Baldur Bjarnason

Writer, web developer and consultant based in Hveragerði, Iceland. Lapsed Interactive Media Academic. Webby Tech Stuff and webby book stuff.

Blog: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/
AI Book: https://illusion.baldurbjarnason.com/
Pronouns: he/him
Book: https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/

Public Key

npub1hr7087sk4yxl25nmx9c42p0zgk5kyfyvar5xeklezs23hjuenr7qr3jxyc

NIP-05 Address

baldur_at_toot.cafe@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqst3l8nlgt2jr042fanzu24qh3yt2tzyjxw36rvm0u3g9gmewve3lqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dskthsxm

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1hr7087sk4yxl25nmx9c42p0zgk5kyfyvar5xeklezs23hjuenr7qr3jxyc

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Last Notes

2026-10-28 15:45:14 UTC

RE: https://dice.camp/@valthonis/117518928735122393
Meanwhile I cackle with joy whenever I see a video of a foreigner suffering through “traditional” Icelandic food or go pale after ingesting a candy coated in ammonium chloride.
Or when they video a waterfall go sideways in a storm all “wtf!”
#note1my6…eydv

2026-10-19 09:40:54 UTC

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(It's the delta that worries me in the code I see—the change in quality, that is. Engineers with a quarter century of experience churning out code by the bucketful that's quite a bit worse than what they used to write. So either they aren't reviewing their own code like they used to or their skills have degraded.)

2026-10-19 09:21:23 UTC

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"AI" generated code is everywhere. It's impossible to avoid. We can see it. The only thing using the tools would accomplish is expose us to a bunch of cognitive hazards that come with chatbot bullshit.

2026-10-19 09:21:22 UTC

Every time I see a vibe coder say something along the lines of "if you haven't used these tools over the past five minutes, you don't know what they're capable of, because everything's different now!" I get a little bit perplexed.
You do know that we can see the output without using it ourself, right? Some of us are still reviewing pull requests and reading through code repositories, y’know?

2026-10-14 09:45:14 UTC

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Following the pro-"AI" crowd's writing is genuinely like watching a serious mental health episode unwind in slow motion
I'm so tired
(The post in question https://kerkour.com/anti-ai-psyop)

2026-10-14 09:45:13 UTC

I keep a few pro-"AI" blogs in my feed reader to keep tabs on the rhetoric and some days it's just genuinely exhausting. One of the latest outlines how it thinks that anti-"AI" sentiment is a psyop designed to sabotage the golden age of open source and the democratisation of software (apparently, Russia, China, and 'big IP' are the likeliest conspirators)
Four years ago the blog in question was writing about functional programming and cross-compilation

2026-10-13 13:49:41 UTC

It’s not our job to fix our employers
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/06-its-not-our-job-to-fix-our-employers/
This broken industry is too big of a problem for software developers to solve alone
(And a Patreon launch)

2026-10-06 22:39:35 UTC

Well, that's a much bigger reaction than I expected 😲
And a bit intimidating, so I'm declaring temporary YouTube comment bankruptcy until tomorrow. 😝
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/117/396/353/977/319/938/original/8debbd1589b8448b.png

2026-10-02 10:08:30 UTC

I don’t begrudge anybody using—even enthusiastically—LLMs for coding. They’ve become mandatory in many workplaces. But if you’re promoting or normalising generative models then you’re allied with religious extremists, fascists, and grifters and you’ve already picked a side opposing the rest of us

2026-09-29 11:33:38 UTC

Why influencers really aren't your friend.
The "parasocial" illusion that's created by social media platforms helps deceive and misguide audiences #socialmedia #disinformation #parasocial #deception
See the full video that talks about why social media really isn't social at https://youtu.be/q5gvoorgX3E

2026-09-24 14:19:43 UTC

Also heard that Pressbooks laid off Steel Wagstaff and is all-in on microcredentials now? As in Pressbooks is basically withering away (and was always kinda awful) while all of their effort goes into a microcredentials platform?
WTH is a microcredentials platform.
Steel was the last person of the old Pressbooks gang that I genuinely liked. Hope he lands on his feet.

