Reginald

It says "Reginald Scott Braithwaite-Lee" on my 🇨🇦 passport. You may know me from a book like "JavaScript Allongé," a talk like “Optimism,” or from my work at companies like PagerDuty, Sitraka, and GitHub.

Shipping software feeds my family; creating “wow!” feeds my soul. Social media is ephemeral, like or boost to keep my toots around.

#Ultracrepidarian #Canada #Ontario #Ajax #Lakeside #gliding #aviation

get #fedihired: https://raganwald.com
blog and other creative works: https://raganwald.com/creative-works.html
Bluesky (bridged): https://bsky.app/profile/raganwald.social.bau-ha.us.ap.brid.gy
1970-05-04: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MN_9VqfVQ9c

Public Key

npub1sp7c6gljaslvtzldht9mm80ahx264quz4ej0wfwhtmuqppdt97qqgklyfp

NIP-05 Address

raganwald_at_social.bau-ha.us@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgqlvdy0ewc0k930km4jaanh7mn9d2swp2ue8hyht4a7qqsk4jlqqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnt3s7zyl

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1sp7c6gljaslvtzldht9mm80ahx264quz4ej0wfwhtmuqppdt97qqgklyfp

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Published at

2026-07-08T21:12:39Z

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Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-04-15 12:53:53 UTC

Physicist Ian Hinchliffe adapted "Betteridge's Rule of Headlines" to academia: If a research paper's title is in the form of a yes–no question, the answer to that question will be "no." In response, physicist Boris Kayser published this paradoxical paper under the pseudonym "Boris Peon:"
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/116/408/813/327/551/702/original/bdedf1af1f2d0e14.jpeg

2026-03-24 16:50:11 UTC

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As someone who loves a different rock Xanadu, I will find and listen to "The Legend of Xanadu." Thank you!
Meanwhile in Canada... I am lucky to have heard this live when they first toured "A Farewell to Kings:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTwLi35hGvE

2026-03-13 16:56:30 UTC

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Nice try. Programming is a pop culture, and if people like you talk about not buying into the current hype wave, it may fizzle.
And if it fizzles, the people investing in it lose something. So no, they don't think you're telling them what to do, but nevertheless, they're here to try to shut you down.
This behaviour is pop culture all over. Conform. Or be cast out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYdQB0mkEU

2026-03-12 14:16:18 UTC

if you're old enough to remember when this would have described the genuflecting sycophants in Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, or Kim Jong Un’s court... Raise your hand.
“They have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/207666/trump-iran-blunders-suddenly-look-darker-damning-new-leaks-hit
🙋🏽‍♂️

2026-03-09 13:51:11 UTC

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In business we call this, "being a shit umbrella for the team."

2026-03-04 15:07:59 UTC

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When someone tells me that an LLM can check the results of an LLM, I retreat into nostalgia for the music of my youth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9GbGO7CKdQ

2026-03-02 16:58:32 UTC

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I was a d-list blogger who scored a handful of Hacker News front pages and wrote a book a few thousand people seem to like.
I had always loosely imagined retirement from software development as writing about code full-time. But generative AI is a double-whammy: In the very near future, why would anyone read books about writing software?
They won't even read books about vibe-coding software, they'll just ask Claude to do it.

2026-02-25 15:23:45 UTC

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Add my name to the chorus of elders murmuring, "The CARDIAC changed my life.”
@npub10jv…psh4 @npub1fdr…lvhs

2026-02-18 13:55:31 UTC

Spot the "busy beaver" joke embedded within an essay about the consequences of chasing a hype wave based on 100x programmer productivity:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/
I only *now* got the Dad Joke. I've been out-dad'd by @npub1fdr…lvhs!!!
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/116/091/967/496/913/380/original/f979266d02018f49.png

2026-02-16 19:07:08 UTC

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I have a bicycle and rooftop bike rack that resemble your remark.

