“Notes, Links, and Weeknotes (9 October 2023)”
I’m trying a slightly different format this week: longer notes from the week, followed by this week’s links, followed by the weeknotes.
“Hey designers, they’re gaslighting you. By Sara Wachter-Boettcher | Nice Work”
They tried so, so hard to prove that they were valuable. But all they got for their effort was bone-deep burnout.
“Absolutely Do Not Change Your Blogging Platform (unless you have to)”
As somebody who has migrated blogs a few times (my 2000s blog was a blosxom PERL thing, then Tinderbox, my current blog started on Jekyll and is now Hugo) I agree with this. Don’t migrate unless you have to
These results highlight the increasing financial precariousness of artists over the past decade.
“What Happened to Separation of Concerns in Frontend Development · Jens Oliver Meiert”
“A Note From WIRED Leadership | WIRED”
One of the benefits of being old enough to remember the 90s is that I have an immediate scepticism of anything published by Wired.
“Meta in Myanmar, Part III. The Inside View”
Again, all the content warnings. But also this:
I think that if you make a machine and hand it out for free to everyone in the world, you’re at least partially responsible for the harm that the machine does.
“Meta in Myanmar, Part II: The Crisis - Erin Kissane’s small internet website”
ALL the content warnings.
Fuck.
“Ro Salarian: rosalarian: I spent ten years building up a…”
I don’t want to make “content,” I want to make comics, I want to make art, and I want to do it in a space that is mine. I’m not sure there’s a place for that anymore.
We have, what, maybe a decade left of our current hyperconnected global tech industry left before it becomes unsustainable because of the climate crisis and we’re wasting it on generative “AI”?
That’s where we’ve decided to spend the time that’s left?
Sheesh.
“Who Is OpenAI’s Sam Altman? Meet the Oppenheimer of Our Age”
“Target says it’s closing 9 stores due to theft. The crime data tells a different story.”
“Imposter Syndrome Driven Design and a Bedfordshire Clanger - Stephanie Stimac’s Blog”
“Why side projects are essential for creatives—and employers should embrace them | Jonas Downey”
“My Books Have Been Banned or Challenged in 16 States”
Even if the book banners do read my books, and my writing is effective and they empathize with the queer characters, their agenda is stronger than their empathy.
From 2020 but still absolutely relevant.
“Navigation API · Issue #34 · WebKit/standards-positions · GitHub”
If we get both the Navigation API and transitions, then that’d mean we’ll have fixed most issues with both SPAs and non-SPA sites making the choice largely one of implementation
I expected the AI bubble to get bad, but the scale of the bullshit still hits hard
Only those who weren’t likely to get involved in it anyway seem to have heeded any warnings
Everything I see in the LLM space is close to the diametric opposite of what I would have recommended
“Seven lies in four sentences”
Rumors that LLMs have solved then hallucination problem are greatly exaggerated.
9 months later—an eternity in current AI—it’s stilly common for LLMs to spout complete, utter bullshit.
LLMs are not fit for any sort of knowledge work
“Don’t Build Microservices, Pursue Loose Coupling - DevOps.com”
“Adactio: Journal—Websites in the dock”
I wonder if there’s much point using wrappers like Electron any more?
IMO there are only two concrete reasons left: 1. You need to make a document-oriented app. 2. The design really needs native menus to work.