2026-09-14 15:50:06 UTC

Making video is not easy.
Video doesn't come naturally to everybody, much like writing doesn't come naturally either. How do you get out of your own way when making? #video #creative #writing #practice
See the full video at https://youtu.be/GV4x17Ygh4s
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/117/270/181/418/975/343/original/4e766f4e714e2b18.mp4

2026-09-09 15:49:50 UTC

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like node.js effectively ended up merging the vibe-coding vfs implementation that caused all the drama a few months ago? Just in a different set of pull requests that were still 14k lines long?
https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/63115
https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/63537
Versus the original:
https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/61478

2026-08-30 09:07:18 UTC

“Iceland rejects EU accession talks - RÚV.is”
https://www.ruv.is/english/2026-08-29-iceland-rejects-eu-accession-talks-485377
I'd be less annoyed by this result if it weren't for the fact that Iceland has a financing loophole for votes like these which meant that we've been bombarded with "no" ads filled with misinformation and outright lies

2026-08-27 13:26:40 UTC

The story of this blog so far: 'AI', the death of web dev, and feeling like an outsider
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/the-story-of-this-blog-so-far/
A bit of thinking out loud as I review the history of the blog.

2026-08-22 09:57:15 UTC

I truly, genuinely hate what Apple is doing to the UX of its platforms. Beyond the ongoing decline of autocomplete, they’ve changed something about how buttons work on iOS so now I regularly trigger button presses when I try to scroll on both the iPad and iPhone.
(Don’t come at me with ‘but Android’. I’ve tried Android. In my experience, their UX is even worse.)

2026-08-21 10:03:10 UTC

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Did not expect this to draw out the antivaxx crowd, but I should have. What a world we live in.

2026-08-21 09:51:30 UTC

Citing “lived experience” as evidence something works is literally the tactic of homeopaths and antivaxxers when confronted by large-scale or structured studies disproving their claims. That this now seems to be the go-to argument of the pro-“AI” crowd is a huge red flag.

2026-08-13 10:16:50 UTC

Even if you disregard, y’know everything, LLM fans are still fundamentally boring. They have the same writing and design style, design, their illustrations look the same, and their ideas are all predictable
They’re even starting to sound the same on video, even when unmediated by a model

2026-08-10 12:07:06 UTC

Responding to every post that notes something awful done by tech with “that’s capitalism” glosses over the fact that tech cos are spending all of their innovations points on coming up with new ways for capitalism to be awful. They’re the new vanguard of abuse.

2026-08-04 10:45:14 UTC

Yegge’s only intellectual asset was a complete disregard for NDAs while working for secretive organisations and even then he arguably misinterpreted much of what he saw. Taking him seriously was always a mistake. (And, yeah, that was a mistake I definitely committed myself at one point.)

2026-08-02 10:15:47 UTC

Anyway, since I’m always annoying my own brain by trying to come up with clearer and more specific wording for my own opinions:
I reject the notion that LLMs can be deployed “responsibly” at scale and believe that anybody claiming otherwise is fooling themselves, conning you, or possibly both

2026-07-28 20:27:35 UTC

Wandering around YouTube and on the videos I've been watching the comments for the software dev videos have been a cesspool of rightwing hate and nihilism while the comments on the rest are mostly just silly
Maybe I just got unlucky but it's not giving a good impression of the state of the field

2026-07-28 09:16:37 UTC

People keep using the "can't put a genie back in the bottle" metaphor for "AI", even though in the stories they always get back in and current "AI" is more of a "we're spending trillions of dollars and the energy output of a continent trying to keep this bastard out of the bottle" situation

2026-07-27 10:36:22 UTC

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Our money, media, and activism is lined up behind 'no' on the referendum. And since that is a vote for the status quo (nobody's leaving the EEA) it's going to be the default position of many
Even though I'm voting 'yes' (our only other major ally is the US, so seeing what the EU can offer makes sense) I don't expect it to win. People seem convinced that even negotiating a potential entry would directly forfeit our independence, which is nonsense, but nonsense plays strong in modern politics

