Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
I typically collect the articles I like to during the week. I’ll go through the list, clip quotes, and add links. Then I come back up here and write an introduction.
This week’s links and my commentary are kind of a drag. The commentary on LLMs in particular definitely comes across negatively but it’s only because I am afraid of losing my job. I really am.
I’m working very dilligently to become an LLM usage expert so I have a place in software development going forward but I’m also aware there is an outside chance I could lose my job.
As it stands now I am using an LLM on a project at work and it’s going really well. Preparing your project for use with an LLM is pretty important. You can hook it up to your ticketing system, design system, and other things so the LLM can drive itself using those specifications and designs, as well as the general settings you’ve configured it with.
We still look at the code to make sure it’s following the coding standard and practices we’ve outlined and we still do PRs and take feedback from other developers. It’s not completely LLM driven but it could be if we felt completely comfortable with its output.
Bottom line: These things work.🤖
I hope you enjoy the links!
Of those I was leaning toward C because speed is an issue. I wanted to make rendering this blog, over 25 years old and with thousands of posts, to happen in under one second. The system I was replacing took a few seconds. But I wanted more speed (personality flaw).
And then I thought, I swear just for a split second, about how great it would be if C had something a little nicer than C structs for modeling my app’s data — and oh well too bad there’s nothing like that.
And then I remembered Objective-C, which is C plus some things a little nicer than C structs. 🎩🦖
I love reading Bren’t work. He’s one of those Mac and iOS heros I look up to. His work has been an inspiration for my own iOS and Mac(still working on it!) work.
Anywho. I love that he chose to use Objective-C for his blog publishing tool. He’s obviously very comfortable with the language and he’s mastered it. Why not use it?
Oh, and Brent, there is another choice if you want “something a little nicer than C structs for modeling my app’s data.” C++ is a great choice for that and you don’t really have to take full advantage of the richness of it. You can write C code and do a little C++ here and there and have a perfectly valid, robust, application.😄
I have a little project I started where I was going to write a collection of blogging tools for myself. Reading this makes me want to return to C++ to do it. I could use my little collection of Cocoa inspired C++ classes to do it; HSString, HSDictionary, HSArray, etc.😃
That would allow me to run everything on a Linux server but so would Swift!
With a price point of $599 (or $499 for students!) Apple had to make some cuts when designing the MacBook Neo.
Here’s a list of what separates the MacBook Neo from the MacBook Air:
I was thinking the MacBook Neo would be an awesome choice for my wife. She’s been talking about getting a MacBook for quite a while now and I think this would fit her needs perfectly. I think we’d get her the “high end” version with 512GB of storage.
Mr. Hackett’s piece is quite helpful if you’re trying to decide between the Neo and Air.🙏🏼
For the first time in five generations of Apple Silicon, these chips are not a single piece of silicon. The newly announced M5 Pro and M5 Max use what Apple calls Fusion Architecture. This is a big structural change, with long-term implications. And you can see this at work in the newly announced flagship Apple laptops. On the surface these are two third-generation 3-nanometer dies, bonded together into one system on a chip. But dig deeper, and with this modular, scalable silicon approach, Apple is setting itself up to cash in on the computing needs of the AI future.
Remember, Apple talked about creating their own servers for their private AI network at WWDC 2024. I wonder if they tested this technology there first, found it worked, and decided it was the way forward for consumer chips.
John Siracusa talked on ATP about the need for Apple to create their equivalent of a Ferrari, not because they really needed it, but because it allows them push the computing envelope. Racing has always influenced consumer automobiles, why not have high end computers used in a data center infulence consumer computing?
Of course that all conjecture on my part.😄
BridgeJS changes that: annotate your Swift, get typed glue code in both directions. Compile-time safe. Zero manual boilerplate.
Seems interesting given a lot of native apps use the JavaScriptCore engine to allow for a more scripted approach to extending their applications. Take Tapestry, from The Iconfactory, for example. It uses JavaScript, it calls Connectors, to allow you to process feeds. Be it RSS or a custom feed output by your own proprietary system it give you the power to rerpresent that data via a well defined interface, using JavaScript.
Something strange happened in early 2026. Apple stores started running low on Mac Minis. Tech forums exploded with setup guides. Developers were ordering three, five, sometimes twelve units at a time. The reason had nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with what people were tired of giving away.
From a technical standpoint it’s interesting to see how folks are setting their own private AI agents up internally. Apparently ClawBot can be a security nightmare if you’re not careful about how its configured.
Be careful out there.🤖
The legendary Bruce Campbell is hoping to go on tour with his movie Ernie & Emma this fall and I’m hoping he’ll be considered for the lead role in the film adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s novella BadAsstronauts – but before we get to either of those things, Campbell has revealed that he has been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing treatment.
