I've been thinking about this very thing the last few days. "secretary in my Mac" to be specific. An ever running daemon that uses an LLM model for smarts, but pretty much do as many dumb things deterministically as possible.
1. Fetch my calendars(Fastmail, work Google Calendar, Couple's calendar at Cupla) and embellish it with routine tasks like pickup/drop kids, and give me a Today view like this https://zoneless.tools/difference/london-vs-new-york?cities=...
2. Access to my TODO list on Apple Notes and basically remind my ADHD brain that I ought to be doing something and not let it slip because it is uninteresting.
3. Have access to all models via API keys I configure and maintain a "research journal" of all the things I go to LLMs for - "research of bike that fits my needs" whatever and figure out if there needs to be a TODO about them and add if I say yes.
4. View my activity as a professional coach and nudge me into action "Hey you wanted to do this at work this year, but you haven't begun.. may be it is time you look at it Thursday at 3 PM?"
5. View my activity as a mental health coach and nudge me like "hey you're researching this, that and blah while X, Y and Z are pending. Want me to record the state of this research so you can get back to doing X, Y and Z?" or Just talk to me like a therapist would.
6. Be my spaghetti wall. When a new idea pops into my head, I send this secretary a message, and it ruminates over it like I would and matures that idea in a directory that I can review and obsess over later when there is time..
As you see, this is quite personal in nature, I dont want hosted LLMs to know me this deeply. It has to be a local model even if it is slow.
I like this, but would note that each of this is effectively nagging you to do something.
I wonder if the real unlock is moving the task forward in some way. “I know you were interested in X, and the research approach petered out, here and some new approaches we could try:”
“You’ve got two kids’ birthdays next week, shall I order some legos?”
I've started using Claude code to review my linear tasks, add / propose new tags/labels and flag if it's a programming task (and if so flesh out requirements so I can toss it to an agent). It really helps me to just toss everything into it and see what I've got.
I'm actually going to take it further and use clawd to check Jira, linear, slack, and Apple reminders and help me to unify and aggregate them - as I'll often remember and record a reminder on Siri - and kind of ping me about these and adjusting dates when they're overdue so nothing slips through too past due
Using a coding agent over days on a personal project. It has made me think
1. These llms are smart and dumb at the same time. They make a phenomenal contribution in such a short time and also do a really dumb change that no one asked for. They break working code in irrational ways. I’ve been asking them to add so many tests for all the functions I care about. This acts as a first guard rail when they trip over themselves. Excessive tests.
2. Having a compiler like Rust’s helps to catch all sorts of mines that the llms are happy to leave.
3. The LLMs don’t have a proper working memory. Their context is often cluttered. I find that curating that context (what is being done, what was tried, what is the technical goal, specific requests etc) in concise yet “relevant for the time” manner helps to get them to not mess up.
Perhaps important open source projects that choose to accept AI generated PRs can have such excessive test suites, and run the PRs through them first as a idiotic filter before manually reviewing what the change does.
My wife has a Gemini AI pro Ultra whatever that she paid for to help with her academic research, but uses barely. She was generous to login with it on my computer to let me use the cli with her credentials. So Gemini-3.0-pro comes from there. I use OpenAI and Claude API keys with EUR 20 credits that I topped up (pay per use). I've mostly settled on Gemini-3.0, but occasionally pit codex, Gemini and Claude at each other at a gnarly problem reviewing each other's work, and proposing actionable changes with clear reasoning. They tend to catch teachers blind spots, an dI get to learn something from their reviews as well.
I learned of a name to how I have been at 32 years of age, and got formally diagnosed at 39. The trigger was my 6 year old acting like I did when I was 6 and seeing how much of a struggle it is for him and others around him.
Been titrating medication and reworking how I approach my work and personal life the last few months.
The thing about constant stream of ideas, micro ideas, while life pulls in different directions- kids, partner, social life, home needs etc is the struggle I am working on to manage better.
It sounds like we could share notes. Would you be interested to communicate over a private message?
I’m based in the Netherlands.
P.s. I’ve got nothing to sell, influence or creep about. Genuinely someone on the same boat and I thought it would be nice to communicate with someone who can relate.
