Sign in

Stephen Bell

@stephenjbell.bsky.social
358 followers 509 following 159 posts

Senior Design Technologist (front end dev) at a big nonprofit. Dad to two sets of twins. Canadian living in Oklahoma City. Love your neighbor.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Brian Jay Jones @brianjayjones.com · 24/09/2026
Jim Henson would have been 90 (yup, you read that right: NINETY) years old today. You can celebrate his life by celebrating creativity, diversity, peace, imagination, and silliness.
A tuxedoed Jim Henson sits in a sea of Muppets.
212437965
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Matt Thompson @mvthomster.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
me, being questioned by the police, after my personal robot holds up a liquor store: "it went rogue"
013814
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
1970182264
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Trump’s doing us a favor showing which AI products to avoid. Anything that immediately changes its marketing to “Super Intelligence” is a big red flag that it’s ignoring safeguards and good judgment.
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Autumn Nash 🎃👻💀🖤 @withenoughcoffee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
😂😅
04511
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This is what a rigged economy looks like.
20380093299
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Owen Lacey @owenlacey.dev · 20/09/2026
Parents rejoice
Spotify setting: "include children and family music in taste profile" set to false
2123
Reposted by Stephen Bell
404 Media @404media.co · 18/09/2026
It’s easy to see why the AI companies wanted to hide this from the public. The statements are some of the most damning indictments of the ways LLMs were trained, how they work, and the immediate threat they pose to human labor. @jasonkoebler.bsky.social reports. www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...
171374746
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Straight from OpenAI's Brockman and Microsoft's Nadella - 'doom loop' for the entire web [as they vacuum up and substitute the work of journalism and threaten their economic foundations]. /2
51472296
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New idea to try when you can’t remember someone’s name in a social setting. “Hello… THERE” Way to break the ice, corporate email.
An email from a SaaS company where their “Hello (person’s name)” is substituting the word “there” in bold when it doesn’t have my name on file.
010
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Laurie Voss @seldo.com · 14/09/2026
For the last 2 years I have been tracking a generational change in the nature of software development, and I think I've finally decided where all of this turmoil is going to end up. It's good news, but not for everybody. seldo.com/posts/we-are-all-product-…
seldo.com
We are all Product Engineers now | Seldo.com
Agents are eating the software development lifecycle from the bottom up — code generation already gone, review and ops following fast. What remains is figuring out what people actually want, which can't be automated or scaled. That job is called product engineering, it pays $240k, and nobody's training for it.
87318
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
When the steam engine arrived on the scene, everyone was talking about how it's basically alive and has a soul Seems like we should learn a thing or two about the AI discourse from that
2387
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It’s amazing how fast we went from “software engineers are all going to be laid off because of AI” to “software engineers are in hot demand!” www.businessinsider.com/high-paying-...
businessinsider.com
10 high-paying, fast-growing jobs that are at the forefront of the AI revolution
Data scientists and human resources specialists are high-paying, growing jobs with very high relative exposure to AI.
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The Cat Righting Reflex is the official name of the process cats use to automatically correct themselves mid-fall and land on their feet. It develops between 3 - 9 weeks of age, and is responsible for the greatest wikipedia gif of all time.
2643081496
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
These dialect maps are very interesting. I’ve lived mostly in SK and OK (with side quests to MB and TN), and the combination of those places somehow places me mostly west coast. I don’t think it’s wrong, but I wouldn’t have thought it would place me here.
A map of the United States, showing where it thinks I’m from after me answering dialect questions. Mostly west coast. Definitely not east coast or southern.
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
J. Michael Mull @jmichaelmull.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
even now, she's still teaching us
screen on car radio reading:
Dolly Parton
Love is Like A Butt
(it should be Butterfly but the last part couldn't fit on the screen)
95144902730
