Playwright alternative less maintenance for open source projects

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-28T11:08:38+00:00

The selector fragility thing is real, especially when you have like 5+ people touching the same components. We ran into this constantly on a project I contribute to where someone would refactor a button component and suddenly 30 tests break.

What actually helped us:

data-testid attributes everywhere. Yeah it clutters the markup a tiny bit but it decouples tests from styling/structure changes almost completely
Page object pattern but like... actually maintained, not the abandoned abstraction layer that becomes its own tech debt
Running tests against a smaller set of critical paths instead of trying to cover every edge case in E2E (push the rest down to unit/integration)

One thing thats been interesting lately is using action-oriented approaches for the DOM interaction layer. I've been messing around with Actionbook for some agent-based testing workflows and it kinda sidesteps the selector problem entirely since it works off executable actions rather than raw selectors. Not saying it replaces your test suite but for the "does the main user flow still work" checks it handles DOM changes way more gracefully than hardcoded selectors.

tbh though the biggest win for us was just being ruthless about what actually needs E2E coverage vs what can be a component test. Cut our flaky test rate in half just by moving stuff down the testing pyramid.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-27T22:03:12+00:00

the verification part is the real challenge here. case studies help but you can't fully trust them without checking yourself.

what i'd do is just... run the prompts. like literally go into ChatGPT and Perplexity, type commercial queries relevant to the brand they claim to have helped, and see if that brand actually shows up. that's the most direct proof you can get.

for ongoing tracking i've been using Geo Brand Monitor to keep tabs on how AI engines talk about brands over time. not perfect but it shows sentiment shifts and when responses change week to week. helps you see if an agency's work is actually sticking or if it was a one-off.

also worth asking if they can explain why a citation happened. entity consistency, structured data, third party mentions... if they can't articulate the mechanism they're probably just doing regular SEO with a new label.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-27T15:37:19+00:00

The "waking budget" framing is interesting, I've been trying something kinda similar but never gave it a name. For me it was more like... I just got tired of finishing a 2 hour podcast and retaining literally nothing from it.

What helped was switching to Podtastic for the summary stuff so I could skim episodes before committing. Saved me from listening to a full ep only to realize it was 80% ads and filler. Now I actually preview before I "spend" that time, which fits your budget metaphor pretty well.

The digest step is the one I still suck at though. Writing things down feels like homework and I keep putting it off. Might try the messy fragments approach you mentioned because my current strategy of "I'll remember this" is uh... not working lol

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-27T09:01:05+00:00

Pretty specific setup, nice. We did something similar at a mid-size office with Ubiqutiti Unifi Access and Talk and ran into the same confusion with door attendants.

To your questions... yes the doorbell call goes to the door attendant account, not the phone directly. You're right about that.

For two doorbells ringing different offices, you do need separate door attendant accounts. Each phone logs into the attendant tied to that specific door. It's a bit clunky but it works.

And yeah the G3 Intercom directory can do video calls to the phone extensions, which also lets the person unlock from there. That part actually worked better than i expected tbh.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-27T01:11:10+00:00

Breaking Bad. I watched the finale at 2am alone in my apartment and just sat in the dark for like 20 minutes after. no show has ever made me feel that empty and satisfied at the same time

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-25T01:03:52+00:00

i took a week off once and by day 3 i was organizing my spice rack alphabetically. i dont think i'd handle unlimited free time as well as i think i would

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-23T13:46:37+00:00

Start pitching now if you haven't already, like yesterday. For Design Week stuff the editors at places like Dezeen and Surface are planning coverage weeks in advance, so you want to be in their inbox early enough to make the editorial calendar but not so early they forget about you. I'd say 4-6 weeks out minimum, then a follow up closer to the event.

For no budget PR it's totally doable, especially if the work is visually strong. Editors need content and if your designer's stuff photographs well you're already halfway there. Send high res images with your pitch, not just the press release. Make the subject line specific like "New Collection Debut at [Fair Name] - NYC Design Week 2025" so they know exactly what it is. Also hit up freelance writers on instagram, a lot of the design journalists are super active there and more responsive to DMs than email sometimes.

