@baldur@toot.cafe
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baldur

@baldur@toot.cafe

Writer, web developer and consultant based in Hveragerði, Iceland. Lapsed Interactive Media Academic. Webby Tech Stuff and webby book stuff.

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baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“Let’s dissect Apple’s terrible iPad ad and see what it says about understanding your customers”

"At every turn, Apple and their ad agency used the language of cinema to create despair."

Yeah. https://shorts.stackingthebricks.com/apples-terrible-ipad-ad-shows-why-you-need-sales-safari/

baldur, to random
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The nice thing about remote conferences is I can follow them while still enjoying the spring weather here in Iceland.

baldur, to random
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“11ty’s International Symposium on Making Web Sites Real Good”

Following this now. https://conf.11ty.dev/

baldur, to random
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“Five Things: May 9, 2024 — As in guillotine…” https://loudpoet.com/2024/05/09/five-things-may-9-2024/

baldur, to random
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One of the more annoying things about modern tech and media is just how badly it’s all thought out. Your average high school student could figure out better strategies for a streamer or big tech co than the random, reactive, FOMO shit show that they’re now pretending is a premediated plan

baldur, to random
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“Don’t publish slop”. Everybody agrees. Every dev in sight pats each other on the back. Programmers high-five each other.

“Don’t build tools that generate slop.” The room is empty. One person left a note saying they felt personally offended by the accusation. The note was written by ChatGPT.

baldur, to random
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those devs and tech “influencers” who pioneered the technical work of putting “AI” shit in everything everywhere, and are—for the most part—the assholes who enabled our brave new “AI” world by actually figuring out how to make it run, are also going to be the people who get credit for criticising it after the bubble pops, aren’t they?

Everybody will latch onto their vague concerns and ignore the fact that they literally implemented the shit that got smeared everywhere, aren’t they?

baldur,
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@chrisg Yeah, pretty much.

baldur,
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I should have realised this sooner because this is what happened to those who criticised the dot-com and web 2.0 bubbles. All of the criticism of those bubbles has been memory-holed.

baldur, to random
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“Browsers imply noopener for links in new tab” https://werd.io/view/663b7748988d4c0888057fd2

baldur, to random
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“More layoffs for the flutter team 😬 : FlutterDev”

This thread on reddit on Google sacking a part of the Flutter team does a good job of highlighting the anxiety and chaos being caused by the now regular mass layoffs https://old.reddit.com/r/FlutterDev/comments/1cduhra/more_layoffs_for_the_flutter_team/

baldur,
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

@isaaclyman Yeah, this is why these layoffs are so anxiety-inducing even for people outside the companies proper. So many rely on communal resources maintained by big tech cosand even the possibility that those resources might be affected is going to cause a lot of stress and worry.

baldur, to random
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“Bookending | everything changes” https://everythingchanges.us/blog/bookending/

baldur, to random
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“Adactio: Articles—Declarative Design” https://adactio.com/articles/21110

baldur, to random
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“Word Count 74: Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, reader surveys, do people buy books? — Chocolate and Vodka”

"Do people buy books, or is claiming they don’t just clickbait?" https://chocolateandvodka.com/2024/05/07/word-count-74-womens-prize-for-fiction-shortlist-reader-surveys-do-people-buy-books/

baldur, to random
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“Modern WordPress - Yikes!“

"Am I going crazy? Is this not the most utterly bizarre chimera of bastardised code you’ve ever seen?" https://dbushell.com/2024/05/07/modern-wordpress-themes-yikes/

baldur,
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@alda @cbirdsong Sheesh! 🤨

baldur, to random
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I know it’s probably unfair of me, but when one of the presidential candidates here in Iceland (Halla Hrund) talks about how Iceland is and should be built on “Christian values” without specifying which Christian values, I have to assume that it’s a dogwhistle of some kind until proven otherwise

baldur, to random
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“The tech industry doesn’t deserve optimism it has earned skepticism”

I’d go even further and say that big tech companies have earned an assumption of guilt until proven innocent. https://coryd.dev/posts/2024/the-tech-industry-doesnt-deserve-optimism-it-has-earned-skepticism/

baldur, to random
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“I’ve had this thought but never put it into words. | Apple Annie’s Microblog”

Yeah. This. https://micro.anniegreens.lol/2024/05/06/ive-had-this.html

baldur, to random
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I keep thinking that I should put a /now page on my website, except an honest one would just be a bunch of Beaker gifs 😅

Beaker runs with a chainsaw
Beaker is frantic as Kermit watches on
Beaker vibrates with anxiety

baldur,
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@cbirdsong 😆

baldur,
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@bjoreman 😁

ctietze, to random
@ctietze@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur Just read your May 2nd post on React and unionizing.

The book by Ethan is on my 'some day' reading list; but I'm freelancing or selling my own stuff, so there's no pressure a.t.m., but I wonder if it's still urgent to know about it to help fellow devs somehow.

Would you recommend I read it sooner than later?

baldur,
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

@ctietze I think it's a more urgent read for devs who are based in the US or the UK because those countries have such a history of anti-union sentiment and generally little union activity.

IMO it's less urgent for those of us in Europe. The way Ethan talks about unions in a tech and dev context is very interesting, though, so I'd still recommend it, but I wouldn't call it urgent, if that makes sense?

baldur, to random
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React, Electron, and LLMs have a common purpose: the labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/react-electron-llms-labour-arbitrage/

baldur,
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

@KevinOfComputer I haven’t read the latter so don’t have an opinion. But that one looks interesting too. 🙂

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