@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

polotek

@polotek@social.polotek.net

Web developer, movie buff, and pretty much the best guy you know. Married to
@operaqueenie

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polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I think we need to talk more explicitly about why we're settling on "safety" as the term we are pursuing. As a manager, I've been trying to reconcile that term with some of the real expectations and pressures of the workplace. I don't think we are doing enough to create clarity. And I worry instead that talking about "safety" is creating unrealistic expectations.
https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/112349435602632842

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Some engineers like to talk about the fear of being fired. But in my experience, tech people don't get fired much at all. Especially when compared to how often we completely fail to deliver on time and on budget. And now we're saying the reason we can't do better until we feel even more "safe". It just feels weird to me.

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

The founders of two of the biggest crypto exchanges are now in prison. Lots of smaller ones as well. But crypto as a phenomenon is still going strong. With Bitcoin reaching all time highs again. It feels like something is deeply broken about this moment in time.

But I'm not naive. The more you learn, you come to realize and accept that things are pretty broken a lot of times throughout our history. So the better thing to ponder is what can we do in order to keep things from bubbling over?

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I try not to be this person all the time. But occasionally I like to gently remind people that the causality is backwards. Google’s profits are soaring in part because they’re doing layoffs. That’s why they are doing layoffs. There are always 2 ways to increase profits. Make more revenue or decrease operating expenses. (Hint: paying employees is an operating expense) https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/112360560095763105

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

Why not “feed 2 birds with one scone” as my wife likes to say.
https://mastodon.social/@bamboombibbitybop/112362748161731041

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I’ve talked about the stock market more on Twitter and Bluesky than I have here. Learning to follow financial news has helped me to make sense of what’s happening in the world. It doesn’t make it better. But it at least makes more sense.

The short version is that high interest rates are squeezing profits. Tech companies still have to look like they’re growing and profitable or their stock price goes down. The market is pressuring them to be “leaner and more efficient”. That means layoffs.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I’m not saying this is the one explanation for everything. I don’t like that kind of simplification. But I do think this issue is upstream of a lot of other things that are falling apart. When times are fat, a lot of dysfunction can be hidden or papered over. When times get hard, that’s when the hammer falls.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

When I say “the market is putting pressure on companies”, it’s not some hand-wavy thing. I mean that’s what humans are saying. The humans who spend all of their time doing machinations to make stock prices go up or down so they can come out ahead. Those people are worried about interest rates.They’re seeing their investment returns dry up. They have to sell stock so they can pay their own growing interest payments. The result is the market equivalent of “belt tightening”.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

But those people work very hard not to talk about how all of this stuff has impacts on real people. They have lots of different ways of talking about reducing employee overhead without calling it that. But if you learn to speak the language, you can hear it. Search for “stock-based compensation” and read the conversations. Tech employees are under fire right now in the market. They view us as expensive leeches sucking up all of their “alpha”.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

@janl she is trying to make "fetch" happen. She might even succeed.

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

"Instead of regulating the development of AI models, the focus should be on regulating their applications, particularly those that pose high risks to public safety and security. Regulate the use of AI in high-risk areas such as healthcare, criminal justice, and critical infrastructure, where the potential for harm is greatest, would ensure accountability for harmful use, whilst allowing for the continued advancement of AI technology."
https://www.answer.ai/posts/2024-04-29-sb1047.html /via @simon

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I've been thinking about "personal software" a lot lately. My background is mostly in Multi-tenant SaaS software. You try to reach economies of scale by serving more and more users with the same single system.

Personal software is mean to be used by one person. Or at most a small group of people who share the same context. I think there are a lot of problems it he solved in that context. It's just difficult to support from an economic perspective.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

The idle thought I'm having today is about complexity. I've taken some stabs at building something for myself recently. Setting aside the reality that I'm kinda scatterbrained and easily distracted, it still feels incredibly difficult to *finish" software. I mean to get it to a level of polish where I would actually use it. I've been trying to get to some clear thoughts about what makes it difficult.

