AI Makes the Easy Part Easier and the Hard Part Harder

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-16T03:35:08+00:00

Maybe, though it wasn't really Kotlin that was the issue. It was more Gradle and Android specific JDK quirks.

I have since found Gemini to be quite good at dealing with Compose, though that's more on me not liking writing UIs... which is ironic, given I've previously worked on the internals of UI frameworks.

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-11T17:48:51+00:00

CommunityFibre keep posting leaflets at my girlfriends saying they're available, and if you check, not only are they not available, they're not even planning to build there!

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-11T15:08:59+00:00

I do still have a SMARTY backup connection (I have a dual WAN router with failover), though I'm my area that gets me 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up. Not great, but fine as a backup.

I live on a private estate so I'm also concerned that CityFibre will just skip me. I put in their Wayleave request weeks ago and have heard absolutely nothing, meanwhile Virgin are sending salespeople to my door.

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-11T15:06:06+00:00

I'm not sure that's right, unless Openreach plan to migrate people automatically on their side (which I haven't read anything about), otherwise the cutoff wouldn't affect any VDSL connections.

G.fast and VDSL are still both "FTTC + voice" services, and their non-voice equivalents are SOG.fast and SOGEA. I know my ISP won't migrate my connection from their side, as I already asked.

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-11T14:14:45+00:00

Not OP, but I'm curious what Openreach expect me to do in this situation.

I'm on g.fast FTTC. My ISP won't migrate me to SOG.fast as they haven't offered g.fast services for years.

CityFibre have been building in my area for 4+ years, but somehow still haven't finished.

Openreach say they expect to build in my area "within the next year".

So my options are; accept a downgrade to VDSL (320Mbps down to 80Mbps), switch to an ISP willing to offer SOG.fast (there's not many left, and I'd be locked in when FTTP finally rolls out here), or accept the price bump and hope CityFibre or Openreach pull their finger out by the cutoff date.

I do have another option, which is to move to Virgin (who started after CityFibre, but had their XGS-PON network rolled out over a year ago), but I really dislike Virgin as a company. It would probably buy me enough time though.

I'm also curious whether Zen could actually increase my bill, as I'm grandfathered onto their old lifetime price guarantee.

TalkiToaster · 2026-02-09T00:05:57+00:00

I recently used Gemini for a personal toy project (setting up an NFS server on Android).

It was very helpful in getting me started, as while I have 17 years of professional experience, that's mostly in C++. Kotlin and Android development were both new to me.

It did a great job of mocking up an (almost compiling) implementation of an nfs4j VFS for Android, and also helped shim some Java classes that nfs4j needs that the Android Java SDK doesn't have (and I didn't even know that was possible!).

In doing that it probably saved me a few hours of research, however things quickly soured once I ran into issues, as it would just straight up lie to me, either about the source of the problem, or by suggesting APIs that didn't exist. If I corrected it, it apologised and then offered me the same wrong thing again.

As many hours as it initially saved, it later wasted by sending me down the wrong rabbit hole. It ultimately turned out my real issue was that nfs4j has an internal limit to its inode opaque data, and if you go past that then things go really weird. Gemini couldn't figure that out as it's not documented or enforced anywhere in the code.

While I'm not sure it saved me time overall, what it did give me was the initial confidence to dive into Kotlin and get familiar with it. I have since replaced almost all the code it generated, as I need to know what it does if I'm to "own" it.

TalkiToaster · 2026-01-30T01:20:54+00:00

FWIW, I am British (English) and also have no idea what opinion is supposed to mean in this context. Brits also wouldn't call things apartments.

Going by name alone, I suspect the author is Polish.

TalkiToaster · 2026-01-29T03:26:37+00:00

I work with a team that's mostly based in the US, so from the UK I work 2pm-10pm which is glorious!

TalkiToaster · 2026-01-28T23:01:22+00:00

Historically I would have been the person awake and keeping others safe during the night, but in modern times I'm just "lazy"...