2026-02-10 15:04:47 UTC

Like Trevor Noah, I was born a crime. I take NOTHING for granted. I never have, and I never will. Note that it wasn't until 2000(!) that Alabama repealed its racist miscegenation laws.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/116/046/924/969/634/262/original/4eef3103edf5e70a.jpeg

2026-02-06 12:53:02 UTC

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"Mad Mad Moon" from "A Trick of the Tail," arguable Genesis' last true progressive rock album.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EThznghSvJw

2026-02-04 16:56:49 UTC

I’m calling out my own bullshit. This old essay describing some of my experience going to a boarding school is accurate right up to the conclusion.
But that conclusion is just some feel-good bullshit my wetware LLM selected as reflecting the image I wanted to convey. In reality, there are a lot of complicated lessons one learns in a weirdly privileged institutional setting, and nothing is going to be quite so pat as "the most important lesson."
✍🏽🐂💩
https://web.archive.org/web/20130116113616/http://raganwald.posterous.com/st-andrews-college

2026-02-03 15:41:25 UTC

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I worked on an online banking platform that had 3.5 million users. Customers could also phone and an operator could handle their needs.
1. The app for online banking was designed for people who use it a couple of times a month. Huge on discoverability and verifying everything.
2. The call center app was designed for people who used it all day and needed to be fast.
Discoverability helps product-led growth, but Enterprise systems must also serve power users.

2026-02-02 14:41:48 UTC

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https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/844917580112407085/

2026-02-01 17:31:34 UTC

Leonard Austin Braithwaite (1923 - 2012). He and the rest of his Bomber Wing fought fascism in Europe. He returned to become the first Black Canadian elected to a Provincial Legislature in 1963.
https://raganwald.com/assets/media/leonard-braithwaite-obituary-globe-and-mail.pdf
#blackhistoryMonth #blackmastodon
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/996/560/987/792/947/original/df16f35e913a8504.jpeg

2026-02-01 13:53:42 UTC

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Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard on June 25, 1961.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL-NbN8uTOihfnMNf_6zuaGcIafx0wb8f

2026-01-30 17:06:18 UTC

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Fascism's kryptonite is mockery.
https://www.closertotheedge.net/p/the-dildo-distribution-delegation

2026-01-26 18:54:02 UTC

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When someone spends 40 million (claimed) making a movie that nobody asked for, yet a bunch of people running streaming services put on black tie for an exclusive premiere, you don't need to win Academy Awards.
You just need people willing to demonstrate their loyalty by signing distribution deals for a movie that nobody will see. The black tie event was actually a personal fundraiser.
#Melania

2026-01-24 17:22:04 UTC

In "King Rat," James Clavell nailed American class distinctions. The protagonist explains why he is motivated to get rich: As a young white man in the South, he encountered a beautiful, well-appointed white woman who sniffed at him with contempt and said:
"I swear, white trash smells worse than black trash."
Make no mistake, that contempt has never gone away.It is part of the fabric of American culture and baked into the lies the world tells itself about democracy, equality, and rights.

2026-01-19 14:35:51 UTC

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More evidence we are living in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, where the bureaucratic incompetence is as terrifying as the deliberate cruelty and torture:
“Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the *right* man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?”
—Jack Lint

2026-01-14 16:49:32 UTC

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Who else covers Rush in Canada... And invites an audience member to sing Geddy's lines‽
A fucking legend, that's who.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUn6dQHMk0&pp=ygUXZm9vIGZpZ2h0ZXJzIHRvbSBzYXd5ZXI%3D

2026-01-12 18:43:28 UTC

Conjecture:
The fall of democracy is being led by political parties that are set up to create policy for their donors, but content for their voters.
And no I am not scoping this to the United States of America.

2026-01-12 18:35:47 UTC

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It's terrible that ICE are filming their interactions for personal or propaganda purposes, but think about the administration:
What *exactly* were those boat strikes for? Not to take down the regime. Not to stop drugs from reaching America. What were the for, if not...
To have content for social media showing that the administration is killing "them."

2026-01-12 18:09:46 UTC

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An insightful idea I read about this Administration that is—sadly—exemplified by Ross’ behaviour:
If you think of this administration as focusing on creating content rather than creating policy, that explains EVERYTHING.
And Ross appeared to be focused on creating content for dank right-wing haunts. A snuff video is compelling content for people who believe that women deserve death for failure to obey.
Everything about this is horrible.

