Max Leibman

Winner of the Fediverse, 2025. 🏆

I do things with computers. Unspeakable things.

I also write Overmorrow, a newsletter about technology and my problematic relationship with it.

My game: Headlights: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861780569/headlights-0
Websites: https://overmorrow.tech
Pixelfed: Max Leibman (npub179v…4rjx)
Pronouns: He/him

Public Key

npub1388cy7ljtym4jag6l7d9c2tczk64y7c4qhxzy2g87wfy830760xqlusxrr

NIP-05 Address

maxleibman_at_beige.party@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgnnuz00e9jd6ew5d0lxju99uptd2j0v2stnpz9yrl8yjrchld8nqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsqj6la9

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1388cy7ljtym4jag6l7d9c2tczk64y7c4qhxzy2g87wfy830760xqlusxrr

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Last Notes

2026-08-05 01:56:35 UTC

I keep seeing claims that AI has 10Xed the productivity of software engineers. I’ve seen them here, this week, in fact.
Here’s my question: where’s the software company that has 10Xed their profits using AI?
If these kinds of gains were in reach, why hasn’t Microsoft or Google done it?

2026-07-02 19:44:40 UTC

There are thirteen screens in my office right now, and honestly I don’t think I’m any more productive than when I had only twelve.

2026-06-28 17:02:57 UTC

- reply

And where is the follower list for an account stored? Who has control over what is posted by an account?
Conversely, where is the follower list for a hashtag stored? Who has control over what is posted to a hashtag?
This is what I mean by exploitable in a way the hashtag following isn't.
If your bots become popular, you could leverage that audience to bootstrap something else by inserting other posts besides the usual auto-boost diet. Take them over entirely and convert them to post about something else. Subtly begin censoring what (or who) they did and didn't repost from the original hashtag.
And sure, if you blatantly did it all at once, it might look like a betrayal and a disingenuous spam tactic. But some amount of it might slip under the radar. And if done subtly, over time—or openly, with "disclosure" that the service was "changing direction," etc., you might get away with it.
You couldn't do the same to a hashtag. As you pointed out, nobody owns a hashtag. You can't editorially censor it for anyone else, and while you can spam it, everyone else can also counter-spam it or drown you out with normal usage. Nobody owns the list of followers of a hashtag, or has control over what is published to them on it.
Again, I'm not saying you are thinking about or would ever do anything like that. But it's the kind of thing that becomes possible when you intermediate content through accounts you ultimately control. I think that's a lot of what people are reacting negatively to here.

2026-06-28 16:47:09 UTC

- reply

"Hashtag feeds on tags.pub are bots." Do those bots/feeds take the form of accounts that other Fediverse accounts can follow?

2026-06-28 15:54:51 UTC

- reply

An account is not the same as a hashtag feed, though, even if that’s all it publishes. They are not interchangeable technically, morally, socially, or practically. The following that a hashtag feed has is not an exploitable resource the way the follower list for an account is.
Again, I accept that that isn’t your motive here, but that’s the look. Your goal may be to let hashtag feeds reach where they currently can’t, but you are intermediating Fediverse content to do it.

2026-06-28 13:22:56 UTC

- reply

I didn’t say you targeted Alice specifically (the opposite, in fact), but they are a specific example of the problem. But hundreds of thousands of accounts makes it worse, not better. That means you’re doing the same problematic thing to every other hashtag that has a small number of contributors and/or is primarily associated with one particular person.
And setting aside the attention-harvesting aspect of this, I also think this is a boil-the-ocean solution to something that could barely be called a problem. Who was clamoring for this? Who had “hashtag apartheid” anywhere on their lists of reasons the Fediverse didn’t work? To the extent this is even an issue, small servers that can’t see hashtags well is solved by better federation. Other services that can’t follow hashtags are *different services* and are allowed to offer different feature sets. Your service might “solve” those problems, but I think the costs and externalities are too high.
I will say, my previous posts may have implied you are doing this in order to harvest follows and attention that would otherwise go directly to the original posters; having read several of your replies this morning, I believe that’s not your intent. To whatever extent your service has uptake, though, that *will* be an effect of it. That’s why I find it problematic.