2026-07-27 10:36:22 UTC

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There’s also the fact that the EU seems to be deliberately pissing us off lately. They put tariffs on some of our metal exports, which we thought was illegal under the EEA. And the whole border entry fiasco has hit our tourism industry harder than we thought at first.
So, all in all, unless the EU goes on a charm offensive instead of their current “entitlement offensive” I expect the odds of “yes” winning to be just under 50%. Still a solid chance, but not the likeliest

2026-07-27 10:36:22 UTC

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But what seems to unite Icelandic labour movement and our oligarchs is a belief that their position would be weaker in the EU
The oligarchs are right. They are small fry compared the EU's oligarchs and would be eaten alive in direct competition. Same applies to our banks and retailers. The EEA was already a body blow (currently Boozt is eating our retailer's lunch)
The left's antipathy stems from seeing the EU as a fundamentally capitalist project. (Not wrong, but also not that simple)

2026-07-27 10:36:21 UTC

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The only reason this referendum is happening is because the left greens betrayed their base by collaborating with Iceland's main right wing party, which serves at the beck and call of our oligopolies, and left-wing voters subsequently united behind the social democrats specifically to keep the right out of power. The social democrats saw this as their last opportunity to push for EU membership

2026-07-27 10:36:21 UTC

I see English-language media is covering the upcoming referendum in Iceland—“do you want to reopen talks to join the EU"—without much context. This is understandable as Icelanders generally deliberately withhold that context to manage Iceland's image
So...

2026-07-26 13:27:07 UTC

So this is a very short quick and dirty, if a bit silly, video where I talk about the place I'm in with the photos I just took, laid out over the audio.
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/986/505/758/277/900/original/11fe331bee2c8db6.mp4

2026-07-22 15:09:41 UTC

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Thinking out loud for a bit:
The problem with tech, as others have pointed out, is that tech as a whole isn’t exactly a humane environment filled with thoughtful and charming people, and it’s in a multi year cycle of layoffs. So, if the job itself is losing what fun it had most other industries start to look appealing in comparison.
And if I manage to get out of the coding-for-money racket and end up missing bits of it, I could always take up coding as a hobby

2026-07-22 12:04:10 UTC

Just realised that 2026 is the twentieth anniversary of me finishing my PhD and leaving academia for good.

2026-07-22 09:44:32 UTC

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I actually like coding and talking about code. What’s the point of the job if you take away the fun part?

2026-07-22 09:37:33 UTC

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The other issue is more personal: you can’t have conversations about code with people any more. Ask them for their personal opinion on a piece of code and you’ll just get a chatbot text extrusion back
Makes the job a whole lot less fun and personable.
This kinda bothers me more than the bug misrepresentation

2026-07-22 09:34:59 UTC

One disconcerting thing I encounter when working on projects with LLM users: their models do find some bugs (though also a tonne of stuff in the ‘that’s not a bug, that’s just software” category) but the explanations are often bullshit. As in, they misrepresent how the code works. The bug, though it exists, isn’t as described and the proposed fix would just make things worse
The understanding of anybody relying on these tools, AFAICT, could slowly drift away from factual reality of the code

2026-07-20 00:14:21 UTC

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I'm trying to expand my audience, add to what I'm doing, not exclude the existing audience, which is why I'm including an edited transcript, for example.

2026-07-19 12:25:20 UTC

Experiments with media (or, iterating towards a podcast, maybe?): https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/experiments-with-media/

2026-07-19 12:22:01 UTC

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116946471660192452
Forgot to mention that feedback is very much appreciated.
#note1njh…jkvv

2026-07-19 11:45:42 UTC

"Experiments with media (or, iterating towards a podcast, maybe?)"
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/experiments-with-media/
Trying a thing out.