2026-01-11 17:05:43 UTC

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Source:
> “When you read the latest book about Extreme Programming, or one of Steve McConnell’s excellent books, or Joel on Software, or Software Development magazine, you see a lot of claims about how to do software development, but you hardly ever see any mention of what kind of development they’re talking about, which is unfortunate, because sometimes you need to do things differently in different worlds.”
— Joel Spolsky, https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/05/06/five-worlds/
@npub1fdr…lvhs

2026-01-11 16:58:57 UTC

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An old rule when talking about these things is to first sync up on context.
I agree with your statement when we're talking about the tech industry, But I disagree when talking about other industries that consider tech a tool. So, yes, OpenAI don't care if ChatGPT hallucinates. But Air Canada learned the hard way that an airline must care whether its chatbot hallucinates.
https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/techlex/moffatt-v-air-canada-misrepresentation-ai-chatbot
@npub1fdr…lvhs

2026-01-11 16:25:18 UTC

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That *is* my perspective! We don't need tools for making more "asbestos," we need a cultural reset to value our users more than some hockey stick growth chart on a powerpoint made by AI. And what we really need are robust, proof-based tools that can dissect a MUMPS app and develop a process for safely porting it to something more developers can work with.
@npub1nyh…8ra4 @npub1fdr…lvhs

2026-01-11 16:16:59 UTC

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Software engineering is the stuff around software coding. The AI-vangelists have decided to re-discover the field from scratch, while expressing increasingly hubristic contempt for the lived experience of the entire field.
@npub16nw…ulpa [@david_chisnall](https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall )

2026-01-11 15:25:15 UTC

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Legacy software has many weird things within it that cause it to require increasing amounts of copium to manage. Here's a trivial example from that same code base.
The Oracle database had a column for customer zip codes. Just for fun, what was it called?

2026-01-11 15:17:20 UTC

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That bank licensed the MUMPS source code from its vendor and employed a small team that did nothing except keep that MUMPS app alive.
Nobody else could touch that code for many reasons, one of which was security. The closest I came was updating the JDBC code in concert with changes they would make.
This is a single but compelling example of “Increasingly heroic measures to keep legacy software in good working order.”
👇🏽

2026-01-11 14:57:21 UTC

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Speaking of the fragility of enterprise software… Here's the robust architecture of an online banking system I used to lead. 3.5 million people trusted this with their life savings.
That TUI app written in MUMPS(!) once powered the terminal a bank teller would use to process an in-person transaction. It embodies and unambiguously encodes every business rule for transactions that have been developed over decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS
@npub1fdr…lvhs
👇🏽
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/877/017/349/826/738/original/de7373cd1f99cc44.png

2026-01-11 13:52:36 UTC

“Code is not an infinitely reproducible machine that requires no labor inputs to operate. Rather, it is a brittle machine that requires increasingly heroic measures to keep it in good working order, and which eventually does "wear out" (in the sense of needing a top-to-bottom refactoring).”
— @npub1fdr…lvhs, https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/#graceful-failure-modes
The myth that "old code doesn't rust" persists because it justifies moving fast, breaking things, and leaving it for someone else to clean up the mess.

2026-01-05 17:19:28 UTC

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“There’s nothing quite like a good show to keep us entertained.”—Stadler
“And this is nothing like a good show!"—Waldorf

2026-01-05 16:03:25 UTC

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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbIN9DHtOfK8hgE7Rf1DgQbPJ0wnS9XyL

2026-01-05 14:40:53 UTC

Conjecture:
For every Enterprise App, an "Air" version of that system delegates everything except its core value-add to existing systems. It leaves chat to the chat app and users to the enterprise user system. It may schedule people, but it doesn't try to store calendars and users in its own tables. The enterprise already has them!
10x conjecture:
Air Enterprise is fancy agents, and it is an existential threat to startups trying to become enterprise vendors.
1/3

2026-01-05 13:52:00 UTC

Not about to write 10,000 words on how iOS 26 marks the death of Apple's human interface leadership or whatever. But this just happened and it made me laugh. Did anyone try iOS 26 on an iPad Mini? How do I use this? I can't see the word it wants me to correct!
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/842/812/430/438/229/original/1a7f91c6c0577020.jpeg

2026-01-01 17:42:04 UTC

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The Little Ice Age may have been caused by volcanic activity:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2494390-volcanic-eruptions-may-have-helped-spark-the-french-revolution/

