You can build every house on the street to code and still hand someone a neighbourhood that seizes the first time everyone leaves at once.

Pretending you are clever by disregarding what was plainly meant is just dishonesty.

We were not people who noticed the ground. In the city the ground was settled law, something decided long ago by someone else and paved over twice. We walked on it the way we walked on arguments…

I've just read this great post by Brennan. It's mostly about the fact that we as society turn away to a lot of the meat industries' horrific actions and just eat the meat we want to eat. Who cares if…

The Ruby community in 2026 is dominated by mean discriminators and their benefactors (they're about 50% of the community at least). Many devs in the Ruby community who are indirect (unconscious) or…

In the beginning... Years ago, I remember someone telling me about a great website where you could connect with people in business and build your network: it was called LinkedIn. I joined, and became…

AI tools make it easier than ever to generate content. With that ease, nearly anyone can become a contributor to the documentation. When people are using AI tools to create documentation, how do you…

The killer use case for personal computers is text editing. Typesetting, typewriting, handwriting – these produce text, but they can't edit. Sure, computers can do a lot of things. Games, maths, file…

Dan’s spot on, as always, here. I remember one time, the bunch of us had fun making ChatGPT (early version) write NSF non-technical summaries as Sonnets and Haiku. Those were the days. Now,…

I recently learned about the Doorman Fallacy and couldn't help but connect it to an experience I had last weekend. The Doorman Fallacy is 'the mistake of assuming technology can replace a human…

"Food neophobia" is a survival mechanism that psycho parents break by shoving

A local news anchor recently announced his departure from the industry. However, after his farewell speech went viral, some began to claim it was plagiarized. Source

A commenter on Mefi gamely stated today that “Billionaire = Bad is a hugely popular argument both on this site […]

Friendly Faces When I was a child, it was usually obvious who the authority figures were. The teacher was the authority. The police officer was the authority. The doctor was the authority. The…

I ran a study at Harvard. I had a real finding. It’s sitting on Harvard’s server, unpublished, and the story of why is a better illustration of what’s wrong with research than the finding itself. But…

In 1976's imagined version of 2274, do Black people exist? According to Logan’s Run, you’d think the answer is no.

The itch . It was where trade winds converged, ships were becalmed , and sailors lost their minds. The word came to me today. If life is a voyage, then time in the US is my doldrums. Stranded,…

A group of eight anti-ICE protestors recently received their respective sentences, ranging from 30 to 100 years. They were convicted of terrorism charges in March 2026 for attending a protest outside…

Big auto insurance changes are coming to the Accident Benefits regime leaving injured cyclists and pedestrians with less support following a collision.

Today's interview is with xtinak, (who also uses the handle msquixotic). She blogs at Ms. Quixotic Talks About Games and has an itch page at xtinak.itch.io/ Her WIP region, the White Wastes , has (I…

A leaked guest list, a $16,000 ticket, and loads of social media paranoia

Pew's 2026 data shows the youngest U.S. adults use AI chatbots the most, yet they are also the most likely to expect AI to harm society.

This TPS ruling will cause endless pain to good communities.

While applying for this visa stuff, I'm seeing passport privilege in real time. I'm handling the paperwork and looking at the Resident Visa Health Check that I need to do. The tests include…

A Dear Prudence reader who needs to unplug from current events every few weeks asks (search "autism and ADHD") what to do about people who "accuse me of not caring about what's happening outside my…

Daily ugliness quietly shapes how we see the world. Rediscovering beauty in everyday life restores our sense of care, harmony, and meaning. Beauty is not just decoration, it’s a psychological…

Users of the Cardano wallet SecondFi (formerly Yoroi) have lost a cumulative 16 million ADA (~$2.4 million) across three attacks targeting a vulnerability in the project's wallet generation code.…

Asterisk Magazine, which aspires to be The New Yorker of effective altruism, has a piece profiling “AI doomers” which, even after reviewing the author’s other sincere engagements…

Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple PodcastsWhat if AI could help prevent sexual assault before it happens — without tracking users, judging them, or handing them a verdict?In this…

.post .post-content { margin-top: 0px; } LLMs are exhausting because they require spending precious social energy to operate them. Energy that might be better spent on people. When you use a good…

My man Hendrik over on Bluesky: How can we reach people like this and show them that their understanding of AI coding is fundamentally wrong, and that the reason they’re not finding a job is…

Bacon. A staple of the hearty American breakfast. It’s the breakfast of champions since the dawn of time, right? Actually, no. Eating a big hearty breakfast (with bacon of course) is a result of a…

Let me ask you this: Do you absolutely, 100% need to be an influencer to succeed online? We recently had a debate about the big names of the online world in ​The Council​. We spoke about…

I ended the last post on a promise. That one was about the day I stopped doubting AI coding agents, and about how much further they let a single experienced engineer reach: things you can now build…

An interesting thought.

I’ve been asked, “Hey, Sam, if you’re not interested in pursuing traditional publishing anymore, why not self-publish?” And I’ll tell you why not. It has nothing to do with looking down on…

A couple weeks ago I wrote that your organization has to learn as fast as your best AI adopter. Externalize, combine, socialize, internalize. Run Nonaka’s spiral or get left behind. A bunch of…

W Social's tagline is "Trust Your Feed" but the company's landing page displays inflated engagement metrics - a misrepresentation that contradicts its own promise.

How a kickboxer built an empire on male insecurity and called it freedom. Steve the Hypothetical Gerbil says: This one’s about Andrew Tate. There’s organised crime, a subscription model, and a man…

Post: 25 June 2026New blog post on my website:Middlesbrough Council has released its Council Tax address list as open dataNo UPRNs unfortunately, so no map

Why reducing cognitive load creates communities where more people can participate, connect, and thrive Accessibility is often treated like a technical requirement. Add captions. Upload a transcript.…

Greasing the wheels of Africa's healthcare system.

How the New York Times changed its coverage of trans people from The Dissident. Spoiler alert: it's not great. I mean - the article/research is excellent. The outcome isn't.

The cruelty is the point.

Digital Dugnad Dump Big Tech Make the Switch Make the switch. The Digital Dugnad campaign highlights four actions you can take - Switch your browser. Switch your search engine. Move your email.…

Capital won't save you from disempowerment.

Most of what we chase rests on people we can no longer be bothered to need. A walk from the history of the clock, through the anthropology of money, to an uncomfortable place: the deepest cage isn't…

A co-written piece grieving software development from the clubroom.

Recently I came across the “Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics”, a term defined by Jai Dhyani in a now-offline blog post: When you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed…

Introduction Note: The research and tooling covered in this post are not my original work,. All credit goes to Yaxxine7 for creating the ASRepCatcher tool and doing all the heavy lifting! AS-REP…