Category: Uncategorized

I should be a software philosopher. I love stuff like this from @jessitron: “Legacy software is software that is not alive in a person’s head” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvr0klVxw5c)

I also love, from @grimalkina’s book: “software ecosystems are vast networks of many people’s solutions that supercharge individual problem solving … these solutions are shared across *both time and space*” (my emphasis).

Powerful stuff.

Something positive/creative…

I’m enjoying making a habit tracker (yes, 25 years in software and never done it!). Hand-coded using my small site template: https://github.com/rosswintle/small-site-template

Trying to use components and keep data well structured and realising that the template doesn’t handle this well.

Have added “slots” though! 😃

Content warning:Death of a friend, awful diseases, swearing (of the highly-appropriate variety).

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Just spent some time properly reflecting on the life of an amazing guy that was taken from us by cancer far too young.

A smart, funny, kind and generous man that the world will miss. A lot!

My life followed his, step by step, for some of the way. It was a real privilege.

Fucking devastating.

I’m thinking about who gets value out of LLMs doing coding.

If a website or app only exists because an LLM did most of the work, did the LLM provide value to the end user?

Re: the Nancy Grace space observatory.

I don’t see how a Lagrange point can be orbited. That’s such a weird thing.

Gonna have to look that up.

I bought “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes” for £3.29 today and it’s been a lot of fun with my kids.

A great deal for a fun, co-op, puzzle-solving game that’s helping us get through the last bit of the school holidays.

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/keep-talking-and-nobody-explodes

One of the dilemmas of the current technological age:

How do you know if a new piece of software will be secure, sustainable, trustworthy, in the long term? Or if someone just made a vibe coded thing and launched it to make a quick buck?

https://rosswintle.uk/2026/08/my-new-favourite-habit-tracker-is-vibe-coded-i-dont-know-what-to-do-about-it/

It seems that one of my roles in life now is scaring relatives into upgrading 9-year-old smartphones that no longer get security updates. Yes, I hate upgrade cycles too. But the internet is a dangerous place to hang out.

Can anyone hear Ollie a fingerboard?

I’ve tried so many times. Watched so many videos. I just can’t get the thing to leave the ground. Have y’all got blue tack fingers???

This is such a beautiful little retro game. Amazing that you can get it from Pico8 to the Switch!

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@johanpeitz/117127899498830254

I know it’s convenient for sharing information widely, but I frickin hate how not checking Facebook all the time means you miss out on so much. 😕

That’s my local, independent bookshop, that is! Nice to see it getting some attention on here. Their signs are as awesome as their books and coffee!! 😃

https://tech.lgbt/@Natasha_Jay/117116730613346316

Funny. As well as Laravel Herd for local PHP development, there is Yerd and now Lerd!

There’s 23 letters of the alphabet left! Get building, folks!!

https://herd.laravel.com/
https://yerd.app/
https://lerd.sh/

Dare I install any of the open source versions? How much is this AI-generated stuff that’s dangerous on my machine?

This is the equation for every new app now and it’s exhausting.

In more positive, exciting news: Chrome (which I use at work) now has a keyboard shortcut to hide/show the vertical tab bar!

I just had to figure out what was conflicting with it to make it work. But I can now toggle on demand.

Next up, please: Tabs on the right?? 🙏

I just listened to a conference talk on AI. I suppose it was meant to be positive about agentic coding.

But the talk itself said:
– AI is used a lot, but developers trust it little
– Trust in AI coding output is falling, not rising
– AI generated code is generally insecure and poor standard.

Does this not… like… tell us something about these tools?

Do people see these stats and think “Oh yes – that sounds like something we should use”?

My second Taekwondo lesson today.

I felt pretty competent after a week of coaching from my daughter at home (she’s a junior red belt). But I don’t think I’ll continue.

I just don’t find it interesting enough to want to out the effort into learning it. I’m not “hooked”.