2025-12-21 16:22:04 UTC

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You had me at "brutalist."
📸 https://www.aesdes.org/2025/02/24/rugged-minimalism/
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/758/468/873/401/524/original/128491c48e569853.jpeg

2025-12-21 12:45:13 UTC

The existence of Wawa, Ontario implies the existence of Kilowawa, Megawawa, Gigawawa, and...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petawawa

2025-12-19 12:46:49 UTC

And now @npub1fdr…lvhs is talking about something so big it makes enshittification look trivial: Finance, a subject so simple that anybody *except* a finance person can explain it like I'm five:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_rRvwMJXi6E

2025-12-09 18:34:21 UTC

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Before I walk my dog, I put on my faux-paws.

2025-12-07 14:37:46 UTC

The odd time I take an Uber, I do NOT rate my driver, even the one who smelled like week-old cigarette smoke.
You're a billion-dollar corporation. Go and hire some fucking mystery shoppers. Or install cameras and hire people to watch random rides. Or something.
Quality control is YOUR fucking job, not mine. I'm not snitching on your people.

2025-12-06 20:01:48 UTC

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It's all point-free functions operating on `this`

2025-12-06 19:59:13 UTC

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First cousin, once removed.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/674/391/422/308/776/original/335e413f6e6af2e9.png

2025-12-05 15:08:11 UTC

“They're only principles if they make you say no to things that you would like to do. Otherwise, they are just sparkling theatre.”
—@npub1yyd…d3ge
I formulate this as, “Values are measured by whether you value them more than other things you value.”

2025-11-30 16:09:36 UTC

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One evening I went into the Jazz department of Sam the Record Man in Toronto. I asked for an obscure album from a long-disbanded fusion group. The clerk, who was also a musician and part-time public radio DJ, shook his head: "I've sold you enough Dead Jazz. Go out, listen to some live musicians, and come back for their albums."
You'd think this kind of thing only happens in movies, but yes, there are people who get that Art requires supporting artists.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/639/506/105/408/839/original/35397ca37b64b062.jpeg

2025-11-29 19:36:41 UTC

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If that is true, do we not have faster-than-light communication?

2025-11-26 15:47:52 UTC

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That man is a bassist.

2025-11-20 19:44:54 UTC

The functional consequence is that it is now ok to have swastika tattoos and to leave nooses hanging where your black colleagues can see them.
The rest of the military and every part of the US Federal Government will soon follow, and SCOTUS will make it illegal to discriminate against people expressing their first amendment right to enjoy gassing or lynching “others.”
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/583/725/599/740/914/original/28a9aaf6fddd9879.png

2025-11-17 17:41:44 UTC

It has been a little over a year since my mother passed away. She had 15 seconds of fame some years ago when I wrote about her breaking into IT in the 1960s. Today, I celebrate the memory of her being woke before that was a word.
When she discovered that my sister and I were learning history in school that didn't have any people of colour in it, she started her own school to teach children Africa, slavery, the Underground Railroad and everything else beige, brown, or black.
Rest in power, mom.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/566/260/629/647/978/original/b884b745cb5cc3bc.png

2025-11-14 13:53:53 UTC

Time to rewatch episodes of "Stringray" to get into the mood.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/548/378/291/862/880/original/45c92bedc93d432e.png

2025-11-12 17:58:58 UTC

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Rani One: “He said that because America's parties belong to the Right and Far Right, respectively.”
Rani Two: “Are you sure he didn’t say it because neither of them believe that their party exists to serve the interests of American citizens, but both believe instead that American citizens exist to serve the interests of their party?”
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/538/018/202/251/656/original/fc9fc774d596be42.png

2025-11-12 17:30:51 UTC

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> I'm tired of choosing between different flavors of conservative of election day.
As you know, when asked why he was running "a democracy in name only," Dr. Julius Nyerere, first President of Tanzania, replied dryly:
“The US is also a one-party state. But with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/537/908/759/310/402/original/0c22a61d36f1c398.png

2025-11-11 14:16:46 UTC

Many years ago, my high-school roommate told me that “Reverse snobbery is still snobbery,” and the older I get, the more I value the admonition.

