Ross's Micro Blog

RE: https://crikey.social/@ross/116605777298450051

You have no idea how long I spent considering the words this post. I think I went for succinct-precise. 😆

You know how there is a product triangle of cheap, good and quick? Where you can only have two?

I think there is a communication triangle that is similar.

Communication can be simple, succinct and precise. Or any two of those. But never all three.

Simple, precise communication will need lots of words and not be succinct.

Succinct, precise communication will need terminology and not be simple.

And simple, succinct communication will never be precise.

(Note to family/friends/colleagues: Yes, I frequently fail hard on “succinctly”, but you can’t fault my precision… I hope! 😉)

I also wonder if there is something about probably being neurodiverse and not “getting” AI.

I don’t want to use long rambling sentences to describe what I want. I want to learn the specific meanings of things so that I can communicate precisely and succinctly.

This video, for example, is baffling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z-h1HLilceQ

A while back I got frustrated with people on a school Facebook group asking simple questions of each other that were answered on the school website. I thought the fix was clever technology. But I later realised that asking other people has real value. Community. Social capital.

AI robs us of this.

“Sam Campbell’s ULTIMATE Photo Editing Tutorial” is my new favourite video on YouTube.

I’ve watched it three times today and laughed out loud every time. I’m still not sure I’ve seen all the jokes in it. 6 minutes and worth every second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6D1sYQ8AvA

You know, I’ve been researching solar. But I asked myself the question: “Is it worth it, doing my part?”

And then I read the tech news and I’m like: “Fuck it, I’m gonna install three gas turbines, a power shower, a plastic lawn, and never bother with thinking about recycling again.”

In an attempt the brain-hack my way to more exercise I bought Ring Fit adventure for the Switch in Vinted for £15. Seems like fun. And definitely works up a sweat!

I have an idea for a tech talk called “How your computer really works.” that deep dives almost everything in the stack from typing a URL to having a web page displayed.

I was thinking about it as I was trying to get to sleep last night. Assuming staring at the flashing cursor in the search bar, I got from the physical key press to sending pixels to the monitor and I was done. It’s SO much.

Visited my local Maker Space open day yesterday. (Thanks, and nice to see you @castaway !)

Fun! And such a nice, friendly group of people.

Might have to join up and learn some electronics.

(Or not because I really don’t have time!!)

I’ve been doing research on garden solar. I think I have a useful system that pays for itself in about 4 years.

Part of me really wants to do this.

But part sees that there are much easier ways to save ~£400/year.

Am I missing reasons to do this? Is “doing my bit” a valid reason?

Bum. If there is one place that I don’t want AI coding.

https://1password.social/@1password/116569353856438624

There’s a lot of neat apps coming out at the moment.

I like them a lot. But I am a bit suspicious: how much of these are AI assisted to the point that they may not be safe?

How do I trust what I’m installing?

Or are AI-assisted apps actually safer? And better?

I don’t know any more. Tech is so confusing. 🫤

Using dependencies in software seems increasingly fraught.

I wonder if there comes a point where we shun dependencies in software development.

Or go back to snippets or small, “finished” libraries that we can easily understand and reason about.

Big npm blobs seem like a bad idea!

(FWIW I already try to do this)

(And yes, you could get AI to code libraries for you. But that doesn’t seem like a good idea either!)

RE: https://front-end.social/@anarodrigues/116562197482285921

I sense that Mastodon is generally where the good people are. But I’m boosting this anyway. Men: read it and take note.

And I say this: most of the smartest, hardest-working people I’ve worked with have been women. I have learnt so much from them. You are worse off if you don’t respect them and learn from them.

It's kinda sad when folks involved in open source projects say “I don't think we should do X because agents have got really good at doing Y”.

It's mad that we decide that we should leaning into doing things the way that agents are good at.

They're supposed to be intelligent. They're supposed to be good at the things humans do. We should do the humans thing. Because humans will always be here.

This seems especially true for a project that wants to “democratise" things.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jillbinder/116557538328127463

Jill did some speaker coaching for me. She's brilliant! And this sounds like such an amazing programme.

@tommertron Hey Tom! Great to see the updates to macAppLibrary. I noticed a 1.4 today.

Can I point out that the download link on https://coefficiencies.com/apps/macapplibrary/ is still for v1.0?

You can hack the URL to update the version and that works, but people can't easily get the updates.

Perhaps you know? Am I missing something?

Thanks so much – gonna try out the API today! 🙂