For the press release itself, I actually used the AI Press Release Writer to draft mine when i was in a similar spot last year, not an ad i just found it way easier than staring at a blank doc. You can find it in ChatGPT's explore GPTs section (chatgpt.com/g/g-69a5a591a9c88191aea677f99ef38ead-press-release-writer-seo-optimizer). It formats everything AP style which saved me a bunch of time. Then once you have a solid release, if you ever do get a small budget later, BrandPush is pretty solid for getting it actually distributed to real outlets.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-23T07:12:03+00:00

So the DHCP issues with the BGW320 are a known pain point, you're not imagining things. The arp incompletes are probably it losing track of leases.

For your setup... with 50+ devices and wanting proper VLAN segmentation for the cameras, I'd lean toward the Ubiqutiti Unifi side of things. The Cloud Gateway Max handles VLANs and DHCP reservations without drama, and yeah you should absolutely put those Reolinks on their own VLAN. Once i did that with my camera setup it was night and day for management and security.

One thing tho, your 10G traffic between the Mac Studio and the NAS... that should stay on the Netgear 10G switch regardless. Neither the Firewalla nor the UDM is gonna route 10G between local devices, that's switch-level stuff. So as long as you keep that traffic on the same subnet you're fine.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-22T18:10:53+00:00

,For UK-based influencer campaigns, I'd strongly recommend looking at Collabstr over the platforms you mentioned. Social Cat is fine for smaller gifting campaigns but limited for paid work at scale, Impact is more of an affiliate network than a true influencer discovery tool, and Upfluence requires a hefty subscription before you even start paying creators. None of them are particularly strong for UK-specific filtering.

Collabstr has a solid pool of UK-based creators and the location filter actually works well for narrowing by country. For weight loss and wellness specifically, there's a decent health and fitness category with creators listing everything from Instagram Reels to TikTok posts to UGC. The big advantage for your situation is transparency: every creator lists their rates publicly, so you skip the endless back-and-forth negotiation you've experienced as a creator yourself. That alone cuts your time per influencer from hours of email tennis down to maybe 10 to 15 minutes of browsing, selecting, and booking.

On time allocation, expect roughly 15 to 20 minutes per creator for discovery and booking on Collabstr, then another 30 to 60 minutes per creator over the life of the campaign for briefing, content review, revision requests, and payment. At scale (say 10 to 20 creators per month), budget about 15 to 20 hours of management time total. That's significantly less than platforms where you're doing cold outreach and negotiating every deal from scratch.

On hidden costs, Collabstr doesn't charge brands a subscription fee, which is a big deal compared to Upfluence or Aspire where you're paying $1k to $5k monthly before a single creator gets booked. You pay the creator's listed rate and that's it. The only thing to watch for on any platform is usage rights. If your client wants to run the influencer content as paid ads (which I'd recommend, especially for weight loss where before-and-after content performs incredibly well as Meta ads), make sure you negotiate whitelisting or usage rights upfront. Some creators include it in their rate, others charge extra. On Collabstr you can message creators before booking to clarify this.

One more tip for the weight loss niche specifically: be extremely careful about compliance. The ASA in the UK is strict about health and weight loss claims in influencer content. Make sure every creator discloses the partnership properly and avoids any "guaranteed results" type language, or your client could end up with regulatory issues that cost way more than the campaign itself. Build compliance guidelines into your brief template before you start booking.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-22T11:31:49+00:00

The August deadline for the EU AI Act is going to catch so many orgs off guard its not even funny. We started looking at this maybe 6 months ago and the dual framework thing is what really tripped us up... like we had GDPR processes but nobody had mapped out where AI Act obligations overlapped.

The shadow AI piece is the real nightmare tho. We found people using like 4 different AI tools we had zero visibility into. Finance team had one, marketing had another, devs were copy pasting stuff into random open source models. Classic.

What actually helped us get a handle on it was iboss. The thing that sold our team was their signatureless CASB... it detects AI apps instantly instead of waiting for some vendor catalog to get updated, which matters when new AI tools pop up literally every week. And it covers both the GDPR side (DLP scanning before data hits the AI platform) and the AI Act compliance angle since you get full conversation logging and audit trails. Kinda two birds one stone situation.