2025-11-03 13:35:27 UTC

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If the late-night comics are untalented, un-funny, and nobody is watching them... Why do the Nazis work so hard to take them off the air?

2025-10-30 17:11:15 UTC

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Hugely! Although the movie didn't show one on screen, the McGuffin in the classic WWII yarn "Where Eagles Dare" was that one of the coördinators of the allied invasion crash-landed a Mosquito behind enemy lines needed to be rescued from the "Schloss Adler."
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/464/217/677/984/203/original/14b05ece446620f2.png
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/464/224/571/750/316/original/83766ea7df9fec6c.png

2025-10-30 16:52:53 UTC

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For those who don't recognize the stripes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_stripes

2025-10-26 16:54:50 UTC

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There is a church I pass on my way to and from the airfield. For a little while, its sign spoke to us all:
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”

2025-10-22 12:50:12 UTC

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Long-running ad for Head and Shoulders dandruff shampoo:
A woman is at a man's apartment, she uses the bathroom and notices a bottle of Head and Shoulders.
"Head and Shoulders?" she asks, "But you don't have dandruff!"
"Exactly," he replies, and that's the whole ad.
———
Now, what's Icelandic for "exactly?"

2025-10-09 13:15:44 UTC

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Is there any way to follow ugly reykjavik here on Mastodon? A bridge of some kind?

2025-10-04 01:39:58 UTC

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It's always easier to copy something that has already gone through iterations and fixes and refactoring and redesigns based on feedback... Always.
I get that it's ridiculous to want to have IP protection for incredibly sophisticated autocomplete based on other people's IP. But really, this person has deeper problem, that "first-more advantage" is in tension with "second mover's photocopier."

2025-10-02 18:40:16 UTC

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We used to say, "The outsourcing contractor can't do your team's job, and leadership knows it, but they convinced investors to support replacing you with contractors in distant timezones anyways."
History may not stutter, but it rhymes.

2025-09-28 14:50:26 UTC

Madness!
https://www.desertaerospace.com/microjets
#gliding
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/282/476/081/847/437/original/a86cd7174767a7e7.jpeg

2025-09-16 23:43:24 UTC

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha!
And yes, the exclamation marks are part of the name.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/216/622/946/060/529/original/3d26a73ecf470a7b.jpeg

2025-09-10 13:05:45 UTC

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As long as I'm still in the confessional... Here's a little something that helps to decontextualize the Voight-Kampff machine from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (and obviously, Blade Runner). Note that eye dilation is a part of the test, and recall the role that played in the movie Blade Runner. It was based on a real atrocity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_machine_(homosexuality_test)

2025-09-10 12:59:04 UTC

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To my shame, I must confess that here in Canada we committed similar atrocities:
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/forced-sterilization

2025-08-28 20:14:04 UTC

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I don't like to send traffic to Twitter, so I settle for getting my LinkedIn Lunatics fix on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinkedInLunatics/

2025-08-19 16:29:35 UTC

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Compare with Dr. Alan J. Perlis, “Epigrams in Programming,” 1982: https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/056/373/412/884/207/original/7e0a175189b6e577.png

2025-08-19 16:24:05 UTC

Compare and contrast. First up, @npub1krd…km64 and https://social.bau-ha.us/@npub1krd…km64/115049918101588096
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/115/056/340/816/474/726/original/93568779e0ff673c.png

2025-08-19 15:10:42 UTC

Savage from the opening line.
https://futurism.com/tesla-diner-falling-apart
#Tesla

2025-08-15 14:31:31 UTC

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I have argued that LLMs are like slot machines in another way: The business model. When you are paying by the "pull of the handle," the vendor's incentive is not to solve your problem with a single pull, but to give the appearance of progress towards solving your problem.
Exactly the same as games companies that engineer their games to keep you buying coins, staring at the screen for eighteen hours a day.
Very different model than selling tools or renting services.

2025-08-11 18:08:05 UTC

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My favourite ageist nonsense:
"Senior developers can't handle change."
Listen here, Lucky: Anybody with 20+ years of experience in our industry has seen more changes than you've had hot breakfasts. We specialize in change. It’s literally all we know. Our expertise is assessing opportunities for change and implementing change.