If you’d prefer - my email is aravindh at fastmail com
It is always a trade off of fighting spam versus actually communicating. Do I want this person to easily write to me without a lot of effort? Or do I pay the cognitive cost for my audience for the slight chance of win against spammers?
I chose to stay simple.
I had my phase of having a fancy shell with all bells and whistles. I’ve now settled with the default terminal so that 1. It is fast, 2. Whereever I work, I have the same experience.
Throwing stone from a glass box eh? If I understand correctly, US is by far the largest services exporter to EU… should EU merely apply the same “tariffs” that US might impose on these goods, some healthy European alternatives would finally gain some ground..
I think you can make a bigger list of US firms that are benefiting from EU laws, like Epic Games, Garmin, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft. But these companies are again also benefiting from maybe other American more established and US protected companies.
None of those are products, those are companies that offers 100s of products.
The question is not is there as an alternative to Google-as-a-whole, but is there an alternative to Google Search (yes), to Google Analytics (yes), to Gmail (yes), to Google Ads (yes, but not really), to YouTube (no), and to Android (yes, but not really).
Having a European mega-company that offers 100s of tightly-integrated products shouldn't be the end goal, that's just swapping one monopoly with another. We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.
just a nitpick, shouldn't youtube also be "yes, but not really", since there are plenty of alternatives to hosting video. but none have the reach that youtube has, similar to ads?
I would name PeerTube the project and the various PeerTube instances various organizations are running (like for example https://vhsky.cz/) as a good Youtube alternative.
Sure, you might not have all the media on one big convenient pile like on Youtube, but that is kinda the point (with no single pile owner there is no single entity that decideds what goes on the pile or not).
This can only be a fair alternative if a single search can transparently query all instances (an implicit requirement for most users), and there's also an easy, instance-transparent, preferably free way to upload content (requirement for most creators). Once one has the question "which instance should I search/create my account on?", it will be considered a failure.
> We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.
please make a successful economic case for a company only making a mobile phone OS, in a world where android exists and china can crank out 100x the devices at 1/10 the price paying $0 per device license fees than eu could.
Digital Service dominance in this case isn't based on some trait of American Exceptionalism - or conversely based off some sort of lack of academic rigour or work ethic in European Entrepreneurship.
Rather, the current state of SaaS in the context of the historic stock market is a severe economic aberration divorced from any sort of valuation fundamentals like securities weighting. Instead we observe predatory VC and PE entities supported by a complimentary taxation and economic regime, all ultimately facilitated by the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
In short, this notion of self-sufficiency is unachievable in the European context as it is predicated entirely upon wealth inequality and thumbing the scale of the free-market via lobbying, and is the doctrine denounced to the point of anathema in any Socialist Democracy.
The end result here is not some sort of organically earned digital services dominance - instead you end up with scenarios like forcing the FDIC to bail out the VC bank of Choice - SVB - where uninsured deposits were estimated to represent 89 percent of total deposits at the bank, totalling $18 billion of the ultimate $20 billion cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund.
Possibly. Until recently, anyone who was in tech wanted to move to the US because there was simply more opportunity. Salaries are higher, chances of making it big are higher, failing is often seen as a positive in the US, etc... The adage that the best place to make money is the US and the best place to spend money is the EU still rings true.
The US become less welcoming to immigrants is a great opportunity for the EU, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to take advantage and overcome the structural differences.
On Wikipedia: German chapter is the second largest (>100 FTEs) and collects donations directly, funding root org from them and keeping significant part for its own operations. It’s not exactly an American monopoly.
It does not matter anything in this case. It’s open source, it’s community-driven, and governance structure isn’t a moat. It can be forked in a matter of days, especially given that there exist independent European structures to support it.
Wikipedia is not community driven. About as public as so called public ownership in reality. It is clearly directed by a small group of people, mostly those with enough time on their hands.
Most folk can no longer edit it. They're blocked.
There are clear biases in its content provision, such as its coverage of certain rich people and establishment bodies.
> Most folk can no longer edit it. They're blocked.
Is this some sort of conspiracy theory? It’s just plain wrong. Wikipedia may block certain people, but it’s definitely not anywhere close to majority of editors. It’s easy to create an account and edit almost everything. It does have editorial policy and editors may have certain bias, but it has nothing to do with the fact, that you mentioning Wikipedia as some American monopoly were wrong.
