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Alex

@chromaticnova.com
502 followers 264 following 657 posts

I’m a web developer, designer, photographer, movie fanatic, music lover, snow sports addict and general tech enthusiast. Based in Bath, UK chromaticnova.com

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Reposted by Alex
Andy Bell @bell.bz · 13h
if you're the sort of person that tends to be aware of their surroundings and other people, while walking around, you really are doing an important civic duty
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Eris ⌬ @eriskii.net · 06/10/2026
Claude give me the Vyvanse and estrogen make no mistakes do a breakthrough can u throw a little coke in too
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 05/10/2026
It’s hard to comprehend how a professional platform like GitHub ever started using CSS-in-JS at scale in the first place
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Large Heydon Collider @heydonworks.com · 04/10/2026
The self-destruction of the RayBan brand is fascinating. Wayfarers are history's most iconic sunglasses and probably the easiest way for anyone to look a little cooler, in any context. Now you get to look like a dork and a sex pest AT THE SAME TIME. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
reuters.com
Dutch eyewear chain Hans Anders halts sale of Meta glasses, citing privacy concerns
One of the largest Dutch eyewear retail chains said on Friday it had suspended sales of Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses in the Netherlands ​and Belgium amid growing privacy concerns, in one of the first ...
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 04/10/2026
I’m cautiously optimistic that Apple finally has a product guy in charge again!
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konnaire @konnaire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Yeah, no shit. Several times daily at this point. Unprecedented time of productivity.
TechCrunch article called Spotify says its best developers haven’t written a line of code since December, thanks to AIA Spotify error messageA different Spotify error message Yet another Spotify error message
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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Alёna Batitskaia @abatickaya.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There's only one way trouble starts: a woman with time on her hands. blog.alena.rocks/en/artifacts...
blog.alena.rocks
Periodic Table of HTML Elements
All 115 elements of the current HTML specification laid out as a periodic table: search, filters by spec section and links to MDN.
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Jake Archibald @jakearchibald.com · 20/09/2026
There's lots I haven't yet understood about atproto, but I simply won't do the standard.site thing whilst it offers a worse UX than… not doing it.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 10/09/2026
I’m calling it now: the iPhone Duo isn’t going to sell particularly well. It might even flop. I think the target market is less than an iPhone Mini tbh. That doesn’t necessarily mean day 1 pre-orders won’t be high though.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 10/09/2026
This icon is simultaneously very cool and clever, and a bit of an eyesore to have permanently on-screen
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 10/09/2026
This looks like developer hell. Good luck out there 🫡 #Apple #iPhoneDuo
A montage of all the different orientations and layouts available on the new folding iPhone Duo
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 09/09/2026
This is true of many things tbh
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eliza hamilton @eliza.vg · 08/09/2026
i think the idea that there will be this market for "artisanal" hand-written code like that of like; hand-sculpted woodworking, is plainly laughable.
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👻 rossipedia 🎃 @rossipedia.com · 25/08/2026
Tony Stark / Iron Man: "I'm gonna need to take back AI"
Peter Parker / Spiderman: "But I can't code without AI"
Tony Stark / Iron Man: "If you can't code without AI then you shouldn't have it"
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 20/08/2026
People who passionately love AI and people who passionately hate AI are equally weird and deluded to me. Its just a tool, and a very diverse one at that.
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Kilian Valkhof @kilianvalkhof.com · 19/08/2026
it was cute when Arc did it but your app definitely shouldn't be adding cutesy rounded borders around the entire app.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 19/08/2026
Unless they're fixing a bug, any kind of downloaded app or extension should be restricted to 1 update a week max
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conputer dipshit @davidcrespo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
interesting and rare twitter post by dario amodei xcancel.com/DarioAmodei/...
