@weralabaj.bsky.social
It's sad that a company that easily can afford to pay artists handsomely is doing things like that...
Coincidentally, I'm right now in the middle of a community initiative to get us hand-made Christmas lights done by an Artist (big A!).
And you know what?
People love & generously support it!
Coincidentally, I'm right now in the middle of a community initiative to get us hand-made Christmas lights done by an Artist (big A!).
And you know what?
People love & generously support it!
McDonald's has released an AI-generated Christmas ad
The studio behind it says they 'hardly slept' for several weeks while writing AI prompts and refining the shots — 'AI didn't make this film. We did'
Comments have been turned off on YouTube
The studio behind it says they 'hardly slept' for several weeks while writing AI prompts and refining the shots — 'AI didn't make this film. We did'
Comments have been turned off on YouTube
December 9, 2025 at 11:11 AM
It's sad that a company that easily can afford to pay artists handsomely is doing things like that...
Coincidentally, I'm right now in the middle of a community initiative to get us hand-made Christmas lights done by an Artist (big A!).
And you know what?
People love & generously support it!
Coincidentally, I'm right now in the middle of a community initiative to get us hand-made Christmas lights done by an Artist (big A!).
And you know what?
People love & generously support it!
One point caught my attention - the effect of AI being the amplifier.
I think it's a similar thing with debt in finance.
Debt in itself is neither good nor bad in moral terms, it's just a tool. What is good or not is the terms and risk compared to the expected outcome and probability of success.
I think it's a similar thing with debt in finance.
Debt in itself is neither good nor bad in moral terms, it's just a tool. What is good or not is the terms and risk compared to the expected outcome and probability of success.
A new academic paper from CMU analysing ~800 OSS repos shows AI is still making code worse.
AI speeds up code generation briefly, but code quality degrades quickly. Complexity rises faster than the amount of code added.
I wrote up the findings and my thoughts 👇
AI speeds up code generation briefly, but code quality degrades quickly. Complexity rises faster than the amount of code added.
I wrote up the findings and my thoughts 👇
AI Is still making code worse: A new CMU study confirms | Rob Bowley
blog.robbowley.net
December 4, 2025 at 2:05 PM
One point caught my attention - the effect of AI being the amplifier.
I think it's a similar thing with debt in finance.
Debt in itself is neither good nor bad in moral terms, it's just a tool. What is good or not is the terms and risk compared to the expected outcome and probability of success.
I think it's a similar thing with debt in finance.
Debt in itself is neither good nor bad in moral terms, it's just a tool. What is good or not is the terms and risk compared to the expected outcome and probability of success.
That article really resonated. After working for almost 15 years, mostly on legacy projects, it's obvious that code quality has little relevance to the overall "business success".
Of course, there's a limit, but we focus too much on red herrings.
deadsimpletech.com/blog/failed_...
Of course, there's a limit, but we focus too much on red herrings.
deadsimpletech.com/blog/failed_...
Failed software projects are strategic failures | deadSimpleTech
The thing is, projects don't usually fail like that: I'd be hard-pressed to think of any projects where the strategic underpinnings of the project are sound, the supporting logistics and suchlike behi...
deadsimpletech.com
December 4, 2025 at 9:53 AM
That article really resonated. After working for almost 15 years, mostly on legacy projects, it's obvious that code quality has little relevance to the overall "business success".
Of course, there's a limit, but we focus too much on red herrings.
deadsimpletech.com/blog/failed_...
Of course, there's a limit, but we focus too much on red herrings.
deadsimpletech.com/blog/failed_...
Funny but not funny... 1st world problems.
My family got so good at cooking that finding a good enough restaurant food is hard.
A lot of "great" places recommended by others are either disappointing or cause stomach aches - too salty, oily or just not tasty at all.
Same for coffee. The best at home.
My family got so good at cooking that finding a good enough restaurant food is hard.
A lot of "great" places recommended by others are either disappointing or cause stomach aches - too salty, oily or just not tasty at all.
Same for coffee. The best at home.
December 4, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Funny but not funny... 1st world problems.
My family got so good at cooking that finding a good enough restaurant food is hard.
A lot of "great" places recommended by others are either disappointing or cause stomach aches - too salty, oily or just not tasty at all.
Same for coffee. The best at home.
My family got so good at cooking that finding a good enough restaurant food is hard.
A lot of "great" places recommended by others are either disappointing or cause stomach aches - too salty, oily or just not tasty at all.
Same for coffee. The best at home.
