Sign in

May Likes Product

@productnerd.bsky.social
683 followers 935 following 1.5K posts

Product Ops Evangelist. Toronto. Any Pronouns. Community Builder. Scaling great product orgs. Loves complexity and healthy teams. Coping with memes. Supporting ODLAN.ca. Find my stuff: linktr.ee/productnerd

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by May Likes Product
Lex Roman @lexroman.com · 04/08/2026
Airtable was just acquired by Bending Spoons. Goodbye to Airtable. If your business runs on Airtable or worse, if your business IS Airtable, you need to make an exit plan. I wrote about what this means for small business owners. www.revenuerulebreaker.com/airtable-was...
revenuerulebreaker.com
Airtable was just acquired by Bending Spoons. Goodbye to Airtable.
If your business runs on Airtable or worse, if your business IS Airtable, you need to make an exit plan
043
Reposted by May Likes Product
Toby Rogers @tobyrogers.pm · 10/07/2026
Ages ago, me and @forssto.bsky.social were talking about the similarities between product managers and record producers. It's something I keep coming back to.
tobyrogers.beehiiv.com
The Punk PM #58
Don't Just Play, Produce
142
Reposted by May Likes Product
mcc @dryad.technology · 10/07/2026
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no nerdist.com/article/netf...
nerdist.com
Netflix, Sony, Paramount Reportedly Want to Buy Letterboxd
A new report says Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount, and Netflix are among the bidders for the popular fan movie review site Letterboxd.
4419
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
As long as we are talking about whether programmers gatekeep I will repost the essay where I argue that even being a "gate opener" is still being a keeper of the gate and will be until our shared conception of technical ability changes. www.fightforthehuman.com/why-i-cannot...
fightforthehuman.com
Why I Cannot Be Technical
With some regularity, kind-hearted Technical people tell me that I Can Be Technical, Too. This usually happens when I’m asking us to define what we’re calling technical in a software environment. I un...
1203
Reposted by May Likes Product
Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
'In these 2-hour workshops, we will be working with photographs from the Image of the Black (IB) Archive. Created between the 1960s and 1990s, the archive contains over 30,000 photographs documenting representations of people of African descent in (primarily) Western art.' 13 July, Warburg Institute
history.ac.uk
Whose Bias? Ways of Seeing: Community Workshop
098
Reposted by May Likes Product
John Cutler @johncutle.fish · 03/07/2026
AI can be your scribe, your thought partner, data-stitcher, or your counselor. And AI can be your consigliere, your spin doctor, or your propagandist. Team superpowers. Or Orwellian Ministry of Truth. cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-428-ye...
cutlefish.substack.com
TBM 428: Yes, Robot. Yes, Boss?
AI can be your scribe, your thought partner, data-stitcher, or your counselor.
273
Reposted by May Likes Product
Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 27/06/2026
This is such an interesting simulation and I really like the message behind it :) (Plus interactive math! My weakness!)
1133
Reposted by May Likes Product
Charity Majors @charity.wtf · 24/06/2026
as promised, here is my post on AI and ethics. I think unilateral disarmament in the face of powerful new tools is neither wise nor effective. I think those of us in tech have a particular responsibility to engage, participate and build better solutions. charitydotwtf.substack.com/p/make-ai-bo...
charitydotwtf.substack.com
Make AI Boring Again
On the ethics of engagement, the problem with purity politics, and a world worth fighting for
