PHP compile time generics: yay or nay? (thephp.foundation)
86 points by moebrowne 4d ago 51 comments
Reflections on Soviet Amateur Photography (publicbooks.org)
39 points by prismatic 3d ago 8 comments
Self-Guaranteeing Promises
42 tie-in 20 8/11/2025, 8:03:06 AM stephango.com ↗
I manage an app that Serves an extremely privacy-focused demographic. I won't use push notifications or PassKeys, because each requires that the server store information that can be linked to a user. We do require a valid email account, and that's it. The email account can be a throwaway, but it needs to be able to receive email. Other than that, the user can choose to do things like mention their location (even then, we "fuzz it," at the server level), and maybe a couple of strings that can be anything they want.
Even with that, I still find that I need to constantly assuage doubts.
I know that not taking information is heresy, hereabouts, but, if I don't have it, it can't be leaked, and I can't be compelled to divulge it.
It would be difficult, but AI has suddenly made difficult things a lot easier.
Or at least it should be, if companies were putting users first (a naive thought, I know).
I have a small mobile app for recording expenses (receipts). The usual strategy would be for users to create accounts and store and sync data with my service. Potentially useful data (behavior, spending), which I don't want to touch with 10ft pole.
Instead, I keep all the data local (user's device). No registration at all. Nothing to store on the server.
Slightly more inconvenient for the users (to move to a new device, you need to export and import the local db), but cheaper and zero-stress for me.
On the one hand, the stainless steel example can be generalized to materials. Gold, for instance.
On the other hand there is plenty of fraud in materials. There are different grades of stainless steel and different methods of production that yield differing qualities.
Maybe “immutable, buyer-verifiable” would be stronger? Once you buy and own and verify the gold you bought, it can’t be retroactively degraded by the seller. But at the time of purchase, it’s not at all a sure thing.
Yeah, but whoever buys you or executes your bankruptcy probably will. Much better for you to never have it in the first place.
"You will change your mind, but I won't change mine."
Why I give crap data to everyone unless there is absolutely no other way.
Facebook thinks I live in a ghost town in Utah, and I'm 121 years old.
Also why most of my accounts that want a street address contain an address-line-2 like "JOEBLOW.COM SOLD OUR DATA," so they can't hide.
Piss in the well, y'all.
Am moving to Emacs, org, plus self-built elements, however. With much pain.
You see, what is /not/ self-guaranteeing about a full Obsidian life-organising workflow is the necessary reliance on plugins and their quirky configs. I felt as locked in to the ecosystem as I ever did with services that ‘merely’ used a proprietary storage format.
I know others in the same boat. Obsidian’s long-term legacy may well be primarily as a market-maker for Emacs.
Syncthing is probably the closest bet. It doesn’t require servers, so it can be free. But it isn’t really a full Dropbox replacement.
The promise that Bluesky will always be compliant with the spec, or that the spec won’t ever change to disallow this isn’t self-guaranteeing, but you could say something similar about any of these self guaranteeing promises. For example the promise that Obsidian will always use markdown isn’t self-guaranteeing.