2026-06-28 06:13:38 UTC

RE: https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116824077608238221
This is gross. Tags.pub is using [@alice](https://lgbtqia.space/@alice )'s content (among others) to get followers for a bot instead of letting those followers accrue to Alice or their preferred hashtag. And the excuse the proprietor offered that "not everybody can follow or easily see hashtags" is weak sauce—if someone can find these bots, they can find the original content, and if they can follow the bots, they can follow the people posting the content.

2026-06-23 17:55:24 UTC

Prime Day starts today! There are thousands of deals on Amazon, but you can maximize your savings with this one hack:
Don’t buy anything.

2026-06-12 07:00:41 UTC

Microsoft’s terms of service said Copilot was “for entertainment purposes only.”
An Nvidia executive said AI is more expensive than humans.
Google argued in German court that everyone knows they can’t trust AI.
The tech industry has bet a trillion dollars on something they know doesn’t work.

2026-06-11 12:00:27 UTC

We don’t need a new data center for AI. If you want to waste a lot of water to produce plausible nonsense that may or may not even be true, I’ll just go take a long shower and then post my thoughts afterward.

2026-06-09 23:46:00 UTC

- reply

Of course it isn't. It's right in the name: "sustainability fee." Obviously, the fee goes towards sustainability
of our profits.

2026-06-08 16:21:02 UTC

90% of project management problems are caused by poor communication, while the other 65% are caused by inaccurate estimates.

2026-06-08 03:48:45 UTC

Throwing Republicans out of office is health care.

2026-06-07 05:52:20 UTC

The tech industry is on the verge of discovering just how satiable the demand for AI really is.

2026-06-05 14:00:47 UTC

- reply

RoboPrinter (RoboBenter?) has four prime directives:
1. Serve the public trust.
2. Protect the innocent.
3. Uphold the law.
4. [Classified] Yellow ink is low. Replace cartridge to print.

2026-06-05 13:57:56 UTC

- reply

Half man.
Half machine.
All printer.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/697/849/700/810/493/original/b7d9411b778f3fe1.mp4

2026-06-05 11:53:36 UTC

Nunya? The guy who fought the Thundercats?

2026-06-04 02:10:59 UTC

Take away the unethical way it was created, the massive environmental impact, the way it is roiling and distorting markets, and its creators' and CEOs' enthusiasm for using it to destroy jobs, and yes, even with all its shortcomings, I would find these AI tools fascinating, too.
In fact, I do find them fascinating.
But I'm not in favor of them.
Because you can't take all of that stuff away. It happened, is happening, and shows no signs of not happening, as long as this bubble continues.

2026-06-03 05:52:16 UTC

Mastodon is easily the queerest place I've ever called home on the Internet, and I think that has been good for me, even as (maybe especially as) a cishet dude.
Happy #Pride—I appreciate you all!
🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦🟪

2026-05-31 19:42:33 UTC

Best Star Wars trilogy?
#MayTheThiryFirstBeWithYou #StarWars

2026-05-31 13:15:49 UTC

Tomorrow is the start of June, so I would like to take this moment to wish a happy Pride to all who celebrate it.
And a very merry Go Fuck Right Off to any who oppose it.
#Pride
🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

2026-05-30 20:04:55 UTC

When someone says “I can’t do this without AI,” they could save time by taking the last two words off and the sentence would still be just as true.

2026-05-30 03:32:32 UTC

I'm having a hard time articulating why exactly, but I feel ever-more convinced that there is nothing immoral or unethical about prompt injection.
EDIT: Discussion in the replies has helped clarify why I feel this way:
“Oh, no, you made my AI agent do something I didn’t want it to!”
“WELL WHY THE FUCK WAS YOUR AI AGENT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!”
https://gizmodo.com/dev-says-hes-getting-threats-after-leaving-a-booby-trap-for-vibe-coders-2000765231

2026-05-29 16:25:23 UTC

I’m interested in hiring a life couch.
No, that’s not a typo.

