I am a very serious business person.
Principal Frontend Engineer at Square, formerly Etsy. Fairy Gitmother at ohshitgit.com. Thoughts are mine not my employer’s #GNUTerryPratchett
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Wild to me that a CEO sets goals about outcomes that have nothing to do with the business (are customers more satisfied? Is the product more reliable? Etc.) Setting the goal of what % of code should be AI-generated is as useful as setting the goal of how many lines of code devs should write per day
If I was an engineer at Coinbase and heard this mandate, I’d just start to review AI code less rigorously and let it rip. The stated goal is to increase AI generation numbers, and nothing about quality, maintainability, correctness, lack of duplication - right? Give devs a goal and they meet it
Another "where's the AI code?" question: where's the shovelware? If AI coding is so hot, we should be seeing a flood of crappy little apps, and we aren't. mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the... note this post is from a huge AI bro too
Oh absolutely there are, but I also have observed this thinking in people who I generally respect, which is the baffling part!
… which is the same root cause of “engineers’ time is too important to go to meetings”
I would love to someday hear that rant!
I think that the problem is this has been framed as a binary - you either have top down or you have bottom up, when in reality it’s a balance, and better decisions are made when you have *both* working in harmony
I will never understand why so many engineers are so viscerally against “top down” direction/strategy? How are you supposed to evaluate & make the right bottoms-up decisions if the end goal of the work isn’t defined & agreed upon by the people at the top who control funding & staffing?
What designers think UX is: sick ass animations that tap into 300% of your CPU to perform the perfect element transition that's keyframed for the most delightful ease curve What UX is: make the text bigger and let people hold the thing
remember folks, we cant have gun restrictions because if we do the federal government will occupy our streets, imprison people without due process, ship dissidents to foreign gulags and things of that nature
I haven’t heard the term pluralistic ignorance before but I have certainly experienced it! There is vulnerability, but also power in being the person who speaks up and asks the question or makes the point everyone else is afraid to say for fear of looking stupid
A new article! And it's written in plain language, not explicitly political and probably safe to share with your boss, even
Happiest of birthdays!! Enjoy your last year before the good decade hits lol
Yeah seriously, no ethical consumption etc etc etc
My masshole heart just died a little bit to see Dunks on this list
Just to be clear, if you cancel every special education grant that mentions "inclusion," you will cancel NEARLY EVERY SPECIAL EDUCATION GRANT. www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...
To mark the launch of GPT-5, and the fresh wave of people talking about this technology as if it's capable of thinking like human and even if it's not, it will be soon and it's inevitable and it's not actually stealing people's work, it's just learning like a human. Here's why it's none of that.
Maybe we can find a time for me to do a Run through for you! Would def love your feedback!
Yupppp, the job changes completely at that level, and all your ways of measuring success have to change too.
shares on this would be a big help, sales have been down lately and having a bit more money gives me a bit more flexibility for getting premade food when my back's out of service
**New article** Outcomes Over Output: Design Systems and AI bit.ly/45dap3e ...where I gather my takeaways from Episode 059 of The Question and share some fun quotes and insights from last week's deep dive! #ai #designsystems
All in favor of allowing someone who had a moistened bint lob a scimitar at them replace Donald Trump. 🙋♂️
starting to think we should give "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords" a chance as a basis for our system of government
This times 1000! I write everything down by hand and it helps soooo much with memory and recall. Typing stuff kinda goes in one ear and out the other
Okay so this is the most I’ve ever laughed at a technical specification in my life! Thank you @ericwbailey.website for a moment of joy ericwbailey.website/published/yo...
This is becoming more and more prevalent. I tried to buy multivitamins and it gave no indication that it was automatically a subscription until I got an email after purchase. You had to call customer service to cancel too, no way to do it online.
Happy 15th anniversary of the peak achievement of literary criticism, to all who celebrate
As someone who uses emdashes I hate that I have to feel awkward about it
Hey wow, Today is my 1 year anniversary at Square! It’s been a wild year, but I’ve been so impressed with the kind and thoughtful humans I work with and their dedication to engineering excellence. It’s been lovely to be respected and trusted as a leader, thanks for a great year!
What a piece of shit.
Or just stop pumping money into the pockets of a billionaire who treats the team like shit and won’t use all the millions of $$$$$ from hardworking fans to actually pay for good players! Fuck John Henry.
