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Getting the code was. I had it but hadn't gotten it. I'd taken it, or been given it. I don't fucking know what to call this. Anyway. I didn't like it then. Don't like it now. AI boosters can go fuck themselves. This tech has uses beyond disempowering common folks under the guise of automation.

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And this code in this branch was, one way or another, a stranger's labour. It was someone else who had gone to the trouble of learning and making and sharing. What did I get out of using an LLM for my task? Nothing. I spent a few dollars and got some code, but having the code was not the point.

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I could understand the code. I suppose with a couple hours' prep (to get more familiar with the language) I'd have written something similar. But this wasn't me. Why would I want this? The whole point of trying to make the thing myself was that I'd made it, brought it into existence with my hands.

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I decided to give Claude a shot at making what I was trying to make. I bought a few dollars' worth of credits, configured the auth token, and let it rip. It took a few minutes, and in a separate git branch, made what I was trying to make. It felt gross. It wasn't me who made this.

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in computers if all of modern technology aims towards making us not want to? What sort of world are we living in? It depresses me a lot to think about all this. I was working on something personal using the Janet programming language recently. I've been using the Zed editor on and off for a bit.

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Stuff like that used to happen often at that workplace. I'm glad I left. The places I've worked since then have been better, but there are always people like that. LLMs have given some of them a lot of leeway towards this behaviour. How do we expect to build a community of people actually interested

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And then read out, verbatim, what they saw on their screens. I asked where they'd found that answer. They said it was from a blog post. I asked how they could be sure that what they were reading was correct and accurate. They said it was the first Google result, which ought to be good enough, right?

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At the end of my slideshow, before starting the broader discussion with the dumb hypotheticals and so on, I'd asked the group at large, "What even is a VPC?" — informally, almost jokingly, in an effort to put everyone at ease. I saw a couple of colleagues start typing. Likely into Google search.

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And for the most part, I got what I wanted. It was a good session! CIDR blocks and the Classful model of networking alone alone wrinkled a few brains during that session. However, there's always folks who miss the point of group discussions. And there were a few around that day too.

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Which took all of 30 minutes, with the rest remaining for questions and activities. With the number of folks who'd already done presentations in the weeks prior, I wanted to keep things lively. Silly questions and hypotheticals welcome. Like, what if we want an EC2 instance to have 2 IP addresses?

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I prepared a slideshow of maybe 8 slides? Mostly tables and diagrams, no notes on there. Didn't want to turn it into a session of reading off of the screen, didn't want people to feel sleepy staring at a wall of text. Closer to a demo-ish vibe, jumping around between the AWS console and the show.

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I was wrong, of course. It was a bit of fun to do the reading on VPCs and then CIDR blocks and the general principles of designing and building networks — all very interesting stuff, a rabbit hole leading down into a veritable warren of topics that I wish I'd taken better notes on. But anyway.

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"Group discussion" here was implied. We were asked to make presentations. And so people did. For whatever reason, despite not being as eager to get that certification as other folks had been, I was asked to "present" a "session" on VPCs, which threw me for a minute. Because who cares about VPCs?

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amara✨🐾🦌 @deergirlxoxo.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Back in 2022, my at-the-time workplace decided to sponsor folks for AWS certifications. To get people to start studying for the test, they asked that folks pick one of the many services or configurations you can/might/will end up using on AWS and do a 1-hour group discussion on it.

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Reposted by suraj

crazy that devs are saying stuff like AI is the future of coding. so the future of coding is paying an evil corporation a $500/month subscription for tokens ?? seriously?? you are sleepwalking into a cyberpunk dystopia you fucking morons

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suraj @essnine.dev · 11/06/2026

Waiting for someone to use the new Claude model for the one thing nobody can object against — develop a working jailbreak for the Kindle Paperwhite 11th Gen on 5.19

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suraj @essnine.dev · 25/05/2026

As someone moving back and forth between skeptical user and vicious hater of AI workflows, it has been an interesting few months now since people have started to talk about this outcome of the AI revolution (derogatory). What did folks expect if not this? Gotta get our hands dirty to get good.

suraj @essnine.dev · 21/02/2026

trying to put my dumb ass to sleep, failing, tried to solve project euler problem 11 in janet, great success, now sleep will come to me

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suraj @essnine.dev · 20/02/2026

Sorry to bother but I came across a very minor typo a little further than halfway through. An occurrence of XA-JRM instead of XA-JMR.

