iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Charity Majors @charity.wtf · 14/09/2026

I wrote a new piece yesterday, called "Confessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob", about my escalating rage at AI-generated text. It includes a framework for thinking about when AI involvement is fine -- just another tool -- and when it lands as a violation. charity.wtf/p/confession...

charity.wtf

Confessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob

A framework for thinking about when AI involvement is additive or a violation

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 27/08/2026

In a short span of time we went from people speculating that companies were listening to their conversations to companies offering listening to your conversations as a feature.

theverge.com

Plaud is launching AI earbuds

An AI wearable, but for your ears.

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor - Desmond Tutu

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

So the answer to "how did the super spooky all powerful AI go rogue" is that they just let it rip and then went home for the day In a normal world, this would be a story about OpenAI's culture of negligence and half-assery, not how we should all bow down to the AI overlords

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Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The Guardian once asked me 'what one change would you make to achieve Black equality in Britain?' and it feels appropriate to share my answer again

Athena Kugblenu: Allow Black people to be mediocre too!
Athena Kugblenu
I would like to replace #blackexcellence with #blackmediocrity. True equality is when our talent:recognition ratio is allowed to be as broad as white people’s. Lewis Hamilton had to win two Formula One titles before he bagged BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2014; Greg Rusedski only had to get battered by Pat Rafter to win his. Kwasi Kwarteng steered the economy towards an iceberg and got sacked. Jeremy Hunt drove the NHS over a cliff, now he’s chancellor. Don’t get me started on how many football clubs get ruined by freshly retired white footballers while very qualified Black managers are overlooked. When the arc of the moral universe bends towards Black people failing upwards as their peers do, we will be in the promised land.

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The Economist @economist.com · 13/09/2025

“A fundamental shift is needed in how we approach the development and deployment of AI agents,” argues Meredith Whittaker. “Basic lessons in privacy and digital security are being discarded,” she warns

econ.st

AI agents are coming for your privacy, warns Meredith Whittaker

The Signal Foundation’s president worries they will also blunt competition and undermine cyber-security

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The power of strong, but fair, leadership...

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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

For many years, people didn’t randomly film others in public—not because we didn’t have the technology, but because the social contract said you didn’t do that. That’s why Meta is going full court press on their PR and celebrity endorsements. They remember how people ran google glass outta town.

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New Flesh 🇵🇸 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 @esedia.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Your food processor has a chute that fits your dick. Should you?

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Andreas Kirsch @blackhc.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I work at Google DeepMind. This won't make me popular. But it's all public reporting: 2014: DeepMind reportedly sold to Google on conditions: no military use, independent oversight 2026: a Pentagon contract for "any lawful government purpose" Not one safeguard survived intact

Collage titled "Trust is not Governance — an essay from inside Google DeepMind, written in personal capacity."

A 2014 memorandum, "Conditions of the Acquisition," lists: military applications of DeepMind technology banned; deployment decisions before an independent ethics board (as reported in Mallaby's The Infinity Machine).

Red threads lead to a 2026 U.S. Department of Defense agreement for classified networks reading "any lawful government purpose," with safety settings and filters adjusted at the government's request and no contractor veto (reported terms, The Information, Apr. 2026).

Below: a 2018 AI Principles strip ("no weapons, no surveillance") stamped DROPPED 2025, and a Project Mario 2016–2021 tag stamped ABANDONED.

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Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Meta has launched a new AI image generator that allows anyone to create AI images with your Instagram photos. And if you have a public Instagram account, Meta automatically opted you in. Here’s how to opt out: wapo.st/4ymzOnN

wapo.st

How to stop Meta from using your Instagram photos to create AI images

Here's how to opt out.

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Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Non-Blocking Code Reviews at #AgileOnTheBeach2026 The slides are available online. Thank you all for the lovely feedback. It’s been delightful ☺️ thinkinglabs.io/talks/2024/0...

thinkinglabs.io

Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study

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Gerald Benischke @beny23.github.io · 02/07/2026

Brigitte from @thoughtworks.com keynotes about the state of AI at #AgileOnTheBeach2026 1/n

Brigitte in front of a slide showing ancient history of AI coding (past 2 years)

Slide difference between supervised and unsupervised

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

NEW: Boris Johnson failed to declare to parliament a gift of private jet flights from the same cryptobillionaire, Christopher Harborne who gave £5m to Nigel Farage, leaked documents reveal. New #HarborneReceipts investigation from @thenerve.news. 🔗 below 1/

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Just another day where I try to summon @abeba.blacksky.app Today was: if you're on trial in court, would you prefer a human or an algorithm as the judge

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Micah @rincewind.run · 22/06/2026

nobody in British politics seems to want to say it but the single biggest driver of their inability to keep a prime minister for any length of time is that Brexit was stupid and ruinous and made everyone’s lives worse

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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass Surveillance Interview by Mishal Hussain The president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.

bloomberg.com

Signal's Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass Surveillance

The president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 19/06/2026

“We can’t live a full dignified life — with the ability to question authority, have different relationships with people, test ideas [and] blow off steam — if we don’t have private communication.”

bloomberg.com

Signal's Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass Surveillance

The president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Thank you @teamcherry.bsky.social for Silksong. I completed 99% in 81 hours, it was a joy from start to finish 🕷🪲❤️

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Tony Blair really does need to shut the fuck up

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 26/05/2026

Uber’s COO has said that it’s getting “harder to justify” its AI costs because there was no way to show a link between AI spend and any meaningful increase in useful features. This is the first time I’ve seen a company say this directly. www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-and...

"That link is not there yet, right?" he said. think maybe implicitly there is more that is getting shipped, but it's very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, 'Okay, now we're actually producing 25% more useful consumer features."
He said that the trade-off costs from Al are harder to justify because he can't draw a direct link. Earlier this month, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an earnings call that Uber was slowing hiring to counter its investments in AI.

