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Mike·
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I can no longer trust any new software

The current rage in “decomp,” which is an insulting term to anyone who has ever actually decompiled something, has seemingly instantly affected/infected all my hobbies.

Self hosting? Decades-old software is out the window thanks to the latest vibe-coded dredge to be abandoned next week.

Music? Your favorite synth or groovebox has a new firmware! Rejoice in its ability to rejuvenate old, abandoned, and locked-down hardware... or dismay at the new ways to brick beloved tools while devouring a small Kansas town?

If you peruse Reddit, you’ll notice how different communities embrace this in different ways. Self-hosting has its AI advocates but largely is frustrated and done being excited about new stuff. But musicians are tech doofuses a lot of the time, and I don’t think the people delighted at the new vibe-coded firmware for the Novation Circuit are really even thinking about how it was made or what the consequences are.

I’d love to be excited about software that lets me use old and abandoned IoT devices, curb the spying by my TV, or even let farmers escape the thrall of John Deere, but it’s not really a great trade, is it?

DiscussOct 24, 2026
Mike·
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All other problems aside, this is what I hate the most (at this particular moment)

It's no secret to anyone who reads it that Aftermath is not a pro-AI site (and why would anyone who covers video games be pro-AI?). I think they've now written two articles that sum things up for me quite well.

First, as a tech hobbyist who slaps Linux distros on random machines, runs a server for media and utility software, and records music on whatever hardware I can, the jackasses making computers expensive are the devil incarnate. They don't even like computers. They didn't type games into their Commodore from magazines. But they're more than happy to make Jensen Huang mega-rich at the expense of us nerds.

Secondly, as a so-called "knowledge worker," I greatly resent the idea that a glorified autocomplete can do my job. The work is the work. I get automation — my employer is giving a lot of benefits to workers based on our ability to "work smarter, not harder." But that just plain does not involve GenAI in any case that matters. Writing emails, parsing results, providing my interpretation of data, even building fucking Figma files. These things horrify me, because nothing original or insightful is going to come out of the stochastic word generator, and because that is the work. If you're already lucky enough to not be breaking your back or serving retail customers or whatever at work every day, offloading your responsibilities to the machine is just shirking the things you do have to do.

DiscussOct 23, 2026
Mike·
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AI Layoffs and sowing the seeds of your own destruction

Here’s a list of companies who have done layoffs directly attributable to AI. Obviously most are in technology, which is distressing as that’s where so many of my friends are.

What’s possibly more distressing is the enthusiasm some of these people are showing for shooting their own feet off. I just don’t get it. No more junior developers, no more maintainable codebase, and eventually as some of them have already seen, no more job.

Side note: maybe I should get off cloudflare (1,000 employees)

DiscussJun 15, 2026
Mike·
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Launchers are back, baby

Via former Weblogs guy Brett Terpstra, here's Tuna. If you used Quicksilver back in the day, the look is familiar. It's really zippy though. Raycast has a ton of options but it's not nearly as fast and it's always pushing the AI shit, so I'm trying this out. Nostalgic but current-feeling. After Alfred's privacy debacle I'm not sure I'd ever go back to them, even though they supposedly sorted it out. But I could maybe live with this one.

DiscussMay 16, 2026
Mike·
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State of the homelab, spring 2026

We've been living in temporary housing, so there are some things that just can't happen when it comes to self-hosting. But I've never regretted my server setup being a mini PC with a couple external drive bays, and that's definitely not changed now because I can use it even in the rental. Home Assistant? Not gonna happen. Jellyfin? We lack the bandwidth. But some essential services are still operational, and it helps me feel a little bit more in control of life at a not-so-controlled time.

Despite the rise in vibe-coded, unmaintainable and probably insanely insecure garbage out there in the self-hosted app space, there is plenty to love in the classics, and that's mostly what I stick with.

  • Navidrome. Still doing the thing. Any music I buy on Bandcamp goes in there, but CD ripping is justifiably on hold. Since I can't listen to records, it's a valuable service for sure. As a bonus, the new iOS app for fledgling developers seems to be "Subsonic API client," so there's no shortage of apps.
  • Docmost. This wiki tool keeps everything straight, from school to what's on the homelab (how meta).
  • Paperless-NGX. There's a lot of paperwork associated with an "event" like ours. I don't know how I lived before this software. It is the greatest thing, and IMO only something that could be possible when self-hosted (and only accessible in the house).
  • Audiobookshelf. Here's another one like Navidrome that is particularly helpful in our situation, not least because it hosts ebooks as well as audio, despite the name. Pro tip: Buy your audiobooks from a no-DRM store like Downpour. Why anyone wants to be locked in to Amazon is beyond me. And Audiobookshelf is an old-school FOSS app.
  • Karakeep. I used to use Raindrop, and I still think it's just about the best SaaS system out there for doing what it does, but bookmarks are another thing I like to keep in-house.
  • FreshRSS. This guy works with the venerable NetNewsWire and quite a few other RSS clients. Sometimes it seems like RSS is having a resurgence; whether or not that's true, you can pry it from my cold dead hands.
  • Mealie. We put everything in here. It's the equivalent of a Steam account where you buy everything when it goes on sale and never have time to play it. But at least it's finally in one spot.
  • Immich. Photos are another thing I no longer want to entrust to a company like Google. It's way too important and personal.
DiscussMar 26, 2026
Mike·
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The DAK catalog

I had forgotten about the DAK catalog, but I used to love it. If you had met me only in the past couple years, you'd think I was some kind of tech-hater, knowledgeable but only using it when necessary. But I think it's people like me who were so enamored with gadgets and the possibilities of tech who hate it even more these days. Everything seemed so wild and possible.

(Apologies for the GPT-driven copy at the link. Just enjoy the pictures.)

DiscussDec 26, 2024
Mike·
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I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad

Tears for Fears is doubling down on using AI for the new live album cover. This is a little disappointing from a band I have a lot of respect and no small amount of love for. Perhaps they think they're not falling into the usual trap because they've paid someone. Never mind that person has scammed them with one of the most typical images on the internet, whether human- or machine-generated. It's likely, given they haven't done a basic image search, that they're just old guys who don't know the state of things. And maybe they really don't care. It's a live album from a legacy act. But call me old fashioned or a commie or whatever, I think artists should support other artists.

Hayao Miyazaki saying I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself

The summary of my feelings on LLM-generated "art": There are so many things that machines can do to make our lives easier — and they should be doing them, so humans can be free to make things like art.

DiscussSep 25, 2024