Blog - David Helkowski

Brew is a steaming shitpile

I've long hated brew / homebrew, as you could likely guess from the title of this post.

First the basic reasons:

I hate it. I hate it supremely. I hate it so fucking much that I wrote my own fucking entire replacement for it's scripts called minibrew that uses it's same remote data but does not using any of the horrible code it actually ships. And that works better, because of course it does.

All of this isn't even what triggered me to write this. Oh no. I've hated this pile of garbage for over a decade and I was still continue to only shit on brew ocasionally. I need to take an extra large dump on it now.

Why?

Because I feel the need.

Why?

Well you see, I saw a YouTube video I wanted to shit on. The video is long. The YouTube interface doesn't provide any reasonable way I see to grab the subtitles to a video so I can critique a bad video line by line.

Enter me wanting to use yt-dlp. The machine I want to use to write up my critique? An older machine running an older version of MacOS, which I cannot actually update. Brew has phased it out, because brew only works halfway okay on the latest 3 major versions of MacOS at most.

My MacOS on this particular machine? Older than that.

What happens when you want to install something from brew from an older machine like this?

This:

Or at least I let it run for over an hour last time I tried. Eventually I said "fuck this" and installed yt-dlp on a different modern Mac just to get the subtitles and then copy them over to this machine.

I'm letting it run again. Who knows how many hours and how much crap it will install to my machine just to get yt-dlp to install.

You may be thinking "lol fucking loser just get a modern Mac then". No? I already fucking have a current modern m4 mac. I also have 3 others macs I use for various things. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to use all of them reasonably well. Being only to use the newest one because brew is a pile of garbage is not acceptable.

Fuck you brew. Fuck you very much.

Brew is right up there with:

The only thing worse than brew on MacOS is learning that anyone on planet uses it on Linux.

It's like discovering that some people prefer eating cow dung to a perfectly cooked burger. Actually, that might make more sense. At least if by "eating" they mean having it shoved up their rear ends to diversify their ecosystem.

But of course, I only have warm fuzzy thoughts towards the dear and amazing author of brew. Incidentally, I'm also selling bridges. This is my way of showing my love and appreciation.

By the way, it's still busily doing something. Destroying my SSD most likely.

Decoersion and Incentives

I talked previously about Decoersion. Go check that out for context.

In that description I explained that something is coercive or not based on whether there is force to make a person agree or act the way you want or not.

That is insufficent to cover what I actually mean by ...

Controlling iPhones

I've spent over 5 years of my life researching and making software and systems to control iOS devices.

I sell a product that does this well: ControlFloor

Almost no one has bought a license for my product in the last 8 months. I can't survive ...

University Prerequisites

Before I went to a 4-year university I took one semester of classes at a local community college to just see how it is and get a feeling for it all.

Of the classes I took that semester one was Calculus. I listened very attentively. I took detailed notes. I learned all the mate...

This invasive test is mandatory

I was homeschooled through all of middle-school and high-school. The result of this is that I'm a raging lunatic. No wait. I'm supposed to say the result is that I'm the bestest educated now. Urr. Nevermind.

The result of this is that I learned how to learn very well because after ...

Corporate Black Sludge

I've worked for MANY different companies as a software person. One thing all of these companies had was coffee machines. Some were better than others.

Here is the range of black sludge I've experienced at work:

Behavior not empathy

In my last post I spent a significant number of words pointing out the Amazon is severely lacking in empathy and care for humans.

I would like to argue a partial flipside to this, against empathy as the thing that matters.

You see, the issue is that empathy on the face of it...

Amazon Lunkhead Points

Full disclosure: I worked for the devil for a little under 2 years. So I'm gulty of associating with these horrible schmucks. That doesn't, though, mean that I approved of their crimes even while working for them. I needed money, what can I say?

That said, after having tainted...

In the Grey Sludge

Tags: movie

I watched the movie "In the Grey". It's basically "run around and pointlessly kill people" mixed random action movie tropes done badly. Action sludge.

As you are likely aware already, if stuff has glaring flaws I tend to point them out. This sludge was full of such flaws so I'...

Exit 8 - Make the game better please

Tags: movie game

In recent history one of the movies I watched was Exit 8. I waited a long time to watch this as it took a long time to arriving on English streaming.

I did not play the game before watching the movie but I knew about the game. It looked like a fun creepy concept so I was excit...

Iron Lung is a lukewarm blood bath

Tags: movie game

So apparently I write movie reviews now, so let's do another.

Iron Lung. It's a the second movie featuring Markiplier that I've seen. Well actually the first movie. The movie I was thinking of was a tv show, The Edge of Sleep. That show was weird, but I thought fairly decent. ...

The Boroughs show is stupid

Tags: tvshow

I'm on a roll with shitting on ArsTechnica articles. Here is another one.

Their review of The Boroughs

I watched the show. It was okay. That's the best I...

LLMs Believe

Tags: ai

ArsTechnica has become my latest favorite punching bag recently. They published this slop with the title "LLMs believe false statements even after ...