#entshittification is probably most visible in marketplaces. Yesterday I had a tea with neighbours and we spent a large chunk of it talking about how our Polish equivalent amazon makes their lives miserable as small business owners...
Makes me angry to see how bad software can get.
Makes me angry to see how bad software can get.
November 24, 2025 at 8:49 AM
#entshittification is probably most visible in marketplaces. Yesterday I had a tea with neighbours and we spent a large chunk of it talking about how our Polish equivalent amazon makes their lives miserable as small business owners...
Makes me angry to see how bad software can get.
Makes me angry to see how bad software can get.
I often realize it when I find it strange that something just works and does the thing it should be doing.
You had one job and you did it well. How amazing and rare ;)
That shows you how low our expectations are.
You had one job and you did it well. How amazing and rare ;)
That shows you how low our expectations are.
You've got to hand it to the software industry for coming up with new and ingenious ways to not solve problems people actually want solved.
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 AM
I often realize it when I find it strange that something just works and does the thing it should be doing.
You had one job and you did it well. How amazing and rare ;)
That shows you how low our expectations are.
You had one job and you did it well. How amazing and rare ;)
That shows you how low our expectations are.
I'm just going over this with a friend that has a great idea for a medical software app :D
I think we should get better at explaining people how expensive and difficult custom software is. It should always be the last resort, after exhausting all other options IMO.
Unless... you're a dev yourself :P
I think we should get better at explaining people how expensive and difficult custom software is. It should always be the last resort, after exhausting all other options IMO.
Unless... you're a dev yourself :P
The org has spent around $50k of dev time to save on a $5k software license.
And that's not even counting the opportunity cost of the other things that could have been worked on.
The hidden costs of "how hard could it be".
bsky.app/profile/wild...
And that's not even counting the opportunity cost of the other things that could have been worked on.
The hidden costs of "how hard could it be".
bsky.app/profile/wild...
November 7, 2025 at 11:07 AM
I'm just going over this with a friend that has a great idea for a medical software app :D
I think we should get better at explaining people how expensive and difficult custom software is. It should always be the last resort, after exhausting all other options IMO.
Unless... you're a dev yourself :P
I think we should get better at explaining people how expensive and difficult custom software is. It should always be the last resort, after exhausting all other options IMO.
Unless... you're a dev yourself :P
It's easy to find problems in many software products, but every time I make a withdrawal in Deel (like today), it feels so good it's almost surreal.
Looks so obvious, just "as things should be", yet for years I had so many challenges with various systems
Looks so obvious, just "as things should be", yet for years I had so many challenges with various systems
November 6, 2025 at 7:12 AM
It's easy to find problems in many software products, but every time I make a withdrawal in Deel (like today), it feels so good it's almost surreal.
Looks so obvious, just "as things should be", yet for years I had so many challenges with various systems
Looks so obvious, just "as things should be", yet for years I had so many challenges with various systems
An image worth 10'000 word essay ;)
November 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
An image worth 10'000 word essay ;)
"Things that cannot happen... happen. All the time"
Today is one of those days when that reality hits really hard ;) In my experience, this is one of the major reasons why working with legacy systems is so challenging and interesting at the same time.
Today is one of those days when that reality hits really hard ;) In my experience, this is one of the major reasons why working with legacy systems is so challenging and interesting at the same time.
November 3, 2025 at 8:32 AM
"Things that cannot happen... happen. All the time"
Today is one of those days when that reality hits really hard ;) In my experience, this is one of the major reasons why working with legacy systems is so challenging and interesting at the same time.
Today is one of those days when that reality hits really hard ;) In my experience, this is one of the major reasons why working with legacy systems is so challenging and interesting at the same time.
That conversation didn't dissappoint, especially on points where there was some disagreement between the panelists :)
My key takeaways: Zitron - many "useful AI" examples are not really LLMs, or where there before the current wave of hype, they're the "old school, different kind of AI" rebranded.
My key takeaways: Zitron - many "useful AI" examples are not really LLMs, or where there before the current wave of hype, they're the "old school, different kind of AI" rebranded.
Here’s the panel I did with Cory Doctorow a few days ago in Seattle!
youtu.be/Tz71pIWbFyc?...
youtu.be/Tz71pIWbFyc?...
Enshittification and the Rot Economy: A Deep Dives Conversation with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron
YouTube video by Clarion West
youtu.be
October 31, 2025 at 9:30 AM
That conversation didn't dissappoint, especially on points where there was some disagreement between the panelists :)
My key takeaways: Zitron - many "useful AI" examples are not really LLMs, or where there before the current wave of hype, they're the "old school, different kind of AI" rebranded.
