The long read: Many hoped that the march of technology would usher in a utopia – but some foresaw the threat it would pose to liberal society. Why did nobody listen?

Vim has a joke autocmd called UserGettingBored that doesn't do anything. I tried to learn everything about it.

Launched a big new feature at Ghost, made a two-kilobyte art project, clicked links about tech ethics, and learned a weird fact about the Soviet Union.

From protecting privacy to saving the free press, it may be the single best way to fix the internet.

Welcome new free and paid members with a series of automated emails over time

My blog turned 16 this month! I did nothing to celebrate, but made some little tools and clicked some links about tech ethics.

Download Open Link in Unloaded Tab for Firefox. Adds "Open Link in Unloaded Tab" to the context menu.

I wrote a simple script that translates text at the command line, completely offline.

This April, I offer you a feeble defense of GitHub's poor uptime, a new release of a weirdo JavaScript library, and a flurry of links.

Interviews with current and former Palantir employees, along with internal Slack messages obtained by WIRED, suggest a workforce in turmoil.

GitHub's downtime is bad, but uptime numbers can be misleading. It's not as bad as it looks; more like a D than an F.

This month, I wrote a blog post about errors, celebrated one year at Zelda Dungeon, and clicked some bleak links about AI.

One night, I wrote a simple script to pick a random programming language. After shuffling a few times, I landed on a language called Arturo. I decided to try it for fun.

LLM is a popular CLI tool for talking with language models. I built llm-eliza, a plugin to chat with the ELIZA language model.

Use the full power of the Ghost editor when welcoming your new members

In my mind, errors are divided into two categories. Expected errors, which are part of normal operation, aren't the developer's fault, and should be handled. Unexpected errors are the developer's faul...

Shipped my first feature at my new job, learned about gzip, celebrated Zelda's 40th, and found a bunch of links.

gzip streams contain hidden metadata, like the operating system that did the compression. I built gzpeek, a tool to read this metadata.

President Donald Trump's administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies' handling of foreigners' data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen ...

Started a new job, published a WebAssembly module, set every Vim configuration option, and applauded general strikes.

A new federal filing from ICE demonstrates how commercial tools are increasingly being considered by the government for law enforcement and surveillance.

When you think Microsoft you probably don't think sense of humor. And yet, I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to do a very specific *very* funny thing within our lifetimes.

jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library

To convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, double it and add 30. To do the reverse, subtract 30 and halve it. This is usually pretty close.

I set all of Vim's configuration options, and I still feel far from mastery. But I did learn that it used to be called Vi IMitation...

Elon Musk’s chatbot has been used to generate thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors. Apple and Google have removed other “nudify” apps—but continue to host X and Grok.

“Shares in the world’s leading defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, rose 3.5 percent on the opening of trading as the market rushed to buy into def...

If you think about emails as if they’re anything but the digital equivalent of a postcard–that is to say, postcards provide zero confidentiality–then someone lied to you and I&#82…

Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, when a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to share and reuse for any purpose. Here's our highlights for 2026.

My notes from the final month of 2025. Wrote a few posts, read a few good quotes, bookmarked a few good links.

I don't think that a corporate-controlled social protocol will outlast a publicly-owned one, regardless of the underlying technology. But we'll see if my prediction is right in 25 years.

It’s that time again! The annual tradition continues! Zelda Dungeon’s Best Zelda Ever ranking is back! Every year, the fantastic folks at ZD come together to rank every single Zelda title from worst to best. The task is arduous, and it isn’t always controversy-free, but the results are without exception something the team is truly proud of. This is the feature we look forward to all year long. The thing that makes Best Zelda Ever so special is how many different factors are at...

I think November 2025 was the month I realized I'm a freak for tech ethics discussions. I also published a few posts and clicked a lot of links!

Are the harms that LLMs have caused, and will soon cause, worth the benefits they may bring? This article (a written version of a keynote talk I gave at CoLM) tries to explore this question.

I got it working with arrays and records, but couldn't make it work for regular objects.

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

A reflection on Ruby's past, present, and future.