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@anildash@me.dm avatar

anildash

@[email protected]

I'm a big fan of being a big fan of things. you can email me at [email protected] or SMS/signal at +1 646 541 5843. kind but not nice. #tfr

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@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

"In 1999, I interviewed Prince for TIME and he told me to leave my tape recorder off because he didn’t trust what future technology might do with unauthorized recordings of his voice.

At the time, I thought Prince was being paranoid ... I realize now that Prince wasn’t paranoid, he was prescient."

https://time.com/7338205/rage-against-ai-generated-music/

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

Many folks are reflecting on Prince’s extraordinary halftime performance, the greatest of all time. What you may not know is that it was a profound, nuanced statement and a powerful reclaiming of a proud Black music tradition. Some background: https://anildash.com/2021/02/05/how-prince-won-the-super-bowl/ 

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115884631610047441

If you reserve this, they’ve got… some land on the moon they’d like to sell you?

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

I've been working on this one for a while. The multi-trillion-dollar AI industry? Their most advanced platforms are controlled by a plain text format that John Gruber made up for his blog, and then bounced off of a 17-year-old Aaron Swartz, before sharing it with the world for free. That is the internet. Here's the amazing (true!) story of how Markdown took over the world. https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/09/how-markdown-took-over-the-world/

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

I wanted to just share one story about a kid who spent a lot of time in the neighborhood where Renee Nicole Good died today. Prince got married at Park United Methodist just down the street from 34th & Portland; he went to high school at Central High a few blocks in the other direction over on 35th. Prince spoke several times about a particularly formative memory of growing up: During a march against police violence in 1967, the cops responded brutally, leading to uprisings all over the city…

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

Since ChatGPT came out in late 2022, over half a million tech workers have been laid off. That fact, and their voices, aren't really shaping the conversation about AI, and what "AI" really means in culture. So I started to get into it: https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/06/500k-tech-workers-laid-off/

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

The number one thing I've been hearing from people in tech lately is, basically, "How the hell am I supposed to work in this industry anymore?" Though most folks are kind of afraid to say it out loud. So I wrote about how to think about it: https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/05/a-tech-career-in-2026/

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

One amazing thing about 2025 is that, if you start up an Apple product, it forces you to choose between three different window mangers, but if you start up a clean install of a current version of Linux, it just chooses good defaults for you.

iPadOS screen for choosing between three different ways of managing apps, "Full Screen Apps", "Windowed Apps", and "Stage Manager".
ALT
@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

Bleh. Just saw a friend who found out they couldn’t be followed by one of their friends because (unbeknownst to both parties) the moderators of their friend’s instance had defederated from their own instance. All of this, for people who barely know what any of these terms mean. What they experience is, “Two people you’ve never met have a beef you’ve never heard about over an issue you don’t know about, so your friend can’t see you. And there’s no fix.” It’s just terrible all around.

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

I sat for a long while with my complicated feelings about "vibe coding". It is genuinely empowering for many — opening a door to creating with code that otherwise would never exist. Also? It enables a dangerous dependency that could be a path to serfdom for coders. https://www.anildash.com/2025/12/02/vibe-coding-empowering-and-imprisoning/

anildash OP ,
@anildash@me.dm avatar

@Gargron I think that's a fair argument for the segment of coding that is software engineering. I would argue a lot of coding isn't really... software engineering? Like, the front-end code on my blog certainly doesn't count as that for me. If I get an LLM to help me, and it has an error, there's no security or privacy implications, nor any real danger except maybe a rendering error. So it seems like a fair domain to just muddle through. There are a lot of things in that space these days.

ted ,
@ted@gould.cx avatar

@Gargron @anildash there is a lot of discussion in the US about a Professional Engineering license for Software. It goes in and out of favor, but I think that it should be required for at least life-critical software.

There is some gatekeeping there, but I think when human lives are at risk it is justified.

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

One of the top stories on Hacker News today was a post arguing that Mozilla shouldn't accommodate any usage of AI in Firefox because (understandably) people were mad at Big AI companies for all the horrible things they've done to users and the internet and society. But I think people are ignoring the reality that hundreds of millions of users are using LLMs today, and they need to have tools from platforms that will look out for their interests. https://www.anildash.com/2025/11/14/wanting-not-to-want-ai/

poisonpunk ,
@poisonpunk@mastodon.social avatar

@anildash try from . i use it sparingly & support wikipedia first for instance, as a first option. for very complex questions i use lumo, & turn all other off in my browsers. as with everything, you need to have your moral compass out before you make a decision to use a service or buy a product. do AI have morals yet?

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

LOL I stepped away from Mastodon for a couple hours and everybody is VERY MAD that I made jokes about CLIs. I use them every day, guys, it's gonna be okay. I promise I did not hurt Zork's feelings. It is, however, a factual statement that CLIs are not discoverable user interfaces and they are a poor choice for mainstream audiences; this debate was settled long ago.

der_mit_ph ,
@der_mit_ph@toot.berlin avatar

@ted @anildash It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

beeoproblem ,
@beeoproblem@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar
@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

So much of what's wrong with tech started from one simple phenomenon: focusing on the money-movers instead of people who actually make shit. Real technology matters. Inventors over investors, every time. Founders over funders. Writing code > writing checks. https://www.anildash.com/2025/10/24/founders-over-funders/

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

Imagine a browser where you type in “Taylor Swift” and it doesn’t even admit that her website exists. I write about Atlas, ChatGPT’s new anti-web browser that should come with a warning label. https://www.anildash.com/2025/10/22/atlas-anti-web-browser/

FritzAdalis ,
@FritzAdalis@infosec.exchange avatar

@molly0xfff @anildash
Gonna have to change all your passwords now, I guess.

samkaufman ,
@samkaufman@mastodon.online avatar

@molly0xfff Yet more questionably acquired IP

@anildash@me.dm avatar anildash , to random

By popular request: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful take on LLMs that (in my experience) the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. https://www.anildash.com//2025/10/17/the-majority-ai-view/ Please share!