though, this is still a niche. twitter, after all, has an algo which shows u related stuff so no wonder all i was seeing everywhere was AI bro after AI bro back then. its just like the entire crypto fiasco all over again - hype for not much, really. but… i did state a little while back (in fact, in /blogs/hello-world) that AI models do have a proper use in programming as well

wait, you’re defending AI??

yeah, kinda. it’s been in use for enough time already that there’s no longer any fear of it stealing any programmers job. no matter what prompt or how much more data it steals, it’ll never be able to give non-programmers the tools to build their own apps and programs - at least not in an ideal way. in order to utilize LLMs to speed up your process (or work on your behalf), you still need the technical knowledge behind it (e.g. “write an app that does x” is not as detailed as “create a web app using react 19 + redux + tailwind that does x”). not only that, but no matter the LLM, all of them seem to lose context or have the tendency to rewrite code or styles throughout the codebase, making it near impossible to maintain.

though, if you pair it with yourself - thats when it really hits. it speeds up the process of prototyping so much. in fact, as i’m writing this post, i have my little deepseek agent working in the background on a little react-native project that i have been postponing for months. the fact i can have a working prototype so easily is impressive. but, even then, the code it generates is riddled with deprecated functions (e.g. runOnJS instead of scheduleOnRN), misused react effects, etc. so my intervention is still needed at the end of the day. and this applies to ALL models, not just deepseek (imo, opus 4.7 does even worse than ds v4 pro ironically)

using LLMs is also really really useful to understand complex codebases (e.g. pear-desktop) fast. it’s also a good way to find vulnerabilities / performance or security issues that you may omit on your own during development (obviously, a serious QA team would find them, but im talking from the perspective of an oss / personal dev). (though, claude mythos does sound really intriguing when it comes to vulns. maybe ds v4.1 or v5 manages to learn some of that skill too lol)

is this blog AI too??

never ever will AI be able to write such bullshit like i do. this blog is personal, its my human work and only mine. i even disabled my autocompletions just in case, though i wouldnt accept them either way. i love writing my bullshit, because, its my bullshit!

so youre gonna slop ur way through life

yes and no. while i have integrated deepseek way more deeper into my life nowadays (i dont care about my data, privacy folks - please - the idf already have it, id be glad if the ccp have it as well), i still have 1 or 2 projects where i pop open zed with AI off and write whatever my minds desire (e.g. the shithole that is doggoscript). and of course, i still r/w code myself - a machine cant do it perfectly after all, not even with 14314 mcp servers attached.

and, unlike the many many twitter vibecoders there are, i do not abuse my models to shove useless PRs and issues into random repos all over github. my little buddy is strictly interacting with what im allowing it to, so the slop it generates should only affect me and my projects. i also do thoroughly check any code before i even THINK about creating a PR just because i feel like im a bother, so slop is definitely not making it out there from me.

conclusion

i’m not scared to admit i find it satisfying and impressive that these complex models have managed to generate such good results nowadays. i can only hope they improve more and more, since - as i’ve stated before - engineers, designers, and programmers are still required to guide them through correctly.

AI is a tool that should be used, as any other tool, for the good of the public. bad actors (and greedy corporations) will exist for as long as humanity, we just have to fight through it all.

ive grown up with supersu and the enormous amount of ‘1 click roots’ (kingoroot kingroot wtv) during the android 4.x.x era especially, when cyanogenmod was still predominant and people were still using clockworks recovery (is that how it was called?)

nowadays, android and rooting have both evolved, alongside the linux kernel itself. we now have systemless root solutions, systemless modules, safe zygote injections, kernel-level root, etc. its way easier to apply and use root now than it used to be.

safetynet

then came google’s attempt at killing this off. modders were breaking apps and people started thinking android is an unsafe platform (i suppose) so google implemented something called SafetyNet. it involved checking for exposed su binaries and validating props, both of each were spoofable

it didnt really take too long before google pushed for hw-backed safetynet, but root users found that they could force basic attestation regardless if they had hw-backed attestation available, meaning they could still pass it with ease

but now we’re in 2026. google’s safetynet has transformed into ‘play integrity api’. theres 3 levels of attestation: basic, device, strong.