I do agree that the public has a negative view of AI (and that this is a big problem), but I don’t think it is primarily caused by me or any other AI leader warning about AI’s risks.  I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust.  I think that ordinary people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over.  The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it.  I don’t think that a glitzy marketing campaign with a positive spin (which some have advocated that Anthropic do) is the way to win back that trust — at this point, saying that AI will cure cancer is more a cliche than it is inspiring, and most people think it is deceptive.  The thing that will work is *actually curing cancer*.  I think by far the most accurate criticism of AI companies including Anthropic is that we haven’t yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world.  That is totally on us, and I think it’s the criticism you should be making, instead of all this stuff about messaging and marketing.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 14/08/2026
Main takeaway from this government alert is that we need both a loud alert system and a *silent* alert system
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Bethany Black @bethanyblack.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
No lies
thatguycollo writes

YouTubers be like "wake up at 4am and run, that's alpha!" No, it's not. Look at apex predators; they're all lazy. Bears hibernate, lions sleep all day. You know who wakes up at 4am and runs? Squirrels.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
What you're saying when you say "DEI" when universities say "EDI" (as happens here) and vice versa. And why it actually matters. The great majority of UK (esp. British) universities use "EDI" while US universities use "DEI". Is that "just" semantic, or does it matter? A thread. 🧵1/8
ft.com
How Jason Arday’s appointment became a reckoning for Cambridge
Resignation of Black professor forces university to examine its approach to diversity, equality and inclusion
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 13/08/2026
Meta achieves roaring success by spamming their feeds with endless streams of inane brainrot drivel engagement bait. Bluesky shouldn’t be aspiring to that. Growth at all costs is a capitalist hellscape. It’s actually fine to just coast along.
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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
ICYMI, the Dobby grave story was completely fake. Like, just, totally not true in any way.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 13/08/2026
The Ricky Gervais subreddit is brilliant, because everyone there can (and does) quote from everything he’s ever done, but they also universally agree that he’s now a complete bellend, and probably always was.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 11/08/2026
Damn, we haven't even made it out of beta yet and Apple already replaced the cool new Siri icon with a grey blob 😢
Before and after of the Siri app icon in different iOS 27 betas
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P(D(aisy)) @her.toy.cybernetic.gay · 09/08/2026
This is why we don't send kids to school to train them on previous writing, images, audio, etc. It would be mathematically impossible for them to produce original information.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 06/08/2026
Good logic, but I’m probably biased - I already built the theme toggle on my website in this way 🥳
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P(aul) Frazee @pfrazee.com · 05/08/2026
My impression is that AI coding is on a "pick two of three" triangle: scope, ship speed, and correctness. Small tools are (speed + correctness) fast prototypes are (speed + scope) and big projects are (scope + correctness). Every project that tries to be all three degrades to "fast prototype."
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 05/08/2026
You know how on some forums when you start typing a new post and it comes up with a list of similar posts so you can see if someone has posted the same thing before? Reddit needs that.
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dame @dame.is · 04/08/2026
the number of folks who jumped to the worst possible interpretation of toni’s interview clips is quite concerning, too many people have let social media and purity culture just melt their brains… it’s one of the most gratuitous & gross examples of toxic online discourse culture i’ve seen in awhile
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zeu @zeu.dev · 03/08/2026
toni: bsky isn't necessarily meant for one group of people users for some reason: oh so you want the nazis here?
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Sooz Kempner @soozuk.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
It's weird when people bristle at the idea of abolishing billionaires. Are you a billionaire? Is your mum one? Why do you care? It would be good to abolish billionaires. More money for public services, less money for them to buy rape islands.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 30/07/2026
film you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. hard mode: no star trek, star wars, lotr, marvel, disney, or ghibli.
static.klipy.com
Jojo Rabbit Kid Dancing
Alt: Jojo Rabbit Kid Dancing
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Reposted by Alex
weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Nobody ever explained to me what a passkey is or how they work. Websites just started asking me for passkeys like it's something we talked about.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 22/07/2026
Recently discovered that CSS has a `round()` function! So many subpixel rendering glitches (hi Safari) resolved by rounding the widths of my layouts. `width: round(down, 100%, 12px)` on a 12 column grid container makes the container width divisible by 12 so each column has an integer pixel width.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 18/07/2026
The new ChatGPT app is like an exercise in terrible UX. Chat mode. Work mode. Codex mode. Terra. Luna. Every button and option requires extensive research to figure out what it does. Users shouldn't have to even think about this stuff, it should just work. Can you even call it "AI" otherwise?
