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essay – snarfed.org

essay – snarfed.org
I’m not eating my own dog food PetMD …or if you prefer, eating my own cooking, or scratching my own itch, or drinking my own...
a year ago
53
a year ago
PetMD …or if you prefer, eating my own cooking, or scratching my own itch, or drinking my own champagne. Sure. These are all metaphors for the idea that if you build something, it turns out better if you use it yourself, especially if you want it yourself. However, when I think...
essay – snarfed.org
Tech pace layers I’ve been a fan of Stewart Brand‘s Pace Layering for decades now. Really great framework for...
a month ago
52
a month ago
I’ve been a fan of Stewart Brand‘s Pace Layering for decades now. Really great framework for thinking about how different ecosystems and emergent forces interact. I’ve been thinking about a tech version of it for the better part of a year, and I finally took advantage of the...
essay – snarfed.org
Content negotiation considered harmful Matilda, 1996 Content negotiation is a feature of HTTP that lets clients ask for, and servers...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Matilda, 1996 Content negotiation is a feature of HTTP that lets clients ask for, and servers return, different content types based on the request’s Accept header. Sounds great, right? Well, no. Content negotiation is the classic example of an idea that sounds good in theory, but...
essay – snarfed.org
Policing misinformation Unpopular opinion: I have deep reservations about policing misinformation. I’m a big believer in the...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Unpopular opinion: I have deep reservations about policing misinformation. I’m a big believer in the demarcation problem: in the general case, there’s no shortcut to determining objective truth. It’s similar to the halting problem in computer science: if we want to know whether a...
essay – snarfed.org
Interactive navigation in embedding space tdjgordon, Pixabay Discussed a fascinating idea for a foundation model tool at lunch today:...
4 weeks ago
38
4 weeks ago
tdjgordon, Pixabay Discussed a fascinating idea for a foundation model tool at lunch today: interactive navigation in embedding space. Right now, you prompt most generative models with human language. That works, but it’s imprecise and coarse. If you’re generating an image of an...
essay – snarfed.org
So long, Twitter API, and thanks for all the fish Well, it’s come to this. Twitter is burning, a billionaire owes money, an API will soon get...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Well, it’s come to this. Twitter is burning, a billionaire owes money, an API will soon get lobotomized, so Bridgy‘s Twitter support will die within the month is dead. Granary‘s and twitter-atom too. The Twitter API may now be effectively unmaintained, but they still managed to...
essay – snarfed.org
Possible futures for Bridgy Fed Tomorrowland / Walt Disney People regularly ask me whether Bridgy Fed is ready to scale and support...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
Tomorrowland / Walt Disney People regularly ask me whether Bridgy Fed is ready to scale and support more users. It’s a technical question, but their underlying motivation is usually broader: they believe in the social web, and the fediverse(s), and they want them to connect...
essay – snarfed.org
Sleep is so weird Ian Dyball Our bodies are designed such that we need to lose consciousness, entirely, for a full...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Ian Dyball Our bodies are designed such that we need to lose consciousness, entirely, for a full third of every day. This is evidently necessary for some kind of regular brain maintenance, maybe forming long term memories, who knows what else. If we don’t sleep, we quickly become...
essay – snarfed.org
Moderate people, not code Dixit / Marie Cardouat The scope of the fediverse has been hotly debated recently. Are we a big...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Dixit / Marie Cardouat The scope of the fediverse has been hotly debated recently. Are we a big fedi? Or a small fedi? Are instances just nodes? Or networked communities? Which Camp of Mastodon are we in? How far should our replies travel? How about our blog posts and Bluesky...
essay – snarfed.org
Deep piano Roberto Chignoli I started playing piano again recently, after a 20 year hiatus. Our 6 year old...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Roberto Chignoli I started playing piano again recently, after a 20 year hiatus. Our 6 year old Brooke started learning, and we suddenly had a keyboard in the house again, so I joined her. It’s been great! I’m playing scales and exercises, diving into Rachmaninoff and Debussy,...
essay – snarfed.org
Blockchain’s real world problem A while back, early in the blockchain hype cycle, a startup called Verisart popped up and promised...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
A while back, early in the blockchain hype cycle, a startup called Verisart popped up and promised to “fix” fine art. Not sure if that painting is real? Can’t find out who owns it, or where they got it? Worried that the gallery you’re emailing is a scammer? Worry no more!...
essay – snarfed.org
Logs as end user UI A long time ago, I decided to show Bridgy‘s end users its raw logs. Like, raw logs. HTTP requests,...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
A long time ago, I decided to show Bridgy‘s end users its raw logs. Like, raw logs. HTTP requests, database reads and writes, JSON objects, stack traces, etc. It’s an unusual UI feature, but it’s been an unqualified success, enough that when I built Bridgy Fed, I immediately...
essay – snarfed.org
COVID was bad for the climate William Cho The standard narrative on COVID and the climate is: People worked from home, cancelled...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
William Cho The standard narrative on COVID and the climate is: People worked from home, cancelled travel plans, cut down overall consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions fell drastically. It’s great for the environment! Let’s keep it up! With apologies to H. L. Mencken, I...
essay – snarfed.org
We’re drowning Matthew Childs / Reuters We live in a golden age of software reuse. We’ve never before had such a...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
Matthew Childs / Reuters We live in a golden age of software reuse. We’ve never before had such a wealth of freely available code, in so many languages, so easy to find and install. And yet, we’re drowning. We slap together rickety rowboats and toss them out on PyPI Ocean and npm...
essay – snarfed.org
Socket activation I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks reading about the various *nix init systems: venerable...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks reading about the various *nix init systems: venerable SysV, interim replacement Upstart, controversial monolith systemd, Apple’s proprietary launchd, and niche variants like runit and Epoch. Lots of history, lots of flame wars. One...
essay – snarfed.org
Breakfast tour Like all of you, I got a little stir crazy over the last year. I made it outside plenty, but I still...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Like all of you, I got a little stir crazy over the last year. I made it outside plenty, but I still felt cooped up now and then, and I dearly missed going new places and seeing new things. On another note, I really, really like breakfast. Like, a lot. So naturally, I put these...
essay – snarfed.org
New job, hello climate tech I have a new job! I’m doing climate tech at NCX (née SilviaTerra), using satellite imagery to...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
I have a new job! I’m doing climate tech at NCX (née SilviaTerra), using satellite imagery to prevent deforestation and sequester more carbon in trees. A few years ago, I looked around for a side project on the climate crisis. Nothing big, maybe 5-10 hours a week, but I was ready...