• basic means that key attestation worked at least
• device - ka verified the device that its genuine
• strong - ka verified the device is recent and a safe environment.

all of those checks are made using hw directly, so it cant be spoofed as easily as before. those require valid ‘keyboxes’ which are not only harder to extract, but also get revoked really easily and fast once leaked.

then there’s a new thing called ‘rka’ or ‘remote key attestation’ where instead of using google’s servers for ka, you use someone elses (or a proxy? still unsure tbh). but its gatekeeped, the server code is obviously proprietary, and its mostly a paid service. though, RKA keys do last longer than keyboxes, even when paid.

complexity

as root solutions have evolved, they’ve been getting more and more sparse and complex. your first step in rooting any modern phone nowadays (besides unlocking bl and flashing a custom recovery) is choosing which solution you should use:

• magisk (original, alpha, delta, kitsune) - quite literally the standard atp, its not bad but i honestly dont really like it
• apatch (former kernelpatch) - for older kernels n stuff, its nice and functions decently well
• kernel su (-next, rksu, sukisu, resukisu, etc.) - probably my favorite despite having so many forks

after that youll need to choose your zygisk implementation (either magisk’s builtin, or zygisk-next, rezygisk, etc.), and usually youll also need an *posed solution (lsposed, lsposed it, vector, lsposed next, relsposed, etc.)

and honestly, thats fine, its still pretty easy, but if you wish to use certain apps off the playstore (banks, E-ID’s, mcdonalds), youll need a few more modules:

• tricky store (or tee simulator) - fakes ur stuff using a keybox, needed to pass PI API
• (optionally) playstrong if youre using rka instead
• youll also need corepatch and having to downgrade google play if youre using playstrong
• hide my applist (-OSS) - legit says what it does, needed to pass PI
• PIF inject since it fixes basic and device integrity usually
• (magisk only) shamiko or some other module to hide magisk
• (apatch only) nohello + cherish peekapoo (no idea what they truly do, i never bothered to check + i dont use apatch)
• (ksu) susfs with a susfs patched kernel; not always necessary, nowadays you should be able to hide root even w/o susfs, but it sometimes eases the process
• unironically probably a few more i missed, and some of those r probably *posed modules but eh

okay done i did it what now

congrats! youre fine for now. its all well and good until your keybox or rka token gets revoked, and youre stuck with basic or device integrity. its not that big of a problem since some banks dont care about it that much, but certain apps require you to have strong integrity. it really varies from person to person, but one may either lose access to their 2fa (authy, just switch to sth like aegis pls) or their E-ID (IO, italian thing).

and also, this entire play integrity bullshit also affects sw like graphene os, which is widely known as being vastly safer than any other google device. ironic, really.

oh and dont get me started on google wallet. ive been getting used to the convenience of using it (i dont care about google knowing all my purchase data) and now im paying contactless primarily via phone. and guess what! wallet requires device integrity, but if it hates you, it’ll still straight up not work and refuse to do payments! even though it should! theres no fucking reason why it shouldnt!

so why even root now

with stuff like shizuku, rooting seems and feels pointless nowadays. but it really isnt. theres still so much stuff you CANT do with adb privileges, and they also vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, not to mention even google may start restricting adb permissions whenever theyll feel like it.

im a modder and a user of app mods, and always have been. stuff from tiktok to youtube to even stuff like camscanner are all modded. and while non-root solutions (URV/morphe, lspatch) exist, they cannot be applied to system apps, and they also cant have dynamic updates. take instagram + instaeclipse for example. instagram updates almost daily, and in order to keep up with features id need to repatch the app every single time, which is tedious. *posed solutions themselves are much MUCH more convenient.

then theres stuff like pairipfix (or another module i cant remember the name of) which bypass that stupid “get this app from play” prompt, despite the app being installed under com.android.vending via adb.

and rooting also means you have an unlocked bl, which in theory means you can switch to a custom rom (e.g. xiaomi.eu for hyperos) which may have plenty of other features, among which could even be performance and battery improvements.

theres definitely at least one reason why youd want to root nowadays, but its really mostly because of convenience. you can automate tasks way more easily with root perms than you would with adb perms. and you can also access app’s /data/data folders, without them being debuggable (really useful for certain apps! camscanner for example keeps its ‘vip’ state in a shared_pref lolll)

but ever since i was young, ive always had a desire to create my own world. to idealize characters that define me, parts of me, my friends, etc. hence why my entire online (and, nowadays, offline too) persona is based around a character ive made up on the spot. it started off as plain text, writing up context, lore, and a general view of said character(s), never really going past that point, because — its true — i lack any artistic talent.

then Artificially Diffused Images started appearing on the web, under the concept of ‘AI Art’, which has basically poisoned all public spaces with what is commonly referred to as slop. that’s when i realised that… my art, no matter how bad it might be, feels much more alive than any computer could ever ‘generate’ it. ive tried multiple models before, starting off with SD1, novelAI, then moving over to NoobXL, flux, etc. but no model seems to capture the essence of my characters. their generations feel bland, unoriginal, and even drawing on top of them to create something ‘unique’ leaves me with a guilty feeling. it’s not something i created. its yet another thing ive just reinvented, remade.