My key takeaways: Zitron - many "useful AI" examples are not really LLMs, or where there before the current wave of hype, they're the "old school, different kind of AI" rebranded.
Trade-off - a decision between two GOOD options.
I read it a while ago, and it keeps coming to my mind very often.
I realized that saying yes was often easy, but many important decisions were about what I was ready to say no to.
So true in life, so true in software.
I read it a while ago, and it keeps coming to my mind very often.
I realized that saying yes was often easy, but many important decisions were about what I was ready to say no to.
So true in life, so true in software.
October 31, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Trade-off - a decision between two GOOD options.
I read it a while ago, and it keeps coming to my mind very often.
I realized that saying yes was often easy, but many important decisions were about what I was ready to say no to.
So true in life, so true in software.
I read it a while ago, and it keeps coming to my mind very often.
I realized that saying yes was often easy, but many important decisions were about what I was ready to say no to.
So true in life, so true in software.
As a Kanban/Lean fan I think that the concept of "muda" is something painfully missing from Scrum and other Agile approaches in software.
It's always more, faster, better until it becomes overwhelming and exhausting.
But sometimes you can gain so much more by reducing waste and tiny improvments.
It's always more, faster, better until it becomes overwhelming and exhausting.
But sometimes you can gain so much more by reducing waste and tiny improvments.
Really like this, nothing new to those already familiar with these practices but nicely framed - good resource to share with folks
The Eight Wastes of Modern Software Delivery - Matt Shaw
What's really slowing your team down and how to fix it.
matthew-shaw.github.io
October 29, 2025 at 8:58 AM
As a Kanban/Lean fan I think that the concept of "muda" is something painfully missing from Scrum and other Agile approaches in software.
It's always more, faster, better until it becomes overwhelming and exhausting.
But sometimes you can gain so much more by reducing waste and tiny improvments.
It's always more, faster, better until it becomes overwhelming and exhausting.
But sometimes you can gain so much more by reducing waste and tiny improvments.
Question: Have you ever experienced a full-blown domain crisis in your project?
Some misalignment in a core part, very, very deep or fundamental, so big that it was easier/faster to set things aside and rewrite a significant chunk of the system (even whole?) rather than try to gradually improve it?
Some misalignment in a core part, very, very deep or fundamental, so big that it was easier/faster to set things aside and rewrite a significant chunk of the system (even whole?) rather than try to gradually improve it?
October 29, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Question: Have you ever experienced a full-blown domain crisis in your project?
Some misalignment in a core part, very, very deep or fundamental, so big that it was easier/faster to set things aside and rewrite a significant chunk of the system (even whole?) rather than try to gradually improve it?
Some misalignment in a core part, very, very deep or fundamental, so big that it was easier/faster to set things aside and rewrite a significant chunk of the system (even whole?) rather than try to gradually improve it?
One thing I wish somebody had told me 10+ years ago is that what you learn about software in training, books, and conferences has as much resemblance to reality as Instagram houses to your life.
Yes, there are some useful skills to learn, worthy aspirations to have, etc.
Yes, there are some useful skills to learn, worthy aspirations to have, etc.
October 28, 2025 at 2:41 PM
One thing I wish somebody had told me 10+ years ago is that what you learn about software in training, books, and conferences has as much resemblance to reality as Instagram houses to your life.
Yes, there are some useful skills to learn, worthy aspirations to have, etc.
Yes, there are some useful skills to learn, worthy aspirations to have, etc.
One more reason to keep all my house appliances as dumb as possible. Annoyingly, it's increasingly hard to get "not-smart" versions of everything.
Why would I want my treadmill or washing machine to fail without an internet connection?
It's more than enough trouble that they need electricity.
Why would I want my treadmill or washing machine to fail without an internet connection?
It's more than enough trouble that they need electricity.
October 26, 2025 at 10:40 AM
One more reason to keep all my house appliances as dumb as possible. Annoyingly, it's increasingly hard to get "not-smart" versions of everything.
Why would I want my treadmill or washing machine to fail without an internet connection?
It's more than enough trouble that they need electricity.
Why would I want my treadmill or washing machine to fail without an internet connection?
It's more than enough trouble that they need electricity.
Building a house is an endless supply of software inspirations.