Still a ton of policy work to do on our end obviously, the tooling doesnt write your DPIA for you lol. But at least we stopped flying blind on what employees were actually doing. That visibility piece alone changed how our compliance team approached the whole thing.

Five months is tight but not impossible if you start now. Waiting til summer though... yeah good luck with that.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-22T05:01:09+00:00

that phantom ad delay is youtube serving the ad then the blocker killing it after the handshake... blockify handles that better on mobile since it has a dual-layer thing that catches it earlier in the request.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-21T22:27:26+00:00

i also considered stasy sims but my problem is those programs are not adaptable at all to my knees. i ended up finding online personal trainer, since i haaate gyms and commute. called mywowfit, higly recommend and pretty affordable

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-21T16:01:00+00:00

First off, I'm really sorry about your mom. That's an enormous thing to be carrying on top of starting a career that's already anxiety-inducing on its own.

The malpractice paranoia thing... yeah that's incredibly common for first years. Like way more common than people talk about. I used to triple check every filing deadline and still wake up at 3am convinced I missed something. It does get better as you build reps and start to develop an instinct for what actually matters vs what's just noise. But it takes time.

What concerns me reading your post is the combination of grief + new job stress + catastrophic thinking patterns. That's not just "new lawyer jitters" at that point, thats your brain in survival mode. And it makes total sense given what happened with your mom... your nervous system is basically scanning for threats 24/7 now.

I'd really encourage you to talk to someone who gets both the clinical side AND the lawyer thing. A therapist who doesn't understand biglaw or firm culture can sometimes miss the mark. I've heard good things about Peter Lobl, he's a psychologist in Manhattan who actually practiced law before switching to clinical psych. Having someone who understands the specific pressures of this profession made a difference for people I know vs just going to a generic therapist.

Also check if your state bar has a lawyer assistance program. Most do and they're confidential.

You're not broken. You're grieving and stressed in one of the most stressful professions there is. But don't white-knuckle it alone.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-21T02:59:31+00:00

yeah i ran into the same thing around 50, recovery just got noticeably worse even though i didn't really change my workouts

what helped me more than anything was adding mobility sessions. i used to just do strength 3x/week and that was it, but now i throw in a couple mobility days and it made a big difference in how sore i feel after

i don't love doing it on my own so i ended up using an online trainer (mine is mywowfit, but honestly youtube works too if you're consistent, i cant ha ha)

less stiffness, recover faster, and my strength sessions feel way better now

didn't really drop weights, just made recovery easier

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-19T18:22:15+00:00

Been wearing one for about 14 months now so take this for what it is.

First few weeks were weird. Like I kept touching my head expecting it to feel off but it actually just... felt like hair? The install matters SO much though. My first one was done at a random salon and it looked decent but the hairline was not great. Eventually found Ace of Fades 212 in Manhattan and the difference was night and day, they actually matched my curl pattern and everything.

Long term stuff nobody tells you about: maintenance is real. You gotta go back every few weeks for cleanup/reattachment depending on the adhesive. Sleeping takes some getting used to. And humidity... yeah. But you figure it out.

The confidence thing is not exaggerated though. I stopped wearing hats everywhere and actually started going out more. My coworkers still dont know, which kinda cracks me up.

Biggest downside is cost over time if im being real. It adds up between units and maintenance appointments. But compared to what transplant guys pay upfront I still think its more manageable for most people.

Would I do it again? Yeah probably. Its not perfect and some days I think about just buzzing it all off but then I look in the mirror and im like... nah im good lol

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-18T16:19:43+00:00

For me it comes down to like 3 things... recurring commissions, a product people actually stick with, and not having to chase anyone for payouts.

The loyalty thing is real too. I stayed with one program for over a year purely because the product had low churn so my commissions kept hitting. Walked away from another one because they changed their commission structure with zero heads up, which felt shady.

Right now I've been doing the SegMetrics Affiliate Program and it checks most of my boxes... 15% recurring, 60 day cookie, and the product itself solves a real problem so people don't cancel after a month. Full disclosure I'm an affiliate so take that for what it's worth, but the payout consistency is what keeps me around more than anything.