2026-07-15 18:27:32 UTC

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For context: longships, the famous old Norse ships famous for Viking rowing, were coastal. So, the famous Viking raidres were largely local settlers robbing and murdering their neighbours. The ocean-traversing ships, knarr, primarily used sails. The Norse who crossed to Iceland and North America did not row there.

2026-07-15 18:19:48 UTC

Kind of on the nose for the Norwegian fans to fake a rowing motion when they're at the world cup and cheering their team because their ancestors, by definition, never went out on the ocean-crossing knarr and instead stayed at home 😝

2026-07-14 17:11:05 UTC

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Shit like this happens regularly to me (happens with bank transfers as well which is extra distressing) and I can't be the only one.

2026-07-14 17:08:51 UTC

It's worrying how often online banking apps here in Iceland just plain don't work:
Notification of an unpaid bill pops up.
You click it and pay the bill.
Then, since you're in the app, you check your balance and you notice the bill payment hasn't gone out.
Go check the unpaid bills section: no bill there
Check the balance again: no payment
Check the unpaid bills section: the bill now appears as if it were unpaid
Now you have to decide whether to try to pay the bill again and risk paying double

2026-07-14 13:45:17 UTC

I had a go this weekend at simply using in-camera processing for my photos because the Linux-based photo tools are kinda garbage. But the in-camera tools aren't fantastic either, so even minimal editing in CaptureOne on top of the built-in Fujifilm tone curves really can make a big difference. #photos #nature #iceland
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/918/623/563/116/406/original/2407aea9b375eaef.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/918/624/556/220/453/original/010529b4c04849df.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/918/625/500/011/969/original/acf3ee72247874f6.jpg

2026-07-11 12:46:48 UTC

For this #caturday I decided to try something different. Not in the subject, the model today is my neighbour Lukka, a very friendly black and white cat. No, it's an experiment in just using the camera to generate JPGs. Instead of importing into CaptureOne or the like and manipulating the photo there, I decided to instead just adjust exposure, shadows, and highlights using in-camera raw processing. Worked pretty well IMO
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/901/412/459/547/135/original/b6961f422d137aed.jpeg

2026-07-08 08:58:15 UTC

“The kids (with phones) are alright – Hi, I'm Heather Burns”
https://heatherburns.tech/2026/07/08/the-kids-with-phones-are-alright/
> the raft of legislation aiming to control what young adults can do with their phones, essentially punishing them for the sins of Big Tech, can put their immediate personal safety at risk from dangers far more violent than algorithms.

2026-07-04 09:20:52 UTC

Only just now realising that the wish fulfilment of having a dedicated slave or polite servant might play a bigger role in the popularity of chatbots than I expected
I can be slow sometimes, but I also always thought the constant signals of servility these systems are made to exude were obviously distasteful, even when experienced second-hand through other people's reports

2026-07-01 09:20:19 UTC

I haven’t seen much coverage yet of the fresh round of layoffs at Bandcamp?
From the linked Bluesky post:
> my 13 years at bandcamp are coming to an end - i’ve been laid off along with most of the remaining engineers. best job i’ve ever had, working with the best people you could ever work with. unceremonious end to quite a ride.
https://bsky.app/profile/grmnygrmny.bsky.social/post/3mpgvo7l2v22t

2026-06-28 10:25:48 UTC

I’m genuinely tired of how often I run into the “you”’ve made too many requests” error after a single click on a domain. Your shitty SPA is DOSing your own server and for that you’re blocking me?

2026-06-24 12:38:23 UTC

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Also remember that this referendum is just on whether we should reopen negotiations. They're calling us treasonous just for the gall of wanting to ask the EU if they would accommodate our industries if we joined.

