> working with [chatbots] feels like groping through a cave in the dark – a horrible game I call "PromptQuest" – while being told this is improving my productivity.
Yeah you’ve been able to do this for over a decade. They can’t really stop it:
- Git commits form an immutable merkel dag. So commits can’t be changed without changing all subsequent hashes in a git tree
- Commits by default embed your email address.
I suppose GitHub could hide the commit itself, and make you download commits using the cli to be able to see someone’s email address. Would that be any better? It’s not more secure. Just less convenient.
Git (the version control program, not GitHub) associates the author’s email address with every single commit. The user of Git configures this email address. This isn’t secret information.
> What’s the point of the “Keep my email addresses private” github option and “noreply” emails then?
Those settings will affect what email shows up in commits.
In commits you vreate on other tooling you can configure a fake/alternate user.email address in gitconfig. Git (not just GitHub) needs some email address flr each commit but it is freetext.
There is one problem: commit signatures. For GitHub to consider a commit not created by github.com Web UI to be "verified" and get a green check mark, the following needs to hold:
So you can not use a 'nocontact@thih9.example.com' address and get green checks on your commits - it needs to be an address that is at least active when you add it to your account.
Run git show on any commit object, or look at the default output of git log, and you'll see the same. Your author name and email are always public. If you want, use a specific public address for those purposes.
That is demonatratively not true on github and gitlab, both having the ability to set an email alias which redirects the messages to your real email without revealing it.
I don't think you necessarily disagree with that I'm saying.
1. git commits record an author name and email
2. github/gitlab offer an email relay so you can choose to configure your git client (and any browser-based commits you generate) to record that as the email address
3. github/gitlab do not rewrite your pushed commits to "sanitize" any "private" email addresses
4. the .patch suffix "trick" just shows what was recorded in the commit
When I said
> If you want, use a specific public address for those purposes.
that includes using the github/gitlab relay address -- but make sure to actually change your gitconfig, you can't just configure it on the web and be done.
While it is a change when compared to recent years, we’ve seen this in one version or another in the past or in other cultures.
> In many cultures, such as in those of Asians, Middle Easterners, Africans, (…) Southern Europeans (Orthodox/Catholic countries), extended families are the basic family unit.
> While it is a change when compared to recent years, we’ve seen this in one version or another in the past
I noted many 4+ adult families before WWII (from doing genealogy). It was a time when affordable housing for large families was generally obtainable and work/shopping/etc was in walking distance or reachable via public transit.
FF to today and affordable housing isn't available for families of any size. Most folks must shoulder a number of new major, ongoing expenses like individual transportation. Living is massively more complex due to reams of requirements attached to anything you can think of. Parenting time has increased from a few hours/week to 24/7 adulting and modern children fully their lives in a series of adult-curated, adult-populated boxes.
So we're back to needing 4+ typical income earners to meet minimal bills but nearly everything that enabled the 4+ adult household has been eradicated.
At the risk of sounding too paranoid, I fear dilution of responsibility, an increase in the amount of errors and hallucinations everywhere and the reality slowly becoming a Willy’s Chocolate Experience[1] sequel.
Personally I’m not planning to use AI in my browser, at least not in its current error prone and opaque form.
I agree with your decision. I would feel better about an open source solution using local models run with Ollama and LM Studio.
Also: Some uses of AI don’t make sense after I think in terms like: how much time is really saved? accuracy of results? Cost in setup time and resources?
Oh, so I did understand correctly that it's Apple's version of Word etc.
My question was why one can't back up one's data though. I'm even more confused now that I know it refers to Pages/Keynote/etc. since those have always been file-based so far as I've seen from classmates who used it. Surely even Apple allows downloading your documents and spreadsheets from whatever storage front-end their live editing server uses?
