How to tell something was written by an LLM: - Your eyes glaze over immediately - Emojis used as list bullets - You fall asleep by the third paragraph - Doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said a million times before - Heavy use of em dashes - Probably trying to convince you to […]

OpenAI might be really big, but it ain't too big to fail. https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/tech/openai-backtracks-government-support-chip-investments

Need help completing easy but boring programming tasks? Would you rather spend more time thinking at a high level and crafting good specifications and documentation? Want an intelligent assistant that can learn and improve over time? Happy to review code and guide development through ongoing […]

Quantum entanglement exists, therefore we have the power to acquire material wealth through intention. Isn't science cool??

TIL you don't need Microsoft Office (or whatever it's called) to view powerpoint files. You can just upload them to this sketchy website to view them for free: https://m365.cloud.microsoft/ Make sure you have popups turned on for that site because, well, it must be made by some company that […]

I went to a web dev conference (Web Unleashed) and the hottest tech was server-side rendered basic HTML and CSS with a sprinkling of vanilla JavaScript. The tides are definitely turning back to where they were 15-20 years ago.. My 2007 book Unobtrusive Ajax is surprisingly cutting-edge again! […]

It doesn't happen often, but running `terraform destroy` to destroy an entire application - database, vpc, autoscaling pool, load balancer, database, etc. - is such an amazing time saver & feels exhilarating. #terraform

What book tracker do you use if any? Any recommendations? I want to be able to own my data, but would also like recommendations and maybe a community. I just want to track books I've started & finished. Goodreads is Amazon so I'd rather avoid that, I think. BookWyrm is cool but I don't see an […]

I promised myself I wouldn't try to time the market by selling stocks anymore, but damn is it ever tempting right now... #stocks #investing

I can't find anything about this online. Any ideas??? #linux #exploit #security

Should I do it?

You know that side project of yours that you feel bad for never working on? Is it something you really enjoy? Or is it work disguised as a hobby? Or maybe an obligation you created for yourself a long time ago? Here's your opportunity to let that go, take a deep breath, and make room for […]

It begins... #autumn #trees

I'm thinking of trying Defold for game development. I love Lua, and I like the maximum-backwards-compatibility philosophy of Defold, because my biggest fear is using some engine that I then have to upgrade/maintain/replace down the road. The cross-platform publishing looks really promising. Has […]

Turn on, tune in, log out

The striking thing migrating from AWS to OVH is just how many features are built into AWS that I took for granted. Autoscaling, SQS queues, SES email sending, CloudWatch analytics, security groups, secrets management, just to mention a few. The problem is that if someone is trained in AWS cloud […]

I don't have to work today. Or tomorrow. (I'll have less money, but I can choose that if I want.) My day is a blank canvas. I get to decide how I'll fill it. What am I most curious or excited about? What do I want to work on, if anything? Being able to set your own hours as a freelancer […]

The past few months, for the first time, I prioritized coziness & rest, minimizing stress and ambition and mindfully enjoying time travelling with my family. I just dropped my son off at school, and now I feel it's time to start a new season of focusing on my business again. But I feel the […]

My clients collectively spend over $15,000/month on AWS. I've personally been trying to boycott Amazon for a year or so, so I'm happy to be helping one of my clients migrate off AWS and move to a smaller cloud provider (trying out #ovh at present). Very exciting and feels great!

My clients collectively spend over $15,000/month on AWS. I've personally been trying to boycott Amazon for a year or so, so I'm happy to be helping one of my clients migrate off AWS and move to a smaller cloud provider (trying out #ovh at present). Very exciting and feels great!

[LLM warning] If an LLM tells you your idea is brilliant, you need to know that it was going to say that no matter how bad your idea is. Edit your prompt and put some nonsense in there instead, and it'll still say "BRILLIANT!!"