2026-05-28 22:21:50 UTC

I don't want growth for growth's sake, or growth at all costs.
I don't want so much growth that it means giving up what's special about this place.
But I believe—strike that, I fucking KNOW—that not everyone who should be here is here.
Some of what's magical about the Fediverse is easier to maintain and protect because the Fediverse is small. But that's not the same as saying it's magical BECAUSE it's small.
I don't want another Twitter. But I do want MORE Fediverse, not less.

2026-05-28 11:53:23 UTC

Good news, everyone: you will be free of me for at least two to four hours on May 31/June 1 as Beige goes down for maintenance! https://beige.party/@theropologist/116650510660801176

2026-05-27 23:00:52 UTC

No, I won't tell you how you did.
I don't want to check out the Discord.
I'm not signing up to earn rewards.
I didn't listen to the official companion podcast.
I don't follow your brand on social media.
I won't turn on notifications.
I refuse unlock even more savings.
No, I would not like to download your free ebook.

2026-05-27 03:43:26 UTC

One of the many problems with “Not all men!” is that “Not all” isn’t anywhere close to good enough.
We ban all kinds of things that are, statistically, WAY less dangerous than men are.

2026-05-26 22:37:05 UTC

Sure, but can your AI fold this fitted sheet?

2026-05-26 22:02:20 UTC

AI Bro: Our technology is already changing the world!
The first thing that we decided to change is that you can’t afford to buy a computer anymore.

2026-05-26 05:14:08 UTC

- reply

AI can now generate anything you can imagine.
Except profits.

2026-05-26 04:59:12 UTC

Why don’t they just ask the AI how to make AI profitable?

2026-05-25 22:52:12 UTC

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well-known is this: “Never post a joke about anything on Mastodon unless you are willing to listen to strangers argue about it in your mentions for hours!”
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/637/665/112/724/699/original/573d80b04cbc8dba.mp4

2026-05-25 21:04:20 UTC

The fact that the volume down button on my iPhone has been broken for the last six month seems like a fitting metaphor for something.

2026-05-25 15:33:31 UTC

Mastodon User: OMG, Linux is actually AMAZING! Too bad there's not a free and open source alternative to the government, lol.
Anarchist Mastodon: You're not going to believe this.

2026-05-25 15:00:08 UTC

Survey finds that Americans are more obsessed than ever with luxury goods, such as reliable transportation and mental health.

2026-05-24 18:03:48 UTC

“AI is here to stay.”
Yes, businesses that spend twenty times as much as they make in revenue tend to be here for the long haul.

2026-05-24 05:22:44 UTC

The mode in which your phone can receive calls and notifications is called “Disturb.”

2026-05-23 00:16:29 UTC

My wife and the ten-year-old are watching ‘Return of the Jedi.”
Apparently, when a parent asked how to explain “the outfit” to their kid, Carrie Fisher said, “Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it.” Legend.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/621/009/749/824/391/original/2c974ac328a4aac7.jpg

2026-05-22 02:20:29 UTC

New Fedi scam alert!
Many accounts are posting good content, hoping to trick you into boosting or faving it so they can collect dopamine from you.

2026-05-20 04:50:33 UTC

Apple has a watch and a wallet.
They are reportedly working on spectacles.
This leaves one very big hole in their product matrix.
Or make that *two* very big holes.

2026-05-20 04:32:59 UTC

Haven't shared one of these in a while. #Watercolor by my wife, Kourtney.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/605/027/990/060/122/original/c15ad2e7c805d97f.png

2026-05-18 03:24:12 UTC

- reply

I think images are somewhat easier to clock (there’s a reason I zoomed in on writing—and yes, that’s also sometimes easy to spot, but the overconfidence and the emphasis on easy and very blunt humanistic irks me). But it’s not ok to get it wrong publicly my And you own definition underscores why, and why I call it McCarthyism: someone so accused can easily demonstrate if they are a real human, but there is virtually no defense against the accusation that they *used* AI. They can’t prove a negative.
Again, do your own risk management before you trust something. And if you’re pretty confident, speak up and let others know. But if you get it wrong, publicly, you’re a shithead. There’s no good-faith version of informing on each other. It’s not a fucking game of “Werewolf.”