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

For example, I really like putting things in s3. It's easily one of the best things that has ever happened to app development. It's great.

But for personal software? You don't need s3. Just use the file system. It'll be fine. And you skip the whole rabbit hole of remembering how to configure and secure s3 buckets.

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

I mentioned before that I pay masto.host a little extra for search capabilities. I mostly use it to find my old posts for reference. I can do "from:me <query>". I can also do "to:me" to find replies people have sent to me.

I can do "from:someuser@other.social". And it will find any of their posts as well. I think this is limited to only posts on my instance? I'm not exactly sure.

However. I can't combine these. "to:me from:someuser@other.social" does not return what I expect.

simon, to random
@simon@simonwillison.net avatar

I'm considering building a feature for a SaaS app that lets you "invite" a customer support person to be able to see your private data in order to help you debug an issue - where everything they look at is logged in an audit log that's visible to you and you also get to see when they "resign" from their temporary access

Is this a common feature? Has anyone seen good implementations of this kind of pattern before?

polotek,
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

@simon as others have said, this is a common need in enterprise SaaS. I think if you built something something people could buy instead of build, there's a business there. There are some questions I would have as a potential customer though.

polotek, to random
@polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

There are so many different solutions for python environments in this thread. Makes me feel at least a little bit better about the mess that is JavaScript build systems.
https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon/112326656094994947

divya, to random
@divya@sfba.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    @divya wait, what did I miss? I'm also about to call Kaiser about ADHD.

    polotek, to random
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    Me: I think I need more flexibility than what mastodon offers right now.

    Them: What do you mean? Mastodon is super flexible! What do you need?

    Me: Well I don't like X and I'd rather have Y.

    Them: Oh, yeah it definitely doesn't do that. But you're sort of wrong for wanting that anyway. Glad I could help!

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    Social media is probably the thing that is closest to being doable today. I have my own social identity under my own domain. social.polotek.net. I control the domain and I can put whatever I want here. That feels nice. But I don't really know how to make it into what I want.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    For example, mastodon and bluesky are different platforms. I have to have two separate identities. I don't care about either one of these entities. I'm just want to be me in both places.

    I'm closest with mastodon right now. I have my own instance and I can publish what I want. People have to come looking for me and decide to follow. But bluesky people can't decide to follow me if they want to. The arbitrary boundaries of their platform prevent that.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    I just don't really need mastodon or bluesky to be an intermediary between me and somebody who wants to see what I post. And I definitely don't need to publish the same thing in two different places.

    Instead I want to just post to my space. In the same way I put up a blog post on my website and I don't have ask anybody first. And whoever wants to come and look at it can do so.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    I wanted to do a video about something the other day. I don't wanna be a YouTuber. I don't wanna mess with a bunch of a/v tools. I just want to be part of a conversation in a different community that mostly communicates through video. (The gaming community. Those mofos don't read 😜)

    But right now there no great way to just post a video under my own domain, and have it published and discoverable through the platforms where people already congregate around this stuff.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    Basically, I don't mind having a representation of my identity and my content on other platforms. But I want it to be a re-publishing of what I put on my own platform. I want a world where you can always find me directly by coming to my site. You can be assured that whatever you saw elsewhere was actually me. And I can be responsible for preserving my online presence, even as these other platforms rise and fall.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    At some point I developed a personal policy that I never deleted tweets. I wanted to always be accountable to what I said.

    I worked hard to make sure I got my full archive from Twitter. Because eventually I'm gonna do the work to make it available again under a domain that I control. So I can continue to be accountable even if Twitter goes away.

    But squarespace can't help me with that. And neither can mastodon. I'm gonna have to do it myself.

    polotek,
    @polotek@social.polotek.net avatar

    @thisismissem I'm realizing maybe "flexible" wasn't the right word. I just want the set of capabilities that I'm thinking of to be easily accessible to me. I think a lot of the puzzle pieces are there. But there is also the work of pulling it together into something that is more usable and accessible.

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