Fairy ring in a graveyard in #berlin Hexenring in ein Friedhof

#berlin #photo

#bee #flower #photo

Lua has some surprising/confusing differences, but having 0 and empty strings be truthy has to be one of the things I trip over most often. #lua

[disabling suggestions in Cursor] Today I've added a shortcut for turning on/off the #cursor Tab suggestions feature. If you search for "toggle cursor tab" in the keyboard settings, you can add a shortcut. I chose shift+space to toggle it. Now I can turn it on when I want suggestions to pop […]

The panic feeling when the baby is napping & my older son is eating lunch. I have 30 minutes of free time. WHAT DO I DO???

LLMs are now a culture war. The rollout of these slop machines across enterprises is *not following the typical pattern* where individual users first adopt new innovative tech and then it eventually (reluctantly) becomes company policy. This is the opposite! Bosses love all the hype and want […]

My favourite feature of bash scripts is that you can edit them while running, and insanely they'll run your updated lines.

[coding with LLMs] After reading "Why I'm Betting Against AI Agents"[1], I'm trying a new strategy today. I'm creating a new chat for everything I want the agent to do. If I don't like the outcome, I'm rejecting, editing the original message to add more detail and trying again. This keeps the […]

"On the Calculation of Volume" by Solvej Balle Fantastic book. I read it in one day. I don't think I've done that before. It's a Danish book about a woman stuck in a time loop, like Groundhog Day, but with some notable differences. Like, if she buys things, she […] [Original post on toot.cafe]

Windows updates have a warped sense of time.. 0-25% - takes 1 minute 25-30% - takes 20 minutes 30-98% - takes 5 seconds 98-100% - takes 5 minutes

I realise my positioning on #ai puts me in opposition to most people.. that LLMs suck but that there's probably also a way to get some value out if them.. makes me disliked by both strong fanatics and critics. Who knows, maybe I'll end up in the strong critic side of things eventually, if I […]

That's 5D-educational chess. #fuckgenai #chatgpt #genaisuckscameldong

In an attempt to make AI actually helpful in my coding work and not take the lead down hallucinatory paths, I'm experimenting with writing rules.. these seem good so far: You are a dumb LLM and everything you know is wrong. The best way you can help me is to generate ideas about possible […]

I can attest to this. Months ago, as I leaned more heavily into using AI agents in my work, I'd spend more time struggling to understand what was going on, and a lot of time was wasted on getting up to speed on what changes were happening. Scaling back on the AI, I found myself going much […]

Enjoyed the preface from this book "Application Development Without Programmers" from 1982 > Applications development did not change much for 20 years, but now a new wave is crashing in. A rich diversity of nonprocedural techniques and languages are emerging. As these languages improve, they […]

@BenitaSkinner yeah it's a Graureiher - grey heron.

Please use 836224 as your security code to log in. We will never contact you for this code. Do not reveal it to anyone else. Do not graffiti it on any wall. Do not speak it to your lover. Do not whisper it under your breath to yourself alone in the dark.

#berlin #birdwatching

Six months ago, my wife was about to give birth to our second child. Shortly after our baby was born, I took on a really big client project with a firm deadline. I also signed up for a Creative Writing class, not sure if I'd be able to juggle it all. I barely pulled it all off thanks to my […]

[ai use, swearing] I might need to fire this junior developer that lives in my editor. #ai #llm #coding

Originally published at: https://www.codingwithjesse.com/blog/living-a-cozy-life/ Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.codingwithjesse.com/newsletter #blog #writing #freelance #cozy #ambition #burnout

Six months ago, my wife was about to give birth to our second child. Shortly after our baby was born, I took on a really big client project with a firm deadline. I also signed up for a Creative Writing class, not sure if I'd be able to juggle it all. I barely pulled it all off thanks to my […]

I'll pass

"Exploiting the IKKO Activebuds 'AI powered' earbuds, running DOOM, stealing their OpenAI API key and customer data": https://blog.mgdproductions.com/ikko-activebuds/ Also, lulz prompt:

That's too much Quality Street.

Why is Redis just the absolute best glue between processes? Surely Linux/Unix has something just as good? But in my experience, there's literally nothing better for communicating between processes. Don't get me wrong, I love Redis, but I just wonder why the best solution ended up being a memory […]

Interesting and weird sky pattern after sunset.