Have you ever tried to edit Wikipedia using WiFi, mobile networks etc? Because then you will almost always get a message saying you are blocked and cannot edit. I get this all the time, and not because of anything I have done personally. Many people are on shared IPs now.
Even the computers at the National Library of Scotland are blocked, even though there is a paid Wikipedian on their staff and you have to have a membership to use the library.
Give us a break with the "conspiracy theory" mantra. This isn't even a theory. It's commonplace reality. They want everyone to sign up to a Wikipedia account which comes with other issues.
Also Wikipedia is a monopoly. 9/10 when I search for anything nowadays, Wikipedia is at the top. If I only wanted to search for Wikipedia articles I would go straight to their website.
Calling a system that is 90% foss and public domain "owned" by anyone is a bit of a stretch. I can, fully legally, download all the text of Wikipedia for about 130gb and host it myself.
Besides, Jimmy Wales is awesome.
It's an oligarchy in reality and Wikimedia was having a discussion a couple of years ago about implementing the SDGs, which come from the UN and not the public (who are barely aware of them.)
The parent was talking about the scenario where Europe is forced to create alternative (like China) and that it will lead to a better/wider selection for him (I assume he is in the EU) and my answer is that it will lead to only a European selection.
Interestingly, the only people having a wider selection are the ones outside of EU/US/China as they'll be free to pick up whatever they want.
Is that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.
Mostly an artefact of the non-application of antitrust laws, the US selectively decided to not apply those anymore for the past 30-40 years, corporate consolidation takes hold, companies providing a service grow enormously and are allowed to swallow prominent competitors to stamp them out.
The EU has many competitive companies, I think HN is too focused on "tech" as in digital/web stuff and quite blind to other technological industries...
The opposite seems to be the case. The EU fosters really competitive markets, so large companies are really hard to emerge. There are tons of small software shops in my city alone, you can walk through the city and see ads for them in front of their houses.
Those exist in the USA as well. We have large, medium, and small software shops. You hardly ever hear about the medium or smaller ones though, you’ll find the, splattered all over the place in office parks as well as downtown (at least here in the Seattle area). It didn’t feel very different when I lived in Europe, even the large orgs were present (Google has lots of offices in Zurich and Stockholm among others, for example, and when I was in China my wife worked for a German big tech called SAP).
You probably mean Schwarz Gruppe, the owner of Lidl, and their subsidiary StackIT. Yes, they are growing. Schwarz is also building 11B€ AI data center in Lubbenau, so I fully agree with you. We will be fine without American digital services.
A "functioning market" doesn't prevent oligopolies. Oligopolies are natural and optimal (desirable) in many industries, if not most. That's where regulations come in.
You say that like scale is an inevitability. If Microsoft's offerings were unbundled into lots of smaller interoperable solutions we'd all be better off.
Yes, funnily, mutual tariffs on IT services between the EU and USA would incentivize competition, which is a good thing. Unless the EU is try incapable of doing IT right, in which case it would slow the the EU economy, but let’s assume we’ll improve on that.
It seems to be. As in most of the world, nearly everyone is divvied up between Apple and Microsoft, and use Google Search, with Wikipedia being the default place normies go for information. I know there are people who use Linux and prefer to use other search engines, but they are few and far between.
The EU has an extremely fragmented digital internal market, laws that suck for startups in most places, worse capital markets and funding mechanisms (and related laws), and doesn't have a Silicon Valley. It also underinvests in R&D and doesn't have a DARPA.
So yes, just tariffing or restricting US tech wouldn't help much. Europe "lost" that race fair and square. It needs to focus on fixing all those things.
On the other hand a lot of these startups and tech companies are a net negative for the world. Externalise problems and pollution, internalise profits. We don't want society to be only decided by those who make the most money. That's why we have those laws.
I personally don't want the EU to become the US. And Investors gambling with other people's money is what gave us the world financial crisis of 2007. No lessons were learned as usual.
