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Alex

@arothuis.nl
126 followers 477 following 116 posts

🤵🏻 He/Him 🧞 Dad 🏙️ Utrecht 💙 Code, puns, photography, music 💡 Learning Japanese 🧑🏻‍💻 JVM (Java, Kotlin, Clojure) 🧑🏻‍🎓 Dutch Law and ICT

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Reposted by Alex
Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 17h
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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Steven (with a PH) @sjksalisbury.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 12/09/2026
Loved this
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 12/09/2026
The data centre boom is the exact opposite of everything the energy transition should stand for. It is the opposite of clean, of climate justice, of community benefits, of electrification and technological efficiency. www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/09/11/b...
foodandwaterwatch.org
“Bring Your Own Power” Schemes Won’t Fix Data Centers
"Bring Your Own Power" fails to address the rising costs or pollution driven by data centers' exploding energy demands.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 12/09/2026
My almost-2-year-old calling everyone "sir" cracks me up every time.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 10/09/2026
I'm back to programming in Java since the summer, and there are two things I noticed: 1. No one actually does OOP 2. I miss Clojure's simplicity
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 10/09/2026
Was this recorded? The slides look pretty good
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Vale @vale.rocks · 08/09/2026
Sometimes you look at an old HTML document and see some weird tags and snippets from bygone eras. I've complied many legacy HTML bits I've noticed and documented what they were and why there were present. Many of them are rather obscure. Satisfy your curiosity: vale.rocks/posts/html-r...
vale.rocks
Antiquated HTML Snippets and Artefacts
Overviews of the very many snippets of code that were once commonly included on websites to address specific cases with certain technologies, browsers, operating systems, or extensions. Fragments dating back to the days of Internet Explorer and Netscape, to more modern bits that are nonetheless obsolete.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 30/08/2026
Yessss, Niri shines!
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Dan McQuillan @danmcquillan.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Text: Treat your body like a data centre. Consume as much water and literature as possible. Upset local city councils with your existence. 
Background image: a bearded man putting up the frame of aparge tent in a muddy field with trees in the background.
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jordan @jdan.me · 08/08/2026
notes.jordanscales.com/coffee
notes.jordanscales.com
I recently sat down for coffee with one of my oldest friends in the industry.
I recently sat down for coffee with one of my oldest friends in the industry. “How’s everything going?” I asked, “Crazy times right?” “We’re up to 1 million...
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 08/08/2026
Those who cross Altman will die!
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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 04/08/2026
public libraries ftw
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osama @osamaqarem.com · 03/08/2026
Also noslopgrenade.com
noslopgrenade.com
no slop grenade
Stop throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations. If they wanted an AI essay, they would have asked ChatGPT themselves.
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Dominik 🔮 @tkdodo.eu · 03/08/2026
Don't be a meat proxy gruhn.me/blog/2026-08...
gruhn.me
Don't be a meat proxy
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 03/08/2026
Been rocking Niri as a window manager lately. Loving the simplicity of the mental model, but missing an easy way to set "default" placements and workspaces and remember those.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 03/08/2026
Nice name for a cocktail bar
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 01/08/2026
🏝️ Hashi - 2026-08-01 Solved in 01:08 Play at hashi.giacomocavalieri.me
hashi.giacomocavalieri.me
🏝️ Play Hashi
Play a new Hashi puzzle every day!
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 31/07/2026
That was fun! Thanks
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 31/07/2026
I answered the same! 😂
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 27/07/2026
Just in case you still use any Basecamp products, DHH is crashing out about his AI product gently pointing out that it’s bad for him to have extermination fantasies about the Roma people.
DHH tweet saying “This is why we need competition and open weights in Al. Imagine a world where only Anthropic sat as the moral arbiter of acceptable speech. Fucking ridiculous. (Grok of course did it no problem, same too with Kimi K).” when presented with his blog post using a slur about the Roma people.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 26/06/2026
I've been playing Cursed Words on my day off. A boggle-style roguelike, gradually escalating into totally incomprehensible chaos? It is so much fun!
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 26/06/2026
That's rough! Not the same, but I recognize the tiredness and sentiment from when ours did not want to sleep and cried a lot... Thanks for being there for your kids!
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Edwin Heathcote @edwinheathcote.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I saw this referred to as the Strait of Warm Ooze. Very good.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 22/06/2026
Yeah, I remember when I found out it worked like this... Compared to other languages, it is quite an unusual way of working with datetime strings! "each layout string is a representation of the time stamp, Jan 2 15:04:05 2006 MST"
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 17/06/2026
It makes sense, but it is a bit clunky sometimes. Alternatively, you could discuss translation options with the whole team including domain experts, decide and keep a glossary.