2026-05-18 03:04:07 UTC

- reply

If you want to withhold the benefit of the doubt for your own safety, as you are reading things, that’s great. Smart risk management.
If you make a single public accusation, take it upon yourself to make a single publicly-visible comment on something you don’t know to a certainty to be AI, then we are not talking about others’ “feelings.” You are then putting that doubt into other people‘s minds. You are affecting someone’s reputation and their ability to be seen as the genuine human they are. The AI industry didn’t do that. You did.
If we are at each other‘s throats over this stuff, that’s on us, not the AI shills. That’s not being safe. That’s McCarthyism. That’s selling out your fellow humans.

2026-05-18 01:22:41 UTC

These kinds of sloppy accusations remind me of that period on Twitter when every disagreeable person was a "Russian bot."
The mania is worse with writing—everybody thinks they can spot AI "tells" like em dashes or contrasting statements or a dozen other NORMAL things that LLMs learned FROM HUMANS.
That's not analysis; it's phrenology (with all that the term implies). Generative AI is creating a crisis of trust, but if you turn it into a witch hunt, that's on you.
https://bitbang.social/@NanoRaptor/116592301169668898

2026-05-18 00:37:45 UTC

Someone once told me he felt like conservative voices weren't welcome on Mastodon, but I said he was being ridiculous—there are lots of Democrats here!

2026-05-17 21:25:16 UTC

I don't use LibraOffice because I'm a Scorpio.

2026-05-17 15:18:07 UTC

Fedi Fighter II Turbo™️
Choose your fighter!
👨‍🏫 👻 💅 🪿 🐐 🧌 🦈 👔 🐓 🦖
(Please boost for Science.)

2026-05-17 14:45:28 UTC

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of sternly-worded social media replies.

2026-05-16 21:35:53 UTC

Whether it was the impetus for their earlier resistance to him or not, the real threat of Mamdani to the Democratic establishment is that he is an irrefutable example of what is possible. https://mstdn.social/@Strandjunker/116586050922323504

2026-05-16 16:30:49 UTC

You say, “psychological horror story about being the last person alive on earth,” I say, “cozy introvert novel.”
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

2026-05-16 14:45:34 UTC

Two gender-related #FediTips:
1. The first time you interact with someone or say something about their post, it's worth checking their profile to see if they've shared their pronouns. I've seen a slew of misgenderings of trans and enby people in replies recently, all of which were preventable.
2. If you are comfortable revealing this about yourself, it's a great idea to share your own pronouns in your bio, ESPECIALLY if you feels like you don't "need" to. Normalize sharing pronouns!

2026-05-16 13:46:37 UTC

Large language models aren’t inherently unethical. THESE LLMs are unethical. You could ethically construct and train an LLM; the reason you don’t hear about anyone doing this is because the result would be more expensive, less capable, or both (and the existing problematic LLMs are already both too expensive and have serious issues with their capabilities).

2026-05-16 01:05:52 UTC

If Democrats don’t win big in the midterms, things will get 100 times worse.
If Democrats do win big in the midterms, things will only get five, maybe six times worse.

2026-05-14 15:58:40 UTC

People don’t turn to chatbots for therapy because chatbots are good at therapy.
They do it for the same reason that people who are starving try to eat tree bark.

2026-05-14 02:21:34 UTC

Every AI Bro: We are here to save humanity. We will start by making electricity, water, and electronics more expensive in order to build a machine to put you out of a job. You may begin showering us with gratitude now.

