Content Tagged “software”
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→ My approach to running a link blog, Simon Willison’s Weblog
Some reflections on link blogging by Simon Willison, one of the creators of Django.
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New Link Blog Functionality
I’ve added a new feature to the site to more easily post links. Well, it’s not really a new feature, I’ve had similar functionality with earlier versions of this site, but with my newfound ability to fully customise my blog software, I was able to streamline both the backend Markdown content as well as the frontend look and feel a lot more than with previous versions of my website. This will hopefully make it easier for me to post quick links like this one in the future.
I’ve incremented the version number of the software that compiles this site — which I am calling “F/X” — to version 4.1 to reflect this change.
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Katy’s New Site
After quite some time and a lot of work, I have now launched the new version of my wife’s website. It lists all of her scientific publications and other information relevant to her research: scherschel.science
I am obviously very proud — more so of my wife than of the website.
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The Modern Web Infrastructure
I have no idea who made this (only that it is somewhat based on XKCD 2347), but it is pretty spot on.
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Wikipedia’s Clippy
Wikipedia has deployed their own version of Clippy. It hovers beside the text as you read Wikipedia articles. Now, apparently, this thing is called “Baby Globe” and was made to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday.
I honestly thought initially that it was there to remind you that the CIA knows what you are reading on Wikipedia. 😆
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Wading Through AI
Casey Muratori has started a new video series called Wading Through AI with his friend (and AI researcher) Demetri Spanos. They have just released the first episode and it’s excellent. Like anything from Casey, it is well worth a watch!
→ Should You Be A Carpenter? – Wading Through AI, episode 1
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CSS Hell
I am redesigning my website to run without JavaScript. I love the idea of that. I love what you can do with CSS these days. It is a special kind of hell, though.
You’re going to burn in a very special level of hell … a level they reserve for child molesters. And people who talk at the theatre.
— Shepherd Book, “Firefly”
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Casey Muratori is Right on Everything
I’ve been watching stuff from Casey Muratori for a while now. He seems to be a great guy. I started with Handmade Hero and I’ve now followed all of his stuff everywhere, I think.
Here he is on a video podcast, explaining why a) software is so shit these days and b) being completely correct about AI on several levels at once. The dude is great. I love him.
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TFTD Bugfix Release
I pushed an update for my Thought for the Day app:
v0.07 - 11/01/2026
- Fixed a bug with the date display if the year fraction was below 100
This bug only occurred to me, once the date ticked over into the new year. Anyway, it’s fixed in the new version.
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The App Economy Hellscape
The modern app economy is horrible. We’ve traded job security and decent wages for “independent contractors” who are basically human drones that are remotely controlled by algos, apps and gamified brainwashing. And for what? So that people, who cosplay activists on social media so that they can convince their friends that they are good people and want to make the world a better place, but who are too lazy to go for a walk to their local supermarket, can order food and groceries right to their door.
People refuse to see how dumb this shit is. And that means this is what we’re going to end up with:
→ /r/confession: I’m a developer for a major food delivery app. The ’Priority Fee’ and ’Driver Benefit Fee’ go 100% to the company. The driver sees $0 of it.
I’m posting this from a library Wi-Fi on a burner laptop because I am technically under a massive NDA. I don’t care anymore. I put in my two weeks yesterday and honestly, I hope they sue me. I’ve been sitting on this for about eight months, just watching the code getting pushed to production, and I can’t sleep at night knowing I helped build this machine.
You guys always suspect the algorithms are rigged against you, but the reality is actually so much more depressing than the conspiracy theories. I’m a backend engineer. I sit in the weekly sprint planning meetings where Product Managers (PMs) discuss how to squeeze another 0.4% margin out of “human assets” (that’s literally what they call drivers in the database schemas). They talk about these people like they are resource nodes in a video game, not fathers and mothers trying to pay rent.
First off, the “Priority Delivery” is a total scam. It was pitched to us as a “psychological value add.” Like I said in the title, when you pay that extra $2.99, it changes a boolean flag in the order JSON, but the dispatch logic literally ignores it. It does nothing to speed you up.
We actually ran an A/B test last year where we didn’t speed up the priority orders, we just purposefully delayed non-priority orders by 5 to 10 minutes to make the Priority ones "feel" faster by comparison. Management loved the results. We generated millions in pure profit just by making the standard service worse, not by making the premium service better.
But the thing that actually makes me sick—and the main reason I’m quitting—is the “Desperation Score.” We have a hidden metric for drivers that tracks how desperate they are for cash based on their acceptance behavior.
If a driver usually logs on at 10 PM and accepts every garbage $3 order instantly without hesitation, the algo tags them as “High Desperation.” Once they are tagged, the system then deliberately stops showing them high-paying orders. The logic is: “Why pay this guy $15 for a run when we know he’s desperate enough to do it for $6?” We save the good tips for the “casual” drivers to hook them in and gamify their experience, while the full-timers get grinded into dust.
Then there is the “Benefit Fee.” You’ve probably seen that $1.50 “Regulatory Response Fee” or “Driver Benefits Fee” that appeared on your bill after the recent labor laws passed. The wording is designed to make you feel like you’re helping the worker.
In reality, that money goes straight to a corporate slush fund used to lobby against driver unions. We have a specific internal cost center for “Policy Defense,” and that fee feeds directly into it. You are literally paying for the high-end lawyers that are fighting to keep your delivery guy homeless.
And regarding tips, we’re essentially doing Tip Theft 2.0. We don’t “steal” them legally anymore because we got sued for that. Instead, we use predictive modeling to dynamically lower the base pay.
If the algo predicts you are a “high tipper” and you’ll likely drop $10, it offers the driver a measly $2 base pay. If you tip $0, it offers them $8 base pay just to get the food moved. The result is that your generosity isn’t rewarding the driver; it’s subsidizing us. You’re paying their wage so we don’t have to.
I’m drunk and I’m angry. Ask me anything before this gets taken down.
(Screenshot of that Reddit post for posterity)
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Webmentions with Hugo on Netlify
Collecting some links on getting Webmentions to work with Hugo and Netlify.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov — To the Un-Known!
- Bridgy Fed
- Max Böck — Static Indieweb pt1: Syndicating Content
- Max Böck — Static Indieweb pt2: Using Webmentions
- Webmention.io
- Webmention.app Documentation — How to integrate with Netlify
