Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/07/2026Scrapers were often poorly written even before LLMs, so now it's 99.999% dumb spaghetti 011
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 05/07/2026Of course, heard of the memo via @stevesi.xyz's excellent Hardcore Software, a memoir of his time at Microsoft during the PC revolution. 000
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 05/07/2026New blog post on the 1989 "Zero Defects" memo at Microsoft - there really are no new ideas in software engineering. digitalseams.com/blog/zero-de...digitalseams.comZero-defects code: the prescient Microsoft memo from 1989 — Digital Seams“We are not suggesting this is attainable on the first try, but we think we know how to get there.” There are no new ideas in software engineering, only ones we’ve learned and then forgotten. In 198... 200
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 28/06/2026Digitizing some home VHS tapes makes me believe that the modern computer needs more satisfying noises. 021
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 19/06/2026Really great article from @aresluna.org with lots of keyboard/mouse interaction demos! aresluna.org/show-your-ha...aresluna.orgShow your hands honor for the strange power they bring youOn designing finger-friendly interactions 040
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/06/2026And Seth (@sethmlarson.dev): when we talked I was touched by how you described the inherent value of people and our relationships to each other. Thank you! digitalseams.com/blog/seth-la...digitalseams.comSeth Larson on making things — Digital SeamsYou’ve probably used code touched by Seth Larson - he’s the lead maintainer for one of the most widely-used Python libraries, urllib3, and he works on open-source security at the Python Software Found... 020
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/06/2026Nolen (@itseieio.bsky.social): as I wrote - whenever you post a new project, I feel like a kid on the playground again. Really glad we got to chat! digitalseams.com/blog/nolen-r...digitalseams.comNolen Royalty on making things — Digital SeamsThe internet feels smaller than it used to be, as fun stuff concentrates into a few mega-platforms. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Nolen Royalty creates strange, fun new places and invites... 120
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/06/2026Morry (wttdotm.com ): what a great conversation on bringing in stupidity - it's really changed the way I think about getting started digitalseams.com/blog/morry-k...digitalseams.comMorry Kolman on making things — Digital SeamsMorry Kolman’s art makes you laugh. Then it makes you think. He might be best known for Traffic Cam Photobooth , which uses the traffic camera infrastructure at intersections throughout New York Ci... 120
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/06/2026Huge thanks to the folks I interviewed: Amit (@redblobgames.com): you inspired this project directly from a Bluesky thread a while back! Thanks for helping me see it through. digitalseams.com/blog/amit-pa...digitalseams.comAmit Patel on making things — Digital SeamsFor decades, Amit Patel’s interactive explainers have been reference points for programmers, game developers, and curious people on the internet. Red Blob Games is one of my personal favorites. ... 120
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/06/2026Today, it has never been easier to create something, anything. But when given the opportunity, most people never do. So I interviewed four creators I admire, on how they make the exciting, creative, uniquely-personal things they do - and here's the result: digitalseams.com/blog/making-...digitalseams.comMaking things: interview series — Digital SeamsWhen you can make anything, what do you choose? And why even try, when someone else is doing it better? 291
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 10/06/2026Wow, those examples really are egregious! My first thought was something like non-constant time string comparison (something context dependent), not "turn off security features entirely on line 2" 000
Reposted by Bobbie ChenAdam Conover @adamconover.net · 15/05/2026I’m sorry but “everyone is going to use AI to code their own apps” sounds like “everyone is going to learn HTML and code their own websites.“ like … have you met people? no they’re not 1093814477
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 14/05/2026We should register our UUIDs at everyuuid.com to avoid this problem :^)everyuuid.comEvery UUIDA searchable list of every UUID v4 - scroll till you find a new favorite. 040
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 08/05/2026Finally, a watermelon large enough for my love of watermelon 030
Reposted by Bobbie Chenwint @dril.bsky.social · 27/04/2026why breed dogs with jaws large enough to tear through Flesh, when you could breed dogs with minds large enougj to tear through Fallacy..... 100133673060
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 24/04/2026On newer Macbooks, the trackpad has no physical bouncy parts at all. The haptic feedback is entirely controlled by software. I remembered this today because Docker ate all my RAM and I couldn't even feel my clicks while trying to kill it 020
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 15/04/2026History repeats itself. Were Allbirds ever that great? www.reuters.com/article/tech...reuters.comLong Island Iced Tea skyrockets after renaming itself Long BlockchainBeverage maker Long Island Iced Tea Corp's <LTEA.O> shares jumped nearly 300 percent on Thursday after the company said it would rebrand itself Long Blockchain Corp, the latest U.S. firm to tap ... 000
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 01/04/2026Didn't have time to do one this year but I'm enjoying this year's April Cools posts! www.aprilcools.clubaprilcools.clubApril Cools' Club 142
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 25/03/2026Probably I'd start by not polluting public platforms with useless AI spam in hopes of getting engagement. Shame on you, reported. 010
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 25/03/2026a sad, warped, work ethic that only values capitalistic production. That person in the silly video was having fun. How often do we do that? Isn’t that the goal of all the work we do? To “make time” to, you know, enjoy life?" rulestolive.substack.com/p/rule-23-be...rulestolive.substack.comRule #23: Be inefficient on purposeLearn to be time rich instead of time poor 111
