Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
Unixbigot@aus.social ("Kit Bashir") wrote:

Did you ever notice how every “disruptive” business idea contains the seeds of its own destruction? All these “revolutionary” ideas like AirBNB, Uber, self-driving cars, delivery vanbikes that can (ab)use bicycle lanes, restaurant reservation flipping services et cetera…. These all work if a few people do it, but break society when everybody does. AI slop is the same, it puts one person ahead of the pack, until the pack catch on. The early adopters get rich and then the whole house of cards falls down.

Disruptr, our new AI business model generator helps you find your next disruptive business idea and predict the optimum moment to eject before collapse. It…wait, who threw that. What are you…Aargh. No help.

— Transcript of bootleg footage from the riot at Something Digitial Launch keynote, Brisbane, Aug 2025.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
robrey@mastodon.art ("Rob Rey") wrote:

My last card for Magic: The Gathering's Edge of Eternities set has been posted. Filling this scene with all sorts of swirly, nebulous clouds was a great time.
Fabled Passage
Art Director: Zack Stella
___
Original painting available here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mtgartmarket/permalink/4275769172653269

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

The description of this web component by @zachleat as "Unencumbered" to mean "not bringing a huge framework or toolchain in tow" is 👨‍🍳😽:

https://github.com/zachleat/line-numbers

adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

The sticker set has grown! DNS is now joined by HTTP and SMTP, forming a trifecta of glorious early internet protocols. They’re now sold as a full set for just $10 (six total stickers, one matte and one sparkly for each protocol). The folks who pre-ordered the DNS ones yesterday are automatically upgraded to the full set. :prami_happy:

You can purchase them here: https://buy.stripe.com/bJe8wP6PydXg3LLgzb3AY0c

Shipping is international first class (no tracking) and these will ship at the end of July or very early August. I’ll email you when they ship!

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
Uglesett@snabelen.no ("Thomas Fuglseth") wrote:

Public service announcement.

(Created by https://bsky.app/profile/campfireharve.st )

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
zeldman@front-end.social wrote:

“But good DX doesn’t guarantee good UX. In fact, it’s often the opposite. Because the more comfortable we make things for developers, the more abstraction we add. And every abstraction creates distance between the thing being built and the people it’s for.”

h/t Piermario 3/3

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
zeldman@front-end.social wrote:

“Today, we optimise for ‘DX’ – developer experience. Not user experience. Not performance. Not outcomes. 🧵 1/3

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
alvaromontoro@front-end.social ("Alvaro Montoro") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Now, frontenders, consider what it means that a lot of the "pivot-to-AI" thinkfluencers aren't talking about how we get to break out of silos; how they're just cargo-culting and hype-recycling the same old shit. Why is that? Hmm....

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Asking the right questions matters more (assuming this stuff works as advertised) because changing your mind is cheaper. Want to evict a janktastic Lottie animation and bloated deps from the bundle? If the primary hurdle is knowing to ask, *knowing to ask* is what's worth paying for.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This is all separate and apart from the question of "do these tools work at all?", which is very much TBD. But operating as though they don't impact the choice architecture, while churning out bad output, is going to be increasingly untenable.

And orgs that bet heavily on them, while failing to put management around the quality of the output of the black box, are going to get washed away in shitty UX and customer DSAT as sure as night follows day.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This will seem counter-intuitive; "but I can just vibe-code this thing now..."

But that means the output is a commodity. The *input* -- what you ask a machine to produce -- is more important. And as contexts grow, refactoring becomes cheaper.

If you're a software engineer asking tools to hand you output that isn't as tuned up as it could be -- something you can only do if you understand the interactions and options -- then the failure of *your* context grows in (negative) impact.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

I spend a lot of time ruminating on the failure of the contemporary tech middle-management class (largely PMs, but also a lot of EMs and VPs) to actually *manage* their products, and what it means that LLMs and ML tools make it ever easier to break away from path dependence.