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Republicans who see Canada as an enemy has leapt up this year, similar to how Republicans’ approval of Putin shot up in 2016. Virtually no anti-Canada US constituency before this year, and virtually no pro-Putin constituency before 2016. Out of nowhere. Now millions say that’s their position.
1581551452
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Yes, this is bad and stupid. But I think we need more exact words than calling anything with a computer in it a “data center.” These look like shipping-container-sized huts. Is that the same thing as the huge AI processing sites that are being set up?
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The whole reason to make money is to be able to say "well I have money" when there's a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it.
224541
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
One way you know Dolly Parton lived life the right way: I don’t think anyone’s going to get fired for accurately quoting Dolly Parton today.
226395037141
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 25/08/2026
If you missed it the first time around, I highly recommend listening Jad Abumrad's podcast series "Dolly Parton's America." www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dol...
wnycstudios.org
Dolly Parton's America : Episodes | WNYC Studios | Podcasts
The story of a legend at the crossroads of America’s culture wars.
421875
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Xe @xeiaso.net · 21/08/2026
235759
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Chris from 🇨🇦 @ichris.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
TIL: August 1st is Emancipation Day in Canada. “It marks the actual day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect across the British Empire.”
021
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
RIP Glen Hansard. I listened to the Once soundtrack yesterday, and it’s still moving, raw and powerful. And this busted up guitar that was in the movie rules. m.youtube.com/watch?v=_FB3...
m.youtube.com
Glen Hansard talks about his well-worn guitar at Glucksman Ireland House NYU
YouTube video by Glucksman Ireland House NYU
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 26/07/2026
That book inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing, which killed 167 people, including a bunch of kids in the building's day care center. In case you wondered how dangerous this rhetoric is.
10752276
Reposted by Stephen Bell
depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
5892862339
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Ugggghhhh... Web hosting installing AI plugins for my clients without permission is 🤢 wpmayor.com/siteground-a...
wpmayor.com
1 Million Forced Installs and a 1-Star Rating: Inside SiteGround's AI Plugin Rollout
SiteGround auto-installed its AI plugin on over a million WordPress sites. It now holds a 1-star rating. Here's what one decision does to a hard-earned reputation.
010
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Rachel Hall-Clifford, PhD, MPH, MSc @rahallclifford.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Hi. We're in the Age of Diarrhea. I'm a global health expert on helping children survive diarrhea. Here's what to do if you might have picked up cyclospora. 🧵 1. Call your primary care if possible. 2. Take oral rehydration therapy, which isn't just drinking fluids. 1/
3130121784
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
ChatGPT is getting needy and begging to read my emails. No thanks. 🤢
Help ChatGPT get to know you. Connect gmail to teach ChatGPT more about your interests and preferences.
000
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Ian @ianlivingston.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
omg this photo from @angelan.bsky.social www.flickr.com/photos/aon/5...
flickr.com
5th of July fireworks
14688152
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Lea Verou, PhD @lea.verou.me · 01/07/2026
If one user gets it wrong, it *might* be them. If multiple users get it wrong, it's *definitely* you. — Ancient UX proverb
06212
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I spent the last month obsessed with finding colors that can't be displayed on a conventional screen. This is what I found. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...
moultano.wordpress.com
Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You
An atlas of the vibrance of the real world
471130381
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Christian Alder @hejchristian.com · 20/06/2026
SVG pathLength 🤩 developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W... I was getting frustrated with having to use JavaScript to fetch the length of _each_ svg path, to then define within CSS so I can animate it via stroke-dasharray; ... turns out we can just slap pathLength into the svg itself and use that! 🥳
Cropped screenshot from VSCodium showing a before and after for how I can target the stroke-dasharray and stroke-dashoffset for some SVG paths on the page.