Malicious AI injection isn't cute

Tags: ai

Recently ArsTechnica reported on devs adding malicious injection crap into their code

Today I noticed a LinkedIn post from James Gosling. Here ...

Bill Gates big reveal

Or... not. You've likely seen and heard that Bill Gates is a giant scumbag who was buddies with Epstein and that's why his wife divorced them. Between the lines people seem to be implying Gates is a child abuser.

Only... where's the smoking gun? Everyone keeps saying there is all t...

Say no to Microsoft Office

The time has come to say no to Microsoft Office. If someone sends you an Office document, tell them no and demand they send an open format.

Why? Because Microsoft wasn't happy with being medium sized dicks. They decided to expand their dickishness to massive size. By effective...

Addressing AI Psychosis Constructively

Tags: ai

I spent the last post tearing down a worthless article claiming to be about AI Psychosis. ( which I'll refer to as AIP in this post ) Tearing down what someone says is relatively easy to do. It takes more effort to build a useful article that isn't worthless shit.

So I'm not g...

Misunderstanding AI Psychosis

Tags: ai

I recently stumbled upon the following TechCrunch article: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

I think this article is shit quality. And I'll explain why...

Bad Bambu. No.

Bambu Labs is a manufactorer of 3d printers. Those printers are popular.

They offer software to assist in turning 3d models into a format that can be printed. All 3d printers need such software and such software is called a "slicer".

The bambu labs slicer? It is based on AGP...

Email is nonsensical for decades

I've thought email is a horrible system for a very long time.

I'd like to point out some of the ways it is so and talk a little about why for some of them.

Predates widely available always online servers

Email was created before always online servers were widely a...

Reasons not to reject LLMs

Tags: ai

I just stumbled on this blog article: Why I object to and reject generative AI

To some degree I also object to LLMs, but I don't think all of the reasoning in this b...

Crypto Bros

I've been using computers since before the graphical internet existed. 2400 baud modems with green screens? Yep I was using those. Token ring networks? Also and they were painful. So I can tell you I've seen many cycles of technology and bullshit.

As a result I have a strong b...

Firmament game is slop

Tags: game

I've played through and completed all of the Myst series by Cyan Worlds except for URU. I've also played many similar games over the years. I enjoyed many of those games greatly. I have fond memories of playing them over the years. I can remember many details within the games even no...

Your diary is evidence

Some eons ago I remember thinking that my diary is my private information and I could rightly complain if it was made public against my will.

Well, my notion of that has now been shattered.

How? I noticed in the latest lawsuit against OpenAI that they are forcing diary entri...

Tsukuba Center Bicycle Parking

Before I begin fair warning. I'm angry about this and I'm venting, so if cursing and venting about stuff bothers you, you should bail now.

That said, fuck Tsukuba Center and their automated bicycle parking lots.

Why do I hate them so much? Well it's complicated and I will ex...

Attention is hard for everyone

I recently watched a YouTube video by Asa Park about MrBeast. The video is focused on being very critical of him. I'm not a fan of MrBeast and do think he is strange, but I don't particularly think he is any ultimate evil. So ...

Is the villain the enemy?

What if the villain is not the enemy but is just the label we hoist upon anyone who does not fit the standard roles society defines as acceptable?

People are not so trivial as to fit within the notions we scope them to. While many will choose to cooperate with ...

Personal Japan travel guide

Tags: japan

In light of the potential destruction of the IT industry by AI, or at least the reduction of it to the point that competition for jobs will drop salary of it, I have been been considering alternative ways to make a living recently.

A few weeks ago I came up wit...

Love Without Hypocrisy

I was sharing a story from when I was a teenager with a friend of mine and I thought perhaps I shall share it with all of you as well. To my memory I was 15 at the time this all happened.

I was attending a bible camp called Worldview Academy. They still exist today, and...

0player? Oh no

Tags: game

Recently I have been working on building a puzzle game. Well another one. I have actually been working on building a game called TentFires for some 5 years now. Well more to the point I have been playing TentFires and iterating on it for 4 years after I created a fully wo...

Is Japan Paradise?

Tags: japan

I recently watched a YouTube video titled I'm leaving Germany | Brutally Honest Review.

I found the detail of the video good and it made a lot of sense to me. What I found striking initially was tha...

GuliKit King Kong 3 Max

Tags: gaming

Some time ago I bought the GuliKit King Kong 3 Max controller. It looked awesome. The price is much more reasonable than Xbox Elite Series 2 controllers, and it has better tech according to the specs.

I got it; it feels awesome and I was able to use it well for a number...

Let's Reinvent the SD Card

About a month ago some a random LinkedFluencer posted some bullshit about how her SD card failed. She was raging that she should have been notified by her computer that it was reaching end of life and that if it just exposed wear leveling through to the system she would h...

Memovich: The Plot Dissolves

Tags: ai

Two days ago Milla Jovovich posted an extensive account of her side of the MemPalace story. It was pretty absurd in my view, to put it mildly. I began writing a new blog article titled: "Memovich: The Plot Thickens".

I started writing something sharp enough to ...