The penalty orgs will pay for not putting folks in positions of responsibility that have a sense of taste and an understanding of fundamentals just went WAY up.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Also is Colin Farrell my new fav actor? He was so good and banshees and now this I really love his acting.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Are you curious how browsers work? I'm working up a list of essential web performance resources, and many of the talks from this 2020 instance of Chromium University ("internal" training for Chromies) are incredible:

https://code.sgo.to/2020/12/16/chromium-university-fall-2020.html

Boosted by jwz:
futzle@old.mermaid.town ("Deborah Pickett") wrote:

Here's what I sent them:

I don't use generative AI. I have a computer science degree so I understand how large language models work, and I don't believe that they have any value. They are just stochastic parrots. That they so beguile their users with vapid statistically-probable output is distressing.

But LLMs have still changed my life, because the training models are forever scraping my personal web site, costing me bandwidth and money, violating the copyright on my original content without my consent. The datacentres that house LLMs consume vast amounts of energy and fresh water, an environmental disaster in the making.

I expect that in the future, LLMs will once again change my life as I'm called to cover for an entire generation of workers who lack important life skills such as composition and critical thinking. I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Penguin is really good. I'm two episodes in and hooked.

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
mhoye wrote:

"look the computer can generate more code faster" the world absolutely does not need or want more code, nothing needs more code for the sake of code, we need utility, functionality and empathy, an encoded understanding of the problem being solved and the humans around it. Code is the price we pay for that encoded understanding. What you've created is an entropy spigot pointed at the proxy metric graph you’re stuck using because your management doesn't understand anything.

Boosted by jwz:
spaf@mstdn.social wrote:

Hmmm....

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

I've only skimmed the words so I can't speak to accuracy, and it appears the project has barely started, but the illustrations are just beautiful:

https://www.makingsoftware.com/chapters/how-a-screen-works

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
suzannespirit@mastodon.art ("Suzanne") wrote:

Made this embroidered pendant! I bought 4 of these little flower pendant kits secondhand, just to get started and gain some confidence. Then later on I want to make some designs myself. But this was great fun already!

#embroidery #pendant #CreativeToots #handmade #jewelry #creative #flowers

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

shit

“Multiple people injured in series of shootings in Kentucky, governor says” - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/multiple-people-injured-series-shootings-kentucky-governor-says-2025-07-13/

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
QasimRashid ("Qasim Rashid, Esq.") wrote:

Today the Israeli military hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp. They murdered 6 Palestinian children and injured 17 more people.

This will barely make headlines, because Palestinian blood is expendable and the Israeli government is apparently exempt from international human rights law.

Corporate media continues to fail in its obligation to report that this is genocide. Keep raising your voice against these atrocities. Be on the right side of history.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This essential post by @tammy chimes with my experiences; teams I talk with don't understand that there are huge gains to be had when they finally get perf under thresholds that they think of as "impossible" with today's JS-laden stacks:

https://www.speedcurve.com/blog/web-performance-plateau/

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
skeletor@mas.to ("Inspirational Skeletor💀") wrote:

adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

The logo for Argentina’s postal service looks like a Pokéball and I love it. #pokemon #mail

mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm Digaron lens and about 13mm of vertical shift to maintain the geometry (but several architectural features - setbacks and tapers in the building design - still make it appear to converge toward the top).

Pittsburgh's 42 story "Cathedral of Learning" houses offices and classrooms for the University of Pittsburgh. Completed in 1937, it took 11 years to construct. It remains the tallest academic building in the US.

The lobby is also gorgeous, and worth a visit.

mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, 2023.

All the pixels, none of the learning, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/52977939495

#photography

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
latte@mastodon.online ("a new hope :blobcatcoffee:") wrote:

redesign!! anh(v7)

https://anhvn.com

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
tdp_org ("Neil Craig") wrote:

Patron saint of insecure JavaScript