notes

Jess Weatherbed writes in “Google’s shortened links will stop working next year” for theverge.com If you ever used Google’s URL shortening service goo.gl before it was shut down in 2019, be warned — those links will stop working on August 25th, 2025 It’s well known that Google occasionally discontinues services that were fairly popular. This time it’s the URL shortener goo.gl, which was widely used. With its disappearance, another part of the internet will become inaccessible. Thanks, Google. ...

The article »The Risks of Botshit« by Ian P. McCarthy, Timothy R. Hannigan, and André Spicer examines the risks and potential applications of chatbots within organizations. In summary, the following recommendation can be drawn: In these contexts, this risk can be managed through training and limiting the range of responses and vocabulary of the chatbot’s LLM model. To ensure reliability and avoid botshit risks, the scope of chatbot use should be more confined and the guardrails (i.e., rules, guidelines, or limitations for chatbot use) more restrictive. ...

Spotube is an open-source Spotify client that works cross-platform without requiring a Premium subscription or relying on Electron. Developed by Kingkor Roy Tirtho and his team, Spotube uses Spotify’s public API as well as YouTube, Piped.video, or JioSaavn as audio sources. This lets users enjoy their favorite songs on both desktop and mobile devices. ...

If you can’t make much use of starship1 or oh my zsh2, you might find a better alternative in oh my Posh3. There are several predefined themes that let you adjust the prompt in seconds. The program is compatible with BASH, PowerShell, CMD, Fish, Zsh and nushell. It is written in Go and can be installed on GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and Termux (Android). Of course, ist auch diese engine open source. ...

Linux users should take a look at “Burn-My-Windows” by Simon Schneegans. This extension offers nice window animations. It’s also worth checking out Simon’s repositories in general. The text was automatically translated from German into English. The German quotations were also translated in sense.