dstroot

Pro plan only for now.

OpenAI is so good at marketing and naming (e.g., "ChatGPT").

Worse, don’t be a “meat shield” either! https://www.danstroot.com/posts/2026-04-16-ai-meat-shields

Am I the only one who expects ALL writing to be generated or at least edited by an LLM going forward? It's like pointing out the fabric in my clothes was not hand woven by a human. Sounding like an AI wrote it is not as valid a criticism as "it was unclear about...", or "It was too long", or "It left out this important point...". Can't we move past the "It sounds like AI..." posts?

I was 100% in your camp until my neighbor bought an electric blower. The loud, high pitched whine is somehow louder and more ear piercing than a gas blower.

Thanks!

I once wanted to build an alternative to Craig’s list. There were SO MANY things I had ideas to improve. Then I realized I had literally no idea how Craig’s list makes money. None. They did not charge for ads and they didn’t have advertising. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Additional concern is the push to get it added to indices immediately. Forcing it into our retirement funds, 401ks and IRAs.

In a wider disaster, such as a fire, earthquake, tornado or hurricane both companies and families want to contact employees or loved ones to make sure that they are OK. Unfortunately, land networks, Internet, links and mobile networks may be compromised by the emergency further, people may be caught away from home. Their laptop or mobile device might run out of power.

I thought a solution might be some type of “check-in” service - especially for employees. Are you OK? How can we reach you? Are you available for work? Do you need assistance? Etc.

Things like slack, teams, etc. can fit the bill so it was not really monetizable.

> “The biggest UX issue Apple has for that persona isn't the wallet, it's the lack of physical home button”

So true! Also my 84 year old mother can never figure the difference between a web site and an app. If I could add a home button and solve the second issue her life would be much better.

> “mac users are not serious people.”

I can’t tell if this is a serious comment or humor.

> “not even pretending to care about people they affect.”

“Not even pretending to care about the people they elect.”

There, I fixed it for you.

> I'm not even sure building software is an engineering discipline at this point. Maybe it never was.

If I engineer a bridge I know the load the bridge is designed to carry. Then I add a factor of safety. When I build a website can anyone on the product side actually predict traffic?

When building a bridge I can consult a book of materials and understand how much a material deforms under load, what is breaking point is, it’s expected lifespan, etc. Does this exist for servers, web frameworks, network load balancers, etc.?

I actually believe that software “could” be an engineering discipline but we have a long way to go

John Wick wears Chuck Norris pajamas. RIP to a legend.

I own two Tesla’s. When conditions are adverse, i.e. fog, heavy rain, the system simply shuts off and reverts back to manual driving. Elon has said several times that humans can drive with two eyes and Tesla should be able to drive with X number of cameras. however, it suffers from the same problems humans do: if it can’t see it can’t drive and ironically that’s when it reverts back to human control.

"trust" is a fuzzy concept - people use iMessage and have no concept of how it's architected or how it works. But they trust it. Why? because trust is something that is transferable. If you trust me, and I tell you iMessage is safe then you have a high likelihood of trusting iMessage. If this is reinforced by other people you trust, even better. There would be ways to create a voting system in the open, and have it validated by third parties. If you've ever bought stock it's because underlying the transaction, and auditor has certified their financials...

I find that argument lacking. Each of those people is also a potential weak link or even an adversary from a security standpoint. Would I rather have 10,000 weak links or one software system with rigorous testing and logging?

Anyone who owns a tesla vehicle with "full self driving" is probably chuckling to themselves about Tesla ever making useful general purpose robots any time soon. Disclaimer, I own two tesla's with FSD and it's far from "full" or "self". I am very sceptical of robotaxis unless they have the appropriate sensors & SW (e.g. Waymo) which Elon has not done.

Finally, I know lots of people who own cars, but none who own robots. Many friends will not have Alexa in their homes due to privacy concerns. How many people will trust Elon to have a robot in their homes and assume he's being benign and safe with your personal data?

South Dakota has a population of less than 1 million people and the complexity of a CTO job of a state like South Dakota would be quite low. It is < 0.3% of the US Population and likely has de minimis benefit programs.

And Elon canceled the S and X models but not the Cybertruck? C’mon…

I suppose I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to create a secure online voting system. My life savings might be held at Fidelity, Merrill, or elsewhere, my banking is online, 90% of my shopping is online and it all has "good enough" security. Plus most banks seem to be well behind the state of the art in security. I believe with the technologies we have available today, we could create a secure, immutable, auditable voting system. Do I believe any of the current vendors have done that? NO. But I believe it could be done.

https://www.danstroot.com.

I will probably be downvoted for posting something that “doesn’t add value” but I have to say that is a beautiful post about a difficult topic. I could never put into words my feelings as well as you just did. I loved his art. I did not love the man.

Consumer level security always has to contend with the lowest common denominator. As my 80 year-old mother‘s technical support team I can testify that she will download and install anything she sees on Facebook. The consumer security world has to protect us from people like her. It’s also the reason I will only allow her iOS devices.

Well… if you control their DNS you have their MX record…

> Oh, how I wish I was born in the '60s, when the world was still sane.

As one who was, I find it makes the current world even harder to accept. Be careful what you wish for.

>If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow

The moment he started ignoring the US Constitution, he became one.

Or Afghanistan

It’s ~1,000 miles from the US to Venezuela. Have you ever been on a fishing boat? Especially an “overpowered” one? Guess how much fuel they burn? It’s very unlikely a boat has enough fuel to make it to the US, and if it did it would need fuel to get back. Where are they getting the fuel for these drug runs?

The NRA always forgets the second part: “People kill people… using guns. Tools that we manufacture expressly for that purpose.”