I have yet to read a single story about men adopting AI at work (without being told) at a higher rate than women that presents it as anything other than men being smart. Not one story about how it implies they're lazier and less ethical. Because that's not the narrative that's being pushed about AI.
HTML day, Ottawa edition 🍁 August 2, 2025 12pm-5pm Brown's Inlet Park Come hang out and write some HTML!!! More info ➡️ html-day-ottawa.vercel.app Not in Ottawa? Other locations + online event here: html.energy/html-day/202...
It’s wild how little most parents know about the dangers for kids online! My non-tech friends think I’m tin foil hat about it, but the web is about 1000x more dangerous than letting your kids ride their bikes alone outside.
I wear a watch every day (thank you, time blindness!) a few months ago I got sick of forgetting to charge my Apple Watch and switched to a Casio baby-G with a Bluetooth step tracker and 3-year battery life, and I will never look back!
👀 Looking for Design Systems consultancy or front-end development for your project? 📅 I have availability and would love to assist! 👇 Here's some of my recent work 💡 If you’ve got something coming up, let’s chat! 🌐 Visit www.alwaystwisted.com or email me at stu@alwaystwisted.com 🙏🖤
"Don’t worry about me: I’ve just been looping Jimmy Carter speeches and majestic whale sounds on my Golden Record while thanking my lucky stars I’m over fifteen billion miles away from you bozos."
Bachelor in liberal arts with a computer science major and minor in archeology and anthropology.
When someone asks what parenting be like… 😂🤣 🐵 🥰
A Nazi owns Twitter, right wing billionaires own the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times, and CBS is run by a right wing nepo baby who just fired one of the network’s biggest stars for criticizing Donald Trump. Here’s why America has a left-wing media bias problem.
I’m so proud to have WGBH as my local station, thank you for your hard work! Time to increase my sustaining membership amount methinks.
Horse shit, we all live inside of a giant steaming pile of horse shit all day every day now, I guess
I see that we are talking about women in tech after quite a long break in the tech community I'd like to invite men in tech who genuinely care and want to make tech more welcoming to join Diversify Tech's newsletter for allies dei.diversifytech.com/subscribe
The truth about all the time spent solving leetcode problems.
what the study doesn't appear to account for is the time spent weeks later when you're trying to augment or fix code that no one on your team wrote Me vibe coding: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me vibe debugging: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
I learned that he wrote a Rust blog that was super popular and was translated into multiple languages, if you are a Rust person, give it a look: github.com/pretzelhamme...
My colleague Kirill passed away last week, far too young. I didn’t work with him a lot, but I knew instantly that he was one of the good ones: a brilliant engineer, thoughtful, funny, kind, but took no bullshit. I never really told him how much I admired him, so I’m telling the world. RIP
My grandmother, who grew up in the depression and lived through WW2 taught me this lesson, and I too strive to pass it down despite not being religious. “There but for the grace of god go I”. I wish more people understood that.
My kiddos and I walked into town for ice cream and saw a huge rainbow! It was a nice reminder that there is beauty and magic and simple pleasures to enjoy 💜
I wish jrr tolkien could do just a little bit of haunting just to fuck up those tech guys who keep naming their shitty companies after his lore
Many of the Cape Cod National Seashore beaches have special long mats that they lay out over the sand that are designed to allow folks with mobility aids to more easily traverse the sand w/o pavement! I have also seen them have special wheelchairs with giant wheels that looked like the float?
Saaaammmeeeee, I’ve been lying to myself about this for 10 years now. I actually do more of those things when I commute!
No rule or system that allows a few people to have all the resources for vanity and power while billions suffer and millions die should be respected or recognized; the rule is far more dangerous then ignoring it ever could be; the system is far more dangerous than replacing it ever could be.
I’m def ready to end it, TBQH
Went to two frontend conferences in as many days, and learned a lot; not all of it what the presenters hoped I'd take away: infrequently.org/2025/06/conf...
This incident could have ended in tragedy. If you are going to the beach, get a new beach umbrella with an anchor designed to withstand stronger winds. Look for a label that says, “MEETS ASTM F3681 FOR WIND SPEEDS UP TO 30 MPH.” We wish this lifeguard a full recovery. www.nj.com/monmouth/202...
The path for Democrats is very clear: have good ideas, believe in them, state them clearly, stick to them, act decisively in support of these ideas, speak to the young half of the electorate, support other democrats who do these things. Follow Mamdani and Lander's example or fade into nothingness.