97325
Reposted by May Likes Product
Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 24/06/2026
Haters gonna hate, but the people who want to understand what meaningful science looks like and understand how to enact real and impactful change are gonna get this book :)
1184
Reposted by May Likes Product
beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Three panel comic. Panel 1: a kid stands in front of his science fair presentation on a three-sided cardboard display. The display reads: When I grow up, I want to be… THE LARGEST SEA CREATURE. Panel 2: the kid, now matured, is walking into the ocean confidently. He’s turned back toward the shore, smiling and waving at his parents who are standing a few meters behind him, right where the water meets the shore. They’re waving back to him. Panel 3: from a bird’s eye view the kid can be seen under the surface of the water. He’s massive and only a portion of his face is in frame. His father, who appears older, is paddling alone in a canoe above his son’s submerged gigantic face.
6691621507
Reposted by May Likes Product
Avi Lewis @avilewis.ca · 18/06/2026
1/ Major Canadian experts in internet security and privacy - like @rondeibert.bsky.social, @openmedia.org and @cancivlib.bsky.social - are absolutely freaking out about Bill C-22. They’re sounding massive alarms, warning that it could:
7348164
Reposted by May Likes Product
Ian Harvey He/Him @ianharvey.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Do you know what it would take to cancel your current project? I’m willing to bet that for many the answer will be no. This is why so much time and money is wasted in busines. We search for the evidence that proves we were right, without even knowing what would tell us it was wrong.
021
Reposted by May Likes Product
Charity Majors @charity.wtf · 16/06/2026
i share that belief. i wrote a whole piece about it: charity.wtf/2025/06/19/i... but -- i think that the best way to become a good engineer, is to work on a high performing team with other great engineers, and that means a team with engineering discipline.
charity.wtf
In Praise of “Normal” Engineers
This article was originally commissioned by Luca Rossi (paywalled) for refactoring.fm, on February 11th, 2025. Luca edited a version of it that emphasized the importance of building “10x engi…
231
Reposted by May Likes Product
Charity Majors @charity.wtf · 16/06/2026
alright friends and computationists, what are the signals you pick up on that make you think a team has high engineering discipline? (whatever "high" means to you) i'm not talking science or evidence. i'm talking casual conversation, heuristics, no evidence whatsoever, just radar. what trips it?
616817
Reposted by May Likes Product
Erica Ifill @wickdchiq.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
The government says they’re tackling surveillance pricing (thanks to the NDP) but they’re not. It’s a smokescreen open.substack.com/pub/badbitch...
open.substack.com
Surveillance pricing will cost us
Despite the defeat of their motion to ban surveillance pricing, the NDP has kicked over a dormant hornet’s nest of affordability issues.
13517
Reposted by May Likes Product
Yvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
"We don’t need techniques for keeping the ground steady, but practices for living well on ground that moves." - Jerrold McGrath (h/t @biancawylie.com) poorfooting.substack.com/p/vulkan?r=2...
poorfooting.substack.com
Vulkan
A volcano, a laugh, and the maps we inherit. On why disorder might be more useful than stability and what Icelanders know that the rest of us don't.
181
Reposted by May Likes Product
Momo @heyheymomo.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
What a guy
4 panel comic

