iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 13/09/2026

Question everything the AI salesmen tell you. Source: x.com/thdxr/statu...

@thdxr on Twitter: "ai couldn't figure out how to write good code so it's pivoting to killing us instead"

Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 09/09/2026

So great to see Tailwind joining Shopify and getting all the benefits of having institutional support Source: x.com/adamwathan/...

@adamwathan on Twitter: "Big one today — Tailwind is joining Shopify 🛍️"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 01/09/2026

Happy September! Claude Fable 5.1 is here 😄 Source: x.com/claudeai/st...

@claudeai on Twitter: "We’re introducing Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1.

They're the world’s most advanced models for coding and knowledge work."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 30/08/2026

I generally agree with this sentiment. Most of my sadness and unhappiness about the automation of software development comes from my genuine interest and passion for the actual coding — understanding the syntax, writing the code, solving problems, etc. Source: x.com/denbvk/stat...

@denbvk on Twitter: "If you’re not saddened by AI automating software development, you’ve never truly been interested in programming. You could still be a good professional but it simply hasn’t been your passion."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 29/08/2026

Two 8-bit-inspired UI libraries that build on top of shadcn: - 8bit.cnlibs.com - www.8bitcn.com/ Gotta love the love for pixel art aesthetics 👾

An overview of the components included in 8bit.cnlibs.com

Retro 8-bit UI design features game elements, character stats, and sponsorships, highlighting gameplay mechanics and visual style from 8bitcn.com

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 26/08/2026

Must be because everyone's vibing all of their apps now /s Source: x.com/PolymarketM...

@PolymarketMoney on Twitter: "BREAKING: Apple App Store sales have declined for the first time in a decade."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 16/08/2026

The most likely person to retcon React's success lmao Source: x.com/rauchg/stat...

@rauchg on Twitter: "I think people don’t realize how much of the success of React is actually
@shadcn
.

I once referred to React as the actual “LEGO brick for adults.” But in reality it was more the description of the geometry of the bricks. The spec.

Shadcn is what people actually wanted from React. Reusable high quality components that also tunable. It’s a pseudo-library. There’s code but it’s actually meant to be digested into your context window and remixed."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 10/08/2026

While I understand the sentiment behind this post, I don't think most people have the necessary skills to build a well-designed, well-written, engaging game. These skills take years to develop, and AI can only help so much, unless you're making copycat games. Source: x.com/NickADobos/...

@NickADobos on Twitter: "I’m pretty sure gaming as a category is dead because everyone is just gonna build their own games

Games don’t have ongoing maintenance cost like companies replacing SaaS vendors

Perhaps an argument for wanting someone else to build an experience for you, easier to watch a movie than create one.

But video games and vibe coding are so close the difference between creating the form and playing in a form is getting closer and closer to zero.

So why play someone else’s game?
Just pay chatgpt $20 and make you own"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 06/08/2026

Great reminder to all the meat proxies out there gruhn.me/blog/2026-0...

From the article, "Don't be a meat proxy": "By all means, prompt AI. But don't just relay the output. Read it, understand it, validate it, and then write a response in your own words (a decent certificate that you've done the prior steps). Making that effort is value you can add."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 02/08/2026

Sam Altman is truly high on his own supply and could use some connection with reality Source: x.com/sama/status...

@sama on Twitter: "cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night:

connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests.

every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 30/07/2026

Dax is on point. If you know what you're doing, you should now be able to use LLMs as a helpful partner in many software engineering workflows (esp web dev ones), and you should be able to explore problem domains to produce better solutions. Source: x.com/thdxr/statu...

@thdxr on Twitter: "you now have the ability to
- play with every possible solution to a problem
- refactor everything when you think of better patterns

so many people complaining about the code the LLMs produce, if you're not producing the best software of your life right now something is wrong"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 27/07/2026

I think Grady is on point. We already see models like Kimi K3 disrupting the moat surrounding OpenAI and Anthropic. This is a good thing and will continue with further commoditization and increased competition. Source: x.com/Grady_Booch...

