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ben

@benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy

16 followers 0 following 659 posts

Software engineer, socialist. London, but from up north. Learning Finnish. #nobot Anti-AI, pro-human. 🌉 bridged from ⁂ hachyderm.io/@benjamineskola, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

Posts Replies Media

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 6h

Seeing multiple projects starting up (or restarting) around porting a GNU userspace to a BSD kernel but I don't quite get it. Or, I sort of do: slop in Linux kernel so that's the most pressing thing to replace. But it seems to me like the userspace is the least important part. I run Linux not […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 9h

People keep creating giant monorepos, and then deciding that the existing tooling is insufficient to manage it and so they have to build their own suite of tools around it. Nobody ever stops to think that this is a sign that they’ve made a bad decision that they could reconsider. Somehow […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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Reposted by ben

Ed @edcates.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Data: - LLMs are killing the planet - LLMs are raising utility prices - LLMs are raising computer prices - LLMs give you teh dums - LLMs show negligible increases in net productivity - LLM costs are going up - LLMs run on stolen content - LLM companies keep breaking laws and saying, "Oopsie!" […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Watching a British show on Netflix and Netflix lists the audio language as ‘Original: English (United States)’ yanks just really can’t comprehend the existence of any country that isn’t them, can they

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

Took a look at the ‘open slopware’ list for the first time since it was pretty new and found it pretty depressing on multiple levels. Like on the one hand it obviously sucks that so much software is being affected by this to greater and lesser degrees. But also, it feels like the list relies […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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Reposted by ben

Glyph @glyph.im · 10/10/2026

this is the perfect metaphor to understand the distinction between AI doomer concerns versus AI skeptic concerns

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

feature request: option to make it play worse with “AI” “agents“

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

That 'holding up the internet' post that was going around the other day finally prompted me to figure out how to disable scrolljacking. Apparently reduced-motion accessibility setting should do it, but that depends on the site actually implementing a reduced-motion version. I guess they forgot […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

About ten years back I was walking in the city centre and across the road there was a small protest, I think about fur farming. And on my side of the road there was a middle-aged white guy loudly moaning about snowflakes. Mate you’re the one finding it impossible to ignore what other people say […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

I’ve turned off all the “AI” nonsense that I can but there are still a bunch of places where it’s desperately begging to be used. Shortcuts. Now when you press edit it gives you a little LLM-generated description of what it does. I know what it does, I wrote it! (As far as I can tell that’s […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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Reposted by ben

Sam Stokes @five-eights.com · 07/10/2026

Coding agents reduce software development to a simple matter of: * specifying requirements * verifying correctness and quality * maintaining and operating software you didn't write As we all know, those have always been the easiest, most well-understood parts of the craft, so everything is fine!

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

I’m probably not the first person to point this out but it does strike me that the shift to SaaS and subscription-based software has made this sort of forcible LLM insertion much easier. Not completely (there are examples of non-SaaS/non-subscription software doing it) but in those cases you […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

yeah this looks like an entire server of slop that ought to be blocked. not least because if the admin is an llm then there’s no effective moderation. #fediblock mastodon.iftas.org/@iftas/117394720…

mastodon.iftas.org

IFTAS (@iftas@mastodon.iftas.org)

Attached: 1 image ⚠️ #SW_ISAC_ADVISORY The ActivityPub service hosted at synthpals[.]social is intended for LLM agentic bots including iLands bots. The server is itself administered by an LLM agent. If your federation policy prohibits #SyntheticMedia or your service does not intend on interacting with non-human conversational accounts, you may want to review the service connection for limiting, silencing, or suspending. If you don't have a federation policy, see https://about.iftas.org/library/why-should-i-have-a-federation-policy/ f

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

oh great, now i have some random ‘AI’ startup asking for permission to include ‘my’ work in their slop machine firstly it's MIT licenced, which the email references and should be sufficient answer; secondly it's not my decision anyway, which should have been obvious from the very same file.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

an llm tic I’ve been noticing recently is something like ‘a phrase: one X, no Y, no Z’. it’s a bit more specific than the grouping of three things, but it’s also so vague that it obviously could just be (and presumably does) appear in non-LLM writing too. these things always make me feel like […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

[gbpol, Green Party, Palestine, antisemitism] I don’t really have strong opinions either way about the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion in itself. Already, though, I’ve seen interpretations of it which, as per usual, seem to imply that criticism of ‘Zionism’ (meaning criticism of Israel) is […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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eclexic @theeclecticdyslexic.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

