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Stewart Webb

@nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social

150 followers 77 following 250 posts

codebase historian / professional computer wrangler, proud one-fifth of the australian bluesky user base (melbourne chapter). also online at https://swebb.id.au

swebb.id.au

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 6h

Does this let you basically keep a long-term log/record of your main following feed? That’s honestly what I want from a self-hosted Bluesky slice

Reposted by Stewart Webb

Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 1d

Bring back inscrutable security posters

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 2d

It would presumably be illegal for any of those 100 apps to be made available in Germany / the EU?

Reposted by Stewart Webb

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

“EXTRA, EXTRA - READ ALL ABOUT IT! BRITISH MAN YELLS AT TECH INDUSTRY ON INTERNET!”

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

“EXTRA, EXTRA - READ ALL ABOUT IT! BRITISH MAN YELLS AT TECH INDUSTRY ON INTERNET!”

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

Heading out for my lunch break now - will do the rounds of the supermarkets / Officeworks 🫡

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

“Mad As Hell” is also the name of a local Aus TV show so it may be a reference to that too:

iview.abc.net.au/show/shaun-m...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_M...

Shaun Micallef's MAD AS HELL

Host Shaun Micallef is joined once again by the Mad As Hell team including; Francis Greenslade, Emily Taheny, Christie Whelan Browne, Tosh Greenslade and Stephen Hall.

iview.abc.net.au

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Reposted by Stewart Webb

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 5d

Also: please put in the newspaper that I’m mad

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 5d

My Financial Times interview got reprinted on the front page of the newspaper The Australian Financial Review with an incredible illustration of the contents of my mind and the big handle I turn when I blog

www.afr.com/technology/t...

Mad as hell: the man calling BS on big tech
righteous
energy so lamilar trom his
podcasts. "Look, when it comes down to it, everything's like this: it's f--ed, and you are not insane for feeling bad," he tells me. "You are not stupid for feeling wronged. Things are unfair and you should f--ing say you're angry."
Zitron monologues with the visceral dis-
of the washed-up
broadcaster
Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network: he's mad as hell and hes not going to take it any more. In the film, Beale delivers one of cinemas most famous rants about disillusionment and powerlessness in the face of corporate domination but is ultimately
exploited by his bosses for views. Beale was deranged, Zitron says (Zitron is not, "thanks to a wonderful therapist I see regularly"), but the character's sincerity, turning a personal grievance into a collective howl of frustration is something to aim for. "Emotionally and sincerely explaining why shit sucks, that's compelling, he says.
Over the next couple of hours together, I will hear plenty of breathless tirades. It is, I come to understand, Zitron's default way of expressing himself. His arguments make my head spin, oscillating between grand observations on the business of technology and unguarded revelations about his mental
health. Sometimes he reminds me of an opinionated teenager who hasn't yet developed the social skills to know when not to take themselves so seriously. "Tve been told my whole goddamn life to calm down, that I'm too much," he says. But with each unburdening I notice more and more a well of vulnerab-ility; a need to be listened to and liked.
Zitron's path from hobbyist blogger to one of big tech's punchiest critics happened first very slowly then all at once. Born in Hammersmith,
west London, his was a
mostly normal but, he admits, friendless childhood. He did badly at school, struggling with ADHD and dyspraxia, a disorder that affects fine motor skills, but found solace in gadgets, the internet and online fantasy rol…

onmental Protection Agency for policing the don't have that in me. I find the idea of Ed
internet - although he has little hope that
catron the chancerreal unny because is
anything reining in big tech will happen dur-
just me, I dont have a mask I put on." Hegoes
ing Donald Trump's second term. But when on: The irony is my mask would probably
asked how he would actually solve some of be a bit less emotional, a bit less aggressive
the issues he sees with the tech world. his
about this stilla
answers become almost metaphysical.
In many ways, The Sphere - a $US2.3 bil-
"We need something that savs vou cant
hon LED-wrapped orb just off the Vegas
make shit worse like this," he says. Silicon strip - is the perfect analogy for the tech
valley needs a reckoning with how man
world.as tron sees it. It is an overwhelm
liars there are. I think we need a better moral ing visual assault, its 15,000 square metres of
society in general, but in the valley alone .
screens demanding total, verugo-inducing
he goes on to list, again, the tech bosses he immersion, and it lost SUS500 million last
thinks are makins the world worse
year. It is a lascinating, pointless shrine to
Last year, Casey Newton, who co-hosts scale and spectacle.
The New York Times tech nodcast Hard Fork
Zitron and Thave left the Venetian to watch
defined two camps of Al critics in an article
the movie created for The Sphere, and shown
titled The phony comforts of Al scepticism
there at least once a day. Postcard from Earth
The first camp, which Newton says is made directed by Darren Aronofsky. As metaphors
up ol techs external critics, Delieve ALIS upon which to trame this aracle go. it is
fake and it sucks", while the second - New-
almost too on the nose. Fifty minutes of foot-
ton's camp - consists of internal critics who
age or earth, loosely Iramed around a science
think Al is real and dangerous. Newton fiction plotline in which humans have aban-
namechecked Marcus as the archetype of doned the planet through spa…

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

How many is “a lot”? Local supermarket had a handful more - there are maybe two other places I know nearby I can check out too

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

Two copies acquired and distributed to the lunch tables of my corporate tech job office 🙂

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 5d

Yooooo. Hello from Australia. Time to go buy a copy 😅

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 9d

It just adds to the message honestly

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 9d

That fucking font… it’s so funny how every GPT poster looks exactly the same

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 9d

“The magic chatbox systems didn’t provide any return on investment in coding. Clearly this means we didn’t apply it hard enough.”
??????????

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 9d

> To Bain & Company, companies will need to fully commit themselves to realize the gains they’ve been promised.
> “Real value comes from applying generative AI across the entire software development life cycle, not just coding,” the report reads.
Wtf is this insane cognitive dissonance???

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Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 12d

Another news event in the TikTok ban / forced U.S. sale, another time to repost this from @junlper.beer

onion person @junlper.beer · Jan 18

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 12d

“quick question: what the fuck?”

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 14d

youtu.be/-opBifFfsMY basically this video

Generative AI is a Parasitic Cancer

YouTube video by Freya Holmér

youtu.be

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 15d

NOT THE BEES

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

Not me still writing class components and setState() calls in the 2020s

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

I am interested in running models locally at some point. But it seems it may depend on the amount of GPU memory you can get your hands on… see this writeup I just got around to publishing swebb.id.au/blog/2025-02...

swebb.id.au

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

research.nvidia.com/labs/lpr/slm... yeah this one. The phrase “agentic AI” always makes me nauseous though.

Small Language Models are the Future of Agentic AI

Project website for the paper 'Small Language Models are the Future of Agentic AI'

research.nvidia.com

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

Ah yeah cool thanks. There was some NVIDIA paper about this recently if I recall right that someone linked me the other day

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

What do you mean by SLM here?

Stewart Webb @nuclearpidgeon.bsky.social · 16d

I have done some Tensorflow model implementation before at least. But the idea of learning “prompt engineering” makes my eyes roll back into my skull with disdain