2026-06-24 12:17:42 UTC

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Bear in mind that due to our position during WW2 ultranationalistic rhetoric remained quite mainstream in Icelandic discourse and politics so the current surge in nationalism is starting at a higher baseline

2026-06-23 14:19:59 UTC

It's a decade since Brexit, so a decade since I left the UK, after having lived there for about 20 years
Putting my rights to the vote was enough of a red line for me to scarper but, given the British tendency to vote for radical change, I expected the outcome
Haven't returned since, even to visit

2026-06-15 15:34:38 UTC

RE: https://mstdn.social/@osnews/116754486170458162
This is such a long-standing issue that I had a long argument about this with one of the original RMSDK devs on Twitter fifteen years ago. They kept trying to convince me that the spec-violating behaviour was somehow better or had valid reasons.
#note1387…jhxd

2026-06-14 15:25:21 UTC

RE: https://mas.to/@zzt/116748965255528053
GIMP‘s hostility to users actually being able to productively use it is legendary as is its disdain for people showing concern about its name. It’s genuinely poisoned the well for the adoption of OSS creativity software.
(I need to try out Krita, though, which looks much more solid.)
#note1y2m…0fut

2026-06-12 18:38:20 UTC

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With our climate we only get berries late in the summer. So, too early for that sort of thing 🙂

2026-06-12 17:04:58 UTC

Summer #photos #nature #iceland
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/738/173/861/091/829/original/1412cf180ec66627.jpg

2026-06-12 10:01:14 UTC

“The AI Engineering Report 2026: The AI Acceleration Whiplash - Ten Takeaways”
https://www.faros.ai/blog/ai-acceleration-whiplash-takeaways?utm_source=fnf
> In our 2025 AI engineering report on the AI Productivity Paradox, bugs per developer were up 9% as AI adoption grew. In this dataset, that figure has risen to 54%. The relationship between AI adoption and defect rate is not flattening as organizations mature their AI programs; it’s steepening.
This shit is not going to end well.

2026-06-10 23:00:34 UTC

Horse doing horsie things. #photo #iceland #horse #nature
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/728/294/454/973/662/original/2831f36246febef9.jpg

2026-06-07 09:59:46 UTC

One of the lessons that many in software strangely never learn is that breaking something while being an asshole gets a very different response from people than breaking something while not being an asshole
And, given how “AI” continues to pour shit on the rest of society, using LLMs is widely going to be perceived as an asshole move
For better or for worse, using LLMs in OSS is going to be seen as an adversarial move that undermines community building

2026-06-06 12:03:25 UTC

I don't know enough about insects to recognise these critters but if these are honeybees then the local bee farmer here in Hveragerði is having a good year. Saw a bunch of these on my last walk. #bees #photos #honeybee #iceland
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/703/060/471/053/919/original/0f732452d82019a1.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/703/060/477/629/665/original/1cb0305a47f9657e.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/703/060/476/977/632/original/445f0b2f2352c644.jpg

2026-06-05 14:22:42 UTC

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Yeah, as I'm continuing to test this I'm guessing that might be an issue with variable fonts specifically
Google fonts might be feature detecting support for variable fonts and loading those when supported?
Or, if it's not specifically variable fonts, then it's a font format feature that is common to the variable fonts I've been testing.
In any case, basically means that I can only use that specific design idea for an upcoming project if I change the font I had planned. Oh, well 🤷‍♂️

2026-06-05 11:28:06 UTC

So, is -webkit-text-stroke broken everywhere it's implemented or is this something that just affects browsers on Linux? (Tested in Firefox and Chromium. Tried to test in WebKit/Gnome Web but just discovered that the webkit rendering process crashes whenever I try to open the dev tools, which is disconcerting.)
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/697/237/626/727/555/original/95b1c47641a35f92.png

2026-06-05 10:46:44 UTC

Seeing nerds get in bed with rabid military supremacists over the cancellation of a continuation of one of the most blatant military propaganda TV series in recent history is a mood
I mean, I love Stargate SG-1 as much as the next nerd, but it was already borderline after 2001. I don’t see how you could make it work today without betraying its military supremacism

2026-06-04 14:51:52 UTC

I don’t have a high opinion of software dev in general but I’d never have expected “breaking without warning a popular backup and deployment tool is bad actually” to be a controversial statement.
Truly a triumph. Congrats.