2026-05-13 18:22:33 UTC

Understanding common tech features and marketing terms:
Safety: surveillance
"Smart": surveillance
Connected: surveillance
GPS-enabled: surveillance
Personalized: surveillance
AI: surveillance
Integrated: surveillance
Partner: surveillance
Free: surveillance
Collaboration: surveillance

2026-05-07 16:05:05 UTC

Heavy tobacco users are pulling away from everyone else, Philip Morris says.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/534/038/706/173/763/original/2755b9de557292b1.png

2026-05-06 01:27:33 UTC

Capitalism.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/525/029/869/481/116/original/b7f91d3ee95358b1.jpg

2026-05-05 23:04:11 UTC

Fedilicious.

2026-05-05 19:54:19 UTC

Oh, no, I'm sorry—you seem to have misheard me. I said I'm a man of MINI talents. My talents are very small.

2026-05-05 11:32:14 UTC

Five of Mayonnaise, to those who celebrate.

2026-05-05 03:54:42 UTC

“We promised to destroy all of your jobs using data we stole. Why aren’t you more excited about this?” ask the very smart people working on AI.

2026-05-04 15:10:43 UTC

Star Wars Day isn't observed in Europe, because no one says "Force the May be with you."

2026-05-03 18:26:02 UTC

- reply

I am the very model of a modern maxed-out Mastodon.

2026-05-03 15:29:05 UTC

An account that boosts a large number of posts is known as a boostier, and its primary function is the push up and contour the timeline.

2026-05-03 01:35:27 UTC

Her: I wish you wouldn’t have played ‘The Rockafeller Skank’ for the four-year-old. Now it’s stuck in my head.
Me: Could be worse. You could have ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’ stuck in your head.
Her: …
Her: I hate you.

2026-05-03 00:33:16 UTC

Them: If you tax billionaires, they’ll just leave.
Me: Why are you listing the benefits? I thought you were against this.

2026-05-01 02:01:05 UTC

Due to a typo, what started as an essay about the outgoing CEO of Apple has turned into my pitch for a cozy trans-dimensional murder mystery, Time Cook.

2026-05-01 01:30:00 UTC

Unpaid internships are 90% about free labor, 10% about saving future recruitment costs, and 0% about giving back to the community, education, or grooming the next generation of professionals.

2026-04-30 15:21:17 UTC

Mutuals, Mastodonians, Fedizens—tell me (and feel free to reply with) your favorite GIF.
Mine, by a mile, is Roll Safe knowingly tapping his temple (though I tend to deploy it sparingly because I am self-conscious and don't want to engage in digital blackface). I would love to know yours!

2026-04-30 00:09:50 UTC

SOUTH WINS CIVIL WAR IN OVERTIME!
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/scotus-smothers-voting-rights-act-greenlighting-racial-discrimination-and-a-rash-of-gop-gerrymanders/

2026-04-28 22:46:46 UTC

Are you telling me a home made this pizza?

2026-04-27 20:20:59 UTC

Hello, this is Max from Mastodon Support. I'm writing you to alert you that I support you.

2026-04-26 19:20:17 UTC

Start with the part of the problem that you know how to solve.

2026-04-26 13:16:09 UTC

Silent Sunday but deadly.
Welcome… to Fedi Vale.

2026-04-26 03:08:20 UTC

“Behold,” declares the AI bro, “we have created a new mind!”
“Behold,” I declare as I a hold a seashell up to his ear, “I have created a new ocean!”

2026-04-25 05:20:59 UTC

I'm not mad at you if you've tried to use AI because you want things to be easier.
I'm mad at the people who are telling you that our current "AI" technologies are the solution. Because they are lying to you.
They are lying about what AI can do.
They are lying about why they are making it.
They are lying about what it costs.
They are lying about what will happen to you if it works.
They are lying about what is happening to the world in the meantime while it very definitely doesn't.

2026-04-24 18:27:55 UTC

Welcome to Mastodon! To continue, please verify your age by making a joke employing online slang that young people stopped using almost as soon as it was memed eleven years ago.

2026-04-23 18:13:30 UTC

Rewrite that sentence in the absent tense.

2026-04-23 11:50:56 UTC

It’s spring in the northern hemisphere, and temperatures are rising!
Did you know that for every day you can put off turning on your air conditioning, private jet traffic puts another 42,000 metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere?
Follow me for more green living tips!

