-
Gruber’s reaction to Hacker News Discussion on Shubham Bose’s ‘The 49MB Web Page’:
One of the most controversial opinions I’ve long espoused, and believe today more than ever, is that it was a terrible mistake for web browsers to support JavaScript. Not that they should have picked a different language, but that they supported scripting at all. That decision turned web pages — which were originally intended as documents — into embedded computer programs.
It’s hard to imagine the web without JavaScript, only as a collection of static, linked documents served by essentially passive file servers.
-
Just as streaming services helped lower the cost of music, AI is reducing the price of software even more than the subscription model does. The downside is that AI is driving hardware prices up, and it’s uncertain whether we will ever see the return of the always-cheaper hardware trend.
-
FBI is investigating breach that may have hit its wiretapping tools — The Register
The FBI identified and addressed suspicious activities on FBI networks related to wiretapping and surveillance systems, marking a significant breach of law enforcement infrastructure.
The same FBI that demanded Apple build a backdoor for them in 2016?
-
‘The Window Chrome of Our Discontent’:
This entire idea that application window chrome should disappear is madness. Some people — at Apple, quite obviously — think it looks better, in the abstract, but I can’t see how it makes actually using these apps more productive. Artists don’t want to use invisible tools.
Well, if window chrome is absent, what’s left for Apple to differentiate itself from others than UI elements inside a window? Buttons!
-
A UI should step back and let user content come forward. But Apple often treats the UI itself as a key part of its identity and differentiation. That creates a tension: the more the UI disappears, the harder it becomes for Apple to stand apart from Microsoft or Google.
-
Claude hits #1 on the App Store as users rally behind Anthropic’s government standoff — 9to5Mac
While the long-term consequences of this disagreement are unclear, Anthropic appears to be winning in mindshare, at least for now, in terms of app downloads among iPhone users.
If Anthropic was a publicly traded company ten times their current valuation, would they still stand out against the US government? Asking for a fictional friend at Apple.
-
I have such a hard time explaining to people around me (family, friends and colleagues) that platforms like Meta are no good and that we should avoid them. 😔
-
We're Making a Big Mistake
I believe that IT workers who are also passionate about gen AI are making a major misjudgment. We wrongly assume that the advances we observe in our field, such as the autonomous or semi-autonomous development of applications, also translate to sectors like medicine or law. This is a false generalization. The field of IT heavily relies on strict formalism: the raw material consumed by LLMs. In the legal field, for example, this is not the case: it is much more complex. Continue reading →
-
Open source vs. open platforms — Manton Reece
Open source gives power to developers. An open platform gives power to everyone. The web needs business models that can sustain both.
Well balanced point of view, something we see less and less often these days.
-
In today’s world, with LLM, Claude Code, etc., is Apple’s Swift Playground still relevant, even for younger aspiring coders? A few years ago, it seems we were hearing much more about it than today.
-
Apparently, people are barely using Stack Overflow to ask questions, thanks to LLMs and AI. I expect a similar trend among people in a community like this one on Micro.blog. Some questions would be super easy to answer by asking ChatGPT or the like. I do understand that many people still want this human touch, though.
-
On Tahoe Icons
Just finished reading “It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons”, which many UI design pundits and non-UI experts, as well as simple, passionate Mac users, have been referring to a lot recently. I appreciate the documentation effort. It’s really well done. Very convincing. But… Designers age and are gradually replaced by a younger generation. Whether you like it or not, they bring new beliefs (justified or not), design principles (better or not), and values (questionable or not). Continue reading →
-
“Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.” - JA Westenberg in The Case for Blogging in the Ruins
Beyond feeling independent, having a blog helps active thinking.
-
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
There you go. That’s the real reason for the invasion, just like Iraq. WMD? Drugs? These are just excuses to get the oil. Only a month ago, the POTUS pardoned the former President of Honduras for trafficking cocaine into the US. As usual, the lies are blatant.
The more it changes…
-
I got a lot of positive reactions about my Micro.blog front end for writing and publishing posts in a simplified user experience. I wasn’t expecting that. To me, it might mean that it’s filling a small void in Micro.blog offerings. Thankfully, Micro.blog is an open “platform” which allows such experiments like mine.
Some people asked me to make my app open source. I’m hesitant. I don’t want to feel the pressure of having to support others in using my work but who would like to add their own touches. I think, for now, I’ll respectfully decline. I would rather encourage anyone to follow the same route that I did and experiment with the tooling. 👾
-
Consuming AI Can Be Expensive
While experimenting with n8n and LLM services, I realize that using artificial intelligence can become a very costly hobby. The fact that the consumption of these services relies on two separate offerings — the subscription to the interactive service and on-demand billing for APIs — requires careful management and wise choices of providers. Currently, I use ChatGPT and Claude AI in interactive mode, but I also need a provider to access AI via APIs. Continue reading →
-
The year 2025 according to ChatGPT newest image generation tool — a concise snapshot of where AI actually stands in 2025. That is all. 🤣
-
Learning in the Age of AI
-
Saved 50 Minutes
Realmac Software shared their latest dev talk video. The video title mentions conversations about future plans for Elements. I was curious because I want to know where they are going with the CMS and RSS. I headed to YouTube and asked AI the following question: did they mention CMS? In a few seconds, I got my answer: yes, and they also talked about better support for RSS, which is something I’ve been waiting for. Continue reading →
-
Rant on. I’m judging on facts and acts, not with what someone says. Some people might defend web openness et al, but sharing on x.com in 2025 because it’s the place most people go is not an act of openness. It’s an act of contribution toward fascism. Stop pretending, people, don’t be lazy, stop taking shortcuts and leave x.com once and for all. Rant off.
