Category: Uncategorized

What’s that you say? Ben Folds is playing Bristol in November?

BOOK THE BABYSITTER NOW!!!!!

I just boosted it, but this is a very good essay on LLM coding and one that I kinda align with.

I would add in some hesitations about the maturity of the LLM tools, the potential rug-pull/bubble-collapse and the fact that having a real human TA is more valuable. (As well as All-The-Issues).

But this is a good take.

https://htmx.org/essays/yes-and/

Realising that most of my fears about LLM-based AI services can be summed up thus:

The mega corps want to create Knowledge-as-a-Service.

They made your TV a subscription.

They made your music a subscription.

They made your books a subscription.

They made your car a subscription.

Now they want you to become dependent on them for knowledge for a monthly fee.

This will need a few readings to absorb properly. But it’s got a ton of wisdom:

“I think that part of operating at staff+ isn’t expanding the number of things you personally own, but refining the ones you choose to transform. It’s naming risks without absorbing delivery. It’s designing clean interfaces rather than patching every adjacent seam. It’s making the implications visible…”

https://aurooba.blog/clarity-has-gravity/

Next Tuesday March 3rd I’m speaking at the Bristol WordPress Meetup (@BristolWPMeetup)

If you’re into that kind of thing, come along and say hi and learn 25 lessons from my 25 years as a developer.

https://www.meetup.com/bristol-wordpress-meetup-group/events/313155309/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Imoptimal/116117532472820776

This actually seems incredibly sensible.

I have kept receipts for every major household purchase going back to forever… EXCEPT for the thing that is broken but still under warranty!!!

There is both diagnosed neurodivergence and probable undiagnosed neurodivergence in my household (surprised?), and I've been finding the scientific-but-practical resources of Neurodivergent Insights very helpful lately:

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/

I bought their "Self Care Activities for Autistic People" and I think it's just really helpful for anyone who experiences anxiety to be honest. It's a bargain, and if you pre-order you can get a free workbook:

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/self-care-for-autistic-people-card-deck/

I am so ill. People in my family had a cold for two weeks or so. I thought I’d managed to avoid it. But Tuesday evening it hit me SO hard and fast.

😩😩😩

RE: https://mastodon.social/@ChrisHardie/116091697952524518

This is a very good point.

Spent some more time manually upgrading Laravel apps yesterday.

It was kinda tedious. But it reminded me how the apps and framework work, what features are in the new framework version, and my kid watched me for a bit and asked interesting questions.

It was chilled. Low pressure. Mindful. And we got better as people.

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@topher1kenobe/116089152697615955

So – reading between the lines – it’s an acceptance that LLM chatbots have killed (or are in the process of killing) content monetization, so we may as well at least try and maintain some reputational ranking by giving away content in the easiest possible way for bots to consume?

We’re just all going along with this?

Genuine question: Why does everyone suddenly want their website available in markdown for agents to read. What is the use case for this?

It can’t be marketing sites.

It can’t be content sites with any kind of monetisation strategy.

If it’s free content sites then sure, just give all your content to the LLMs. That makes sense? (It doesn’t)

What am I missing?

On a blogging spree and determined to say nice things and be creative without mentioning The Thing that everyone else is talking about!!!

I bought a £20 mini keyboard. And it's surprisingly good! Here's what it's like and how I use it with my phone.

https://rosswintle.uk/2026/02/a-tiny-20-keyboard-and-tips-for-using-it-on-ios/

I had to write about YouSky (see earlier post) as it's one of the main reasons for having this!

I made a big, long, technical post a short time back about building a 1-person "social network" app for "micro-journaling". This is a short post explaining what it is without all the technical details.

https://rosswintle.uk/2026/02/yousky-my-one-person-social-network-short-version/

Apple/Google/Microsoft…

Here’s what we need.

Parental controls but based on a simple vote among the parents.

TOO MANY TIMES it’s like:

“No!”

“But dad said I could!!!”

So we BOTH need to approve it.

(Yes, this would be doubly annoying)

While I'm recommending things, I've been meaning to write a recommendation for the TickTick Todo app for ages. It's really good.

https://rosswintle.uk/2026/02/tick-tick-the-best-to-do-app-you-maybe-dont-know-about/

(No affiliate links here. I'm just trying to post about some things I like and use! 😃)