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 16/07/2026
I feel this post: The Descent - What Happened to the Frontend While You Weren't Watching davidpoblador.com/deep-dives/w...
davidpoblador.com
The Descent — What Happened to the Frontend While You Weren't Watching
The last time you wrote one it was a <button> and an FTP upload — spare twenty minutes and get up to speed on everything the web did while you looked away.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 15/07/2026
Installed iOS 27 public beta. Performance feels identical. Icons look better. New Siri is decent - “good enough” for most uses. Liquid Glass mostly just looks grey now, worse than before but more consistent throughout. I honestly don’t think they have any idea what to do with it. #Apple #iOS27
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Reposted by Alex
Louie Mantia, Jr. @lmnt.me · 14/07/2026
“By popular demand!” The Shape of Apps: an essay about app icons, “Squircle Jail,” and where we go from here. parakeet.co/blog/the-sha...
parakeet.co
Parakeet Blog: The Shape of Apps
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Siobhán @shibbi.me · 14/07/2026
Wait, you… use libraries? Code that other people wrote for you? You just… download it? Do you even read the code? Do you not care about the craft, the knowledge that comes from putting in the work yourself? Aren’t you afraid your skills will atrophy?
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Ryan "UnionToTuple" Cavanaugh @searyanc.dev · 14/07/2026
Me: Doctor I have this new disease, please go fetch me a cure for it Doctor: You have the common cold; it's been known since antiquity Me: You've had 5,000 years to fix this?? Please raise this to the top of your backlog! PING?? Hello? Paging again in year 2026! Still getting colds here!!
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Eric Bailey @ericwbailey.website · 13/07/2026
I swear services are logging you out more often to push you into opting to use a passkey.
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 13/07/2026
Love to see it futurism.com/future-socie...
futurism.com
The Backlash Is So Strong That People With "Pervert Glasses" Are Afraid to Use Them in Public
Meta's camera-equipped "AI Glasses" are so divisive that some adopters are reportedly leaving their expensive smart glasses at home.
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Sacha Greif @sachagreif.com · 25/06/2026
To prevent this, I make sure to never call my family so they know it’s gotta be a scammer
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Alex @chromaticnova.com · 22/06/2026
People who side with #Apple in the Apple vs EU debate are weird as hell. Stop licking corporate boot. Apple doesn’t care about you, they care about profits and power. Their every word on the subject is meticulously calculated propaganda.
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dan @danabra.mov · 19/06/2026
"but where are all the bluesky instances?" i've heard this so many times that i wrote an explainer
overreacted.io
There Are No Instances in atproto — overreacted
Like RSS and Google Reader.
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Niki @nikitonsky.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2026
I love good UI animation, so I had to write about a few imperfect ones that I wish would be fixed tonsky.me/blog/every-frame-perfect
tonsky.me
Every Frame Perfect
How imprecise UI animations erode trust in product
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garrison @garrison.corporate.fm · 17/06/2026
Europeans: at long last, we have invented Markdown in Posts from the classic @pfrazee.com novel "Don't Put Markdown in Posts"
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Plug-in solar panels to go on sale in UK after it passed safety checks About time, given there are over 1mn kits already on sale in Germany There, they sell for between £200 and £2,000, deliver 5-25% of a homes energy needs, typical payback between 2 & 6 years www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...
thetimes.com
Plug-in solar panels on sale ‘within months’ after safety nod
Costing hundreds of pounds rather than thousands, the panels could help consumers offset the rise in energy bills when the price cap increases next month
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