A letter to John Ternus: https://marco.org/2026/04/01/letter-to-john-ternus

It's clear that AI assisted coding is dividing developers (welcome to the culture wars!). I've seen a few blog posts now that talk about how some people just "love the craft", "delight in making something just right, like knitting", etc, as opposed to people who just "want to make it work". As if that explains the divide.

How about this, some people resent the notion of being a babysitter to a stochastic token machine, hastening their own cognitive decline. Some people resent paying rent to a handful of US companies, all coming directly out of the TESCREAL human extinction cult, to be able to write software. Some people resent the "worse is better" steady decline of software quality over the past two decades, now supercharged. Some people resent that the hegemonic computing ecosystem is entirely shaped by the logic of venture capital. Some people hate that the digital commons is walled off and sold back to us. Oh and I guess some people also don't like the thought of making coding several orders of magnitude more energy intensive during a climate emergency.

But sure, no, it's really because we mourn the loss of our hobby.

From Utagawa Hiroshige’s New Edition of Shadow Making series, 1853.

More from this shadow series, and other Hiroshige prints, in our online shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/utagawa-hiroshige

I'm currently serving on district grand jury. I am forbidden by oath from ever revealing any details about any case we hear. But in general, some of the hardest details to hear are of child sexual abuse of various kinds, followed by violence against women, almost always sexual.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/many-ice-cbp-agents-allegedly-222423105.html

There are some truly evil people out there. And Trump is happy to employ them. This isn't about liberal versus conservative politics. This is about an elected administration that is dedicated to the pursuit of evil.

I expect to lose friends for saying this, and it fills me with pain, but I can't be silent.

I don't care whether you have preferred conservative or liberal policies. I don't care what party you have voted for. I myself have refused to be a straight party line voter and have voted for candidates of both parties at every level. But if you voted for Trump in the most recent election, please consider with an open conscience whether you are personally carrying blood guilt, not only for Alex Pretti, but for every other extra-judicial killing by this administration. Renee Good. Keith Porter. Parady La. Heber Sanchez Domínguez. Victor Manuel Diaz. Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz. Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres. Geraldo Lunas Campos. That list is unlikely to be complete.

And if you recognize in yourself that your vote was in error, you are redeemable. You are evil only if you continue to support evil, now that you understand that it is evil. Call your senators and representative, identify yourself as a Trump voter, and make clear that this has to stop. As a Trump voter, you have an outsized voice. Put it to righteous use. Tell your friends and family that you voted for Trump and oppose his evil actions.

And as you look at the list of names, if the only extra-judicial killings you disagree with are of white people, please take some time to reflect on what this says about you.

My heart is very heavy, and I cannot be silent.

RE: https://toad.social/@KimPerales/115956833482668960

“Apple’s Tim Cook is among a group of CEOs being eviscerated for traveling to the White House on the same day Border Patrol agents killed a Veterans Affairs nurse in Minneapolis.

"Cook, who gifted President Donald Trump a 24-karat gold desk ornament on his last White House visit, returned on Saturday to attend a dinner and screening of the first lady’s new documentary, ‘Melania.’”

When we look back on his leadership in the future, let this be Tim Cook's legacy.

...And she let herself drop to the floor.
Gustave Doré, from "Le Capitaine Fracasse" by Théophile Gautier, Paris: 1860 #illustration #art https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/dropped-floor/

Fuck it, you can respect science, and still think things are magical, knowing how things work doesn't make it less magical, it makes it more so. Embrace the whimsy, you dark soul, it's okay.

When people say “stop making things political”, they mean you should stop making them feel uncomfortable that the system that oppresses you benefits them.

Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich is an essay that anyone who wants to better understand economic and societal trends in tech should probably read.

Written in 1972, it analyzes technological revolutions such as the sewing machine and the car, but it’s surprising how the same patterns can also be applied to the era of late-capitalist tech enshittification.

The car is taken as the perfect example of early enshittification cycle.

Its introduction was welcome as a revolution for mobility and personal liberty. It allowed people to travel farther and get more done in a day.

Yet, as its production became standardized and in the hands of a few producers, while its penetration of the market increased, its marginal utility diminished - the industry started to offer fewer benefits and take more in exchange.

What was initially hailed as a personal freedom (you can take the car if your workplace is far, you can take it if you want to go shopping) became an imperative - especially in places like North America. At some point the can became a must. The industry started lobbying for more infrastructure to be built to accommodate a new car-centric world where people must use the new technology if they want to go anywhere. And that infrastructure was paid by taxpayers money - including those who didn’t use a car, and had to rely on underfunded public transport while subsidizing others’ personal luxury. And those who owned a car had to pay subscription costs to the industry in the form of fuel and maintenance (and, nowadays, even actual direct subscription costs).