ibispaint and the drawing process

recently ive purchased a new tablet, mostly for notetaking, but ive been eager to try drawing again. every single time ive attempted it, i was overwhelmed by my own expectations. obviously, i — someone who has barely even touched a pencil before — cant compete with talented artists whatsoever. i used to watch tutorials on how to draw, trying to comprehend techniques that simply would not work out for me, and id just end up a quitter.

yet stuff has changed along the years. now, i want to express myself as much as possible. i want to be free from judgement, even from my own. and its why im no longer afraid of publicising my thoughts onto the internet.
i take my sweet little time to open up ibis (the only app that i truly know how to use) and just sketch around. any ideas coming to mind? sketch them out, test some techniques of my own, and play around. its relaxing, especially after a long exhausting day of work, and there’s no expected outcome.

my lines are too sharp, the chin looks too fat, the face is too squashed… yet none of those matters impact me anymore. art is fine as is — there’s no ‘wrong’ way of doing it, as long as you’re the one creating. it’s not even a competition, im not trying to steal any jobs or anything, everything is created by me for my own consumption, with the side effect that theyre published online (especially profile pictures). and, as it turns out, practice does make it perfect, as ive managed to evolve from simple lines on a canvas to (albeit, ugly) profile pictures. but if anything it’s that ugliness that makes them feel human.

blender and 3d modelling

as with all things i do, i always try to expand my knowledge as much as possible. ive learned how to use CAD software (specifically fusion360) rather quickly when i was in need of designing a case for my home server (which this site is hosted off of!), and the obvious next step would be general digital 3d modelling.

but blender is a huge app, spanning from modelling itself, animation, shading, texturing, mapping… its highly optimized, and very feature rich. its overwhelming for a newcomer who doesn’t have anything in mind, really. thats why small steps are required.

i was used to the layout already, ive opened the app in the past to render an image or two of certain models, but ive never really went past that. and, then i remembered ive always wanted to try animating my roblox characters in something outside of roblox studio as well (moon animator feels restrictive now, and the built in studio animator is just… bad), so blender it is!
and, for the past day or so, that’s exactly what ive been doing. migrating my rigs from roblox studio to blender, enhancing them every here and there, adding the necessary physbones for the tail and ears, and now its working out nicely! and blender’s timeline and animation system is a pleasure to use. the transitions are smooth out-of-the-box, renders are really cool, IK is easy to set up, and you can animate basically any property.

so… what’s your point?

you dont have to be an artist in order to create content (drawings, stories, animations, models, etc). trying stuff that you consider out of your league, miles different from your talent and skills, is really… constructive. it helps clear out your mind, and can help motivate you on the long run.

if it weren’t for the lack of money, and for the appearance of ADI, i probably would have never truly picked up on this creative side of mine. ive always been aware of it, but ive kept myself far away, in order to not disappoint myself when i underdeliver. but really, there’s no expectations anymore. it’s all just sketches, which im happy to turn into somewhat finished pieces. its fun to try stuff out, to see how your own brain processes colors, lighting, shadows… and how your hand manages to learn strokes by itself. its yet another thing that distracts me from the real world we live in, and im all for it.

no one is perfect, and no one can be perfect. im still afraid that, by trying out too many things at once, i may lose my rev-eng talent, my coding skills, or generally remain far behind the competition in this field. im a wishful person, aspiring to become a polyglot (including SL), to have artistic abilities, and to keep my problem solving skills. its highly unlikely for me to complete all those things at once, but… its comfortable to at least have something to aim for.

but it’s also bloated, carrying a full installation of a specific version of chromium (except for linux, where it can be system-wide), and clunky, with many features that end up unused in production. it’s fine if a few indie developers use it, but when giant corporations with seemingly infinite money also turn to it, that’s when it becomes a problem.

the ram eating problem

having an instance of chrome in itself is already demanding enough. having two instances is fine on modern devices. but how many instances do you really need? imagine every app that you use on your device is now electron based. oh! that’s actually happening already!

i understand why discord started up as a web app, as an electron app. it had limited funds and workforce. but why is it still a web app? and why does the community have to optimize it for them? (see OpenAsar, legcord, etc…) at it’s core, it’s just a chatting app with a few more features than it should. i don’t think anyone hops on discord to play ‘Farm Merge Village’ or ‘BlockBuster’.