Panel 1: a wizard in blue robe and white beard sitting with small forg at a desk behind the computer. “Click, click” is the sound of the mouse to be heard
Panel 2: close up on the computer screen. There’s a green check mark and a full loading bar on it. From off screen someone, probably the wizard, says “boom, there it is”.
Panel 3: forg is left behind alone at his desk. There’s an open door in the background. Forg says “thanks installation wizard” and a little pink heart appears, showing his affection.
Panel 4: we see now that the wizard has already left the house after a job well done. He replies to forg watching him go from his window: “it’s what I do”
38118943100
Reposted by May Likes Product
Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 11/06/2026
today in dystopia watch: all your pokemon go scans helped train a system for killer drones
6350153
Reposted by May Likes Product
Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 09/06/2026
I’m thinking a lot right now about automation and efficiency. We spend a lot of calories talking about AI, but I don’t see that same energy being put towards truly impactful changes: mostly because they’re largely invisible More importantly, those transformations have to be won bit by bit
3132
Reposted by May Likes Product
The Walrus @thewalrus.ca · 08/06/2026
AI shopping assistants act like trusted advisors, but they may be nudging users toward sponsored products instead. As retailers integrate tools like ChatGPT into e-commerce experiences, writer Vass Bednar questions who these agents are really working for. thewalrus.ca/ai-shopping-assistant
On the left: a photo illustration featuring a robot hand handing over a shopping basket to a human. On the right: text that reads “Your AI shopping assistant is selling you out. The bots promise to get the best deals. Studies say they mostly find pricier, sponsored options.”
0149
Reposted by May Likes Product
Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 03/06/2026
next thing toilets are going to start going up in price because of the ai race
69318
Reposted by May Likes Product
mcc @dryad.technology · 01/06/2026
Note to Canadians: If you have the CDCP dental plan, there's a deadline that was poorly communicated through a letter you may not have received. You have to renew your coverage in the next 2 hours or there maybe a coverage gap. To renew, go to canada.ca/msca and do a whole bunch of onerous bullshit
Letter explaining the above
32023
Reposted by May Likes Product
Robin-Yann Storm @rystorm.com · 29/05/2026
When folks say they have 10x'd their productivity with AI, most of the time this is what is actually happening:
821966
May Likes Product @productnerd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
400 people are coming to Toronto Product Con today! I'm so stoked. I've got a product operations panel to talk about how the PDLC is shifting in 2026. Exciting! #productMgmt
1101
Reposted by May Likes Product
Devan Barlow @devanbarlow.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
NEW OCTOPUS!!!
0136
Reposted by May Likes Product
Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/05/2026
looks like another consequence of carney’s cuts
cbc.ca
Weather experts concerned about public safety as Environment Canada disbands radar research team | CBC News
From hail sizes to wind speeds, weather radars help Environment and Climate Change Canada track storms and issue public warnings. But the organization has recently disbanded its radar research team. M...
621797
Reposted by May Likes Product
DaBean. @honeybadger10.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Within a 3-6 mile radius. In a city filled with wealth. It is horrifying and infuriating.
0318
Reposted by May Likes Product
Celeste Trianon @celeste.lgbt · 21/05/2026