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 25/03/2026Preach @berkun.bsky.social - "Our culture rewards us with status for never having time for things. We admire busy... When we see a silly video on social media, we often judge the creator by saying, “Well, that’s someone with too much time on their hands.” This is just Puritanical bullshit; 142
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 23/03/2026In case you missed it, I converted my talk into a blog post! digitalseams.com/blog/phantom...digitalseams.comThe Phantoms of the Fraudpera: an overview of anti-detection tooling — Digital SeamsThis weekend, I gave a talk at BSides SF 2026 to a full theater at the Metreon AMC. This is that talk, as a blog post. It’s about the hidden ecosystem of attackers’ tools and how they factor into a... 000
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 20/03/2026A preview of my talk at #BSidesSF tomorrow! Looking forward to it :) 000
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 18/03/2026Pretzels are a good snack of last resort, something that you won't eat normally so it'll be there when all other options are gone 010
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 06/03/2026Thinking about this 2017 talk from @calebhearth.com today: Don't Get Distracted. calebhearth.com/dont-get-dis...calebhearth.comDon't Get DistractedI’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time. 211
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 20/02/2026I once playtested my friend's video game, which used the Pavlok to shock you when you get hit. I got shocked a lot (they told me I was by far the worst playtester). It was a VR game, and I didn't realize I could look around. (Image via @genmon.fyi: interconnected.org/home/2026/02...) 152
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/02/2026"Today, they are choosing to invest this positive energy into a synthetic slop extruder. But tomorrow, they could invest it into their fellow human beings, if they chose to do so." productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/corporatio...productpicnic.beehiiv.comCorporations demand perfection from workers, but AI gets unlimited slack.LLM users have bottomless patience for inconsistent tools, and no grace left for their colleagues. What if we could flip it around? 010
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/02/2026From the excellent @spavel.bsky.social: "The LLM experiment has taught us one thing: people are willing to tolerate error, explain themselves, collaborate, trust."productpicnic.beehiiv.comCorporations demand perfection from workers, but AI gets unlimited slack.LLM users have bottomless patience for inconsistent tools, and no grace left for their colleagues. What if we could flip it around? 131
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 10/02/2026Demo site: bobbiec.github.io/cistercian-f...bobbiec.github.ioCistercian Numeral FontA font that renders numbers as medieval Cistercian numerals 010
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 10/02/2026You know what's better than a font with 9,998 ligatures? digitalseams.com/blog/making-...digitalseams.comMaking a font with 9,999 ligatures to display thirteenth-century monk numerals — Digital SeamsAs the title implies, I just created a font that displays numbers in a compact format used by Cistercian monks . You can play with it on my demo site here : 131
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 03/02/2026It's hard to imagine China needing to ban Tesla from the market considering the dominance of BYD and other EV brands there already. 110
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 16/01/2026I haven't seen it, but it would be similar to how "honeypot" hidden form fields are used to detect dumb bots. In general I think people are sensitive to false positives and conversion rate enough that they wouldn't serve a fake captcha unless it was already suspicious ("tarpits") 010
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 12/01/2026I've seen "homecooked apps", via Robin Sloan www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-c...robinsloan.comAn app can be a home-cooked mealI made a messaging app for my family and my family only. 131
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 11/01/2026George Dantzig core: "seemed to be a little harder than usual" 0121
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 11/01/2026Alternate-world person-tool etymology: Protractor used to be someone who made meetings drag on longer by considering new angles (some say this role still exists today) digitalseams.com/blog/compute...digitalseams.comComputers that used to be human — Digital SeamsBefore Macs or mainframes, computers were people: a brief etymology of people becoming tools. 000
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 11/01/2026in contrast to its modern casual meaning of "I guess". In dictionaries from the 17th century you'd see Computer defined as "Reckoner", like Leibniz's "Stepped Reckoner" calculatoren.wikipedia.orgStepped reckoner - Wikipedia 130
Bobbie Chen @bobbiechen.com · 11/01/2026Wow, that's unexpected Anti vagueposting: Old French randir "to run fast" -> with great random "at great speed, with impetuousity" -> random "haphazard, lacking purpose" Just recently in blog research I learned "reckon" used to mean "calculate or compute" with financial or numerical precision, 130
![During his study in 1939, Dantzig solved two unproven statistical theorems due to a misunderstanding. Near the beginning of a class, Professor Spława-Neyman wrote two problems on the blackboard. Dantzig arrived late and assumed that they were a homework assignment. According to Dantzig, they "seemed to be a little harder than usual", but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for both problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue.[4][6] Six weeks later, an excited Spława-Neyman eagerly told him that the "homework" problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved problems in statistics.[2][4] He had prepared one of Dantzig's solutions for publication in a mathematical journal.[7]
From a Wikipedia screenshot](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5kr3l2clcsd2b6w6j4be77x7/bafkreibd22f26yofuysepknlm4bdhxdibnf2ocwaxkailedr6kuazzyc2y)