David Gregory @dgregory@types.pl

Not exactly fresh news but it turns out that @compiler_explorer got an amazing feature last year: ability to step through the individual LLVM optimization passes and see what exact effect it has on your code sample. Cool stuff! 🤯

Example: https://rust.godbolt.org/z/46P8MP3x1

#Programming #OpenSource #RustLang

Back when Raquel Vélez was my boss at npm, inc., she had a name for when somebody would give you an ill-defined task and then would get upset when you didn't do it "right."

She called it "Bring me a rock." When I asked her what that meant, she would say "Bright me a rock... no, not that one." It was pretty a pretty clear example.

She recognized quickly that I hate, with all of me, "Bring me a rock." It's the least good game.

Anyway, was thinking about that tonight.

Everybody should use that.

Flat organisations aren't really "we don't have a hierarchy", it's "we *do* have a hierarchy, it's just not written down, so that the neurodivergent staff and/or the Workplace Gender Equality Agency don't know what it is"

I'm not worried about the AI apocalypse. I'm worried about the "VCs subsidize AI tech and sell it at a loss just long enough to make everyone rely on them (aka 'disrupting the knowledge worker industry') before bumping the price up and quality down just like Uber and Amazon and the rest" apocalypse. #ai #vc

I loath the way so many companies now boast about their Series A/B/C funding in their recruitment emails. When I read that shit, all I see is “we’re in debt to someone who will want a big exit”, and I cannot stress how much that makes me not want to work there. It also almost always means the company is not solvent.

Here's one thing I've learned as a Jew and the son of a WWII refugee: you don't just watch out for the nazis - you watch who goes to bat for the nazis.

JK Rowling goes to bat for the nazis.

https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/j-k-rowling-tweets-support-for-activist-embroiled-in-nazi-controversy

This is exactly what NOT to use generative #AI for. Here they are avoiding giving PoC jobs - and there are models to be hired, to be sure - and instead accomplishing “power rangers diversity” w/ pie charts measures and algorithms rather than just humanity. Shameful and lazy Levi’s.

“Levi's will start using AI-generated people in order to increase the diversity among its models.”

https://petapixel.com/2023/03/24/levis-to-use-ai-generated-models-to-increase-diversity/

"How Big Should a Programming Language Be?" by @ltratt

https://tratt.net/laurie/blog/2023/how_big_should_a_programming_language_be.html

Is there still a simple language out there? Perhaps only brand new ones are? Developers always expect languages to gain new features. But at some point, you reach feature-bloat and your language is not simple anymore.

When working on #groovylang I always thought about this, as adding new features was often useful for a smaller subset of users.

But if you stop adding features, people think the project is dead.

A couple months ago tech executives were decrying that they could not find sufficient staff or staff were quiet quitting.

Now all of the tech companies are laying off staff in droves.

Microsoft - 10,000
Amazon - 27,000
Salesforce - 9,000
Google - 12,000

Well I guess it has to be done since revenue is down. Wait revenues are not down?

Well profits must be down. Wait profits are not down?

So it seems like the certificate for https://objects.githubusercontent.com/ expired on 2023-03-21. That seems kinda bad? like a massive five alarm fire bad?

We are releasing the well-poisoning machine, because if we don't do it first, someone else with even worse morals might do it faster.

By being the first people to poison the well, we can know exactly what kind of toxins will be in the water such that we understand the symptoms when we inevitably make the whole village sick from it.

Of course this has prompted our competitors to fire their ethics people and also poison the well even faster, but such is the inevitable march of progress!

Every few years people re-learn the same lesson about Brendan Eich and it would probably be more efficient if they just remembered instead. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/business/media/ai-chatbots-right-wing-conservative.html

This is an incredibly impressive technical achievement but I hope senior engineers recognize by now that a business should never rely on VC-backed infrastructure.

https://dragonflydb.io/blog/dragonfly-production-ready

Because when they inevitably go bankrupt, you will be stuck with a proprietary tech stack forever.

Build within a community and you'll always have people who can help. Redis has a community, Dragonfly does not.

i do hope you weren't relying on the internet for accurate information, because those days are gone

looks like Ofcom also thinks this is bullshit https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/03/ofcom-uk-clamps-down-on-misleading-fibre-broadband-adverts.html

Any conference that's willing to sign an agreement that commits them to paying off a speaker whose talk they cancel because, eg, said speaker turns out to be a nazi is probably not a conference you want to be at: https://github.com/speakers-in-tech/sea/blob/main/SEA.md

(Of course this is John De Goes, also responsible for https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/46791.html)

me btw

The narrative of "kids are depressed because of phones/screentime" is so enticing for adults because it lets us off the hook for our myriad failures: the environment, creating a socual safety net, gun violence, racism, sexism, hate directed at LGBTQIA people, etc, etc.

Youth are rational actors. They see the mess we are creating, and know they have no choice but to live in it.

And: adults have also failed to create a humane and ethical tech industry!

But sure - blame kids for phone use.

Today's bear-shitting-in-the-woods news is the Met (of course!) - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/21/metropolitan-police-institutionally-racist-misogynistic-homophobic-louise-casey-report

But, not to be outdone #devon and #cornwall police have felt the need to do themselves a little direct collaboration with the far-right - https://dorseteye.com/devon-and-cornwall-police-accused-of-staggering-incompetence-and-putting-refugee-lives-at-risk/

If you're in #Newquay or nearby this weekend, do think about showing up to oppose the vile lies of the far-right & their accomplices in the #police