2026-06-03 17:06:21 UTC

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Adding video to podcasts means the audience now knows that you don't know how to use your mid-range kit where before they could have just assumed the sound was because you were working with limited resources, which is entirely valid.
If your budget won't stretch beyond a cheap €15 Boya M1 lavalier or even a headset mic. Focus on the interviews, writing, and editing instead.
But if you're doing video, at least make sure to read the manuals for your kit.

2026-06-03 15:30:30 UTC

An aspect to the “go pro might go under because of AI memory price hikes” news is that it entirely ignores that go pro has been heading that way for a long time
They’re crunched between cheap no-name action cams on the low end and superior Chinese action cams, actual cameras and phones on the high end. They’ve largely got a worse product and nowhere to go. Their line of 1 inch sensor cams is an attempt to retake the high ground but the price puts it in direct competition with actual cameras

2026-06-03 14:07:37 UTC

Current pet peeve: podcasts where the hosts constantly talk into the end of a Blue Yeti microphone and that way ensuring, very kindly, that the guests using headset microphones don't have the worst sound in the podcast
It's a side address microphone. You're either miking the table or the ceiling.

2026-06-03 12:15:34 UTC

Knowing that a majority of the voices online in web dev now no longer care about implementation is honestly quite demotivating. Why try new approaches in web dev when you know most are going to just have their “agents” generate legacy approaches anyway? Why talk about it to a small and dwindling audience?
Why work in a field that has accepted stagnation as a standard practice?
So, y’know, feeling a bit demotivated

2026-06-03 09:46:23 UTC

RE: https://chaos.social/@gsuberland/116683968932657898
For fucks sake.
#note1ead…jehx

2026-06-01 13:42:43 UTC

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116674283040110293
Paraphrasing again:
We’re in a power struggle between those using “AI” to centralise and consolidate their hold over the economy, education, media, and politics and are willing to sacrifice much of the environment and society to that end (i.e. "rule the ashes") and those who think that would be bad
Standing in the middle and going “actually, I think we could find productive uses for LLMs” is not a winning move and it won't protect you from the winning side of the power struggle.
#note1u96…ntm6

2026-06-01 11:29:25 UTC

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You really think the vibe coders take kindly to the idea that their LLMs are too unsafe for vibe coding and need extreme care at every step to be even remotely useful?
You really think the "this shit looks too harmful to use!" side is more extremist than the "let's make millions unemployed and usher in a great depression" side?
It had to be a fight. When you set out to reshape the entire economy at the expense of a big chunk of the people in it, a big honking fight is inevitable

2026-06-01 10:20:14 UTC

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it’s a reference to the old saying about who gets shot by the winner after a revolution.
Metaphorical in this case because nobody is actually going to get executed.
The point is that if either the pro- or anti-“AI” side decisively wins, the “moderates” who both acknowledge the flaws while still using the tools will suffer serious harm to their reputation and get pushed out of the industry because both will see them as an adversary

2026-06-01 10:04:33 UTC

The problem with positioning yourself as a sensible and reasonable moderate user of LLM software development tools is it means you’ll be the first up against the metaphorical wall if either the anti- or pro- sides truly gain the upper hand.
The idea that dev will settle into a stable “moderate” equilibrium is one of the riskiest strategic bets you could make today. Makes sense if it’s your only option, but otherwise pits you in a very precarious position

2026-05-29 12:48:59 UTC

Looking over the CMS/blog landscape and it looks like Ghost is still currently one of the least bad OSS options available, despite slop shenanigans?
(As in software that has the features you actually need for a serious website: newsletter or serious newsletter integration, cookie-free analytics that don't suck, rich text editing for non-techie contributors, post types or templates, custom metadata, etc.)

2026-05-25 17:04:42 UTC

It's one thing to note that one of history's more abusive religious institutions seems to be marginally less harmful than it used to be...
But it's quite another thing to build a fandom around the pope as some people are doing. It's getting to be as distasteful as the hatred he gets from extremists.

2026-05-25 16:25:20 UTC

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(Aside: it does not pay to be ahead of the curve when it comes to commentary. Being right before it's acceptable is a worse crime than being wrong.)