Memovich Continued

Tags: ai

My last blog article was about MemPalace, the supposedly incredible AI memory project vibe coded in part by Milla Jovovich.

In the last article I focused primarily on what I view as lack of qualifications of who I believe the real author of the project was/is, ...

Milla Jovovich and the Fine Art of Selling Cognitive Swill

Tags: ai

This just in. Milla Jovovich is slapping her name on the ugly bare bottom of a crypto bro trainwreck ai disasterpiece called MemPalace.

Beneath the choking snake oil you'll find... nothing of value.

Ok ok let's get into this practically, as I can only write s...

Regarding Garry Tan, YCombinator, and Corruption

A few weeks ago I saw an article on Hacker News new with an entire 2 upvotes that piqued my interest. It was a link to this website. It's a detailed article about how Naive ( usenaive ) is j...

Medial Axis Extraction in O(n)

Around three months ago, I solved a long-standing problem in computational geometry and computer vision:

Extracting the true medial axis from a binary image in linear time per pixel.

No thinning.
No iterative label propagation.
No graph recon...

On AI and the Death of Humanity

Tags: ai

I've been using "AI", as it is currently referred to, for several years now. Mostly I've been using ChatGPT, although at times I've run a variety of different local models, mainly to test what is possible and ascertain for myself whether these things are "dangerous" or not. For the m...

USA: Destination Hell

I am a US citizen. I don't, though, live in the US. I reside in Japan, and I intend to do so permanently. There are a few major reasons why:

The third poin...

Decoersion

Something I have believed strongly for many years is that all forms of coercion are unacceptable. Recently I have been thinking about it more, and realizing how pervasive coercion is throughout society.

So, without further ado, I present to you, decoersion ( intentionally spelled w...

Social Media Decline

Social Media: From Fertile Farms to Wastelands

Social media is in rapid decline. What was once a thriving space for innovation, meaningful discussion, and genuine human connection has become a hollow shell of its former self, plagued by corporate greed, algorithmic manipulation, ...

Toddler Investors

Introduction

The investment landscape is moving at an ever-increasing pace, with investors often making funding decisions in mere minutes. The rise of trend-driven investments, such as artificial intelligence, has led to a system that prioritizes popularity over true innovation. ...

Rethinking PCs: A practical approach

Tags: tech

The current trajectory of computer hardware development has increasingly diverged from the practical needs of everyday users. Manufacturers continue to push advancements in speed, power efficiency, and display resolutions—yet for most people, these improvements offer diminishing real-world ben...

Peak Mall Theory

Tags: japan

US mall death, Japan mall life

The decline of shopping malls in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon, while in Japan, malls remain thriving, bustling centers of commerce, entertainment, and community life. This contrast raises an interesting question: why have Japane...

Email is Outdated

Email seems ubiquitous and irreplaceable. Is it though? It was created for a useful purpose, and worked effectively for a number of years, but I would argue that it is outdated and needs to be replaced by something better as soon as possible.

I explore here why I believe email...

Identity System

Over my career in software I've repeatedly had to deal with issues of identity. Another way to refer to identity is usernames. The most pervasive identity system in use is email, although it is quickly being supplanted by cell phone number.

Almost every user of the internet ha...

LinkedIn is Buggy

The main social platform I use is LinkedIn. I've been using it for many years. Over my years of using it I've found it to be very buggy. I began posting the bugs I found as LinkedIn posts. That didn't seem to get much attention or have any meaningful affect, so I created a Github pro...

Hubspot Culture Code

What follows is a critical critique of the Hubspot Culture Code. This will be an analysis focused on logic. If you are looking for a warm fuzzy perspective on company culture, this isn't it.

A compa...

Pursuing relationships is inherently puerile

Intro

I've seen a disturbing trend online where expressing interest in others for the purpose of being in a relationship with them is thought to be inherently puerile. This view is relayed more simply as "men pursuing women is always sexual and disgusting".

The t...

My time is worth $x per hour

In the all too recent history I was feeling proud of my day job, and I thought to myself "I can made $x per hour." A bit more thinking I came to the conclusion "I shouldn't do anything that takes me an hour that I could pay someone else to do for less than $x per hour." I believed th...

Should gaming be a gradeschool subject/sport?

I recently read a post on LinkedIn broadly proclaiming "esports will overtake basketball". My immediate reaction to this was that that is entirely rubbish, and I responded jokingly making fun of the idea. As you might expect, there was a mixed reaction to that.

Some few people...

Job Descriptions

I am connected to quite a few recruiters and managers on LinkedIn. As a result of this, I often see posts about what candidate's resumes should look like, what information they should contain, how they should approach applying to jobs etc.

Changing the way you apply for roles ...

UMD Data Breach

A bit over 5 years ago I was involved in the events following a serious data breach at the University of Maryland. I was pulled into the FBI / Secret Service investigation due to my involvement. It may not be clear, but I did not start the data breach. Criminal elements of unknown so...

Blog

Welcome to my public blog. I haven't blogged publicly in quite a number of years. This is in part due to the overwhelming amount of random information available about me already, and I am unsure about adding to the pile.

I have decided that adding information of higher quality...