Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Listening to a podcast interview with a well known (in certain circles of social media) designer. They design developer tools. They’re saying “if you’re designing government forms you probably don’t need to know what the database looks like.” But you absolutely do! 110
Reposted by Ben KraalKatie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility 5776432129
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Turns out if you wear button-fly fatigues and go through a body radar scanner at the airport a large bearded man gets to goose you in public. 001
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Teams (OSX) will deliver a notification with full text rendered, and then have to re-load the whole message, seemingly from the server, to show the same message in a thread. Efficient. 010
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Extra special shout out to the guy watching what seems like English-language telenovela (sounded like “Real Office Ladies of Your Midwestern City”) clips without headphones on the train this morning. 010
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Am I remembering wrong? In the before times a full rich day was one where I had 3-4 meetings. Now I have six back-to-back 30 min meetings before midday. 110
Reposted by Ben KraalPavel @spavel.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Look at you. Worrying about the gay agenda. Meanwhile this entire time your car has had a trans mission. 2316101
Reposted by Ben KraalFT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Imagine being talented and beautiful and rich and famous and still the most noteworthy thing about you is how good a person you are. 99268156333
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Cammisa on the LS400. youtu.be/i15Ii4yetLM?... I knew they were brilliant and obsessively engineered. But not “differently tuned Nakamichi stereos for the cloth and leather interiors” obsessive. I don’t have space for a 40 year old luxury car, but maybe @drewpasmith.com does?youtu.beThe Lexus LS 400 Happened When The Government Tried To Protect Detroit — Jason Cammisa RevelationsYouTube video by Hagerty 220
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Is it boring to say 911s? Not that they aren’t good, just overrated. 020
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 18/08/2026After seeing Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi mentioned (hyped, not just mentioned) in several unrelated contexts, I read it. Yes. I get it. If you like books, you will like it. You should read it. 000
Reposted by Ben KraalFred Davies @dr-fred-davies.bsky.social · 04/08/20260.000001% of female athletes are transgender. 1/15 female athletes will be sexually assaulted by a male coach. Shouldn't he be promoting a complete ban on male coaches in women's sports? Of course not, because he actually doesn't give a shit about women's safety. 331938
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 05/08/2026I am not a space guy but from what I understand it’s pretty bloody hard to hit the moon on purpose. How do you hit it by accident? Is this like how people crash into the only tree next to a dead straight country road? 010
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 02/08/2026Because reasons, we have 24 eggs that will expire by Tuesday in the fridge. Between scrambled eggs for the boy for breakfast and Japanese omelette with lunch, I’m -4. Donna Hay’s recipe for lemon meringue pie uses 11(!). Let’s go. 120
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 23/07/2026“Prefer” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the headline. What O’Shea, the CEO is saying is that more people are going to “digital channels” first and they have a 20% drop in calls. The questions of “why” and “are people getting their enquiry answered” are unresolved. 010
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 16/07/2026This is an illustration of “the illusion of explanatory depth”. I use this as a warm up activity for medium sized workshops, often after saying little more than “we are here to explore ‘X’. But first, please draw a bicycle.” About 5-20% of the room can draw a bicycle. So? 111
Reposted by Ben KraalYvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 16/07/2026paging @ruthmalan.bsky.social 2102
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 02/07/2026Seeing as @drewpasmith.com called me a Citroen pervert the other day, I feel obligated to share this m.facebook.com/marketplace/...m.facebook.comLog in or sign up to viewSee posts, photos and more on Facebook. 020
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 16/06/2026I’d like to apologise from Australian for our terrible “ban teenagers from the internet” idea that is propagating around the world. 010
Reposted by Ben KraalDr David S Anderson @dsaarchaeology.bsky.social · 27/05/2026As an anthropologist, I endorse this message! 273207256675
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 28/05/2026Has the Pope read the sci-fi classic “Don’t Invent the Torment Nexus”? Because I have* and there is a sub plot about the Church being the thing that inoculates you against insanity caused by over exposure to tech. *I might be confusing it with Snow Crash where that is _definitely_ a sub plot. 040
Reposted by Ben KraalRichard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 22/04/2026Kind of Blue. Session #2 of 2 recorded on this day in 1959. "A defining moment of twentieth century music" #MilesDavis #jazz 2387
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 12/04/2026In about 2010 I bought a $100 Microsoft/Nokia smartphone that had a faster processor, more pixels in the screen, more storage space and more RAM than the computer I used in 2000 when writing my comp-sci Honours thesis. And it was a better digital camera than the Kodak DC3400 I had then, too. 021