It sounds like this is something he can survive with for a long time. I certainly hope so. He seems to be a decent man and I’ve always loved his on screen presence.
I hadn’t heard or Ernie & Emma before reading this article, now I want to see it. Here’s hoping Mr. Campbell carries on for a very long time and gets a chance to make many more adult stories.❤️
My favourite thing of all, though, is when people have fun with the differing perspective that RSS gives you on the web. Dave Rupert runs an “RSS Club”, where members pledge to publish stuff to their feeds that never appears anywhere else — a secret, just for those in the know. Many use it for more personal writing, or works in progress, or art that they don’t want to expose to the whole internet yet. Somehow, still using RSS, which is a beautifully simple bit of tech from the early days of the web, makes you part of a community of like-minded strangers. When I’ve spent hours scrolling through my never-ending stream of text that nobody else ever sees, I feel a warm glow when I come across something that was written just for me.
I’m tellin’ ya, RSS is awesome! So are feed readers, no matter which one you choose. There’s one for everyone. Find one and enjoy bringing the web to you.
And… not to toot my own horn, ok, ok, I’m tooting my own horn, you can always download Stream for your iOS device.😄
The story of my car-sleeping year was published in 2015 and somehow went Hollywood viral. That’s a snooty way of saying it was met with praise — and no shortage of hate. But I also received over 1,000 private messages and emails from people who not only related, but had been there. Some far more successful than me. Some who had lost far more than me.
As I read this I imagined me and my wife living out of our car. An old software developer unable to find a job because of LLMs. Yes, it’s a fear I live with, and it sucks.
In the meantime I’m embracing LLMs for use at work. We’re encouraged to use them and I honestly believe the best shot I have at working in this industry until later in life is making sure I can use LLMs.
A long dive into the features that make my ideal music app, and why nothing currently fulfils the brief.
Music apps leave me wanting.
This post is a year old and I’m certain I mentioned it back then but it showed up recently on Mastodon and I had to revisit it. I’m not sure about other developers out there but when I see stuff like this I think “I could do that.” Of course I could do that with some time and money on my side. I hope Jon is able to find his perfect solution. I’m still working on mine.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus ⦁ The New Yorker
A large language model is nothing more than a monumental pile of small numbers. It converts words into numbers, runs those numbers through a numerical pinball game, and turns the resulting numbers back into words
I really love this explanation. I’ve been using the pachinko machine as an example when I talk to folks but I think both work well.
What kills me is when you hear folks say “They don’t even know how it works.” The “they” are the creators of this technology. Kind of scary.
The point is that the former Twitter has become a hateful cesspool, not simply mirroring but amplifying its owner’s profound insecurities, god-awful beliefs, and self-serving lies, and forcing that insanity into the public consciousness, whether we avoid X or not.
X is indeed a hateful cesspool and it took me a while to decide to jettison my beloved Twitter “fahrni@twitter.com” account. Someone else snatched it up in December 2023 and their last name isn’t even Fahrni! 🤣 Oh well. You can find me on Mastodon or here on my trusty old blog.
If you feel offended at this statement, and move to defend it as “just the way things go in business”, I understand. I have that reaction, too. But after that I take time for some abstract consideration; if our companies aren’t here to keep us employed and innovating, what are they here for? Is their purpose to maximize profit for the owners? Is that what our societies are showing a need for right now, maximized profit? More concentrated power?
A look at the human cost of LLMs in the workplace. Greed, like everything else, drives our LLM overlords to keep pushing forward. That classic Dr. Ian Malcom line from Jurassic Park comes to mind: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
If our world valued human life and human diginity we’d find a way to allow everyone to do the jobs that give them joy and not have to worry about housing, food, health care, and education. It would all be there for us to use as a member of society. If we don’t have that, what’s the alternative? A reduced population as Scrooge would say?
I know, that’s a gloomy take on it, but it certainly does come to mind. I’m the perfect candidate to fire. I’m in a senior level position, I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, and I’m old.👴🏼
⚠️ Politics
Add this to your existential dread bucket, Trump is totally winging it with war on Iran. The guy doesn’t have a plan. I think Netanuyahu has been flattering him, blowing warm smoke up his ass, and Trump is desperate to get Epstein out of the news cycle, so why not start a little war.
Folks already know I’m not a fan of our President and his administration. I do not want the United States engaged in yet another war in the Middle East.
What I believe is Marmalade Messiah is following the Nethanuyahu playbook and is going to raze much of Iran’s big cities and infrastructure so he can become Supreme Leader of Iran as well as President of the United States. Once he’s done that he’ll move to rebuild Iran and its cities as Trump cities. He’ll also have American companies move in to run all the oil and resource extraction outfits in the region. Of course he’ll extract big rents from all of these companies that’ll go directly into his own pockets.
The man and his administration need to be shown the door.🚪