"There is nothing balanced about the way trans people’s lives are reported. Anti-trans narratives dominate coverage and are often presented as fact, while trans people themselves are pushed to the margins or erased entirely." - from Amnesty International www.amnesty.org.uk/latest/new-u...
amnesty.org.uk
Anti trans organisations exerting powerful influence over media and politics, new analysis reveals
Amnesty’s analysis exposes scale of anti-trans influence in UK media and maps rapid rise of anti-trans organisations
15423
Reposted by May Likes Product
Liz Fong-Jones (方禮真) @lizthegrey.com · 21/05/2026
This is what happens when you incur opex but not capex, and only in proportion to your revenues (plus some amount of R&D which is getting amortised rapidly by high volume of profitable sales)
6314
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I'm at a conference right now and one of these bad studies with its bad estimates about human work choices has already come up. It's a fucking plague.
3559
Reposted by May Likes Product
Nico Mara-McKay 🦇 (they/iel) @nicomaramckay.com · 18/05/2026
Finally, a novel about a trans kid that lands positively. Thank you for writing this, @kylelukoff.bsky.social #BookSky 📚🏳️‍⚧️ 📚🏳️‍🌈 📚🌈
Too Bright to See, by Kyle Lukoff. The cover features an illustration of a child, feet in water and framed by treees, looking at a house.
2205
Reposted by May Likes Product
Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 16/05/2026
Honestly I think this might be possible to think about as an extension to the open cost project. Imagine this level of costing transparency for everything in your stack; that’d be neat (I get the difficulties. Pricing visibility is genuinely hard. But I think we should try anyway) opencost.io
opencost.io
OpenCost — open source cost monitoring for cloud native environments
Containers in the Cloud, costs down to Earth. Monitor Kubernetes spend the Cloud Native way.
2163
Reposted by May Likes Product
Kathryn Grayson Nanz @kgrayson.com · 15/05/2026
you either die a developer or you live long enough to see yourself become product management
142
Reposted by May Likes Product
emily blight 🐦‍⬛ @threnody.northsky.social · 14/05/2026
gwen does fantastic work as usual on some of the 401,000 trans people who’ve had to flee hostile territory in their own country in the past 18 months.
Poster which shows color photo scene of moving, a room with boxes and clothes sitting on the floor, a chair, and the end of a bed (white rails forming a headrest and a mattress with a red cover). The text of the poster is: "Impact (small logo top left)," "According to a new survey by the Movement Advancement Project, approximately 401,000 transgender people have relocated from one U.S. state to another since the 2024 presidential election." "The mass relocations in 2025 due to safety concerns, political conditions, and anti-trans laws nd policies have largely impacted conservative states across the country."
444561861
Reposted by May Likes Product
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 07/05/2026
Thank you! I deflate the term, so technically I also conclude it is meaningless. I do then reinflate it, like so, however! doi.org/10.3390/bs16...
Table 1. The two steps required for the proposed redefinition of Al. At the top is step 1, where we decide
whether a relationship exists between a technology and human cognition. This relationship, represented
by the blue-green column between Machine and Human on row 1a, is AL In 1b are terminological
examples, both non-diagnostic on their own and incomplete as a list, that can aid in the diagnosis
of a sociotechnical relationship as one of AL The three columns below in step 2 represent three, not
mutually exclusive, types of sociotechnical relationship between humans and artifacts. At this step,
we sketch out if Al replaces, enhances, or displaces cognition (row 2a) — with relevant properties and
their typical values, non-exhaustively specified, listed on rows 2b—h.