@glyph I don't doubt that there were real vulnerablities being found, perhaps even often at one point? I think, though, that the classes of bugs that LLMs readily find are pretty low hanging fruit. After you run the LLM over a codebase a few times, you are going to run out of low hanging fruit […]

Original post on mstdn.social

Reposted by ben

Glyph @glyph.im · 06/10/2026

boosters one month ago: the vulnerabilities are REAL. they're REAL and they're SCARY. it can INDEPENDENTLY hack stuff. you CANNOT DISMISS that it can ONE-SHOT vulnerabilities PERFECTLY EVERY TIME. prepare for DOMINATION by the CYBER-OVERMIND boosters today:

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Github actions are such a horrible interface. Why should I have to deal with breaking changes and a mandatory Node.js version update for something that amounts to `git tag "${1}"`?

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

People keep saying you should try “AI” so that you understand it better in order to criticise it, etc. People also say that you don’t have to depend on the SaaS models, there are local models instead, etc. So I thought okay, I’ll give it a go. Long story short it was a complete dead end, I […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

Reposted by ben

Theodora Ward @theodoraward.wandering.shop.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

lots in this article to comment on and also, frankly, roflmao at. but the way this article talks about how going on maternity leave will leave a Woman In AI left behind does have me thinking about how many AI users have this perception of insanely rapid progress? even though we hit the scaling […]

Original post on wandering.shop

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

[gbpol, green party] Bizarre that after a summer where France had to turn off its nuclear power plants because they were overheating, the Green Party has decided that now is the time to abandon its opposition to nuclear power.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

Took a peek at a thread on Bluesky about support for Palestine by the Green Party and somehow every single one of the people taking Israel’s side was someone I had muted via a shared blocklist of transphobes. Weird coincidence! But convenient.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

I have a Rails app where I am the only user, and months ago I broke one of the forms and still haven’t gotten around to fixing it. (Since it’s just me, I can always just do the specific update in the console instead.) The problem is that I was planning to rewrite it as a Django app instead […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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Glyph @glyph.im · 03/10/2026

Really tired of having this conversation over and over again. A: "LLMs provide the illusion of productivity, by making you *feel* productive while wasting enough time that they're net negative." B: "Come on. That's not a serious position any more. Maybe 3 years ago. Not today. Obviously they […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

[gbpol] The person who is alleged to have murdered Ann Widdecombe is now also being charged with terrorism offences. No specifics appear to be given; I assume it must have been a very strongly-worded cardboard sign.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

just saw someone refering to ‘Nobel-winning economists’. I wonder what they won their Nobels in.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

the eff has some sort of anti-big-tech campaign going on, listing ‘ai training on my data’ as a negative thing, which is weird because i’m pretty sure the eff is de facto in favour of big tech companies training their LLMs on everyone’s data

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

amazing, i can't access github because copilot throws an exception that causes the whole page to unload*. i don't even use copilot but it's blocking everything else, marvellous * i say unload because the page clearly loads first and then is replaced by the error message after half a second.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

In two minds about the Firefox redesign. It’s a little tiresome that every time something gets redesigned people instantly hate it for made-up reasons, and I think some of that is probably going on here. And yet also, I don’t really like the gradient thing they’re doing. Apps should look like […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

"AI (Claude code) is used on a daily basis" always nice when recruiters put their red flags up front (i'm not looking, but it's still discouraging that this is listed as a positive. like asking for 10x rockstar ninja developers with no work-life balance.)

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Shauna @shauna.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

RE: hachyderm.io/@evacide/1173503736136… Trying to seperate people into the groups "deserves to be exploited by big tech" and "does not deserve to be exploited by big tech" will not in fact prevent anyone in the latter group from being exploited by big tech

Reposted by ben

Glyph @glyph.im · 30/09/2026

I logged in to LinkedIn to see a page full of people praising DHH, got mad, and wrote this. Less than 12 hours later I got an email telling me "Your post doesn’t comply with our Professional Community Policies on bullying and harassment. It’s been removed […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A LinkedIn post from me that reads "DHH is openly a Nazi. You should not promote anything he is doing or relay his opinions on software development. It is shocking to me when I open this app and see people casually discussing his opinions on AI or interface design or whatever, as if he were a "thought leader". He is an open advocate for mass murder. It doesn't matter what else he thinks, do not promote his ideas." followed by the text "Only you can see this post because this content goes against our Professional Community Policies."