@Grady_Booch on Twitter: "In the fullness of time, LLMs will eventually become commodities and their price will be a race to the bottom. As the competitive advantage of one LLM over another shrinks - particularly as open source models expand - the value proposition will turn to the neuro/symbolic harnesses that use those models, structures that encompass agents, agent orchestration, tooling, and component plugins. Even those from frontier AI organizations will fall to open source frameworks. The last thing standing will be those who command the data centers on which these things run, and even then, that will become a commodity, with the number of players shrinking to just a few survivors. They too will find pressure: as computational power rises, more and more such systems will be run locally."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 18/07/2026

Big facts. And it's obvious that folks are learning and understanding less than ever. Source: x.com/Grady_Booch...

@Grady_Booch on Twitter: "Prompting is the new cut-and-paste programming style."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 12/07/2026

Hot take: sometimes bottlenecks are ideal Source: x.com/antirez/sta...

@antirez on Twitter: "It is my belief that many devs right now are not maximizing what they can do with automatic programming because they still look at the code. Doing it makes you the bottleneck. Your time is better invested in new ideas, QA, design, and asking yourself what is your goal."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 03/07/2026

Watching Spotify get roasted after this circle jerk is so satisfying 🤌🏻 If Spotify made software worthy of praise, maybe this discussion would be very different. But they don't. As with most companies, they produce slop. And it's slop that exploits artists. Source: x.com/claudedevs/...

@ClaudeDevs on Twitter: "Boris sat down with Spotify VP of Engineering Niklas Gustavsson.

Spotify ships 4,500 production deploys a day, and 73% of PRs are now AI-assisted."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 02/07/2026

Time to get back to sloppin' CRUD Source: x.com/anthropicai...

@AnthropicAI on Twitter: "We’ve received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

We'll begin restoring access tomorrow, and will share an update soon.

We’re grateful to our users for their patience, and to everyone who worked with us on redeploying the models."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 27/06/2026

Remix is on another level with their swag

Front and back of the Remix racing-inspired jacket

Front of the Remix racing-inspired jacket

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 26/06/2026

Not ruling out that this could be the biggest marketing stunt ever... Source: x.com/steph_palaz...

@steph_palazzolo on Twitter: "New w/
@leomschwartz @amir:

The Trump admin has asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns.

On Thursday, CEO Sam Altman told staff that the government will be approving access to GPT-5.6 customer by customer, a highly unusual approach."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 18/06/2026

Facts. Source: x.com/mitrajoy_/s...

@mitrajoy_ on Twitter: "having our first trillionaire before everyone has access to clean water is a failure of the human species"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 15/06/2026

In agreement with Grady. AI is a great tool for augmenting a developer's workflows, but there is still a serious need for software engineers. Source: x.com/Grady_Booch...

@Grady_Booch on Twitter: "And I am a realist who understands computing and AI deeply, having worked in the field for over five decades - where I continue to work - both witnessing the changes as well as inventing things that made those changes possible.

AI is useful.

But I’m certain AI will not do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 10/06/2026

I'm interested to see how Anthropic's new data retention policies are going to shake out... Source: x.com/mtslive/sta...

@MTSlive on Twitter: "SITUATION DETECTED: Microsoft is limiting internal employee use of Fable 5 over Anthropic's new data retention requirements, per The Verge.

Fable 5 requires data retention to operate its safety classifiers, unlike other Claude models which run under Zero Data Retention rules."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 10/06/2026

I can't wait to give Claude Fable 5 a spin 🤌🏻 Source: x.com/claudeai/st...

@claudeai on Twitter: "Introducing Claude Fable 5: a Mythos-class model that we’ve made safe for general use.

Its capabilities exceed those of any model we’ve ever made generally available."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 09/06/2026

Removing yourself from the loop is a recipe for long-term disaster. Stay in the loop. Be aware of what is happening. Enjoy long-term stability. Source: x.com/kushbhuwalk...

@kushbhuwalka on Twitter: "I’m pretty AI pilled. This loop stuff is slop. I respect
@steipete
for his innovation - but openclaw is a bloated unstable pile of garbage because of stuff like this.

I’m all for loops of crons and webhooks where an AI agent wakes up and performs some task like cleanup, or updates the docs or triages errors. I think these are great for standard well defined tasks with a fairly deterministic route (a.k.a workflows).

I think what these guys are talking about now is jumping the gun. The models need to be guided, and you want to atleast skim their output so you don’t end up with slop. Humans are far better planners and architects than models.

