RE: https://xoxo.zone/@davidcelis/117553632947083904

Within the last few weeks:

- I called the hospital to figure out a billing issue. The billing department said to call back another day because their system was down.
- I went to catch a flight. Delta had to delay boarding because their system was down.
- I tried to order food from a major national chain using the first-party app. The login form was broken, and the "Face ID" button did nothing.

Correlation is not causation but the correlations are pretty damn strong right now

Quietly waiting for more companies to discover that "AI-free environment" is the magic phrase that will attract the smartest, most dedicated experts in the world to come work for you. We don't often get magic phrases with zero downsides but we've got one right now and you can just, you know, use it

#antiAI #noAI

Just published "Why do people say AI codegen has improved?", a list of 20 reasons why someone might say AI is better at programming than it was six months ago.

Spoiler: they've been saying this for years, and it's not fully rational.

https://isaaclyman.com/blog/posts/why-people-say-ai-has-improved/

#blog #programming #ai #genAI #antiAI

Whenever you’re about to use an app or website, make sure to pause and ask yourself, “am I scamming myself out of participating in my own life”

Q: How many people live in Brazil?

A: At least a brazillion.

Just had average Mastodon user over for dinner. Great vibes. Does anyone know how to uninstall "linux" or put motion smoothing back on the TV

Just published “Four essential laws of programming”: http://isaaclyman.com/blog/posts/essential-laws/

“Good software can only be crafted by programmers who understand it and put significant effort into making sure other programmers can understand it, too. There’s no other way.”

#programming #SoftwareDevelopment

A few words about my original mobile game, Sootly:

- Free
- No ads
- No subscriptions
- No cookies
- No in-app purchases
- No AI in the app
- No AI used to make the app
- No contracts with the military or ICE
- Doesn't fund the state of Israel
- Doesn't fund Omarchy
- Doesn't fund anyone or anything, actually
- This list gets longer all the time. ugh
- It's a game that doesn't want anything from you. take it or leave it
- I'm not very good at making money

https://sootly.isaaclyman.com/

#games

Happy #50forFOSS Friday. Today I donated €50 to #Godot, the free and open-source game engine behind Slay the Spire II, Brotato, and many other great games.

Thanks, Godot!

https://godotengine.org

https://50forFOSS.org

#gamedev

It’s 2026 where is my open-source toaster that can be taken apart and put back together with a single flathead screwdriver. Where is my flat-pack metal toaster that could survive a dropkick and a night in the rain. Where is my toaster that looks like a miniature ENIAC and if you don’t like that you can 3d-print a new faceplate.

Please, I am begging someone to take my money

Our toaster is on its last legs (a cheap one, somehow lasted 12 years) and shopping for a new one is making me unreasonably upset

It’s a toaster? How hard can it be? It needs to apply heat to bread for 1-10 minutes

I should be able to buy a user-repairable toaster that will last me 10+ years for less than $50.

Instead, all toasters are disposable, priced by style and appearance, and (according to reviews) consistently fail to do their one job. OR they cost $200.

If you haven't done anything silly or cozy lately, consider this a warning

You must do something silly or cozy as soon as possible

It is both urgent and important

You deserve it

Notes for a future blog post:

- The primary asset produced by a software team is not the software, but the team.

- Code is primarily documentation, not function.

- In math, "velocity" includes both speed and direction. In software, direction is so important as to trivialize speed.

- The level of care exercised by the programmer is a load-bearing intangible.

#programming #SoftwareDevelopment

Two people who are intent on giving each other gifts will produce (and gain) far more than if they were just exchanging for economic benefit, which sort of disproves the whole premise of capitalism if you think about it

I bring this up because *someone* who's infamous for terrible sound mixing just made a blockbuster movie. I'd really like to see it, and I would also like to understand what the actors are saying, because that would enhance my enjoyment of the movie.

But there are like 2 open captioned showings this week and none of them are at the theater down the road from me.

I love open-captioned movies but the ones I go to are always half-empty, so for anyone who doesn't know:

CLOSE CAPTIONED means you need to request a special device to see the movie captions. It might attach to your seat. They won't be on the screen.

OPEN CAPTIONED means the captions are on the screen, like when you toggle them on your TV.

Lots of theaters do open captions but only for certain showings. If we all buy tickets to those showings, they'll do more of them.

#movies #accessibility

*gaston voice*
when I was a goose I laid six dozen eggs
minus one for my stockholders’ gain
but now that I’m grown I lay three measly eggs
for I know they don’t value my paaaaaain

Why is every website like this now

#ai

Also it’s not an academic discipline and they’re not good at it. They’re good at extracting wealth, not spending it. You know who’s good at spending money? Someone who’s living on $100 a month after rent.

Always makes me laugh how billionaires realized they needed to be considered “good” at something because too many people were asking why they deserved half of society’s wealth, so they came up with “capital allocation” which is a synonym for “spending money” but with more syllables so it sounds like an academic discipline.

It’s like eating all the pizza at a party and claiming you deserve it because you’re a “pepperoni extrapolation expert”