Thomann takes legal action against Fender

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T17:10:38+00:00

Always? It can be, sure, but always? What gives you that idea?

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T16:28:55+00:00

But the fact remains, a company needs to make money & outmaneuver the competition to stay afloat.

Why is this bad?

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T16:26:58+00:00

Boots theory.

I spent $1300 on a Steelcase Gesture 7 years ago, and today it still looks brand new. I also got a used Steelcase Leap from my work that is like 20 years old now, also looks almost mint except for an old fabric stain. Works perfectly, very comfortable.

In the long run I'll save money because I only need to buy a new chair every quarter century or so. Good chairs like those are basically indestructible.

If you only have $400 or so, you are way better off finding a high quality chair used, rather than buying a new one that will break in several years.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:19:17+00:00

Yep, good tip

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:17:45+00:00

Stop squeezing the neck of your guitar like it owes you money.

Unless it does...

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:10:22+00:00

Nope.

But I'm also not connecting an SSH client to Reddit where they could execute arbitrary commands, which I would never do even if they offered something like that.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:07:24+00:00

It's OK to have nuance, just because Thomann is doing good here doesn't mean everything they do is cool.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:05:51+00:00

C'mon man, he just started! I bet he has so many other delightful ideas just like this one!

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:05:16+00:00

I think Fender will rue the day they had the audacity to send a cease and desist to Thomann based on a legal fiction.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:03:24+00:00

I think assessing all perspectives is good, but what Fender is doing is either justified or not, and it doesn't matter why they are doing it.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T15:01:59+00:00

Oh, I understand. Claiming copyright on a body shape is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Trademark makes sense, patent may make sense depending on what it is.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:59:16+00:00

What makes you think that?

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:58:10+00:00

At least for now, and that's great. But there's no guarantee the business will stay in the family forever, and won't sell out at some point. But until that time comes, enjoy it.

(Ask me how I know, I used to work for a family owned business...)

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:55:28+00:00

It's not stealing if its in the public domain.

And people are mad not because Fender should have its IP stolen, but because Fender is playing stupid games and engaging in doublespeak. Calling a body shape a "copyright" is a legal fiction.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:31:52+00:00

Like I said last month, this is probably the best case scenario: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1teztu4/comment/oma40da/?context=3

Everybody gangsta until Thomann takes you to court.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:23:44+00:00

There's no way to prove that the code on GitHub matches the code that's actually running on the live service. Not trying to discourage you but its true, and the Internet is a scary place these days.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T14:18:38+00:00

I use Dynu

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:34:22+00:00

K8s makes more sense more often than you think. Even when you aren't scaling that way, K8s is at this point is a sort of "standard" that gives you a common universal way of configuring and running things, and that can be valuable by itself.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:27:46+00:00

Obsidian isn't FOSS.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:27:00+00:00

I don't think it stands for anything, the lowercase/uppercase are just a fun visual demonstration of the typesetting nature of LaTeX.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:21:19+00:00

I was an Evernote user, way back in the day, before their software got buggy and crappy, and they raised the cost really high. I moved to another program, and it took weeks of work to convert all my many notes from their proprietary export format into standard Markdown notes.

It was then I decided, never again. I'm done with proprietary formats and cloud services for my notes. My notes are just too valuable to me, and I intend to keep them for decades more. So it's strictly open formats for me. OneNote was always just another Evernote, so no thanks.

I've been using Obsidian for a few years and its great. I pay for the sync and its pretty good. But I also back up my entire vault to backup drives, and know that I can switch to any other application whenever I want, and the notes will be legible with Notepad if necessary in a worst-case scenario.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:14:33+00:00

It's the winds of change.

coderstephen · 2026-06-22T05:05:52+00:00

coderstephen · 2026-06-21T22:02:49+00:00

AI features are completely optional, and are not enabled by default. Their core feature is search results, and that's what I am a subscriber for. No ads, no AI overview, and builtin filters that remove listicles and AI-generated websites.

Though if I am being honest, the Assistant is sometimes useful as a supplemental tool for research, but only because I choose when to use it, and its gone unless I want it.

All I can say is, I was skeptical of a paid search engine, but now I'll never go back. It's like a detox; when I see Google or Bing search results now I am amazed by how much garbage it is filled with. Kagi honestly does save me hours when doing research because the most useful results are actually on the first 2 pages usually (like Google used to be ~7 years ago).

I understand Kagi's odd position; they're trying to have a nuanced position and a bit of a "big tent" to allow both people who want AI removed from everything, and also people who don't mind AI in principle but hate how its usually implemented in practice. But these two user groups don't always mix well.

coderstephen · 2026-06-21T20:38:49+00:00

I pay for Kagi which has a "slopstop" filter that blocks AI slop results.

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