You absolutely shouldn’t delegate away prompting and reviews in my opinion. this encourages the creation of crappy buggy unsafe software that actually hurts adoption."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 07/06/2026

Anthropic AI evangelists are continually trying to one-up their own hype train, and to what end? A massive IPO. But what about everyone else? Do we work less? Are we using better products? Or, are we just getting fed more ways to use tokens and feed these companies money?

@rohanpaul_ai on Twitter: ""I don't prompt Claude anymore. I have loops running that prompt Claude and figuring out what to do. My job is to write loops. And this is transition we're going to see for the rest of the year."

- Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code at Anthropic."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 05/06/2026

Hard agree. You are not moving 100x faster.

@ThePrimeagen on Twitter: "I am so thoroughly convinced that anyone who thinks AI 100x's their output is a liar or a lunatic.

You are telling me you can make 1 years worth of decisions in 3.65 days? Let alone describing those accurately and coaxing the result from the AI... (1.8 days european time)?"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 29/05/2026

First, AI was coming for your job. Now, AI is coming for your incompetence. Source: x.com/Grady_Booch...

@Grady_Booch on Twitter: "AGI is closer than you think."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 27/05/2026

Inspired by: x.com/ThePrimeage...

@ThePrimeagen on Twitter: "Honestly why stop at 100x engineer?

Just use more agents, you literally could be 1000x, 10000x, 100000x just by scaling

You could what you use to in an entire year in one second"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 25/05/2026

Source: x.com/KeenanPayne... Inspired by Wes's post on Twitter: x.com/wesbos/stat...

@wesbos on Twitter: "Give me your hottest takes on generative UI, MCP apps, agents returning widgets, and chat as the final interface

Working on a talk for JS Nation and I want to spotlight some differing opinions"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 25/05/2026

If you produce something of poor quality, people will point it out and criticize. Whether your ignorance, character, or skills are judged, the outcome is the same. We have more tools at our disposal to produce something great, and there are few excuses for shortcomings Source: x.com/thdxr/statu...

@thdxr on Twitter: "any lack of polish now gets equated to ai slop

all fields: software bugs, bad movie, bad video game

before the audience would make a judgement about your skills, which was tolerable because you can get better

now they make a judgement about your character (lazy/fraud/etc)"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 24/05/2026

My homie really be going around with a hole-punch commander deck, "just in case" 🤣

A black backpack displays a collection of Magic: The Gathering cards, hole-punched and attached with a carabiner.

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 12/05/2026

I generally agree with this. Nailing the UX is the most important thing you can do, and likely the most difficult. Use established patterns, focus on solving problems, dogfood your product, interview your users, iterate rapidly, add complexity sparingly, and repeat. Source: x.com/shadcn/stat...

@shadcn on Twitter: "Unpopular opinion: I don’t care if most web apps look the same. All I care about is whether it does what it says and does it fast.

Make it fast. Make the UX obvious. Put the right things in the right place and little to no animations."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 09/05/2026

based af Source: x.com/artman/stat...

@artman on Twitter: "Today is a hard day. I shared this note with the @linear team today: We’ve made the difficult decision to increase our workforce. This is not a cost-cutting exercise or a reflection of anyone’s performance. We’re simply reimagining every role for the agentic AI era. We’re hiring. We’re sorry about that."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 25/04/2026

Our favorite intern, Garry Tan, continues to push OSS forward through his work on GStack 👏🏻 Far from a measly folder of markdown files, Garry has produced a STACK of markdown files, powerful enough to build groundbreaking new internet technology, such as his blog. Source: x.com/ycombinator...

@ycombinator on Twitter: "GStack is an open-source toolkit built by YC President & CEO
@garrytan
that turns Claude Code into an AI engineering team — with skills for office hours, design, code review, QA, and browser testing.

In this video, Garry walks through how GStack works, starting with Office Hours, a skill modeled after real YC partner sessions that pressure-tests your idea before you write a line of code. He demos it live, going from idea through adversarial review, design mockups, and automated QA in a single session."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 22/04/2026

The new direction for the Ando's website is delightful ✨ Bridging the gap between product and marketing UX is clever, as it introduces and onboards potential users to your product while differentiating you from competitors. ando.so/channels/home

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 19/04/2026

Everyone needs to take a breather 😮‍💨 Source: x.com/shadcn/stat...

