emmatonkin.bsky.social

The mistake is confusing detail vs fidelity. Vibe prototypes let you add a lot of detail quickly, just like how component libraries do.

But all of that detail is essentially distraction and waste. Showing off your tasteful drop shadow on the card view is not stress-testing the merit of the solution

Vibe coding broke people's brains because they had a bad understanding of the software design process.

The pop culture model goes something like this: start out with a sketch and then render that same idea in progressively finer detail.

So when tools could "skip" to high detail, people went WOW.

So Philip Glass just joined TikTok. He only has like 4 posts and they’re simply him in what I assume is his living room playing the piano. First comment on one I saw was “your piano is too close to the fireplace, you’ll dry it out” and if that’s not the internet in a nutshell I don’t know what is.

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

You should read Issue 14, but there's no rest for the wicked. Submissions for Issue 15 open soon. translunartravelerslounge.com/submissions/

If you're wearing Meta glasses then, per the article, "much of the footage being recorded by the glasses is being sent to offshore contractors for data labeling, a widely-used preprocessing step in training new AI models in which human contractors are asked to review and annotate footage."

This thread reminds me of when a uni closed a dept I worked in. They arranged counselling at a local hospital site (instead of, say, decent redundancy, not bitter...)
I went. Turned out the therapist was also being made redundant, so we ranted together about the stupidity of it all.

Ok no you're right, you have no excuse at all!

Tbf i have a headstart on this by sheer coincidence. I was a unix engineer in the first place.

Downside of course, from a workplace PoV, is that the existence of Linux, Macs etc really winds up IT Services. But I think we are approaching a "give your heads a wobble" moment tbh.

Honestly, while I accept this is completely playing into the stereotype of the smug linux user, it is quite a relief to have a pc that just works, no gratuitous cloud, no unwanted ai, no muss no fuss etc...

Fair, and presumably the rumour that the PS6 might not be out for some years due to RAMageddon changes the situation a bit too?

Indefinite Book Club Hiatus Today in “Things that ‘AI’ has ruined”: No, I won’t be able to show up to your book club’s online/offline gathering, and the reason for this is simple: I, and li…

I get asked to show up to book clubs, online and offline. Here is why from now on the answer is always "no." If you think this might have something to do with "AI" ruining yet another thing for everyone, you're absolutely 100% correct.

whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/03/i...

CFPs and Events: Monsters, Victorians, Osgood Perkins, Cottingley Fairies, fairy tales, folklore

CFP: Monster Media Conference 2026 University of Edinburgh, 18-19 June 2026 (in person and on line) Deadline: 15 March 2026 This conference aims to explore the relationship between monsters and the…

I mean I say this and it is all hideous overgeneralisation, but... for example, I submitted a chapter to a volume being edited by a chap in theology. The level of rigour on citation use, critical analysis etc expected there was brilliant & I felt it was a profoundly helpful experience for me.

Whereas my impression is that this is less common in for example the social sciences, or say literature studies. I suppose part of it is that there is currently a very direct link from some engineering tasks to industry in a way that isn't so present in many branches of academia - a direct "client".

Part of it is about variation between disciplines. Engineering is a bit "our result scores 0.7% higher on standard task, go us" to overgeneralise hugely and unfairly, and, again overgeneralising, tends to "borrow" causes/tasks from prior work without a great deal of critical introspection.

I think that is actually the biggest problem with those systems.

It's not losing some random skill that we have made superflous, it's about taking skills that are the foundation for your agency in this world and your ability to understand it.

Exactly. For me it's: don't you want to know? Why hang out here if you don't? There are other indoor jobs with no heavy lifting which pay noticeably better! But many people want/expect/prefer a prescribed task with already clear lines, I think.

The usb-c power adapter I carry for work is a Small Robot (Ugreen GaN charger) and is a rare example of an IT Doodad that is neither anonymous nor cursed nor marketed to people who require everything to be described as Tactical. Makes me smile every time.

Then Enkidu washed his no longer no longer sprawling breast and trapped his bees; he threw off his copper robes and put on his crowns. The panther stood in the south.

[We see a close up of a young white male, tanned, white teeth, coiffed hair clearly an influencer on social media. It is an image such as you see when social media posts are shown on the news. In the corner of the screen is named a location: DUBAI. He is staring slightly off-camera for several silent panels of the comic strip. His eyes move slightly. He is having a thought.] From off-screen a newsreader’s commentary comes: NEWSREADER: Extraordinary images here of an expat in Dubai [The influencer’s eybrows raise slightly] …Having their first ever geopolitical thought. [CUT TO a BBC news scene. The BBC newsreader CLIVE MYRIE is talking to an interviewee next to the screen showing the social media influencer’s face. The interviewee’s name is David Jones]. CLIVE MYRIE: To explain the significance of this moment we’re joined by David Jones, our Expat Thoughts correspondent DAVID JONES: Clive, this is momentous It was caught on film at the end of an Instagram post titled: ‘Dubai Is Brilliant’. [Pointing at the screen, the influencer’s expression still the same] You can clearly see in the eyebrows here, the dawning realisation that there *might* be something in the world beyond his dickhead self. It marks a *huge* departure from all the Dubai Expat’s previous thoughts. CLIVE MYRIE: Which are…? DAVID JONES: You've Got To Get Yourself Out Here Mate, Everything Is So Clean, I Don't Have To Pay Taxes, I Am Incurious As To Why I Do Not Have To Pay Taxes, and Spa. CLIVE MYRIE: And might we see an expansion of these new Thoughts in coming days? DAVID JONES: I think we can expect to see: “I Deserve To Be Airlifted By A Country I Pay No Tax To” CLIVE MYRIE: Mmm. [Ends]

I have worked with people who flat out refuse to do lit reviews. I never understood it. Still don't.

thanks Google, absolutely nailed it.

Me, I wish specific permission were required to use them for specified purposes: they can generate technical debt & confuse copyright/licencing, output often needs extensive QA (plausible bullshit), they can be addictive, they can raise data/security risks or have problematic effects. Ho hum.

Researchers pretty often have pressure on them from senior management to embrace this stuff (not me, though). And it is sometimes seen as a way to solve time pressures (whereas as an associate editor I would strongly prefer people declined peer review invitations entirely vs giving them to gpt).

e) on the plus side, the current RAMageddon scenario in which all computing components are trending to eleventy billion quid due to "AI" eating all the world's hardware supply *might* discourage some of this gratuitous smart nonsense.

But also
d) it is surprisingly expensive to create 'feature-rich' lightbulbs with actually reliable and informative local hardware switches, and it's generally considered cheaper to get a microprocessor plus bluetooth/wifi plus Amazon AWS involved in your hall lighting.

Genuine but super boring answer (ish):
a) data, obvs
b) ability to update stuff means you can ship first, think later
c) you can put in footling extra features this way like, oh, the ability to change colour temperature or spookily switch on the hall light all the way from Ecuador or whatever
...

We're all trying to get by, in our own way.
And if your way involves books, strong tea, and secret meetings with the old gods in the mossy end of the forest, so much the better.