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

Finally got around to doing a #gentoo installation yesterday, and... it doesn't boot. Looks like I've missed something from the initrd. (I've installed with LVM and LUKS, matching my previous distro's setup, but the problem with that is that I needed to read three wiki pages in parallel to […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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flere-imsaho 🇺🇦 @mawhrin.fedi.circumstances.run · 27/09/2026

nate graham of the @kde fame thinks that bringing up ethical issues with the confabulation machinery should be generally avoided because it can make the fans of synthetic text extruders sad.: > I have a recommendation for everyone: in the future, either _don’t discuss the ethical dimensions of […]

circumstances.run

Original post on circumstances.run

Reposted by ben

Erik Uden 🚩 @erikuden.mastodon.de.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

The current CEO of Identity Digital (_formerly Donuts Inc_) named Akram Atallah, used to be the president of ICANN, the folx that “own” and “run” the internet. Under his leadership, ICANN introduced the new generic Top Level Domain program, or new gTLD, giving the creation of a new domain […]

Original post on mastodon.de

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026

upgraded macos, compiler broken. because yeah, why would i want to upgrade the command-line tools to a version that actually works?

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

Rails Dave embracing Rust reminds me I should look into learning Zig.

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

So from the sound of it, Rails Dave has cooked his brain with LLMs and is raving about vibecoding Rust instead. Good news for #mosscap?

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

criticised some slop and someone was offended. ‘how dare you dismiss all that hard work’ oh yeah I’m sure. hours spent slaving over a prompt. screaming arguments with their agents over the right approach. get a grip.

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

Looks like #alpinelinux has decided not to ban LLM 'contributions'. Policy hasn't been finalised yet but presumably it's going to be some sort of fantasist nonsense about 'responsible' AI usage. gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/counc…

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

“Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?” fortune.com/2026/07/27/shopify-ceo-… Clue’s right there in the headline, idk what to tell you

Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century? | Fortune

Should how much you pay in taxes determine how much your vote counts? Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke seems to think so.

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Always annoyed by the kind of simplistic liberalism that seems to boil down to things like ‘you can’t oppose free speech for Nazis because then you’d have to oppose it for everyone’. No. Don’t be ridiculous. Obviously I support my side doing things and I oppose the other side doing things. That […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

Keep finding a bunch of “AI” features in iOS despite turning off Apple Intelligence being the first thing I did. Disabled automatic email summaries but there’s still summarise buttons everywhere in the Mail app. Turned off the weird image generation stuff but it’s still prompting me to ‘type […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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Reposted by ben

Carlton Reid @carltonreid.com · 18/09/2026

In 2012, Addison Lee boss John Griffin was all over the news when he ranted that cyclists should “pay road tax.” Yesterday, HMRC won its case saying that, since 2013, the taxi man has been avoiding paying income tax. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Telegraph headline from 2012:

Cyclists should pay road tax, says taxi boss Careless cyclists are on a
'voyage into the abyss'
The head of London's largest minicab company says cyclists should think more about their own safety before "throwing themselves on to some of the most congested spaces in the world".

Guardian headline today:

Addison Lee founder owes
£20.5m in tax after UK tribunal ruling
HMRC wins challenge over John Griffin's claim to be non-dom despite having lived in England since childhood. With pic of old man in office.

ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

#emacs has too many options for terminals. How am I supposed to know which to choose?

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

Why can I find dog-friendly screenings of Sense and Sensibility but not baby-friendly ones? Who takes a dog to the cinema? Actually, can I take a baby to a dog-friendly screening? It’s not like he’d be more disruptive than a dog would. Maybe if I disguise him.

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

amazing, github has broken scrolling if i scroll down in a pull request 'files changed' tab it jumps to the bottom. why do people insist on reinventing browser behaviour and then fucking it up?

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ben @benjamineskola.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

I think some people are doing the same thing with Ed Sheeran as with JK Rowling, of ‘I never liked his music anyway’ etc. Feels like missing the point. I don’t think you can attach moral weight to an aesthetic preference. Boycotting them for ethical reasons is meaningful; but you’re not a […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

the ai ceos calling for a slowdown because of agi is like when your friend who's really into conspiracy theories is like "and that's why the ruling elite is beholden to epstein" but then before you can agree, they add, "because of satanic rituals"