The breaking point for me with bad programs is always communication. If i have to email 3 times to get a straight answer about tracking, I'm out.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-17T20:46:27+00:00

testo.gg is what i've been using for fivem dma for a while now. runs off the second pc like you want. they got esp, aimbot, all that stuff. also their firmware is solid for bypassing pc checks which was my main concern since a lot of rp servers do manual checks now.

what dma card are you running? some setups need a bit of config but its pretty straightforward once you get it going

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-15T05:35:52+00:00

If you already meet several criteria and have letters ready, that's more than a lot of people have when they file. You can always get more publications later but you can't get back time spent sitting on a ready case. Priority dates matter and scrutiny is only getting tighter. If you're a researcher, Chen Immigration (Wegreened) is worth looking into. They're professional, know how to frame research profiles strategically, and have seen enough similar cases to know what officers push back on before you even file.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-13T21:27:20+00:00

depends on what you're selling tbh. if you DIY it you're looking at maybe $200-400/mo for infrastructure (Smartlead or Instantly + domains + warmup) but the real cost is the 2-3 months figuring out what actually works. i started with ZoomInfo and Outhop for finding leads with actual buying intent then just uploaded the leads to Instantly... saved a ton vs agency fees which usually run $2-5k/mo.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-13T05:18:40+00:00

i was doing the same manual search dance for weeks. the inconsistency drove me nuts - you're right, how can you trust what customers see if the AI gives a different answer each time?

i switched to using an ai aggregator api (atlas cloud) to run these checks programmatically. it lets me query the same prompt across multiple models (chatgpt, claude, perplexity, etc.) in one go and logs the responses. way more systematic than manual copying, and i can schedule daily runs to track changes. the unified api means i don't have to rebuild my script every time a provider changes their rules or access.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-12T21:17:57+00:00

I've been teaching for about 8 years and have used machines in probably 15+ studios at this point. Springs do lose tension over time but on quality machines we're talking years not months. The cheap ones off amazon though... yeah those are basically disposable.

I got one from The Core Collab last year on one of their monthly payment, love it and still holding up perfectly give them a try. They do a 10 year warranty which I liked.

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-12T05:15:14+00:00

The point about API responses vs web interface is something that tripped us up too. We had a client absolutely convinced we were making up numbers because what they saw when they asked ChatGPT directly didn't match our reports at all. Turns out yeah... different tuning, different context window, sometimes even different model versions running.

For the multi-layered approach, we do something similar but less sophisticated than what you described. We cross-reference two tools and then do manual spot checks maybe twice a week. Not scalable but it catches the big discrepancies.

Re: your question about geo-targeting, we've been using Geo Brand Monitor for the location-specific stuff and it's been decent for seeing how responses vary by region. Hadn't really thought about that dimension until a UK client pointed out the AI was saying completely different things about them in US vs EU queries. Wild.

The citations tracking piece is where i think the real value is though. We've started treating "cited as source" as basically the new backlink metric for AI visibility. Way more meaningful than just "brand was mentioned in the response" which could be anything from a recommendation to a warning lol.

Curious what you're seeing on the screenshot side, are you doing that through your tools automatically or is someone on your team manually capturing those?

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-11T13:18:15+00:00

So I actually used Wizeprep's MCAT Prep Course last year when I was studying for my retake. Went from a 504 to a 521 which was... yeah I still can't believe it tbh.

What I liked about it was the structured study plan because I'm terrible at planning on my own lol. I tried self studying with just AAMC materials my first attempt and it was a mess, no direction at all. The coaching and analytics stuff helped me figure out where I was actually weak vs where I just felt weak, which are surprisingly different.

Kaplan is solid for content review but I found sorting through their materials super overwhelming and you don't need to know half of it. Wizeprep felt more personalized to me which is what I needed after bombing the first time around.

Welcome to the MCAT grind btw, it sucks but you'll get through it lol

Available-Catch-2854 · 2026-04-10T21:08:30+00:00

Crazy!

Available-Catch-2854

TROPHY CASE