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Dave Rupert @davatron5000.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
f'n lmao
Ferengi Rules of Acquisition Rule #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies!
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 15/06/2026
🫂 Not at all in the same place as you, but we have had some medical scenarios in which the advice was less than helpful (sometimes even dangerously harmful).
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gosha @gosha.net · 05/06/2026
Goddamnit right in the feels shawnsmucker.substack.com/p/please-use...
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 01/06/2026
I'd like tips on how to get reliable results when blending or generating shades in modern color spaces.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 31/05/2026
re-mapping my gaming movement keys to hjkl
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Bassano @bassano.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Vermeer’s Girl With The Pearl Earring will be shown in Osaka, later this year, and the press conference was as Japanese as you’d expect #Vermeer
A Japanese mascot dressed as Vermeer’s Girl With The Pearl Earring in front of a promotional poster for the same at a press conference in Japan
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 26/05/2026
What do you currently use?
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Ethan Marcotte @ethanmarcotte.com · 25/05/2026
this little article is sixteen years old today: alistapart.com/article/resp... feels deeply weird that it’s that old. the pub date feels like it’s two lifetimes ago and two weeks ago, all at the same time.
alistapart.com
Responsive Web Design
Designers have coveted print for its precision layouts, lamenting the varying user contexts on the web that compromise their designs. Ethan Marcotte advocates we shift our design thinking to approp…
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Aly @alyjank.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
A link to the study
science.org
Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence
Despite rising concerns about sycophancy—excessive agreement or flattery from artificial intelligence (AI) systems—little is known about its prevalence or consequences. We show that sycophancy is wide...
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 23/05/2026
Either way; veel plezier!
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 15/05/2026
One could only hope
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David Bushell 🪿 @dbushell.com · 15/05/2026
"It's 2026 and women are still asked to teach others to think a little bit and not be a prick" ohhelloana.blog/woman-in-tech/ 😔
ohhelloana.blog
It's 2026 and women are still asked to teach others to think a little bit and not be a prick
A while back I went to a tech meet-up and one of the talks was about being a woman in tech and I am finally ready to put into words why I sat through it so uncomfortably.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 12/05/2026
"You could have read our TOS but you scroll too slow"
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Lea Verou, PhD @lea.verou.me · 02/05/2026
TIL crows only *look* black to us — they’re actually very colorful in ways human eyes are unable to perceive. 🤯 Remember that next time people can’t see your “colors”. Some colors just require different eyes.
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Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 01/05/2026
This does not prove Claude is capable of thought, it merely proves that Richard Dawkins is incapable of it
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 13/04/2026
Congrats! Super inspirational!
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 05/04/2026
With regards to praise: "In accordance with research on the effect of so-called verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation, receiving praise does not show these negative effects (...)"
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MDN Web Docs @developer.mozilla.org · 29/03/2026
CSS nesting is now Baseline 🎉 Write nested selectors directly in CSS — just like Sass, but natively. .card { color: black; &:hover { color: blue; } .title { font-weight: bold; } } No preprocessor needed. Learn more 👇 developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/...
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 23/03/2026
It should be obvious by now, but we really should be less dependent on oil.
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
New — an analysis of hundreds of thousands of interactions between chatbots + users who reported experiencing psychological harm / delusions after intensive AI use found that chatbots often reinforced delusional beliefs and claimed to be sentient: futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
Huge Study of Chats Between Delusional Users and AI Finds Alarming Patterns
Chatbots frequently reinforced delusional and even dangerous beliefs in delusional chatbot users, an analysis found.
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Alex @arothuis.nl · 15/03/2026
Great post! Although I don't think simplicity is as unambiguous as it sounds. Using an actual message queue can be simpler than building your own solution with a database and a cronjob. Key is that the choice of solution should be informed and intentional.
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 11/03/2026
there was also a Stanford study that found that a surge in AI slop by lazy people actually created significantly more work for others who had to decipher and correct it this "I'm being efficient" (but not really) vibes well with the American obsession with artifice and appearing productive
techdirt.com
Stanford Study: ‘AI’ Generated ‘Workslop’ Actually Making Productivity Worse
Automation undeniably has some useful applications. But the folks hyping modern “AI” have not only dramatically overstated its capabilities, many of them generally view these tools as a…
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Vale @vale.rocks · 02/03/2026
Replacing old code with new code, only to end up keeping the old code around for compatibility reasons, is like when you say goodbye to someone and then walk in the same direction as them.
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