Barely enough shelf space. At least I can start culling the herd now that everything can come off the floor.
Brendan Berg
@gnuaesthetic.bsky.social
Principled software engineer. Also author and artist based in LA. I mostly have opinions on programming languages and distributed systems.
Just built bookshelf 2/3. Need to run to the hardware store at some point to pick up a bit more lumber for the final one.
You don’t want hands free driving, you want trains. You want trains you want trains you want TRAINS
Hearing people talk derisively of advertisements that “look made by AI,” it occurs to me “made by AI” is going to be a blanket criticism of anything that looks low-effort.
I am not philosophically opposed to AI and I use it for a few things but I just can't bring myself to use it as a thought partner for anything I really care about being my own intellectual product
Did someone leave a NAT Gateway running?
henry ✷@strange.website · 3w agochat are we thinking this is.... good?
Let’s talk about the constant nagging about cookies and signing up for email lists next! I can’t be the only one who reflexively closes the tab when the email dialog box has a tiny, camouflaged close button!
ᴀʟᴇx ʀᴜssᴇʟʟ@infrequently.org · 3w agoIf you make websites for a living, stop what you're doing and read this research by @tammyeverts.com; it shows what many of us have been saying for a long time: even if there is such a thing as "fast enough", it's generally *much* faster than you are targeting: embrace.io/blog/research-co…
Listen,,, if we’re really fucking with time zones in the US, we should be making them diagonal.
counterpoint: the dead should make it harder for me to speak ill of them
Whenever I build a website, I spend 10% of the time coding and 90% of the time fighting with Byzantine security policies.
Freya Holmér@freya.bsky.social · 4w agoweb dev feels like an enormous pile of workarounds on top of workarounds full of tech debt and regrets
NYC’s click-to-cancel rule is pretty expansive and I hope every subscription service CEO is breaking out in cold sweats right now.
That hissing sound you hear is Adobe’s stock price deflating.
More Perfect Union@moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 4w agoBREAKING: Zohran Mamdani announces click-to-cancel rule for NYC. This rule is aimed at guaranteeing New Yorkers can cancel subscriptions as easily as they sign up — and stopping corporations from trapping customers. This will save New Yorkers up to $162.5 million per year.
if dead internet/enclosure of online is basically turning online into cable TV what's the equivalent of fighting for local public access channels
Oh cool, an Easter egg feature that traps you in a driverless car and kidnaps you when it's decided you've misbehaved. Imagine what a hacker group or ICE can do with this. The fact that this is even functionally possible is horrifying.
I built a dashboard gauge component in pure HTML and CSS. (The only JS is setting the value to be displayed.) It’s wild what CSS gradients can do.
I am exasperated with people accusing programmers of "gatekeeping" programming. We were practically dragging people through the gate. Do you know why a mindless LLM can tell you so much great programming information? It's because we've been sharing that information for free online for decades.
Talking w a larger startup whose product seems to not have degraded (vs many other products), even though they also use a AI for coding everywhere. Asked an infra lead: how? "Even before AI, we were paranoid about quality, and built this irrationally thorough E2E testing system"
ignoring computers and instead learning about how mechanical clocks turn spring energy into regular pulses. a little escapism
Finding studio space was probably the best decision I made this year. Having a place to experiment, where failures lead to breakthroughs, is such a catalyst for everything else in my life.
remember when a bunch of software companies made a big deal about "returning to the office," citing worsening quality of work? and then none of their products got any better? and then some of them started to vibe code everything? and their products got even worse??
"The report calls for hood height caps of 85 cm (33.5 inches), width limits of 192 cm (75.6 inches), taxes tied to vehicle dimensions, parking fees based on size, and regulatory incentives reserved for smaller EVs measuring less than 4.2 meters (165.4 inches) long."
Researchers Want To Tax Cars By The Inch To Stop Carspreading | Carscoops
Researchers argue that stopping vehicle growth could save lives, space, and billions in energy costs
carscoops.com
AI is not as skilled as your best engineers, but it excels at being mediocre *faster*.
every hometown’s got the ominous megastructure, what’s yours?
Mallory Where@malwhere.northsky.social · last mo.every hometown’s got the ominous megastructure, what’s yours? TURN TO THE TOWER
can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool
Was going through old boxes after moving and I found my old college ID card and my keycard for (I think) the computer lab. I wonder if I can still get my key deposit back after 20 years 😅
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
qntm@qntm.org · last mo.Weird to me that microblogging platforms have functionality for saving drafts, how long can it possibly take to put a thought into words