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The hard bit of software engineering has always been “deeply understanding a problem well enough to implement a useful solution to it”.

The scary bit of people trying to AI away the programming part is that most rely on writing the software to understand the problem domain — remove that part and you truly do have YOLO driven development with badly thought out questions “generating” bad and kinda broken software.

—@endocrimes

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Early morning hot take: when you develop software, you should consider how it can be used for evil, and consider if the negative consequences outweigh the positive ones. If you’re a good person, you include externalized consequences in the equation.

In other words, don’t make something that will hurt other people, even if it benefits you.

—@liw

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All the Miserable Young Liberals by Damon Linker
PLUS: For paying subscribers, I weigh in on The National’s excellent new single

Leave it to the so-called centrists to once again quickly conclude that there’s absolutely no reason why young liberals might be miserable and that they have no justification for their outrage and misery and that of course none of this is anything close to the fault of centrists it’s just all in their heads.

I don’t know guys, that whole war on trans people conducted by the state which you absolutely provided fucking ammo for and gave legs to seems to be a pretty good reason to be (1) miserable and (2) outraged and (3) enough fuel for the rest of us to do everything in our power and within the law to ensure you share the same fate as the right-wingers you’ve decided to ally with, which is lose everything.

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Every article about AI this week is like “Today, there’s not yet a human who has eaten hot wings so hot that they spontaneously burst into flame. But, as we develop hotter and hotter sauces, we must confront the fact that one day — and that day may come very soon — one of the guests on Hot Ones will become The Inhuman Torch from Marvel Comics and annihilate the eastern seaboard in an all-consuming flame. We must prepare for that inevitable future.”

—@glyph

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In an un-Mastodonly move I think I posted this first behind a pay wall, now hopefully removed. A Jewish friend, with whom I’ve sung many a sea song, casually suggested I write a Red Sea shanty. An invitation to quirkiness and whimsy is seldom lost on me. Therefore, I offer this unorthodox retelling of the parting of the Red Sea. Spoiler alert, it involves an irreverent Phoenician sea captain and a flying ship. #HappyPassover! https://www.patreon.com/posts/red-sea-shanty-55271545

—@ChristineMalec

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We're commandeering your uterus for 9 months and we're doing everything we can to ensure you're forced to give birth no matter where you are or how you ended up in this position in the first place or no matter how old you are, and you're on your own when it comes to making sure that birth actually happens safely because Murica! Fuck Republicans and the Christian fundamentalists pulling their strings.