2026-05-25 16:24:21 UTC

Kind of interesting to see mainstream tech commentary come around to the idea that Google's search was built around a social contract that they've now broken
Here's how I described it three years ago, in 2023,
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/tech-broke-the-webs-social-contract/#with-ai-tech-has-broken-the-web-s-social-contract
> Our incentive recedes in lock-step with the increasing dominance of generative AI content. As it recedes, fewer and fewer people and organisations will contribute to the digital commons. More and more stuff will be locked behind a paywall.

2026-05-24 13:54:36 UTC

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Got back into proper photography ten years ago with a Fuji when I was living in Montréal.
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/888/638/187/568/original/cdc341e4d0fdd574.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/888/782/618/862/original/f164f1986e5704d7.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/888/854/024/180/original/51230fb93f47d47e.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/889/078/580/344/original/37ecb68e9ed336aa.jpg

2026-05-24 13:53:47 UTC

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Had my iPhone era like many others. The iPhone 6 camera had some charm
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/885/592/518/642/original/fad53ef430747b17.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/885/704/919/090/original/91cf93c7bc59193d.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/885/786/184/044/original/15bc34fcbcd919e8.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/885/868/553/371/original/16664d507bfae1c4.jpg

2026-05-24 13:52:55 UTC

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Got into digital photography about 20 years ago while still living in Bristol. Although regularly visiting home.
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/882/136/476/410/original/cb0a344ddee7217e.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/882/322/625/398/original/bbd93297add89324.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/882/408/083/412/original/398eb7dd1af613e3.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/882/500/062/664/original/bb41fe6b7a58b90b.jpg

2026-05-24 13:51:51 UTC

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Never really recovered from my admiration of black and white film although I don't miss the many inconveniences
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/878/125/288/071/original/1e2dc85b58770b2f.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/878/186/089/354/original/f565ecb2e9500bea.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/878/244/736/152/original/8a0bfad5ed4654aa.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/878/297/060/805/original/0b0b1c2e1f235946.jpg

2026-05-24 13:49:40 UTC

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Moving to Bristol in 2000 I was still using black and white film, mostly
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/869/398/680/607/original/e774c4fec44aaf3b.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/869/526/825/601/original/47aa8f2397254124.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/869/605/289/859/original/2f3ec3c21056d042.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/869/674/811/601/original/bfc59a7b64a9ad41.jpg

2026-05-24 13:19:36 UTC

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These were taken after my shift in the newsroom studio on the last day that the Icelandic national broadcasting service broadcast from their old facilities in Laugavegur. Late 90s
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/749/545/662/208/original/63598e86ad8ee8d2.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/749/686/673/925/original/00f2c44b8e425af6.jpg

2026-05-24 13:12:45 UTC

If you’re one of my new or recent followers that came here because of my newsletter, you might not know that I regularly subject my audience to my photography. So to give you some context I figure I might as well post a little bit of an overview of the kind of photography I’ve done as a hobbyist.
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/724/395/685/863/original/d213449db9a51217.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/629/724/512/026/020/original/3cca30aead4a0546.jpg

2026-05-22 09:45:43 UTC

RE: https://narrativ.es/@janl/116617015192202090
Introduce yourself with 10 bands you’ve seen live:
I don’t like crowds (or people TBH) so, excepting the occasional non consensual exposure to an unfortunate local band at a pub, the list is quite short
David Bowie (during the Outside tour)
Sigurrós
I also once went to see Saint Etienne perform but I honestly don’t remember why I went
#note1qkf…aehs

2026-05-21 14:33:33 UTC

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@agreenberg/116612806345022171
People have been warning for years that VS Code extensions, npm, GitHub Actions and similar systems were all insecure as designed. Add to that a pervasive monoculture and slop automation and we're in a disaster that simply didn't need to happen. npm could have been safer by default. GitHub Actions could have been better designed. VS Code could have sandboxed extensions better.
#note1g96…5cp0

2026-05-21 09:20:28 UTC

So, because of an extremely dumb comment by one of the nuttiest pro-“AI”nutters of tech that I’m not going link to because I myself deeply regret having accidentally seen it, I have to ask:
How do Americans think Vietnamese ended?

