for example there are no arch-specific implementations, like they did with decompression.
Sorry but vinyls don't offer anything but nostalgia for "old, good times", and approach to the audiophile crowd of insane people.
I don't buy into these crackles. I stopped using MP3. A high quality OPUS file format is the way to go for me. I can take the whole music library in my pocket to the places with no internet, listen through good enough in-ear headphones, or with a small speaker (if for more people), and charge that stuff with a small foldable solar panel on the go, next to the tent. Try this with your gramophone.
The 2 a.m. prompting bogs down to FOMO of not being fast enough with ideas, and that some other people will implement it faster and one won't make the share of money they envisioned.
I certainly don't have this problem. Even with LLM assistance, my hobby projects experience slow, steady growth, but it's done on my terms. I code when I have a mood, with or without LLM.
Recently I bought a Claude subscription only to use it for 3 days to speed up some coding. Then I cancelled it and stopped. My creative days ended, and I got to other stuff. I know I'll lose 27 days of possibilities, but I couldn't care less. If I'm in the mood to code with AI, I'll buy another month, maybe only for another couple of days.
People, stop accelerating at full throttle, find some real joy in life. It's not about the amount of lines, features or products shipped, let alone about amount of dollars you brag about, if they need this much effort and sacrifice.