2025-08-01 01:50:36 UTC

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Politicians want votes from people who simply don't understand how good kids are at getting booze, cigarettes, and porn.
Furthermore, many people do not appear to grasp the unintended authoritarian consequences of internet gatekeeping.
They tell us it's about porn. But what if it’s also about birth control? Or gender? Or consensual sex? Or socialism? Or anything else deemed "inappropriate?"
I’ve seen the books they ban from schools. I fear what they will ban online.

2025-08-01 01:44:34 UTC

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David, David, David.
I am 63. I still remember my youth. Did we get alcohol? Yes. Was there age verification to buy alcohol? Also yes.
Did we "phreak" free long distance and local telephone calls in the era of phone booths? Yes once again.
It is an incurable optimism to believe that somehow, although our generation read Playboy and Penthouse, our children and grandchildren will be blocked from porn because hand-wavey promises about age verification.

2025-07-30 15:09:56 UTC

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alt.hackers was an NNTP newsgroup that required an administrator to approve all posts, but there were no administrators. Thus, you had to figure out out how to hack the system to participate in the system.
https://www.samiam.org/alt.hackers.html
If Alpha School is any good, students must steal each other's crypto wallets and execute shitcoin rug-pulls to earn lunch money.

2025-07-30 13:53:34 UTC

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The Alpha-School-to-Disposible-Cog-in-Capitalism pipeline, featuring the fundamental truth that students are best motivated with play-money.
It’s as if someone read @npub1fdr…lvhs writing about enshittification, and asked themselves, “How can we make schools even shittier?”
p.s. What’s worse? The existence of adolescents who write about self-motivation and money in business buzzwords, or the thought of Alpha School using AI to invent these quotes and students?
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/942/458/450/829/046/original/4a01005bed4f8161.png

2025-07-28 19:24:11 UTC

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They mention a phone app on their Kickstarter page. It seems to me that a phone app is what the bulk of the market wants, with dedicated hardware appealing to a small sub-market for distraction-free writing.
Why brag about this device fitting in a pocket? Phones already do, and who is taking this but leaving a phone behind?
Also, distraction-free apps already exist for phones, tablets, and desktops. And I think phones already pair with keyboards.

2025-07-17 15:51:33 UTC

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https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/869/368/194/260/109/original/52f6881b0d663ff6.mp4

2025-07-17 15:07:51 UTC

Mastodon’s #JavaScript authors, The Good Profiles:
@npub1rv2…wx6t @npub10fa…rdvy
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/869/171/770/231/225/original/08d0c249d37e31bf.png
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/869/178/480/324/354/original/8f028ad7226ae482.png
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/869/186/209/399/507/original/29666406c17a2f2e.png

2025-07-16 00:27:04 UTC

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I’m so sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQQT-qPlwU

2025-07-10 12:26:34 UTC

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However... The assumption that LLMs are productivity tools is subject to debate, What if they represent a fundamental change that obsoletes the job we call "programming" today? What if product managers and others who are further from the code and closer to the market are the ones who become more productive?
Historically, innovation has obsoleted certain types of jobs or turned them into specialized niches. The coding part of a programmer's job could go that way eventually.

2025-07-10 12:21:00 UTC

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The shift from on-prem software to the Internet+SaaS changed everything just as networks, PCs, minicomputers, and mainframes changed everything. So, we had a paradigm shift and capital chasing returns, which created a massive boom. The rising tide really did lift all boats.
From this perspective, it's a lot bigger than carpenters adopting table saws. But to the extent that an LLM makes programming more productive, it would increase employment if all other factors remain the same.

2025-07-10 12:09:09 UTC

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History shows that companies didn't downsize their IT departments, they not only grew them, but also outsourced a lot of IT to SaaS firms funded by VCs. The relationship between productivity and employment was positive, but my ultra-simplified take on that is that more than just productivity was involved: We were also in the middle of capital chasing returns and we were in the middle of a major computing paradigm shift.

2025-07-10 11:59:04 UTC

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Circling back to this. I don't know that I agree with this analogy, but I credit you for an analogy that provokes useful thinking and discussion. I see two broad perspectives.
One is that LLMs are productivity tools for doing roughly the same job. The way I would use your analogy is if programmers had quit their jibs in the 2000s because the complexity of launching a new app had fallen by 10x or more thanks to tooling like Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and web browsers as a platform.