2026-04-22 15:05:54 UTC

The tech industry wants you to think the AI boom is the setup to The Terminator, but it's really closer to the setup for Les Miserables.

2026-04-22 13:59:54 UTC

When life hands you lemmings, make lemmingade.

2026-04-22 12:14:59 UTC

That place has always been kind of a sausage-fest, but now it’s gone from brat to wurst.

2026-04-20 23:10:57 UTC

10-year-old: Do Smarties make you smart?
Me, a Mastodon user: Intelligence is an inherently eugenicist social construct.

2026-04-20 04:50:23 UTC

If AI is actually capable of replacing workers en masse, shouldn’t we have a spate of breathless hand-wringing articles about workers “ripping off” their employers by outsourcing their entire jobs to AI while still collecting a paycheck?

2026-04-18 23:07:46 UTC

Yes, it’s true. I was involved in a pump-and-dump scheme in the 80s.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/428/220/995/356/017/original/dc27a6aeefbc3857.jpg

2026-04-17 21:58:21 UTC

Forecast is warning of “potato-sized hail” here in Kansas, because Americans really will do anything to avoid learning the metric system.

2026-04-17 19:06:48 UTC

We’re still outnumbered, but Barb from Purchasing is on our side.
So at least we’ll have the element of supplies.

2026-04-17 17:27:01 UTC

Do not bust a sick move on the train.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/116/421/218/808/458/998/original/3c4dd3f409cd2107.jpg

2026-04-16 05:18:39 UTC

People are allowed to use the Fediverse differently than you do.
No, your preferences are not norms or mores.
Not every post is about you. (Almost none of them are, in fact.)
Not every piece of advice has to be relevant to you to be valuable.
Nobody owes you a hashtag.
People can post pictures of things you find uninteresting or distasteful. (Yes, they should use alt text.)
People are allowed to post their work.
People are allowed to *promote* their work.
People are allowed to ask for help, including monetary help.
There is more than one thing going on in the world right now.
There is more than one way to help.
That joke is not about politics and doesn't benefit from your reply trying to make it about Trump.
That woman wasn't asking a question.
And yes, she gets her own joke without you explaining it to her.
Linux is *sometimes* the answer.

2026-04-15 12:58:33 UTC

Feeling posty. Might delete later.

2026-04-15 10:46:46 UTC

“Microwave ovens have to beep that loud for safety.”
Yes, that makes sense. I’m sure zeroes of people have died because they don’t know someone on the far side of the house was pressing buttons on the microwave keypad.

2026-04-14 19:57:37 UTC

𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞
We have detected unusual activity on your Mastodon account. It’s like, really good. Almost too good. How do you do it?

2026-04-12 16:45:29 UTC

Disbelief has been suspended until further notice.

2026-04-12 01:36:50 UTC

When AI boosters talk about universal basic income to excuse all of the jobs they claim they can eliminate, ask:
“Then why are you working on AI, and not on universal basic income?”
If you are a journalist in this space and you don’t ask this every time UBI comes up, you are not doing your job.

2026-04-11 04:33:35 UTC

Houston, I am a problem.

2026-04-10 17:32:34 UTC

Good afternoon.
The lies linking me with Nicole, the Fediverse Chick, need to end today.
The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather, I reject their mean-spirited attempts to deferate my reputation.
To be clear, I never had a relationship with Nicole or her Discord. My private messages with her cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.

2026-04-10 02:22:22 UTC

Low Code ➡️ No Code ➡️ Vibe Code ➡️ Agentic Code ➡️ No Coders ➡️ Lots of Code ➡️ Oh My God So Much Shitty Code ➡️ Where Are the Coders? ➡️ This Coding Agent costs WHAT now? ➡️ Just Regular Code Again

2026-04-09 19:54:52 UTC

Remember: there is still something in the Epstein Files that is so bad that the man who has gotten away with *everything* is afraid of it becoming public.