It never occurred to us to check if windows had a consistent size across walls, though it seems obvious in retrospect.
Turns out it matters a lot in windows with glazing bars (local style).
If only our architect were Steve Job's fan...
It never occurred to us to check if windows had a consistent size across walls, though it seems obvious in retrospect.
Turns out it matters a lot in windows with glazing bars (local style).
If only our architect were Steve Job's fan...
October 23, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Building a house is an endless supply of software inspirations.
It never occurred to us to check if windows had a consistent size across walls, though it seems obvious in retrospect.
Turns out it matters a lot in windows with glazing bars (local style).
If only our architect were Steve Job's fan...
It never occurred to us to check if windows had a consistent size across walls, though it seems obvious in retrospect.
Turns out it matters a lot in windows with glazing bars (local style).
If only our architect were Steve Job's fan...
I agree, but for some businesses it's ok to treat devs as just "coders". The understanding is covered by other people or processes.
It's like McDonald's vs gourmet restaurant. It's not the question of which is better, they're different businesses. But do you even know which one you are? :)
It's like McDonald's vs gourmet restaurant. It's not the question of which is better, they're different businesses. But do you even know which one you are? :)
October 23, 2025 at 7:42 AM
I agree, but for some businesses it's ok to treat devs as just "coders". The understanding is covered by other people or processes.
It's like McDonald's vs gourmet restaurant. It's not the question of which is better, they're different businesses. But do you even know which one you are? :)
It's like McDonald's vs gourmet restaurant. It's not the question of which is better, they're different businesses. But do you even know which one you are? :)
I love this place. I feel so lucky to have a fully #remotework and can go for a walk to visit the castle and other amazing places nearby. No $$$ can make up for this.
Photo by Roman Szymański, our local photographer.
Photo by Roman Szymański, our local photographer.
October 20, 2025 at 9:59 AM
I love this place. I feel so lucky to have a fully #remotework and can go for a walk to visit the castle and other amazing places nearby. No $$$ can make up for this.
Photo by Roman Szymański, our local photographer.
Photo by Roman Szymański, our local photographer.
One of the more impactful features I implemented a while ago was matching the order of printed documents with address labels.
Programming effort + QA and deployment - 2-3 hrs.
The manual effort saved - a few person-hours per week, or over half a month of a full-time salaried position per year.
Programming effort + QA and deployment - 2-3 hrs.
The manual effort saved - a few person-hours per week, or over half a month of a full-time salaried position per year.
October 20, 2025 at 8:30 AM
One of the more impactful features I implemented a while ago was matching the order of printed documents with address labels.
Programming effort + QA and deployment - 2-3 hrs.
The manual effort saved - a few person-hours per week, or over half a month of a full-time salaried position per year.
Programming effort + QA and deployment - 2-3 hrs.
The manual effort saved - a few person-hours per week, or over half a month of a full-time salaried position per year.
I'm similar, it's very satisfying when you see how things improve and in the most messy codebases usually you have a lot of quick wins that immediately make a difference.
But... that always makes me think of this lady www.instagram.com/reel/C84pfeX...
But... that always makes me think of this lady www.instagram.com/reel/C84pfeX...
October 9, 2025 at 7:22 AM
I'm similar, it's very satisfying when you see how things improve and in the most messy codebases usually you have a lot of quick wins that immediately make a difference.
But... that always makes me think of this lady www.instagram.com/reel/C84pfeX...
But... that always makes me think of this lady www.instagram.com/reel/C84pfeX...
Reposted
I think my data-binding library for creating Excel spreadsheets is almost ready for a 1.0
github.com/SimonCropp/E...
Already using it in anger at work.
Spreadsheet code that would have taken a few hours to build now takes a few minutes.
github.com/SimonCropp/E...
Already using it in anger at work.
Spreadsheet code that would have taken a few hours to build now takes a few minutes.
GitHub - SimonCropp/Excelsior: Excelsior is a Excel spreadsheet generation library with a distinctive data-driven approach.
Excelsior is a Excel spreadsheet generation library with a distinctive data-driven approach. - SimonCropp/Excelsior
github.com
October 8, 2025 at 11:43 PM
I think my data-binding library for creating Excel spreadsheets is almost ready for a 1.0
github.com/SimonCropp/E...
Already using it in anger at work.
Spreadsheet code that would have taken a few hours to build now takes a few minutes.
github.com/SimonCropp/E...
Already using it in anger at work.
Spreadsheet code that would have taken a few hours to build now takes a few minutes.