Published
Weekend Reading — A double young-man
Tech Stuff
BrewServicesManager Manage Brew services from the menu bar.
CSRF protection without tokens or hidden form fields New to me and quite useful:
The
Sec-Fetch-Siteheader can have one of four values:
same-origin, when the request comes from the same origin as the target serversame-site, when the request comes from the same site, but not exactly the same origin (e.g. a different subdomain) as the target servercross-site, when the request comes from an origin that does not match the target servernone, when the request is originated by the user
Brainstorm Mode Get two AI agents to tackle the problem and argue for the solution. You can mix any two of Claude, Codex, and Gemini. Since each LLM has its strengths and weaknesses, I like this solution.
The cardinal sin of software architecture
The worst kind of accidental complexity in software is the unnecessary distribution, replication, or restructuring of state, both in space and time.
Put your state in one place, and make it good.
Bookokrat Read EPUB books in the terminal. This reader can display images and tables, supports Vim keybindings, inline annotations, can render HTML, and more.
The main use case of a ticketing system is to be able to create tickets about the ticketing system, all other uses are incidental.
witr Command line tool to determine why is this running. Run with PID, port number, etc to find out what started that process, which could be a supervisor, cronjob, systemd, etc. Looks quite useful, though I didn't get it working, hopefully patch update comes soon.
By age 40, a Linux user stops trying to install Arch on a toaster just to prove they can. They finally settle on Debian Stable or Mint because they realize they no longer have the "mental bandwidth" to spend 6 hours configuring stuff or fix broken systems just to check their email or watch Netflix. 😊
WalletWallet Create Apple passes from anything.
Peoples
One weird trick to manage engineering crises; stakeholders love it
This kind of transparency feels risky, but it’s actually risk reduction. When stakeholders understand the tradeoffs, they become partners in the prioritization rather than adversaries competing for resources. When they can see the logic behind your sequencing, they’re more likely to maintain confidence even when their particular issue isn’t at the top of the queue.
Stop Worrying About Survivorship Bias With This One Weird Trick The difference between domain experts (doctors, lawyers, etc) and typical hosts of talk-show podcasts:
First, they do not rely on first principles thinking alone. Instead, a large chunk of what they do is to do case comparisons with fragments of previous cases that they’d seen. These fragments are then combined to create ‘temporary schemas’, adapted for the unique problem at hand.
Business Side
I recently realized the dotcom bubble was 25 years ago and the iPhone launch 18 years ago. This means there are now adults who haven’t experienced a hyped yet valid disruptive technology in their lifetime.
This explains why so many people’s point of reference for AI is crypto and NFTs. This is the only example of a major tech hype cycle they’ve experienced. They missed the hype cycles that were also actually transformative.
Machine Intelligence
We removed 80% of our agent’s tools KISS
Don’t fight gravity. File systems are an incredibly powerful abstraction. Grep is 50 years old and still does exactly what we need. We were building custom tools for what Unix already solves.
OH someone talking about fixing wildly incorrect confabulated LLM code as going through "the stages of grift" and I'm pretty sure it was a typo but it's going to live rent free in my head for a while
claude code's DX is too good. and that's a problem.
Some features make you smile. The phrase "ultrathink" started as a community hack to get Claude to think harder. The team leaned in - now the word shimmers in rainbow colors when you type it. Playful. Unnecessary. Perfect.
Results from survey of 1,750 tech workers who use AI tools
- 55% say AI has exceeded their expectations, and almost 70% say it’s improved the quality of their work.
- Over half said AI is saving them at least half a day per week
- PMs see the most value from using AI to write PRDs (21.5%), create mockups/prototypes (19.8%), and improve their communication across emails and presentations (18.5%).
- A massive 92.4% report at least one significant downside to using AI.
Insecurity
A New Anonymous Phone Carrier Lets You Sign Up With Nothing but a Zip Code In concept this sounds perfect, but of course there are detractors in the privacy community that are worried Big Unverified Privacy Claims often amount to not much. I trust their judgment.
Everything Else
A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Dash Wounderfuly writtern—I'm also going to keep em-dashing.
You know what's a good free gift to give an artist/creative for the holidays?
A review! Rate 5 stars, leave a written review, give them a testimonial, or a shoutout. ⭐
I think of myself not as middle-aged, but as a double young-man or triple teenager. I'm absolutely loads of babies.
The trend for people to publish their Myers-Briggs classification on their dating profile is very helpful. You don't need to understand what it means to know that it means they believe in all sorts of woo. So much better than wasting time.
This one is also mine. The title is:
"Root level backdoor with a persistent shell" 😇🖖
my favorite part of every Christmas special is when Santa and all the reindeer lift off from a roof and immediately head for the distant horizon instead of the house next door
No, your brain doesn’t suddenly ‘fully develop’ at 25 (via Anna Anthro)
Since the data stopped at age 20, researchers couldn’t say precisely when development finished.
The age of 25 became the best estimation for the assumed endpoint, and eventually became enshrined in the cultural consciousness.
Do Your Parents Have a Screen-Time Problem? Are we worrying about the wrong age bracket?
One person who identified herself as a nurse working in the United Kingdom, and who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak about patients, told me in a direct message that in her inpatient ward, many of her older patients are trapped in a cycle of “excessive scrolling,” where “the amount of slop they consume on phones and iPads is unreal!
