On 2026-05-30, the Mastodon server I run started getting a flood of implausible signup requests. We think these are likely bots because our server rules and signup form clearly tell users to talk about their interest in gay leather. Most people sign up with something like “42 yo levis enthusiast into piss” or “Hi! I’m Snoofles the pup! I love bones and being a good girl for Madam!”. Instead the…
Back in 2023, I hired Flat Rate Movers (A.K.A. Flat Rate Moving) for an interstate move. They subcontracted to a third party who showed up under-staffed, under-equipped, and very confused; the whole mess wound up causing a good deal of damage to my belongings and home. I filed a claim with Flat Rate and also requested they issue a partial refund. They refused to talk to me or their insurance…
This video is brought to you by PodPitch , the AI-powered platform for PR experts. PodPitch is the first and only software that finds, writes, and sends pitches to podcast hosts from your actual email address. Whether or not you’re already pitching podcasts, PodPitch will make sure you get podcast bookings – guaranteed. And so long as PodPitch’s AI keeps confusing me with Kyle Kingsbury, MMA…
For the last few weeks publicists have bombarded me with emails asking if I’d interview their clients on the Kyle Kingsbury podcast. While my name is Kyle Kingsbury, and I have been a guest on several podcasts, I’ve never hosted one myself. I called one of the PR firms to ask if they might have me confused with the MMA fighter of the same name, but the woman I reached was so friendly and eager to…
This has been bugging me for years: you often run a JVM by a shell script wrapper, then want to jstack it to figure out what it’s doing, but can’t figure out what PID to ask for. Running jps gives remarkably unhelpful output, especially for tools like Leiningen. I wrote a hacky little Ruby script to dig into the process tree of everything matching a given pattern, find any JVMs those processes…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: New Jobs . Some readers are undoubtedly upset that I have not devoted more space to the wonders of machine…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Work . As we deploy ML more broadly, there will be new kinds of work. I think much of it will take place at…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Safety . Software development may become (at least in some aspects) more like witchcraft than engineering.…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Psychological Hazards . New machine learning systems endanger our psychological and physical safety. The…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Annoyances . Like television, smartphones, and social media, LLMs etc. are highly engaging; people enjoy…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Information Ecology . The latest crop of machine learning technologies will be used to annoy us and…
Table of Contents This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB . Introduction Dynamics Culture Information Ecology Annoyances Psychological Hazards Safety Work New Jobs Where Do We Go From Here Previously: Culture . Machine learning shifts the cost balance for writing, distributing, and reading text, as well as…