Previous/old method needed the total length for each path (which I'd fetch from JavaScript, as each path was unique), this resulted in a nasty long number, often in the hundreds, with 10+ decimal places.

The new method just assigns a value of 100, and can now be applied to every path at once given we no longer need to fetch the paths unique total length. Now it's just 100%.
2141
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I don't understand why icon libraries have to be so complicated. The two varieties that exist: 1. Oh, you want a right arrow? Here's a font/svg that downloads the paths for 1000 icons. 2. Oh, you want a right arrow? Install this React package and import RightArrow. #webdev
220
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
1432211418691
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
TIL that the newer accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2) require website login forms to be usable by password managers. Neat. #webdev
Screenshot of WCAG specification saying that password managers should be able to recognize password fields and fill them in.
040
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
danah boyd recently argued that social media (as we knew it) is mostly dead; what we have now is parasocial media: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... I agree. Networked social media is disappearing, replaced by a new logic/structure of content creator, creator-centered community, & algorithm.
journals.sagepub.com
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media - danah boyd, 2026
When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms...
241229381
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
If you need an ad-free mental distraction from <gestures at everything>, I have found the Fruit Merge game on the CBC Kids website very addictive and fun: www.cbc.ca/kids/games/p...
cbc.ca
Play Fruit Merge | Games | CBC Kids
Use your mouse to drop and combine fruit, making even bigger pieces of fruit!
88116
Reposted by Stephen Bell
DuckDuckGo @duckduckgo.com · 29/05/2026
Since Google revealed its plans for an AI search overhaul, visits to our "No AI" search page have tripled…and they’re still rising! Want to make it your default on Chrome or Firefox? Grab our No-AI extensions and banish AI-assisted answers, chat, and AI images. (1/3)
316148655238
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Josh Collinsworth @collinsworth.dev · 25/05/2026
Hell of a read. nooneshappy.com/article/the-...
nooneshappy.com
The AI Bubble — No One's Happy
The AI buildout is the largest capital expenditure in the history of the technology industry. The financial structure holding it together has a name.
192
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Is… Is Leapfrog selling the malevolent spoof of their own product from the new Toy Story movie?
Leapfrog ad for Lilypad tablet from Instagram.
001
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Sara Joy ☠️ @sjoy.lol · 20/05/2026
All these people working on the web who I hold in such high regard are hurting. Slop really isn't good for morale.
1010011
Reposted by Stephen Bell
rich harris @rich-harris.dev · 19/05/2026
well played, @wired.com www.wired.com/story/everyt...
on the left, from wired: "When you ask the search box questions like, “What is a black hole?” or “Are Google AI Overviews devastating the journalism industry,” it will respond with more contextual answers or use generative AI to create images or short video clips that help explain the concept."

on the right, google: "Google AI Overviews are devastating the journalism industry by aggressively siphoning off traffic and ad revenue. By summarizing news directly at the top of search results, AI features cause click-through rates to plummet."
0856
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Ingvar Stepanyan @rreverser.com · 18/05/2026
🤯 TIL you can "crop" SVGs using fragment URLs. <img src="diagram.svg#svgView(viewBox(680,130,260,160))" />
512512
Reposted by Stephen Bell
chris xu @chrysaora.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
incredibly delighted by this unfortunately
3375
Reposted by Stephen Bell
kourge the jafnhár 🏳️‍🌈 @kourge.net · 12/05/2026
enough. i’m tired of github actions. it’s time for github consequences
302578665
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Kim Hu @kim-hu.com · 06/05/2026
finally, perspective grid knowledge will be useful irl
2142581303
Stephen Bell @stephenjbell.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
I only use Quickbooks once a month, and it's absolutely infuriating. Slow site, popup ads every screen for services I'll never use (I don't need payroll because I DON'T HAVE EMPLOYEES). I feel bad for anyone who has to spend more than a few minutes in there. Worst web software ever. #saas #ux
130
Reposted by Stephen Bell
Olivia When @oliviawhen.com · 02/05/2026
Job hunting in a hostile environment. ✨
A three panel comic done in mostly a blue-purple ink. Frame 1: The artist, a tired person with their hair in a bun and a bag on their shoulder standing in the awning of a bus shelter. There's an ad on it that says "STOP HIRING HUMANS", above a woman whose face has been replace with the word "AI".
Frame 2: The bus comes, it's wrapped in an ad that also says "STOP HIRING HUMANS." The artist has a blank look. 
Frame 3: A plane has now arrived above the bus and the human. It's carrying an ad banner that also says "STOP HIRING HUMANS".
81175405576