@shadcn on Twitter: "Every friend I talk to is overworked since AI. Working weekends. Always on their phone prompting. Kinda sad."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 18/04/2026

Software and design are far from solved, as evidenced by all the subpar software and design in the world. Source: x.com/DavidKPiano...

@DavidKPiano on Twitter: ""Software is solved"
- Non-serious developers

"Design is solved"
- Non-serious designers"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 17/04/2026

Definitely something I'm wondering, as AI subsidies seem to begin drying up Source: x.com/burkehollan...

@burkeholland on Twitter: "It would be hilarious if we go through this whole AI thing just to find out that it’s ultimately cheaper to pay humans to do it"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 15/04/2026

It confuses me every time I can’t buy a Kindle book directly in the Amazon iOS app.

"Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu in the Amazon iOS app, notifying me that I cannot purchase the Kindle version in the app

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 11/04/2026

Boys generalizing girls lmao Source: x.com/levelsio/st...

@levelsio on Twitter: "Why do girls want the bed to be full of decorative pillows that you don't use

But then at night you have to remove all those pillows

Like what's the reasoning here, it's completely form over function huh"

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 10/04/2026

Back in the day, we used to slop the hard way Source: x.com/burkehollan...

@burkeholland on Twitter: "When I was your age, we didn't generate slop with AI.

We googled it, found it, and pasted it in ourselves."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 04/04/2026

Really great article from Mario Zechner on slowing the fuck down in the era of agentic coding. mariozechner.at/posts/2026-...

“ I would like to suggest that slowing the fuck down is the way to go. Give yourself time to think about what you're actually building and why. Give yourself an opportunity to say, fuck no, we don't need this. Set yourself limits on how much code you let the clanker generate per day, in line with your ability to actually review the code.”

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 03/04/2026

I think it's great that anyone can use AI to find inspiration, build, and share online! If you find inspiration and joy in what you do and want to share it, please do so. But, while you're doing that, don't be an ass and think that you're better than everyone else 💁🏻‍♂️ Source: x.com/GergelyOros...

@GergelyOrosz on Twitter: "Perhaps controversial: I think it is a net good that CEOs and founders who are engineers at heart are back to coding with AI agents.

Lots of dunking happening eg on Garry Tan. He's stepping outside of his comfort zone, building net new things + sharing in public."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 01/04/2026

This is what happens when you're too high on your own supply. Source: x.com/jessfraz/st...

@jessfraz on Twitter: "Imagine being the president of Y Combinator and blocking every good engineer on this app because they pointed out you were using the wrong metric and instilling future generations with bad advice."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 01/04/2026

Garry the intern finally had his first code review. Too bad it happened after he accumulated all of this tech debt 🙂‍↕️ But in Garry’s words, it’s probably “just cope.” Source: x.com/gregorein/s...

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 30/03/2026

Waiting for AI to automate the jobs of investor grifters... Source: x.com/Jason/statu...

@jason on Twitter: "Here’s the truth: we’ve already reached AGI — we just haven’t implemented it broadly.

Millions of jobs are being lost as we speak.

Entire careers will be retired.

The rich and powerful investors and founders who implement AGI will get bizarrely rich beyond what makes sense. It will break people's brains on both sides.

It’s gonna suck for a lot of our friends and family, who aren’t obsessed with their careers, because things are moving so fast they won’t have even left the starting gate by the time the awards are handed out.

We’re gonna have to solve for a lot of second- and third-order effects, some of which will suck (job loss) and some of which will be awesome.

AI will create free/cheap energy, free education, cheaper and better food, homes that build themselves and medicine that makes you as healthy as a 30-year-old when you’re 100.

… change is hard, but humans are the most adaptable species nature has ever created.

We can figure it out."

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Keenan Payne @keenanpayne.com · 19/03/2026

It certainly would feel difficult to remember if you never put in the effort 💁🏻‍♂️ Source: x.com/sama/status...

Sam Altman on Twitter: "I have so much gratitude to people who wrote extremely complex software character-by-character. It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took.

Thank you for getting us to this point."

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