"Software developers are not okay"
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/05-software-developers-are-not-okay/
The software industry is becoming increasingly hostile to those who work in it. The uncertainty is affecting even those who believe in the promises of tech.
Direct link to the essay: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/05-software-developers-are-not-okay/#software-developers-are-not-doing-well
"During their relationship, Lisa’s ex-partner was controlling. He kept her at home where he was emotionally and physically abusive towards her, including once attacking her with a machete.
These days, he runs protests outside houses of multiple occupancy that he claims are housing asylum seekers"
Interviews with 7 partners of 'Protect our women' thugs.
#FarRight #DomesticViolence #DomesticAbuse #CoerciveControl #Women
A lot of us in the free software space are stinging rn, watching slop worm its way into our communities, tools, perhaps even the philosophy itself. I'm seeing justifiably protectionist language like infiltration, infestation, infection. & while from a security standpoint, vibed code can oft be compared to digital asbestos, I find myself reaching more for organic vs inorganic (code), bc just as it's very hard to live without plastic, it's already very difficult to avoid slop in free software 1/n
If Zuck's pivoting to it, you know it's toast. https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2026/10/05
Print Issue #13 of The Counterforce is here for download, featuring an amazing cover by Arthur K. Download, print and distribute!
Also is the newest MRR Reviews digest PDF, pulling reviews from @maximumrocknroll and putting them into a printable PDF zine for distribution!
I don’t know how to explain to people that just because certain things appear to approximately work doesn’t mean they actually work. This was already horrifically difficult before AI and now it’s damn near impossible to get the point across when literally any trivial example passes muster
The asymmetry between me having to provide a compelling defence that they can actually understand (without the required background knowledge) vs them being able to endlessly generate garbage in seconds is just… exhausting
I want to share with you the gist of a mind-blowing conversation I had with my doctor today at my annual physical.
She asked about my mood, which led to a conversation about how AI is ruining everything, which prompted her to mention that she doesn’t use the AI transcription app that her hospital network is encouraging people to use, because she finds it’s too time-consuming for her to read and correct the AI transcriptions instead of just writing down her own notes.
#healthcare
1/5
@jik If you just substitute the word "doctor" for literally any other job in the universe, this sounds like something a union organizer would be interested in.
The Northwest Cooperative Development Center has released a great series of videos on the co-op conversion process. Here's the first two sessions, covering conversion basics and talking with members of two cooperatives about their conversion experience.
#WorkerCoops #Cooperatives
This documentary about AI does not pull punches about how this technology is tied to eugenics and fascism. Great!
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/ghost-in-the-machine/
Trump Mobile (754.92 KB)
A complete dump (3,615 users) of user information for Trump Mobile, an American mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) founded by by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
https://ddosecrets.org/article/trump-mobile
Help us keep publishing: https://donorbox.org/ddosecrets
I knew that tree. Grandmother Tree in Lochiel, Arizona has been destroyed by contractors building the Border Wall. Such a permanent travesty. So much damage for wildlife, too. So many animals travel back and forth in and out of Mexico. No more. This will also cause irreparable future harm in restricting habitat and changing bloodlines.
And just 45-50 miles East, lobbyists and politicians profit as the Oak Flats area will be decimated by copper mining. Ancient Peoples remains, artifacts, sites and sacred ground all to be destroyed as mountains are blown up to reach the deep copper veins. Also noted, millions of gallons of water will be needed by the mining. Coming from a desert where water resources are limited and declining. Also noted, the corporate ownership is foreign. Remember what Rio Tinto did in Aboriginal mines in Australia?#Arizona #Capitalism #BorderWall #Mining #Destruction #Water
Help us get this beautifully-designed, 256-page, full-color book with hundreds of images out into the world. Back the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ww3/paperbullets
A new site-blocking bill in Congress has procedural improvements. But it also explicitly reaches VPNs and broadens what kind of websites can be targeted. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/10/congress-has-another-site-blocking-bill-and-one-targets-vpns
RE: https://infosec.exchange/@atax1a/117389029681571629
this is why -- though i appreciate the rhetorical function of the article -- that hamilton nolan piece about how "if anthropic employees really do have concerns about AI safety they should unionize" was so out of its depth. i posted about it already but at the end of the day i really do think that the only reason AI industry has received more money than basically anything ever because the central pitch was "replace all your needy wokie coders/writers/etc. with the magic robot." that's kind of it
The code is king thinking is what actually has spawned the code must be produced faster and cheaper, which has led us to the present LLM usage to generate code. eXtreme Programming and other code-centric processes are certainly precursors to and enablers of slop coding.
#DumbAllOver
This article, https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/the-fake-double-diamond-is-dead-the-real-double-diamond-is-immortal, is an example of blaming something you hate on something else you hate and getting it wrong. The code is king crowd has always wanted to blame wasted effort on the upfront work, because as little attention is spent on the analysis of processes as it is on the analysis of products.
Lack of metrics makes software development a popularity contest for processes and languages. 1/
#ShlaerMellor, #FunctionPointAnalysis, #punk, #environmentalist, #unionAdvocate, #anarchosocialist #freeSoftwareAdvocate #cooperativeLife #noLLMs
"with a big old lie and a flag and a pie and a mom and a bible most folks are just liable to buy any line, any place, any time" - Frank Zappa