Mastodon Feed: Posts

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

This bigoted piece of shit can go fuck himself

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andy-ogles-muslims-dont-belong-islamophobia%5Fn%5F69aee968e4b06c543ae3c8f3

chipotle@mstdn.social ("Watts Martin") wrote:

Part of me kiiiiinda wants to upgrade my iPad Air 4th Gen, but I don’t think I have a really good rationale for it—and I like the old discontinued thin keyboard case more than the Magic Keyboard. (If I really want great typing, I’ll bring along a thin mechanical keyboard!)

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

I miss my little travel excursions so much. When freelancing was lucrative, I took every opportunity to travel and do my work in cool locations.

Here's me at Wild Horse Island in Montana near Glacier National Park. I was too close to the goats, I fear.

I spent a whole month in Whitefish Montana. Worked in the early morning for like 4am until lunch, then I'd go hiking for the rest of the day. Not a day goes by without me thinking about that place. It was so good for my soul.

zkat@toot.cat wrote:

The marketing around Daikatana is funny and cheesy and all but then I remember that John Romero is actually a really cool and sweet dude and that the whole marketing campaign about him making you his bitch was done against his will and then I get sad.

typst ("Typst") wrote:

The second meetup talk is online: Learn how Martí extended his Notion workspace with Typst to get beautiful prints of his notes! There's even an app you can try with your public workspaces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAoxm0ZAqcs

#Typst

db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕") wrote:

blogged: Building on AT Protocol
https://dbushell.com/2026/03/10/building-on-at-protocol/

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

The time I stayed on a ranch in South Dakota via Airbnb. That little outhouse thing was my room for two days. It was so fun.

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

@NfNitLoop Yup.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
mwichary@mastodon.online ("Marcin Wichary") wrote:

Do we need yet another person crashing out about Apple’s design decisions? Am I doing it only because it’s fashionable to be on Apple Design Hate Train these days? I’ll be honest: I don’t know. But I have been bothered by Apple’s approach to some of its keyboard design for a while.

Even if you don’t care about any of this, it might be a fun visual history of the most tricky of modern modifier keys: the [Fn] key. Hope you like it!

https://aresluna.org/fn

NfNitLoop ("Cody Casterline 🏳️‍🌈") wrote:

@baldur re "superstition-drive coding", my favorite term for that for a long while has been:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo%5Fcult%5Fprogramming

Rereading the Wikipedia definition in the new context of LLMs is enlightening:

> The term cargo cult programmer may apply when anyone inexperienced with the problem at hand copies some program code from one place to another with little understanding of how it works or whether it is required.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
strdst@corteximplant.net ("/ˈstɑːr.dʌst/ - 0x4C6F75") wrote:

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
petabites@mastodon.world ("Houston Do'ug") wrote:

some #retrocomputing humor:

h/t @AaronDavid

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
alcinnz@floss.social wrote:

Accessibility people are a superpower - Jared Cunha:
https://jaredcunha.com/blog/accessibility-people-are-a-superpower

You Know What? Just Don’t Split Words into Letters - Adrian Roselli:
https://adrianroselli.com/2026/02/you-know-what-just-dont-split-words-into-letters.html
CW: "AI"-related footnote

The Ultimate Mobile Accessibility Resource Guide - Mark Steadman @ Dev.To:
https://dev.to/steady5063/the-ultimate-mobile-accessibility-resource-guide-53gh

Does your navigation need an ARIA menu? Probably not. - Elle Smith @ PopeTech:
https://blog.pope.tech/2026/02/10/does-your-navigation-need-an-aria-menu-probably-not/

Quick Tip: Do Not Replicate OS Behavior - Nat Tarnoff:
https://tarnoff.info/2026/02/05/quick-tip-do-not-replicate-os-behavior/

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

There is nothing either group can say to the other to shift them because the disagreement is down to a fundamental difference in world view

But if you aren't in tech and are wondering which to trust, just ask yourself: do you really think the chucklefucks of tech, the clowns who have been running the show over the past couple of decades, have got coding completely figured out?