2025-07-02 17:33:45 UTC

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Conjecture:
The point of art is not to tell you something, it is to provoke you into discovering something.

2025-06-17 17:25:08 UTC

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Barnes Wallis also invented the Dambuster bombs that skipped across the water to evade anti-torpedo nets.
As with Turing and cryptography, I long for a timeline where that kind of creativity had a chance to be used for peace.

2025-06-17 17:11:52 UTC

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Wikipedia says that the tallboy circumvented reinforced concrete defences by exploding in the ground beside the target and destroying its foundations with the underground shockwave.
When I exited my teens, I lost interest in military technology. But I seem to remember that one application of this was destroying bridges in the same way. IIRC, bridges were difficult to hit in the 40s, so dropping a bomb beside the footings was more reliable.

2025-06-17 17:00:06 UTC

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Do these ground-penetrating bombs trace their lineage back to the Grand Slam and Tallboy earthquake bombs designed by Barnes Wallis?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb

2025-06-08 11:47:40 UTC

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There are lots of technology tools that have somehow been congruent with "Wheels for the Mind," but HyperCard somehow distilled that into an extremely accessible programming tool that felt like it was *designed* for the kinds of people who ride bicycles.
i.e. Everyone.
And yes... So was MacPaint, and I revere Atkinson all the more for not trying to use magic to make things for other magicians or for looking down his nose at humanity.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/647/576/540/656/764/original/092f2c2164b8ff14.jpeg

2025-06-04 14:24:50 UTC

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https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/625/547/319/126/084/original/34244bfaf8d1867c.mp4

2025-06-04 13:37:59 UTC

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“Well, actually...”
I read this as the fundamental argument:
> Does an intern cost $20/month? Because that’s what Cursor.ai costs.
And I have a deep problem with that!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44174814

2025-05-28 14:32:41 UTC

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Jack D. Ripper, better known as RFK Jr., strikes again.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/585/941/774/075/162/original/32d7ebfdc17c55af.png

2025-05-24 19:00:23 UTC

“'Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day... The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on the trends of the day.”
—Programming is a Pop Culture, @npub1hr7…jxyc (2022)
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/programming-is-a-pop-culture/
I believe there are also other ways that programming is a pop culture, but speaking as someone who presented syntactic meta-programming for Ruby at a hipster tech conference in 2008... I like where Baldur has chosen to shine his light.

2025-05-18 15:59:22 UTC

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You clearly turned down the thermostat whenever we visited Iceland, an obvious attempt to trick us into thinking you're a nordic country.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/529/657/017/607/944/original/d5e33557d2b9e7c3.jpeg

2025-05-17 17:46:54 UTC

Not for LinkedIn:
The whole AI coding game is about renting digital employees from a tech titan. The try-hard vibe coding entrepreneurs writing apps and services with LLMs are going to have the same enshittified experience as drivers in the early days of ride-hailing:
When tech has driven all the programmers out of the business and there's nowhere left to turn but Microsoft and OpenAI, watch them squeeze their own customers’ margins to zero.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/114/524/416/890/602/078/original/a53fe0853fe58c43.png

2025-05-16 00:54:24 UTC

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> This is Steve Newton reminding you, however, that the Republicans are not the only culprits here... I can't find an elected Democrat out there
attacking it.
When accused of running a democracy in name only, Dr. Julius Nyerere, First President of Tanzania replied:
”The US is also a one-party state. But with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.“

2025-05-07 20:52:09 UTC

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Prediction: We will see prosecutors trotting out "evidence" that AI thinks someone is guilty.
Because—as with polygraphs—unless prevented from doing so, prosecutors are more interested whether a thing will convince a jury than they are whether it is actually factual.
And AI is optimized for verisimilitude, not for truth.

2025-05-06 14:32:28 UTC

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I imagine you already know that I was trying for a low-effort Dad Joke with a side of nerd culture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Fireplace
But getting past that, I am deeply into photographs of human spaces both during and after we are no longer using them (Alistair Wiper, Abandoned America, Soviet Bus Stops, &c.), and I dig your photo for its own merits.
Thank you.

2025-05-06 14:21:28 UTC

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Is there a girl in the fireplace?