There’s an “industrialization” phase in the development of disruptive technology that flips the purpose of a product on its head - from building tools to serve society, to reshape societies to serve the tool. At that point adoption is no longer optional, and those who don’t embrace the product of industrialization face exclusion (the concept of radical monopoly).

Most of the technological developments since the textile revolution can be mapped in a precise framework: a net lift, followed by a push to extract value, and finally an insistence upon the technology’s ubiquity.

Illich’s solution to the industrial tool (the “convivial tool“) is remarkably similar to the “small tech” that many of us are building or hosting nowadays.

Convivial tools are defined as sustainable small-scale local-first solutions, designed primarily to enhance the autonomy and creativity of their users.

Oops, I did it again,
I turned in the gyre
I loosed blood dimmed tides,
Oh baby baby

Oops, your things fall apart,
Mere anarchy starts;
I drowned
that innocence

This just in, I have been informed that my stance of, "no, I am not interested in hearing your anecdote about how the Plagiarism Machine saved you some time once" means that I "live in a bubble".

I went to pottery class today and opened by asking several of my classmates if they knew how to use the slab roller upstairs. Nobody did but everyone wanted to, so when the teacher got in I’m like “hey teach, do you know how to use the slab roller upstairs” and she’s like “no” (she’s a visiting artist who only got here a couple months ago so this is not very surprising) “but I’ve used a lot of different ones and I bet we can figure it out.” Me: “do you want to go on a Journey of Discovery?” Everyone: yes. YES. *cue sickos faces* so we all thunder up the stairs periodically shouting JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY and our teacher snags another person who uses the slab roller A Lot and this person gives us a very thorough lesson and demonstration and every so often someone else wanders through and asks what’s happening and we all go JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY at them and now everyone knows how to use the slab roller and honestly I cannot recommend this approach enough as a way to make learning new skills and life generally more exciting.

#LifeHack

A reminder: today is the Trans Day of Remembrance. For those unfamiliar, this is when we remember trans people who were killed by acts of violence.

On a day like this, and in the current broader crisis as well: it can be hard to remember that you are loved and to allow yourself to feel that love. Please take extra care of yourselves today.

Practicing both compassion for ourselves and compassion for each other is incredibly important in grief. Although many of us have lost people directly, there are also many who have not and who want to support those in their lives who have.

Here are a couple of resources that will hopefully help.

Self-compassion in grief:

https://www.apenneyforyourthoughts.com/mental-health-topics-1/self-compassionduringgriefandloss

Compassion for others in grief:

https://www.cedarcounselingandwellness.com/kindness-in-crisis/

**Edit** I wanted to add a more explicit request in here, rather than just leaving it to inference: please tell trans people in your life that you love and appreciate them every day but especially today. :trans: :blobfoxheartcute:

#TransDayOfRemembrance

PRESENTING, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME

A WAY TO NUMERICALLY CLASSIFY REPLYGUYS

HEAVEN OR HELL

CYBERSMITH OR HANS FROM STUTTGART

THE FEDIVERSE REPLYGUY SCORESHEET

NOW YOU TOO CAN CRUNCH THE NUMBERS

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16qwltxhxJJPjCswz7dukAeMO-woAxymd_oirZUYg5Kk/edit?usp=sharing

"If you're not on board with AI you're going to get left behind"

Boost if you'd like to be left behind and would consider paying extra for a life without this bullshit.

###
3k boost edit: everyone who said a variant of "why should I pay" is right, but the world is wrong.

Mozilla: we are developing our AI features for Firefox with user input and emphasis on user choice

users: please stop. no-one who specifically uses alternative browser Firefox wants this. our choice is no

Mozilla:

PSA: I am not a goth.

Okay, so I wear only black clothes, listen to The Sisters of Mercy and other goth bands a lot, and am generally gloomy, but I am not a goth!

I'm just from Leeds.

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" well i asked my tarot deck and it suggested i stick ten swords in your back

You want Mastodon to succeed? Maybe don’t be this kind of reply guy.
https://mastodon.social/@olafurw/115441914746986752

It's been a while since I've done a non-political nerd thread. And I wish I could do them more often! So let's do a palette cleanse to talk about this article from WaPo that is technically true, but deeply misinformative about US electric markets. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/10/25/data-centers-electricity-prices-rise/