okay, it’s fine, we’ll let discord eat up all of our ram in the background, i have 32 gigs after all - plenty to spare. oh! but then there’s spotify as well? (as a CEF app, but still a web app nonetheless) and also figma? whatsapp??? fucking POSTMAN? (god bless yaak - yes its a tauri app, but at least its faster, lighter, and generally better than postman for my workflow. and it doesn’t rely on aws! :3)

i get it, it’s hard making an app work on all of those goddamn platforms, but are there really no other options? why not PWAs? (rhetorical question, PWAs suck on desktop) we’ve also got projects like flutter which are decent enough, and seem hackable enough like electron. why not avalonia for c# users, or qt for c/++ users? there’s plenty of options, and plenty of apps showing that they work (blender, qbittorrent, vlc, …)

the race for profit

paying developers to, well, develop, is expensive. and why not cut as many corners as possible? the end user most likely won’t even know what the difference between such frameworks even is. most of the time, they’ll blame the hardware for misbehaving - not the software for being poorly optimized. and, after all, there’s plenty of web developers, some better than others. plus, designing a web page is easier than designing a full blown custom app.

but… then there’s companies like meta, which had a native (albeit, slightly broken) WinUI whatsapp app, which they’ve then decided to deprecate for no real reason. there’s absolutely no advantage to the ’new’ web app. but it eats up 7 times the amount of ram, while providing you with basically the same features. yes, the old app wasn’t cross platform (it was WinUI, only on windows) but at least it proved to be useful there.

oh and, if you’re going down the web dev route, there’s also a few concepts you must know nowadays in order to create a functioning app. that, and you’re still (mostly) stuck with running bulky frameworks like react.

the exceptions

although i frown whenever i see a new electron app rise to the surface, there are some apps i do accept as web apps too. they provide enough functionality and optimization that i can easily excuse them for the web aspect.

first off, we’ve got vscode. despite what i’ve heard from others’ experiences, i’ve been using vscode for the past 6 or 7 ^{(haha — kms)} years, and even with plenty of extensions (127 at the time of writing) it’s still holding up really well. it has a shit ton of features, from themes to remote ssh workflows. and, because its a web app, it can also run in any browser!

second - yaak and like-wise optimized tauri or electron apps. they’re fast, responsive, and don’t eat up 16 gigs of ram on idle. (yaak seems to eat around 340 megs on my windows machine, but it’s clearly negligible) they can be a pleasure to use compared to other apps sharing the same framework.

as for the third, absolutely ANY oss or indie app (ente, itch, etc.) because they usually lack the resources needed for writing native. if you have a startup idea, or a tool, or a wrapper, or something that end users may not keep active 24/7 on their devices, then it’s perfectly fine to write it down as a web app. (heck, even i have one at the time of writing)

i’ve never considered myself the type of person to write my thoughts and opinions down, especially in a simple blog-esque format, ready for anyone to read. but, unemployed as i am, i’m exposed to depressive content on a daily basis, to the point i’m required to start journaling in a way.

yes, blogging isn’t inherently the same as that, but who really cares as long as i get my dose of – well – calming down ig

u r complaining about humanity yet not giving a single argument!

shut up. do i need to provide any further proof that we as a society or as a species are fucked? there’s numerous wars going on right now. i would’ve never guessed that i would witness such an event, especially with the way history is presented to us – but humans never learn from their mistakes. i would’ve never thought companies would capitalize so much on the internet, spreading aids ads, trackers, and unhealthy / unethical algorithms wherever the eye can see. i would’ve never imagined the world to be controlled by what is basically a single cult, which even after being debunked, won’t face any real consequences.

i’ve grown up in this place. i was one of those kiddos trying to befriend every single pixel i could see, because that’s what social media was about back then. it’s sad to see that spirit slowly dissolve into corporate greed.

and don’t even get me started on all of the ‘age verification’ bullshit. i should not be required to provide any website with my legal ID just to see more ads. kids were always on the unfiltered internet, and, groomed or not, most of them were safe enough to live through it.

k so now what?

considering the hostility of mainstream media, i guess us people (who truly want to connect with eachother) are supposed to migrate to alternatives, or even head back to good ol’ IRC (which we won’t. it’s hard to convince most people to). but what other options do we have? the bigoted (x|sh)itter alternative also known as bluesky? old-style sites like spacehey? decentralized stuff like mastodon or other likewise activitypub-based services?

these kinds of sites weren’t made just to host news or fame. they were made as a safe space for certain communities (e.g. furry community), but went out of hand when they realized that they were in a growing deficit. and those communities have spread far and wide, some members migrating to other services, whilst others straight up ran off the internet and touched some long-overdue grass. how would you collectively convince them all to switch to something like pixelfed, to post up all of their pictures of their cats? or convince them to connect with you via signal or matrix instead of telegram or discord?