The comment led to what he described as a
"head-exploding moment," sparking discussions about AI token consumption within the company and the trade-offs it creates, such as on head count.
He said that, based on talks with Uber's senior engineering leaders, he realized higher token usage did not translate into a proportional increase in useful consumer features.

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

There's something strange about seeing Meta employees complain about their employer imposing surveillance capitalism on them

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

A Radical Approach To Long Term Software Ownership | @stevesmithtech.bsky.social 📅 TONIGHT @ 7PM (UK) Subscribe & turn on notifications so you NEVER miss an upload! 🔔 youtube.com/@ModernSoftw...

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Kent Beck @kentbeck.com · 01/05/2026

AI tools don't muddle along with us. They fall below muddling, plausible deniability disguised as code. Low features, low flexibility, complexity stacking until even the genie gives up.

tidyfirst.substack.com

Genie Tarpit

Genies give you code that’s a degraded facsimile of the mediocre code it trained on.

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

'It's just a chat' is never a chat

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Top AI Trends From 100 Interviews | AI Briefings: nWave | @davefarley77.bsky.social 📽️ AVAILABLE NOW, from our NEW SERIES! Watch HERE ➡️ youtu.be/8WJ1XVBh8NA

youtu.be

Top AI Trends From 100 Interviews | AI Briefings: nWave

YouTube video by Modern Software Engineering

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

"The rise of extreme wealth is one of the clearest signs of this imbalance. In 1987, billionaires held wealth equal to 3% of global GDP. Today this tiny elite, just 0.0001% of the world population, owns the equivalent of *16%* of world GDP in wealth."

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Steve Smith @stevesmithtech.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I worked on an XP team once where we genuinely had 100% test coverage. It was awesome, we could make changes so fast, and yes we still had the occasional live defect

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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Orbán's electoral crushing is a far greater achievement than most people outside Hungary realise. He systemically consolidated power for 16 years, fixed the electoral map, abused govt power for political purposes & censored media. The hurdles that Hungarians overcame for this moment were immense.

Opposition leader Péter Magyar at a rally.

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Whenever I’m reminded of Google and the company’s greenwashing, I also think of their Google Urban Forest outside Santiago, Chile.

A photograph showing a fenced off area with twenty dried shrubs. The photo’s caption reads, “The Google Urban Forest was built about 10 miles from central Santiago to offset the air pollution caused by the company’s data center. The forest is currently closed to visitors, and contains mostly dry shrubs.”

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

@stevesmithtech.bsky.social goes deeper on this in this episode on the Modern Software Engineering channel, check it out here: youtu.be/kDBeFOscZpc 7/7

youtu.be

The Truth About Developer Productivity in the AI Age (IT'S A TRAP)

YouTube video by Modern Software Engineering

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Rethinking The Software Lifecycle | How To Look After Software For The Long Term | @stevesmithtech.bsky.social 📽️ AVAILABLE NOW Watch HERE ➡️ youtu.be/CBcdERAv5P8

youtu.be

Rethinking The Software Lifecycle | How To Look After Software For The Long Term

YouTube video by Modern Software Engineering

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Rethinking The Software Lifecycle | How To Look After Software For The Long Term | @stevesmithtech.bsky.social 📅 TONIGHT @ 7PM (UK) Subscribe & turn on notifications so you NEVER miss an upload! ➡️ youtube.com/@ModernSoftw...

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Daniel Terhorst-North @tastapod.com · 24/03/2026

'Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.' Many big companies adopted gitflow because it had a cool poster and tons of Microsoft/GitHub marketing dollars. The rest followed suit because 'best practice' and Gartner quadrants. They don't mistrust us, they don't even know us!

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 22/03/2026

kind of seems like the people saying data center energy use is overstated were full of shit

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

7 Testing Myths Every Developer Should STOP Believing | @emilybache.com TONIGHT @ 7PM (UK) Subscribe & turn on notifications 🔔 so you never miss an upload! ➡️ youtube.com/@ModernSoftw...

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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 17/03/2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 16/03/2026

fresh off the press from yours truly: oecs.mit.edu/pub/b61joemo... I offer an overview of algorithmic bias. I trace its historical roots, examine canonical scholarship and notable real-world incidents, and explore how algorithmic bias emerged as a field of study 1/

oecs.mit.edu

Algorithmic Bias

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Techmeme @techmeme.com · 14/03/2026

A survey of 1,000 hiring managers: 59% say they stress AI's role in layoffs or hiring freezes "because it plays better"; only 9% say AI has fully replaced roles (Gautam Mukunda/Bloomberg) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

In this golden age of surveillance, making E2EE chat normal and expected has been privacy's biggest win. I hate to see it getting rolled back. thehackernews.com/2026/03/meta...

thehackernews.com

Meta to Shut Down Instagram End-to-End Encrypted Chat Support Starting May 2026

Meta will end Instagram E2EE chats May 8, 2026, reversing a 2021 privacy test and reigniting debate over encrypted messaging oversight.

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The Truth About Developer Productivity in the AI Age (IT'S A TRAP) | @stevesmithtech.bsky.social 📽️ AVAILABLE NOW Watch HERE ➡️ youtu.be/kDBeFOscZpc

youtu.be

YouTube

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Modern Software Engineering @modernswe.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

What's the EXACT Technical Gap That Separates AI SUCCESS From AI FAILURE? | @stevesmithtech.bsky.social & @davefarley77.bsky.social 📽️ Available NOW Watch HERE ➡️ youtu.be/ekRMQ5qUMlo

youtu.be

What's the EXACT Technical Gap That Separates AI SUCCESS From AI FAILURE?

YouTube video by Modern Software Engineering

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