/end

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Equally, most those most vocal about the benefits of LLM-coding were bullish about dev before the bubble. They didn't see the flaws of the earlier state of affairs so they don't see what's wrong with magnifying that dysfunction 10x

Hence the divide in the discourse

Both see LLMs as a mechanism for scaling up existing software practices with minimal human observation

One group thinks this'll make the world 10x richer. The other thinks it'll be a catastrophe

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

And they are right. LLMs make it easier for devs to do work that doesn't matter in an industry that doesn't care, where the only thing that's measured is some bullshit measure that's disconnected from actual outcomes

Many of those most vocal about the dysfunctions of LLM-coding were ALREADY WARNING ABOUT THE DYSFUNCTIONS OF THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY BEFORE "AI". The dysfunctions predate this particular bubble and many in software have been concerned about them for years.

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

This has led to a field whose standard practices are a cluster of bad habits and superstition. Most of the ideas of user-centred design are alien to modern devs. Misconceptions about test-driven dev abound.

When devs says that LLMs make them more productive, you need to keep in mind that THIS is what they're automating: dysfunction, tampering as a design strategy, superstition-driven coding, and software whose quality genuinely doesn't matter

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

There is little to no downside to poor software quality and the upside of doing the job well is limited compared to tactics like lock-in, dishonest subscription models, and monopolies

Some corners of the software industry are less affected. Others, such as web dev, are more affected

For example, the stock price for Crowdstrike, even in a stock market affected by the Iran war, is up 12% today over its peak before it

Massive worldwide economic harm, no real consequences

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Our current software crisis—we've had a few—has been ramping up IMO since the post-2007 bailouts. Instead of regulating finance, the US let the finance industry take over, which hasn't been great overall, but for software it's meant that "quality" stopped mattering

Well-funded startups capture market share with subsidised products.

Big tech is a cluster of oligopolies and monopolies.

Internal software projects are driven by their potential effects on stock prices

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

LLMs exaggerate and exacerbate existing market and industry dysfunctions. They've hastened media's descent into fabrications and clickbait, accelerated the devaluation of writing and illustration. And in software it has fuelled an existing crisis and exposed a divide at the core of the industry

zkat@toot.cat wrote:

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/116199843763626570

the idea that the US is anything resembling a democracy, or even a republic, is a fucking joke

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

The voles have been exposed!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/09/the-snow-is-melting/

ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕") wrote:

YouTube recommended me @ZackPolanski on Paloma Faith's podcast. The cross-over I never knew I needed, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcDSx2NR3%5Fg

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

At my sister's house while my rug dried from steam cleaning.

Both my sis and brother-in-law work from home and they each have a home office. Both offices couldn't be any different. My sister's is bright and homey. My brother's is dark and cluttered with boxes. He has three monitors and a huge built PC.

His office is the only place in the house that my sister can't touch and I think it drives her wild lmao

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

Saw a comment that read "bailing me out of jail radicalized my mom" and one, that's so funny. But also, a good reminder that a centrist is often just someone who's never had to engaged with the system, and they're one bailing out a loved one away from radicalization.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
paco@infosec.exchange ("Paco Hope") wrote:

One of the ways that LLM-authored code improves productivity is by merely SAYING it does things. It's way faster than the whole time-consuming process of actually doing things. This is real code someone sent to me for review.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
tante@tldr.nettime.org wrote:

A few unsorted thoughts about how the "Claude" models differ from what for example OpenAI release. Basically: One is a religious text, the other tries to be more of a commercial product

https://tante.cc/2026/03/09/claude-magic/

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Does anyone else get the kind of email I get?

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/09/i-get-email-104/

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

A good story about Epstein? It's nice to hear it.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/09/nice-to-know-that-good-guys-exist/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thejapantimes ("The Japan Times") wrote:

Australians began downloading VPNs in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users as the country rolled out online age restrictions on Monday. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/03/09/asia-pacific/australia-vpn-porn-age-restrictions/?utm%5Fmedium=Social&utm%5Fsource=mastodon #asiapacific #australia #pornography #internet