20 years ago I killed Flash with my #JavaScript library script.aculo.us. Now mostly petting cats. Also dabbling in #retrocomputing and #astrophotography.
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2026-08-17T14:14:37Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs This photo was classified as “adult content” on Bluesky, let’s see what happens here npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I'm never going on a plane ever again npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Users: Hey could you make a small phone that discourages doomscrolling with a smaller screen but has great battery life and a good camera? You know more like the iPhone mini was. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I'd love to see more open source maintainers take this clear of a stance. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Today I found a open source thing for doing _exactly what I needed_ but then it didn't work and I inspected the source code and found that it uses services that are no longer online. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs It's so dry in Europe that rivers start revealing bones from animals who died there 15,000 years ago. Meanwhile the EU is hyping up the building of giant data centers. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs People: "Hmm, maybe we should have AC widely available so people don't die due to climate change." npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Meanwhile DHH has a hissy fit because Claude refused to translate one of his blog rants because it was too racist. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/116/953/022/903/427/724/original/be2960ea37fcb1d6.png npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs My biggest takeaway from “LLMs are useful for some aspects of writing software, and lots of people like it” is still that the existing tools we made for writing software are bad. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Windows 10 is now 11 years old, which makes it retrocomputing npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Not saying carbon capture will never work, but so far, well… npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Europe had at least 30 years to prepare for this (if I’m generous), really it’s more like 50+. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I know I’m and old man yelling at clouds but I really truly believe that the time period from ca. 1950–2010 was historically exceptional and that science, truth and facts for the first time hit board societal support. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs A thing that people don’t understand about this is that it was marketed and sold to average consumers. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs This is a Pioneer Stereo Receiver SX-850 from just about 50 years ago. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs “a tool producing a cheap reward with minimal input and no friction can only be a liability” npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs PSA Brave is run by a religious zealot homophobe who has a history of wanting to take away civil rights from people and is fueled by money from Peter Thiel. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs First of all it’s properly referred to as WebAuthn U2F CTAP Level 2 npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs The most important trait as a developer that you should always work on is empathy npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs @nprofile…xr2f I don't know a specific model, but if you look into what airlines still use you can probably find something npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs really wonder when more people will wake up to what is happening npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs So Supreme Court says apartheid is legal now, got it npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I wonder when we will have to start to show ID (and let the store keep a copy of it) for everything we buy in brick-and-mortar stores as well. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Remember, it could always be worse npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Looks like we’re gonna have a national general strike in the US on May 1st! npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs If you want to know what a "deep dive" looks like: https://stonetools.ghost.io/pagemaker-mac/ npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs @nprofile…a2ht It's best to slowly increase your keyboard size in small steps to lighten the mental load. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/116/302/982/024/403/282/original/b55e529c2374794e.jpeg npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs 2026: this hard disk can store one (1) Ultra HD Blu-ray rip npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs For the 1,000th time: "AI" does not have agency and cannot think and cannot act. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs When the AI ship crashes and burns it will be so painful for so many people (whether they were into it or not). npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs that’s w�nderful npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Everything “HP” is terrible. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs “It will be a Cambrian explosion of democratizing making software!” npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs What do think the most important human invention is? npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Plasmaxxing npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Love a 10GB (500 times the size of my first hard disk) phone update that introduces… a few new emoji. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs So the NASA administrator announced that in two years from now they’re sending a fission-based spacecraft to Mars to deploy helicopters. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I love how we don't have money for healthcare, science or fixing poverty. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs “perl is like marx: great at identifying the problems, terrible at formulating the solution” npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs “What could possibly go wrong?” was supposed to be a rhetorical question npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Truly amazing stuff npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Timeline cleanser, some photons I caught on my driveway. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs We had the first over 100°F (38°C) day here almost TWO MONTHS before it normally happens, while it was still WINTER. Topping out at 108°F (42°C). npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Reminder in ten years from now that the bankruptcy of companies like Volkswagen and Ford (and why we all drive Chinese cars now) will have been fully the fault of short-term gains oriented greedy CEOs and the politicians that accepted bribes from them npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs The kids are alright npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Somebody please invent a programming language that can’t be generated by LLMs npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs "What if you could just make a movie?" npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs who of you did this npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs If only we would have a way for a lot of people to work from home, to reduce what they need to spend on commuting and reduce gas prices for other people npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Let’s play! RAM price or oil price? npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs One thing I don't get about how "AI" is marketed is this: npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Wow, Marathon is amazing npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I don't get the "I failed to fact-check what the LLM generated when I was doing research/collating information for my article I am writing as a professional journalist" excuse. