Desktop app situation is truly a mess for the trillion dollar AI companies, OpenAI and Anthropic.

After updating codex, it disappeared and chatdpt was still the old version. So I downloaded the latest chat gct from the website and it just said: "Couldn't install ChatGPT"

So I had to open Claude which was just a completely blank screen to try and debug the installation of ChatGPT.

I built a dictation and meetings after trying other apps (Wispr Flow, Willow Voice, Granola, open source) and realised they're either user hostile, buggy or have limited feature set. For example, many of these dictations app opt you into Context awareness, which means your entire page contents get streamed to their server. The open source apps don't have dictionary, shortcuts (say "linkedin link" → and it pastes your actual link), or ability to use any proprietary API.

So I made my own dictation app. Supports arbitrary API providers (e.g. Deepgram, Speechmatics, Elevenlabs), Offline models and a subscription if you want it. Otherwise it's free forever for BYOK and offline models. Deepgram is a YC startup from 2016, and have models that are genuinely good - so it's up to you if you want to use them.

Also, Granola doesn't let you read your own meetings after 30 days. So I added a feature in DuckType to import your data from Granola, unlocking all your meetings from their paywall.

Another app: OpenCook https://open-cook.com/ . We curated and wrote our own recipes into StashCook, which requires a subscription just to read your own recipes on the web app. So I got Codex to extract our recipes and rebuild one that is open source, OpenAPI and includes AI features.

This won me 1 year of GPT Pro at the codex event :)

I hope you can tell... I'm tired of companies designing their products to lock you in, to charge you more, with no added value. I build software for people like me. So I'll be building more apps that replace this user hostile software.

Dropbox spun out Zulip because it was a failed project they were going to shut down.

This is completely different?

Dropbox never had any intention of running Zulip. But the team wanted Zulip to continue existing, so they worked that into the agreement with Dropbox.

That is my understanding.

Respectfully, I don't think it's "very" smart. It is a fair option given their limited options? Everyone is doing FDE or (customer engineering to be more transparent) because otherwise they will just be seen as markup on token cost. And the Neo-SaaS companies will take the money instead.

Who else will buy their AI?

and what other options do they have?

There are enough big banks in Europe that want to use AI, but almost all of them have very terrible software engineering (sorry to anyone who works there), so it's not like they are going to spin up their own cluster on top of open source models. If Mistral can filll this spot (provider and consultant) it could be a big win for them. Then repeat with other similar industries and governments in Europe.

You don’t think it’s smart to get reliable funding this way? From Banking the Cash Cow?

Devstral is getting better, it’s the Vibe harness that’s holding it back (I think). I can see how that would drive some business as well.

Their chat thingie isn’t very well positioned, but gets results. Could be an euro or two per month, maybe bundled with some more features. It’s not like Mistral has no options, if anything they’re just a bit complacent and not ambitious with their plans.

Yes, a replacement will cost money. But probably less than a year contract with Palantir.

Mistakes were made (I would argue intentionally because of local wallet minima with stakeholders), there is a sunk cost to using Palantir. The country can't even develop it further, because it's Palantir's. That's not an argument to keep using it.

The country needs to develop the ability, to develop critical national infrastructure (this includes software, obviously is not limited to it). I would also argue it already has the ability, we need to prevent it from withering away.

Palantir will do the same as local companies (building on top of open source) except it needs to make a large tech profit and with its monopolistic ability, It will capture the value for itself.

Procurement has a misaligned efficiency incentive. Procurement and governments want a single provider so it's less direct cost on them on managing projects. Sadly, they've actually unnaturally forced a monopoly, resulting in serious costs and inefficiencies in the long term. We need a way to encourage multiple providers for the same thing, and allow new companies to join in even when they're late. Just like B2B and B2C.

I wonder if anyone has some thoughts in this area

I was at an event in London that involved a lot of government people. It came up that Palantir was not a very good company, Someone felt compelled to shout out, oh don't talk about that here, "we like Palantir here". It is certainly the elephant in the room (elephant in cost, and a very difficult situation).

Free software from Palantir is not free. Peter Thiel's co is all about monopolies.

Oh, and don't forget to opt your data out of Palantir: https://your-data-matters.service.nhs.uk/

Okay great advice, thanks. I'm already using Bitwarden and found out they have an SSH Agent feature too [1]. I've tried lastpass, Bitwarden, 1password and I prefer Bitwarden (good UX, very affordable)

[1] https://bitwarden.com/help/ssh-agent/

It was on development branches. The threat actor was trying to delete development work.

Their main branch was already protected. I don't think it makes sense to protect every single branch in a repo? Since not all devs will have the ability to turn this off

You should try cloudflare. 6k views is nothing on the free tier. Shocking to see your website taken down for 6k views

Btw it's down again

Makes sense, thanks!

Even if they did provide more money, it doesn't mean it'll go to the right place. Government money is not the solution here. Money is already being spent.