1) Discern relationship: Does the artefact relate to cognitive labour?

b) potential terms algorithm, artificial, ability, behaviour,
automation, benchmark, Al capacity, cognition,
discriminative, computer, intelligence, labour, learn,
engineering, functional, organism, professional,
generative, mechanism, psychology, reason, skill,
system, technology, tool task, thought, train

2) Characterise relationship: How does the artefact relate to cognitive labour?

b) valence neutral beneficial harmful

c) effect on cognition unaffected reskilling deskilling

d) labour obfuscation minimal possible maximal

e) human equivalence worse or same different no

f) human-in-the-loop rare possible common

g) human input transparent transparent opaque

h) desired output specified formal unspecified
0168
Reposted by May Likes Product
Tim King @tk1ng.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
ODINI Malware Uses CPU Magnetic Emissions to Breach Faraday-Shielded Air-Gapped Computers cybersecuritynews.com?p=149570 Coming soon to a spy thriller near you.
cybersecuritynews.com
ODINI Malware Uses CPU Magnetic Emissions to Breach Faraday-Shielded Air-Gapped Computers
ODINI is a sophisticated proof-of-concept malware capable of extracting sensitive information from air-gapped computers protected by Faraday cages.
111
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
"There was no moral panic about the internet" yet I was not even allowed to access the internet unless it was a rare strange treat because something really bad happened. The meeting my parents had when I told them I wanted to visit the American Girl website was like a nuclear safety council
4968
May Likes Product @productnerd.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Over 300 attendees (including staff & speakers) registered for Toronto Product Con now! This is so exciting!
040
Reposted by May Likes Product
Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 11/05/2026
putting the problems with harris aside, they really couldn’t find a canadian to talk about ai policy?
4406
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Perhaps you have thought to yourself, *I'm* on board the Psychology of Software Teams train, but how can I identify fellow POST fans in the wild?? Well if you find me at a 2026 conference or book reading you can get a TINY PROPAGANDA STICKER
A sticker shows a tiny book cover of the Psychology of Software Teams on a terracotta background, and white text reads Developers Deserve ScienceA sticker shows a black and white hand drawn illustration of brains in jars on a terracotta background with white text that reads Developers are more than brains in jars
4407
Reposted by May Likes Product
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/05/2026
Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/
Understanding Artificial Neural Networks:
Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism
Olivia Guest1,2, Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández3, and Mark Blokpoel1,2
1Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Mysterianism is the idea that human cognition, mind, cannot be understood. Taking this
concept and applying it to known mechanism — such that claims are made that we do not
know how engineered systems, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), work, or that they
constitute black boxes that we can only open with difficulty — is inappropriate at best and
malicious at worst. We do know the mechanistic structure of such models because we designed
and built them. We also do know their functional role (what they are for) as well as the
mathematical function they are asked to approximate (map inputs to target outputs). Because
mysterianist beliefs about known systems, such as ANNs, are often expressed, scientists need
to sit up and take notice. We provide an error theory as to what is going on to help unpick
this metatheoretical blunder. Ultimately, the problem is that ‘understanding’ is not a technical
term in these cases: the word is co-opted for a specific narrative to sell ‘artificial intelligence’
through mystification. All computational systems, from pendulums to databases, will behave
in ways we cannot predict or control — this is not a unique property of ANNs — and experts
do indeed grasp the computational properties of these systems nonetheless.
Keywords: artificial neural networks; mechanism; black box; epistemology; artificial
intelligence; understanding4 GUEST, NUÑEZ HERNÁNDEZ, & BLOKPOEL≈
ANNs are equiva-
lent to or inspired
by humans.
α
≡
ANNs are a black
box or unknowable,
even if opened.
β
≡
Humans are a black
box or unknowable.
γ
Figure 1
Three co-occurring (latent) assertions in the context of con-
temporary reasoning on AI and cognition. While they may
appear to hang together in “reflective equilibrium” (Elgin 2017),
their metatheoretical examination brings their contradictions to
light. Starting from the top, and moving clockwise: 𝛼) represents
the typical assertion of so-called cognitive, neural, or otherwise
biological plausibility or inspiration presented for ANNs; 𝛽) is
the claim we tackle head on here — both in terms of analysing
the constituent terms and in how it relates to the other two
assumptions; and 𝛾) exemplifies a type of mysterianism, which
while not always explicitly expressed, plays a background role
and importantly comes into conflict with the other two claims
in important waysMYSTERIANISM ABOUT KNOWN MECHANISM IS MYSTICISM 11World
?Di
Data?Si
ANN
Figure 3
Not all systems, 𝑆𝑖 relate to their relevant data, 𝐷𝑖 and world
phenomena this way, but ANN models (as many inferential
statistical models) do when used without scientific understand-
ing of the data-generating process or without verbal or formal
theory to match (Guest and Martin 2025b, 2021, 2023). As we
move from left to right above, we move from full understanding
of engineered systems, 𝑆𝑖 to less or even possibly none of the
data, 𝐷𝑖 to the world which can be thought of as the set of
phenomena to be understood.
21765294
Reposted by May Likes Product
Citizen.Coping @propcazhpm.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
The govt is paying farmers $9M to destroy hundreds of thousands of peach trees that took 20 years to cultivate because a Del Monte factory closed.. Del Monte claims people are shifting to fresh fruit vs sugar-laden canned fruit. Why don't they just sell the f**king fruit? Free markets my @$$.
fortune.com
California farmers must destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte closes its canneries and cancels more than $550 million in long-term contracts | Fortune
One Del Monte canning facility processed 30% of the state’s cling peaches, and its closure left growers with a glut of crops with no one to process them.
46923327
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Most of the people in my life aren't in tech. And they aren't academic theory professors. It's been really interesting to ask them about where they see AI impacting their jobs and tasks.
5473
Reposted by May Likes Product
Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
The more experienced people in my design research workshop have the "I was hired for my expertise, but no one seems to care about my expertise" problem, which like the language of film, is universal.
3498
Reposted by May Likes Product
Cat Hicks @grimalkina.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Can't wait to read this -- our podcast episode on math learning barriers including math anxiety is one of the most popular ones we've ever done. This is a massively common experience! www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...
changetechnically.fyi
Who's afraid of math? - Change, Technically
SHOW NOTES: Cat wants you to know she read a *lot* of research for this episode. Major highlights we specifically drew from, and quote sources, were aross three reviews: Cat found this one e...
12510