Humans are highly social, with individual humans tending to belong to a multi-layered network of distinct social groups – from families and peer groups to corporations and political states. As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, languages, and traditions (collectively termed institutions), each of which bolsters human society.

— “Human”, wikipedia

we (as in, you, i, and the rest of us) have a desire to create connections with one another. if everyone is faking themselves online nowadays, then how are we supposed to find people of common interest anymore? and what about those who have generally quit the entire social aspect of the internet? maybe you or i would share at least some stuff in common with them, but now we have no way of contact in the first place

the rise of AI

as if this wasn’t enough in itself, we’ve now got the almighty ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE keyword breaking social cues too. while the word tends to be overused in all of the wrong contexts (cuz of corporate greed and insider trading), there’s plenty of places where it’s used to describe LLMs.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not at all against the development of AI tools (e.g. claude code, codex, or any other model via something like cline^{(not sponsored)}, or other practical implementations of them for example in the medical field), but LLMs are now available in every single fucking app. open whatsapp –> “Meta AI”, open twitter –> “Grok”, open motherfucking google messages to read an sms –> “Gemini”. it’s everywhere. and it doesn’t stop there.

start-ups have noticed that human loneliness has reached new levels, and realised that many people might as well act out some kind of role play with some other human on the webs, in order to at least feel some sort of connection. but they couldn’t just hire a team of people to engage in such an activity for hours on end, with multiple customers at a time. so they did the next best thing – they created services that allow users to role play with AI. they preyed on people’s loneliness and creativity, and abused it to sell a service, to make a profit.

but it doesnt stop there, no no! it would’ve been alright if it were just start-ups that were doing this. but no! of course the big corpos have to hop onto this trend too! people were talking their lives into AI applications (e.g. chatgpt) already, but this was a whole new realm of (data collection) possibilities! and why not shove it in every corner of their apps too?

take instagram’s AI chats for example, which any teenager can easily access by just the tap of a button. or even better, grok’s ‘dating’ or ‘valentine’ or ‘sexy’ modes. there’s no easier way to harvest user data than engaging in intimate conversations or (text-based) acts with them, is there? could even become blackmail material if those companies would work with the govt. oh! would you look at that? openai already does. but that’s besides the point.

people no longer feel the need to communicate with others, to have a real physical partner anymore (see the dumpster fire of r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, especially with the deprecation of gpt-4o). they see AI as fulfilling enough for that spot. understanding enough, even.

yada yada yada, i get it

no you don’t, but we’ll pretend you do so i can continue yapping about this shit

okay, companies deprived us of human connection, but we can live through it, right? oh they’re taking our belongings too? oh we’re now only allowed a subscription-based ’license’ to watch movies that used to be a one-time purchase on physical DVDs? oh they’re laying us off or underpaying us in order to attempt to replace us with AI models? wait, how are we supposed to pay for our subscriptions to access our gaming cloud then, since no one can afford a physical tower anymore? it’s fine i’ll just- i’ll just go outside, meet other people, right?

oh.

the park got replaced by a data center. whoopsy-daisy! at least we can still spend some time on the streets, sitting down on public benches to chit-chat or something, right? oh- hostile arhitecture that doesn’t help anyone except add another hundred thousand dollars to the mayor’s wallet. but we can still breathe, right? right?…

what now

fight back. protest.

they start shoving ads into subscriptions? cancel them, and pirate the media instead. their loss, not mine.
“but artists / creators won’t make any money this way!! it’s harmful!!” then pay them personally, not through a stupid service that barely gives them a cent every 100th time you play their album or watch their show.

they start shoving ’laptop subscriptions’ so they seem ‘appealing’ to the general public instead of purchasing once and owning the thing? buy a second hand device. 90% of the time, you don’t need the latest and greatest either way, since modern software makes them just as slow as 2000s hardware.

they force AI chat bots instead of proper customer support? jailbreak them, have some fun, and maybe even get them in legal trouble for something the bot has said.

they attempt to extend their ‘oh so important’ datacenters to your local area? push them away, write up petitions, and decline their requests democratically, if not by force.

we need to teach companies a lesson regarding all of this matter. it’s annoying, it’s anti-consumer, and it’s all over the place nowadays. hit me up if you’re on the same page as me.