“Reflections on a Month with BBEdit and Nova — Sympolymathesy, by Chris Krycho”
If I ever switch back to to the mac, it’ll be because I miss the indie apps on the platform. Windows, Linux, the web, and mobile/tablet apps don’t really compare, IMO.
“Shadow DOM and the problem of encapsulation | Read the Tea Leaves”
I really enjoyed this post but it’s triggering many thoughts on teamwork and collaboration in web dev. Mainly that the field has a management problem that we’re trying to solve with technology and specifications
This may be excessively Icelandic* of me, but I strongly prefer the term “platform decay” over “enshittification” because it’s much more descriptive.
- Our words for “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner” are “morning meal”, “noon meal”, and “evening meal” respectively.
The whole vibe with LLMs is “wow, this is much better at language than anything else, surely it must be great for something?”
The problem is that “this will create much more value than it costs or destroys” is a completely unproven hypothesis and early data is not promising.
“Big layoff at Duolingo : r/duolingo”
Pretty sure that the AI Bubble is kicking of a round of massive platform decay in every sector of tech and big chunks of the media industry
This is going to overwhelmingly destroy more value than it creates.
“Tech issues: The myth of inevitable technological progress - Vox”
The myth of inevitable technological progress is one of the more insidious myths commonly held to be true in tech.
(Or, it would be if it weren’t, y’know, for the return of fascism.)
I really should be writing blog posts and updating the newsletter but I honestly haven’t had the emotional energy to do so for a couple of weeks.
That I have the nagging feeling that the stuff I want to be writing isn’t what people are “hiring” my writing for doesn’t help.
“Increased probability of a new eruption | News | Icelandic Meteorological office”
As magma accumulation continues under Svartsengi, the likelihood of another magma intrusion and an eruption increases with each passing day.
The odds of a new eruption in January look pretty high.
“Things are about to get a lot worse for Generative AI”
Like I and quite a few others have been saying for ages, generative models are very prone to verbatim copying both text and image. People in tech pretend it doesn’t happen but it’s much more prevalent than people think
There is a widespread misconception that LLMs are capable of independently reproducing factually correct information
Yup.
“AI and Lossy Bottlenecks - Schneier on Security”
Two points:
- A lot of previously sensible people are being swept up by the AI bubble.
- The ideas in this post are literally a mechanism for taking away your right to vote and replace it with a software-mediated plutocracy.
“Blind CSS Exfiltration: exfiltrate unknown web pages | PortSwigger Research”
If you allow unvetted CSS, this is why you need to both limit all url references to an allow list and to probably block CSS variables as well
Huh? Looks like micro.blog doesn’t properly delete posts? 😑
Deleted a post because I hadn’t realised it was a Bryan Lunduke article. I do not trust him as a journalist and journalism requires trust. Dude has a ton of dodgy ideas.
I linked to this yesterday, but it is really good
“More than calculators: Why large language models threaten learning, teaching, and education”
So here is my informed prediction: LLMs will ultimately be a net harm to student learning and schools, accelerating the collapse of public education.
“Can you add AI to the hydraulics system?”
We’re in the middle of a massive bubble and this is only a fraction of the ridiculousness it’ll reach before it pops, and all of you who are using generative models have a hand in inflating it
I see the punditry commenting on the NYT lawsuit is is pretending that current era LLMs aren’t specifically designed to memorise and regurgitate answers in standardised tests as a marketing ploy.
(Memorisation and verbatim copying is pretty much required to pass, say, a bar exam)
A short walk around Reykjavík.
“The New York Times Sues OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright”
This was inevitable. Especially if search engine traffic is tanking.
Sergio Aragonés is probably the world’s greatest cartoonist. One of a handful of American comics artists and humourists who are loved by multiple generations.