I am not gonna comment about others since obviously there are a lot but OVH from europe even though it has flaws still feels like it definitely competes with AWS
There are also hetzner,upcloud,netcup and sooo many other small cloud providers too but OVH,Hetzner,Upcloud,netcup do seem to me competitors of AWS
Am I missing something? I have a LG nano something TV that has many “smart” features, but I never let it connect to my WiFi ever. Since day 1 it has been hooked up to an AppleTV. Can I not buy any fancy smart TV in 2025 and use it as a dumb HDMI display for AppleTV?
Same. I have not seen the interface of my TV for years (Only the input switching UI when switching between my Apple TV and Xbox). This really isp pretty much a "dumb tv" with a setup like this.
the issue is that eventually SIM cards will be baked in to deliver ads and spyware; there will be no alternatives because everyone was fine with buying smart TVs and not connecting them to wifi.
see: Android's recent transformation into a closed platform which no longer allows users to control devices they purchase. it's important to fight against trends like this loudly and vehemently while we still can.
Second that.
There were articles a year or two ago about TVs trying to connect to any open Wi-Fi they can find, without you asking them. But hopefully LG wouldn’t go that far.
As someone living in NL, I wish VW made exactly this.
Why?
I know I can bring my car to the workshop nearby and they will be able to procure parts and service it.
As a customer, I want a reliable mainstream PHEV car that doesn’t _need_ over the air updates, unnecessary complexities, subscriptions etc and gives me the confidence that I can use it for the next 10 years with regular maintenance.
Right, seems we want the same thing, is this something you're afraid of if you would buy a BYD, I'm guessing since this is a reply to my comment?
Personally, seems they have workshops all over the country, and as one of the biggest EV brands, it won't be hard to find parts for the mainstream models nor to service it.
AFAIK, the car doesn't require OTA updates, any subscription or similar, or did I miss something went I went through what they actually offer?
One that’s be a nice quality of life improvement in MacBook(Air/Pro) is built-in 5G connectivity. I’d spring for that convenience not needing to connect to a hotspot draining precious battery on my phone. I thought we were closer given Apple started making their own modems, but it is still a miss.
You used to be able to get a sim thing in IBM thinkpads but it didn't sell well. I think people don't want two data contracts. It might be better now with esims and stuff though.
This. I don’t care much for MacOS. It pretty much gives me a terminal and browser and gets out of the way. But, the hardware, and drivers…. I can reliably shut the lid and open up at a different place and continue working. The battery last atleast a full working day. Displays text sharply. Touchpad works like no other.
I can’t imagine dealing with Linux without these conveniences.
I daily-drive an M1 MBA and a ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 running Linux (Bazzite), and the experience (in terms of convenience and reliability) is identical for the most part. In fact I actually prefer the screen on my ThinkPad, the 1200p OLED display is just so much more crisper and vibrant, it's been great for gaming and media consumption.
In saying that, the touchpad experience on the MBA is a touch better, and of course, the battery life is much better on the MBA (as is the thermal effeciency).
In spite of these minor shortcomings, I'm super happy with my ThinkPad in terms of just how stable and reliable it's been under Bazzite/KDE, like never once have I had any issues with the suspend-resume functionality - something that even Windows machines struggle with every now and then.
If only the Snapdragon ThinkPads had first-class Linux support like the x86 ones do... I reckon they can come pretty close to the MacBooks in terms of battery life, unfortunately they're not quite there yet.
2. Access to my TODO list on Apple Notes and basically remind my ADHD brain that I ought to be doing something and not let it slip because it is uninteresting.
3. Have access to all models via API keys I configure and maintain a "research journal" of all the things I go to LLMs for - "research of bike that fits my needs" whatever and figure out if there needs to be a TODO about them and add if I say yes.
4. View my activity as a professional coach and nudge me into action "Hey you wanted to do this at work this year, but you haven't begun.. may be it is time you look at it Thursday at 3 PM?"
5. View my activity as a mental health coach and nudge me like "hey you're researching this, that and blah while X, Y and Z are pending. Want me to record the state of this research so you can get back to doing X, Y and Z?" or Just talk to me like a therapist would.
6. Be my spaghetti wall. When a new idea pops into my head, I send this secretary a message, and it ruminates over it like I would and matures that idea in a directory that I can review and obsess over later when there is time..
As you see, this is quite personal in nature, I dont want hosted LLMs to know me this deeply. It has to be a local model even if it is slow.
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