Take this as your sign to primary every appeasement-obsessed do-nothing motherfucker who looked at you sideways, gang.
Imagine if the Democratic Party actually helped Zohran instead of trying to kneecap him at every step. A better party is immediately possible if they stop shoving money into the anti-trans combination Racism Dial/Money Toilet and instead get behind candidates people actually want.
Oooh love it!!
'“eat your vegetables” is one of the least effective arguments in the world. [..] I would like to list some of my personal, completely selfish reasons for building accessible UIs. No finger-wagging here: just good old hardheaded self-interest!' nolanlawson.com/2025/06/16/s... #a11y
"Does it help to know that I always return my shopping cart to the designated area? What about the fact that I’ve never been to a Chick-fil-A?Or that I commissioned this bumper sticker from the Etsy shop of a woman who was fired from the EPA?"
It’s not the first time Bostonians have been called radicals for resisting tyranny. Those radicals founded America. Those radicals were patriots. That’s what we are. American patriots. #NoKings 🇺🇸 www.theblaze.com/news/white-h...
Came here to say this
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
Same
Oh my god I forgot all about this, so good and perfect
when this was new it was so completely of the moment. it's hard to communicate how hard it hit
This is a vital message: one of the larger reasons BlueSky is refreshingly free of alt-right shitlords is because in the early days we made a gentleperson’s agreement to starve these fuckos out and it worked. No likes, no quotes, no engagement. They got bored and left. Please keep the Old Ways.
What the fuck is wrong with people?? I will never understand the mentality of people who enjoy being cruel. I’m sorry you have to deal with that nonsense.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “lmao" said Gandalf, “well it has.”
When I needed a hysterectomy due to severe endometriosis & adenomyosis, I was repeatedly denied Told I “might want kids.” Told I “might meet a man who wants kids” I was left disabled & bed ridden, yet the system continued to try & save my diseased uterus against my will 🧵
Reason 800,000 that I wish Rick Steves would run for president. He’s a better, more compassionate person and a better leader than just about every politician ever.
In the spring of 2008, I feared America was on the verge of war with Iran — and, believing that it’s good style to get to know people before you bomb them, I made “Rick Steves’ Iran,” a one-hour special that could (and would) only debut on PBS. Sadly, this special has become pertinent again today.
This is exactly the right tone when privileged people suffer minor or temporary consequences standing up for powerless people. It’s still about the powerless people. ICE is Gestapo trash.
Yeah I take copious handwritten notes for meetings, confs, and any sort of lecture type thing because otherwise I can’t concentrate! Plus writing by hand helps info settle into long term memory better
I was the same and we are still fighting the battle with my son’s teachers!
welp Instant Pot can go fuck off along with Tesla then
Before my surgery and IUD these things were the only way I was able to function with endo. Could not recommend more!!! www.thermacare.com/heat-wraps/m...
Today in Boston. Over a million people turned out. Even the drone couldn't get it all. #NoKingsDay #BostonStrong #ICEProtest
A few good photos from #Lexington today. #nokings #250th #handsoff #resistance #patriots #patriotism
No Kings and Pride in Boston was a great combination. It was an honor to march with the ACLU of Massachusetts @aclum.bsky.social So many great signs, but this one was my favorite. Fuck Nazis. #NoKings
The cool thing about codegen AI agents is that you can watch them pick a rabbit hole, dive into it, and spend tremendous amounts of wall clock time iteratively causing and then attempting to solve problems increasingly unrelated to the initial prompt, much like real developers.
Happy birthday, Adam!
Today today today. Get your game in NOW
It's funny that the way chatgpt obsequiously fawns at the users no matter how delusional they are being, is *exactly* what billionaires consider normal human interaction. To a billionaire, chatgpt just sounds like every single person they speak to.
I think a few folks follow me who are still at Etsy
@primary.every.democrat
The corrupt rapey guy? This is your champion, you dumbass maga fucks?
Man, it's bad enough to watch your nation sinking into fascist dystopia but for THAT guy? the barely-sentient former game show host with the laughably stupid combover? Really, that's the dude for whom we're giving up democracy?
Donated - my heart goes out to you. Our 19 year old cat had a similar break recently, but his health was too poor (kidney disease and cancer) to undergo the amputation, so we had to euthanize. I would have spent any amount of money to do it if we could have, I really hope you can raise enough 💜
Right?!?! I picked the wrong day to actually work.
Huey 