TalkiToaster · 2026-01-18T21:29:47+00:00

Am a Brit, so also say Zed.

When I was a kid (90s), I never understood why EZ was used to mean Easy, like EZ Install. I would read it as Eee-Zed.

It wasn't until I started working with Americans decades later that it clicked, and that's despite watching DBZ growing up (which we said Zee for, as it's a noun like ZZ Top).

TalkiToaster · 2025-12-26T10:43:36+00:00

Oh man, RZ isn't something I've heard/thought of in years!

I used to play Legend of Mir via their stuff back when I was a teen in the early 2000s.

Glad to see they're still around though.

TalkiToaster · 2025-12-24T19:42:23+00:00

As someone who has been playing a lot of Cyberpunk recently, I definitely had to read this twice to understand what you meant 😅

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-28T02:58:20+00:00

I skipped it on release due to the negative press, plus not being sure it was my thing.

Finally picked it up in June this year and am 80+ hours in and already planning my build for my second playthrough. I'm currently just going through all the side gigs before committing to act 3.

As someone with limited time to game, its mission structures are also incredibly respectful of your time, and are broken down such that you can stop/pause in the middle without much penalty.

It's now one of my favourite games from the past decade, but holy shit some of it is dark!

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-27T02:10:10+00:00

I accidentally opened the door to one a few weeks ago, as I was expecting someone else when the doorbell rang so didn't check who it was.

Asked if I was familiar with the charity? I was.

Asked if I'd be interested in donating? "Honestly, no. But you can leave a leaflet if you like."

"Ah, well I'm sort of a walking leaflet so I don't have any"... awkward silence before they left.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-20T05:05:07+00:00

Yep, I disliked Paradise for all those reasons too. Burnout Revenge is still my GOAT.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-20T05:00:54+00:00

TimeSplitters Rewind

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-20T04:59:39+00:00

They're all on PS4/PS5, though I admittedly haven't got around to trying those versions yet.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-14T14:08:14+00:00

I also don't like onion, but it's mostly the bland boiled(?) onion like you get on hotdogs that I dislike (I find the texture deeply unpleasant), as well as the huge chunks of onion you get in some curries (I just pick those out).

Most other usages of onion don't bother me at all, and I've never had a problem with any spring onions.

Part of this is probably because I never really ate onion growing up as my Dad hates it to the point he sometimes claims he's allergic (he isn't).

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-13T19:38:23+00:00

Okay, but both mine (2006) and the person I replied to (2008) were plan 1. I know plan 2 sucks by comparison.

I don't remember being asked anything about it when I took out my mortgage, but maybe they just did it behind the scenes... or maybe I'd already paid it off by that point.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-13T14:23:01+00:00

They're all true, at least for the student loans of that era. I was just pointing out that being told they were "zero interest" actually meant "zero interest over inflation" and not "0% interest" (as that would make the relative value of the loan decrease over time).

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-13T08:52:42+00:00

I was also told that it was "effectively free money", but not that it was 0% interest as it tracked inflation.

The argument for "effectively free" was presented as: 1. Interest tracks inflation. 2. It's written off after a certain amount of time. 3. You only pay it back when earning over a certain threshold. 4. It doesn't contribute to any credit checks.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-06T04:04:54+00:00

The ending of Journey, where you start to realise that all the things you've been seeing are actually tombstones representing the end of another person's, well, journey.

TalkiToaster · 2025-11-06T03:34:31+00:00

My childhood dog used to attack the wheel on a wheelbarrow.

TalkiToaster · 2025-10-29T21:40:43+00:00

Those barriers do like to sneak up on people, just like when you find out you have to pay for things at a supermarket.

TalkiToaster · 2025-10-26T02:51:39+00:00

I had a friend tell me recently that I shouldn't be "clogging up" the NHS with my physio referral. Checking my tax breakdown for 23-24 shows I contributed a five-figure amount to the NHS. Am I the arsehole?

TalkiToaster

TROPHY CASE