2026-05-17 21:21:25 UTC

This photo definitely does not work but I am fond of how it's capturing the moment
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/592/009/113/474/738/original/294fa7b1f6ec57f1.jpg

2026-05-17 10:33:21 UTC

So, the nationalist parties won a substantial victory in the municipal elections here in Iceland yesterday, which is honestly a bit discouraging.

2026-05-15 10:49:48 UTC

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I suspect this one will play better to the Mastodon crowd than to the Bluesky or newsletter folks.

2026-05-15 10:40:00 UTC

"The old world of tech is dying and the new cannot be born"
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/the-old-world-of-tech-is-dying/
This ones leans a bit more into theory and politics than I usually do when writing about the industry, but this moment in time warrants it, I think.

2026-05-11 10:21:51 UTC

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I hate Emacs just as much as I hate Vim-style text editors. They are almost all GUI apps pretending they aren't GUI apps undesigned into perfect annoyance by people who hate user interface design and have the worst instincts for UX ever.

2026-05-11 10:11:16 UTC

So, I'm trying out Helix editor despite loathing the anti-GUI nature of most terminal text editors because of how frustrating most of the bigger editors have become
And one thing that's weird is that all of the language servers I use work much more reliably in Helix than in, say, Zed or Sublime. That on its own is shaping to be worth increasing the cognitive overhead of work by losing the file tree and mini-map
Also, turns out less lag while typing does partially make up for the mode bullshit

2026-05-11 08:27:31 UTC

RE: https://mstdn.social/@marick/116550557064314183
So a recurring observation I’ve encountered from educators of various stripes is that their students are resisting doing the work to a greater degree than earlier students because they are extremely uncomfortable with looking foolish, bad or incompetent
Tawny Platis noted this in a recent video on voice acting students, for example
The problem is that feeling like an idiot as you make crap is an integral part of all creative processes
#note1nha…hqcy

2026-05-07 11:15:00 UTC

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This genuinely looks like a recipe for a US federal wire fraud charge down the line.

2026-05-07 10:59:51 UTC

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The fact that many payment companies seem to be all-in on "AI" feels iffy. Even iffier when most of them were all-in on cryptocoins.

2026-05-07 10:52:02 UTC

In today's "surely this is a bad idea?" news, as a part of my ongoing search for a non-shitty Merchant-of-Record service, I came across one called Kelviq that runs it's business verification (i.e. the bit that weeds out scammers, fraud, etc) entirely using OpenClaw
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/we-automated-our-business-vetting-with-openclaw-788b285744

2026-04-29 11:41:52 UTC

Apparently, subsidised code automation tools ("coding agents") that make it 10x easier to generate code is a big part of why GitHub has been having issues
So, it really is their own fault since GitHub and Microsoft are pretty much ground zero for offering LLM-based coding tools and promoting the bubble, it's just not breaking for the specific reasons some of us have been thinking
https://xcancel.com/kdaigle/status/2040164759836778878#m

2026-04-28 12:02:07 UTC

After spending quite a bit of the past couple of weeks chatting with friends and family, asking them what they're taking from the news, I think it's clear most of our news media is substantially downplaying the economic effects of the Hormuz straight crisis
What I can't figure out is whether it's intentional or not. I know it's unintentional in Icelandic media as they simply no longer have the resources or expertise to properly outline what's happening, but I can't figure out UK or US media

2026-04-25 13:28:33 UTC

Lately, I've felt that photographing with a very wonky thirty-year-old Jupiter-9 85mm lens more accurately reflected my mood than anything taken with a sharp modern lens. #photography
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/465/575/272/365/902/original/4be60cb43bf4525a.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/465/576/412/580/120/original/d242e27c61668776.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/465/577/527/028/477/original/9536bd537b385735.jpg
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/116/465/579/076/293/315/original/df1120b074c9d7b8.jpg