Screenshot of a 4-line paragraph with the word “XA-JRM” highlighted in the first line. Paragraph text is:

“At 17:08, XA-JRM departed for the test flight with three pilots on board. One of them was riding as a passenger, which is at least questionable, if not
outright irresponsible, on a test flight.”

suraj @essnine.dev · 19/02/2026

brb going to go read echopraxia again

suraj @essnine.dev · 17/02/2026

It was only a matter of time, of course, and I might even be too late to notice it, but people have begun to add AI-generated text to TVTropes.

suraj @essnine.dev · 16/02/2026

And work quality isn’t suffering, but it’s like it’s all in a separate loop from my conscious thinking. Sometimes I switch entirely out of conscious thought and get completely engrossed in the work, but that has always been a thing. Having two separate contexts running together is the weird bit.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 16/02/2026

Lately starting to become aware of how much work stuff I actually do sort of on autopilot where I’m not consciously thinking about what message I’m typing or code I’m writing or such. Gets jarring when I’m doing this stuff while on a call because I see what I’ve done but don’t remember how.

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Thanks, I feel young again after reading this 🤝

Ah, okay, got it. Thanks!

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That new clicks keyboard accessory isn’t quite the same as what I was thinking about here but it’s close enough And who knows, maybe we’ll get something like the n97 keyboard next year if the clicks folks manage to make it til then

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suraj @essnine.dev · 06/01/2026

This looks super complex — how many tokens did it consume and do you happen to know the cost incurred for the whole operation? Also, how does one validate that an operation like this executed correctly and nothing got borked? Sorry, I know these are big questions but I couldn’t help but ask.

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Put my phone in a jacket pocket I don’t normally use, forgot where I put it, and panicked for a full minute despite being able to feel its weight in the jacket. All in a public place. Is this what being 31 is supposed to be like?

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suraj @essnine.dev · 06/01/2026

folks who call LLM-generated software homemade or home-baked or whatever ought to consider calling it drop-shipped after looking at how much they pay for it and the way they depend on model peddlers not effing things up without telling them

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suraj @essnine.dev · 29/12/2025

Same! I haven’t read Thud! and Snuff yet but I don’t think they’ll top Night Watch. It is now one of my all-time favourite books.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 28/12/2025

Been on a streak of reading the City Watch series of Discworld books this week. Just finished Night Watch and I don’t know what to do with myself, which is how good books make me feel. What a great story. Love it.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 18/12/2025

struck suddenly by the realization that the very first thing I ever did on a computer with internet access was download more clipart in powerpoint (2003 maybe?) so i could make funny animations in a computer lessons class organized by a school that was run by a charitable foundation

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suraj @essnine.dev · 17/12/2025

Wordle 1,642 4/6 ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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suraj @essnine.dev · 14/12/2025

funny how siri is the only voice assistant app this works anymore for because all the rest of them can respond to this question and might soon try to shove an advert in their answer

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suraj @essnine.dev · 13/12/2025

More and more convinced that the iPad mini is the only device that comes close to the ideal form factor for an all-round general purpose personal computing device. If only this had actual cellular functionality (and maybe better cameras) I’d be glad to use it instead of a phone full-time.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 09/12/2025

been wondering if this is finally the year that I learn javascript in earnest. might be so.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 09/12/2025

Bought something online last night at 2am so I guess the mood for today and tomorrow is “packidge”

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suraj @essnine.dev · 07/12/2025

Thought about buying an iPad mini for my birthday, but somehow not convinced that buying it would be the best way to spend that much money. Now I'm thinking about what other gadget I could buy to scratch my itch for a new toy. It'd have been easier if more things officially shipped to India.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 06/12/2025

Not to be all doom and gloom about things but the flip side of LLM writing is LLM summaries, and with both being as popular as they are, I’m not sure that most LinkedIn users (or people on the internet generally) would care. Sort of becomes the path of least resistance for having an online presence.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 30/11/2025

Didn’t sleep enough yesterday, did a fair bit of driving today, and then had coffee late at night. So now every time I try to close my eyes and sleep I wind up imagining a very vivid situation where I get into a horrible car crash.

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suraj @essnine.dev · 29/11/2025

Which, I mean, good luck? If these systems, behemoths that they are, get wrangled by GenAI in a way that minimizes the burden of building and validating and running them mostly, if not entirely? Great! But I'm not sure if the economics of it work out (unless guillotines come into the picture).