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Lunar Eclipse from my deck in Tucson, Arizona npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Don’t forget, lunar eclipse tonight! Visible e.g. from western US, pre-dawn. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs this is very tempting (alas, can't afford it atm) npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Is there a slow software movement? npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs ugh why do they have 4 different iPads but can't make a small phone npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs All you need to know about “AI” is the companies providing it did so by using massive amounts of copyrighted works, without compensation to the authors or even asking, for commercial purposes. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Gas prices in US have already gone up and probably will go past $3/gal on average next week npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Wanna feel old? npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Imagine the trillions of dollars used to blow up people in far-away countries just to get control of their oil instead used to push renewable energy forward. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs at least back in the day you had to work hard to establish yourself as defense contractor npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs It's interesting that our society, in order to "think of the children", isn't lifting a finger to go after the adults who harm the children, going as far as ignoring evidence that a lot of men in the highest echelons of society are child rapists. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs You look like you need a photo of a cat lounging on a stack of Toshiba laptops from the 1990s npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs investors in companies like Apple, Google and Samsung are gonna love this npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Mastodon should copy the "only followers can reply" setting from Bluesky, it's extremely helpful npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs The gist of this is that _even if code-generating LLMs work perfectly_, it doesn't have that much of an impact on how good the software works for people; which in turn means it won't matter for profits. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs None of the "code generation" stuff is new by the way. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs "But it works great for coding!" npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Every post about code-generating LLMs goes like "It deleted my app, closed my bank accounts and subscribed me to 400 conservative mailing lists—it's really cool and neat and I highly recommend it!" npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs I don’t think people understand how bad this is going to get. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs IBM ThinkCat npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs And here's the tech industry's greatest revolutionary inventions npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Software engineer: “George Lucas is an asshole for changing like three scenes in his 20 year old movie 30 years ago.” npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs nobody ever asks if we already have enough software or if maybe we should take a break and fix what we have instead of vibe coding more shovelware npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Good thing we're destroying the Internet for entirely performative "for the children" bullshit while there's child rapists in the highest ranks of government and business. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs RIP Robert Tinney, your BYTE Magazine covers are legendary. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs "But I need an LLM for code generation, programming environments are so complex and have so many layers these days!" npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Recommend to get yourself a hobby that uses a 20-year old phpBB installation as the main online place for meeting other people and learning npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Apple: "We have the greatest and best marketing and advertising in the world!" npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs If you're a YouTuber or have some other platform, please take a hint from Technology Connections and tell the truth to your audience. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs They should measure AI-generated movies by natural resources used and extrapolate to Bambis consumed per second npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs need a recommendation to host a simple static site on a EU-based server, run by a EU company. ideally something that I can git push to for updates. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs So good to see a YouTuber saying this openly and doing something with their platform https://www.patreon.com/posts/149172725 npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs This seems simple enough! 👀 npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs oh no I got another 90s Toshiba laptop, this is a sickness npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Honestly macOS 26 feels like a Linux desktop (derogatory) npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs It's so weird that a lot of people think the quality of software is measured in how often it gets updated—it's literally the opposite. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Only analog computers can run software with all the nuance the programmer intended npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs via https://bsky.app/profile/coreybrickley.bsky.social/post/3mckfuchg622o npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs It’s amazing how these people talk about AGI as if it was actually possible (it’s not). npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs People should Kare more npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs And here I thought only Americans use weird measurement units npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs We need more Huh? buttons npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Hi, I'm Thomas. Back in 2005 or so I've practically invented in-browser animations with HTML elements. npub1fntgusqs3qaaxeqfc8y8qynkpjejyks6r37fsns4rwmutgrms5vqzhg6hm Thomas Fuchs Everyone should have a particle accelerator at home that shoots electrons and x-rays at your face in a multi-kilovolt vacuum tube