Reposted by Ben KraalAlice Grundy @alicektg.bsky.social · 01/04/2026Just 1 example of the kind of thing unis are getting for their massive spend on consultants. ANU spent $6k on a "non-significant meeting" with a reputation management firm at which apparently no one took a note. That's more than a tutor gets for a semester's work thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...thepoint.com.auANU spent $6k on a 'non-significant' meeting. Then why do they pay tutors even less for a semester?Last year the Australian National University (ANU) was getting some bad press, so they engaged a company called Bastion Reputation to help with the media fallout from restructures and the heavily crit... 412866
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 31/03/2026I am 180+ days overdue on this terrible AI-voice over bad PowerPoint compulsory internal training. It’s also full of impenetrable HR jargon. 120
Reposted by Ben KraalSheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 30/03/2026Right wing tech bros: we love Star Trek but it's too woke nowadays. Too preachy. Kirk's show wasn't like this. Average TOS episode: AI is bad and should never be allowed to run a society. Also, make peace because nationalism kills and every life form must be respected equally. 1318442
Reposted by Ben KraalMaureen L. Hartman @mlhartman.bsky.social · 26/03/2026Repeat for as long as they’ll go with you to the library…. 0175
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 24/03/2026Snow Crash is absolutely biting satire. It’s not aiming to be aspirational. Teach critical literacy to technology students! 120
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 08/03/2026If you like that ⬇️ may I introduce you to Genevieve Bell’s 2006 paper “No more SMS from Jesus” www.dhi.ac.uk/san/waysofbe...dhi.ac.uk 000
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 07/03/2026Project managers: “I have added people to this project that is late, as recommended in Fred Brooks’ classic ‘adding people to a late project makes it later’” 031
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 07/03/2026Project managers: “I am following the waterfall software development model from Winston Royce’s 1970 paper ‘Do not follow a waterfall model for developing software’” 111
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 07/03/2026Spectacular thread. The maddening thing about this all is that Winston Royce wrote about this in 1970. 121
Reposted by Ben KraalPavel @spavel.bsky.social · 06/03/2026Vibe coding broke people's brains because they had a bad understanding of the software design process. The pop culture model goes something like this: start out with a sketch and then render that same idea in progressively finer detail. So when tools could "skip" to high detail, people went WOW. 12599154
Reposted by Ben KraalAlex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 06/03/2026What coders lose by relying on AI. From our event with the University of Washington Office of Public Lectures. (with @emilymbender.bsky.social) 817047
Reposted by Ben KraalWaldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 28/02/2026I keep trying to write clever blog entries with Deep Realizations about government tech, while failing to document the simple, fundamental truths that guide my work. So here's one of those fundamental truths: government simply has to hire people who understand how technology works.waldo.jaquith.orgOne neat trick for buying software that isn’t trash.I have lots to say about how to ensure that major software projects go well, but it all boils down to this: hire people who understand how technology works. 2266
Reposted by Ben KraalKelsey Hightower @kelseyhightower.com · 19/02/2026Why learn to code when you can use an LLM and pay a subscription fee for the rest of your life. 1831365
Reposted by Ben KraalVincent Driessen @nvie.com · 18/02/2026I wrote a few words last night. nvie.com/posts/15-yea...nvie.com15+ years later, Microsoft morged my diagramHow Microsoft continvoucly morged my Git branching diagram. 515150
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 17/02/2026Got pitched yesterday on a “research platform” that has a lot of AI in it, to the level of “it can do synthesis”. Me: I don’t trust that. LLMs only do form, not meaning Salesperson: for normal LLMs I agree that’s true, but ours is specially trained for qualitative research Me: yeah, ok 010
Reposted by Ben KraalDan Hon @danhon.com · 16/02/2026Put your hand up if you received the ELIZA vaccine at a young age and are now immune to chatbot spiraling 1931765
Reposted by Ben KraalKathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 16/02/2026“The Trump administration “is telling American manufacturers, ‘You guys go build gasoline cars again,’” he said. “The Chinese government is telling its manufacturers, ‘You go build the advanced vehicles that are going take over the world.’” 142982
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 14/02/2026Mazda - just coming in to the peak of their bubble-era power. FC RX-7 and HC Cosmo/Luce. Capella/626/MX-6 turbo with 4WS. Familia/323 (GT-X!) *and* MX-5!. I'd argue a more complete and interesting lineup than 80s BMW. 000
Ben Kraal @bjkraal.bsky.social · 13/02/2026It’s always a good day to be reminded to always be punching nazis. 000
Reposted by Ben Kraaltaylr @taylordahlin.com · 27/01/2026brass solidarity band performing “stand by me” in the streets of whittier next to alex pretti’s memorial. the crowd started chanting “the people united will never be defeated” so they incorporated it into the song. i love minneapolis 327233467736
Reposted by Ben KraalSteve Farrugia @fasterandworse.com · 02/11/2023AS A: Employee I WANT TO: Not use this software but I have to SO THAT: I don't get fired ---------------- The enterprise SaaS user story 521542