#thankYouToday for the cute babies that a couple of friends of ours have. We are well past the stage of life where friends are getting married & having kids. But we know some younger people who had kids recently. And these two are adorable.
I’m not broody! My two are perfect and very much enough!!!
Having fun reading and writing today.
LLMs are not just machines. They are machine-building machines! This comes with way more responsibility. And understanding it may change how you use them.
https://rosswintle.uk/2026/10/llms-are-not-like-manufacturing-machines/
This was very much inspired by “The Decoherence Trap”, which is a most excellent piece of thinking, writing and design by Kristen Maevyn
I’m pretty proud of some of the writing I’ve done over the years. It’s time to start re-posting some of it where they are still – perhaps more so! – relevant.
In this post I argue that “People might not be dying at the hands of your if statements, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care.”
https://rosswintle.uk/2019/01/not-all-software-development-processes-are-equal/
I’m not really one to make predictions about tech. Mostly because I’m not a regular tech user.
BUT! Of the things I’ve made predictions about – publicly or not – I can only think of 1 that I got wrong.
Years ago, I thought having a camera inside a mobile phone was stupid & no one would want it! 🤦
Catching up on LeadDev. This is something no one could have foreseen, right? 🙄
"The engineers … now spend an average of 16.9 hours a week debugging … just 9.8 hours producing code … largely because 35% of AI-generated code is reaching production before engineering teams have fully comprehended it"
https://leaddev.com/ai/ai-code-causes-real-world-production-outages
#thankYouToday for the string of brilliant managers I’ve had over the years. Iain, Matt, Brian, April, Tony – and ages ago Mark, Dave and Neil.
I’ve been blessed to have these people buffer me from bureaucracy, encourage me, and share their wisdom and knowledge with me. Awesome people.
(Boss, if you read this, this is a joke! I have no intention of changing my employment arrangements)
Dear valued boss
To ensure your ongoing success and value we are changing our pricing and plans.
Ross no longer has a “senior” plan. He is only available in “junior”, “staff” and “VP” plans.
We are reducing the default level of reasoning to “junior”. If you require a higher level of reasoning you need to upgrade to a “staff” plan.
We look forward to continuing to serve you with intelligence that furthers your business goals.
😉
I missed my gratitude yesterday.
I had a flu jab, so it’s #thankYouToday for the marvellous science of vaccines!!
Also in “diagrams” – this from Dave Walker is perfect. 🤩
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yxmwxaytl64kjolzi64nad4n/post/3mxtycbms4s2l
Dan Nott’s “Hidden System” is a superb book. A comic/graphic novel style book that not only explains systems of data, electricity and water, but their effects on people and ecosystems too. Both interesting and moving.
Recommended.
This – storing the document in the URL hash – is the kind of creative thinking that I love.
If you’ve not seen it, here’s my 2-player “word game” clone that works the same way: https://words.pico.games/
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:53ykobfiwdm2ihatqmwdz24l/post/3mxubutwut22h
I know that asking this question here will probably fill me with confirmation bias, but…
For repeated but important tasks, do regular people (I.e. not me) really prefer sending English language commands to a slow and potentially unpredictable chatbot over learning a well-designed UI?
I’ve not been 100% functioning today. Last night and this morning I had pretty debilitating neck/back/shoulder pain. But I also just feel crap. So maybe it’s partly viral or something?
Anyway. This means that my #thankYouToday must be for my amazing wife who has done all the chores today. ❤️
As well as some daily thankfulness I’m trying to share good things that I have or come across.
Yes, yes, this is a very normal social media thing to do. But I’ve not done it much, despite being someone who bookmarks about 5 cool things every day!
Part of my attempt to recognise & share good stuff!
I’ve also, for some reason, been contemplating water a lot lately. This weird molecule that life depends on so much. There is so much of it and yet it is so precious.
The excellent book “Hidden Systems” made me think more about it today.
https://www.hiddensystems.net/hidden-systems
#thankYouToday for water!
Today I’m grateful (#thankYouToday) for my daughter’s taekwondo class. The instructors are so brilliant and it’s a wonderful community thing as well as good for her.
Here’s my Puzzmo profile link if you want to follow/connect:
Puzzmo is an excellent puzzling app. I’m super happy to be a Puzzmonaut. This looks like a great time to try it out!
(I thought it was independent but it’s owned by Hearst! TIL)
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:p5ode5bkf6vjtt6ahtssuxui/post/3mxrgegqg622d