2026-02-10 12:59:00
Hey, hi, hello.
Fun fact: One of this blog's readers shared February 3's post on her LinkedIn because she understands that when you're having one of those days, it's useful to read that about how other people kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
Moving on... do you remember when your teacher would show you a movie and it was the best day ever? And then later, remember when you realized it was likely because that teacher was hungover or otherwise ill-prepared to teach? Anyway, for reasons related to family and emotional fatigue I'm going to do something like that today but instead of dusting off an old VHS copy of Three Amigos I'm going to link you to a YouTube video I keep coming back to: Anthony Gramuglia's Elon Musk Doesn't Understand Cyberpunk.
Enjoy! I'm going to bed.
🌲 gonna zzzzzzz
🌼 go zzzzzzzzzzz
🌱 touch zzzzz
🌳 grass zzzzzz
🌷 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Be good to yzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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2026-02-10 07:38:00
In the last couple weeks, various folks have written about feeling an inflection point using agentic AI for building software. The consensus seems to be that these tools have crossed some threshold into being genuinely game-changing, and maybe there's no turning back. The piece Competence As Tragedy especially got me thinking. It's not long, so I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but this feels like the heart of it:
[W]hat does it mean to keep practicing a craft you love when you suspect it's dying?
The skills might be depreciating, but the attention, the way of seeing systems, the pleasure of making something work, that's not separable from who I am. I didn't become an engineer because the market demanded it. I became one because my brain works this way, because I like the puzzle, because there's something satisfying about building things that function.
All this has pushed me to reconsider my (so far) lack of use of agentic AI as a professional software engineer. This article is me writing out my thoughts on the matter, as they stand right now, and my decision for how to proceed in this current moment.
First off, I am tired of people writing things like this and not properly acknowledging the ethical issues of generative AI1. These models are:
It sucks a little of my soul each time I hear someone at work talk about AI tools on a purely technical basis, without any consideration of these ethical issues. These are cool and powerful tools, with lots of technical nuance that's interesting to discuss and engineer, but don't get distracted. We as engineers cannot choose to ignore ethics in our professional decision-making.
All that being said, I don't feel that I have any notable impact on the harms being done. I know this is a doomer take, but that's where my head is right now. I'm not going to lead some luddite rebellion against AI at my workplace. My employer already has floating licenses for these tools, so what marginal impact will I have by trying them out? It's not zero, but it seems like it's small enough that I'm willing to begrudgingly continue.
There's a chance that if I start using these tools regularly, the ethics will end up making me queasy enough that I choose to disengage even if I find them otherwise useful and/or enjoyable. We'll see.
I've used AI for some one-off personal and professional tasks. These were via chatbots, where I ask a specific question and I'm looking for a clear answer. I have been relatively unimpressed with the results, though I haven't put much effort into changing my usage to prompt better responses.
For a while I told myself that once my job had a nice plug-and-play setup for agentic workflows, I would give it a try. But that happened a couple months ago and I haven't touched it. I told myself that if a task came up that felt like a good fit for the AI, I'd give it a go, but that never happened -- each task feels either small enough to not warrant learning a new system, or large enough that I don't want to entrust it to the AI on my first try.
My plan is to spend a week trying my best to learn some of these tools by using them in my day-to-day work.
This article seems like a reasonable guide for how to gradually grow experience around using these tools. On the plus side, I should be able to reuse a lot of the "harness engineering" that my coworkers have been working on as I do this.
My main goal from this is to learn. I think I already have a solid understanding of the technology and frameworks surrounding LLMs, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. However, none of that is from practical experience. I can talk about what the AIs are good at and where they struggle, and I think I'm right (my opinions are at least formed by reading and talking to smart, informed people). But any time I have a conversation about this stuff, I worry that I might be full of shit. After this week is done, I will hopefully have enough experience to feel confident I'm not full of shit (at least until there's some other paradigm-shift in how programming is done...)
After this week-long trial, I'll reassess and see how I'm feeling.
This all scares me. I don't like admitting that, but it does.
I'm afraid in so many ways for our world and how we're all going to make it through these unprecedented times.
I'm afraid that the joy I've always found in programming work will be lost, if programming turns into managing AI agents. Maybe non-AI programming will continue to be a viable option, or maybe I can find similar joy in AI-based workflows, but neither seem like a sure bet.
I'm afraid for the long term prospects of being a professional software engineer. I'm 27; I've been programming for almost half my life now. I love it, and for better or worse it's part of my identity. I think I'd struggle if AI significantly cuts down the need for this kind of work and I have to redirect my career path.
And I'm afraid for the craft of software itself. If AI tools become the norm for writing software, does that mean perpetual stagnation in language and framework design?
I recognize that I may be blowing things out of proportion, but this is the baggage that I've got. It seems likely at this point that AI-assisted software engineering is not just a fad. I hope I've made it clear that I'm not doing this just because "AI is the future, don't get left behind 🚀🚀🚀". But there is also an aspect that I'm afraid lacking this experience will leave me at a disadvantage compared to other developers if/when I end up job-searching in the future.
I feel like I'm supposed to have some big smart conclusion for all this, but I don't. I'm giving in and trying agentic AI, despite remaining unhappy with the ethical ramifications of the decision. We'll see how it goes.
Any time I mention "AI" through the rest of this article, I mean "GenAI". I have significant complaints about the language we use around these things, but that's not for today.↩
2026-02-10 07:02:00
I know, I know, two blog posts in one day what's become of me - but I had some disjointed thoughts about the discord announcement today that I needed to put somewhere. Enjoy.
Today Discord announced they're going to be moving towards mandatory photo ID for users and locking all features down to a “teen” age level unless an ID or face scan has been added.
This is hugely problematic for a lot of reasons (least of which is them accidentally letting over 70,000 government IDs get leaked) but in theory this is to comply with laws and as someone who has seen horrendous shit go down with unsupervised kids online (including myself as a teen) I can understand a tiny sliver of why someone might be fooled into thinking they want this or that it's actually helpful for kid's protection.
It's not, but that's how they get you.
The thing is, changing these policies is not gonna keep predators away from kids and it's not gonna keep kids from finding things that either they shouldn't, OR they SHOULD / NEED to find. It'll just push everyone further into less safe places. To elaborate a bit:
Every conversation in major media surrounding kids on the internet usually boils down to “it's a ripe avenue for predators to groom children” (as if that's a thing we actually care about given the pedophile in the highest political office in my supposedly major world power country) and things that don't often factor in these conversations:
Parents should be doing a better job helping their kids navigate the internet and having an interest and dialog in what they're up to - while also giving said kids privacy to become people. It's my job as a parent to help my kids understand red flags and how to be safe, not panopticon over their activity logs
The flip side of the above where abusive, horrendous bigoted parents have queer kids who need access to resources outside of the home with a guarantee of safety and anonymity
The inclusion of photo ID requirements is not gonna serve the point that allows queer kids to get help if they have a hostile home life, and it's not gonna encourage lazy parents to be more involved in their kids online activity if "oh they don't have an 18+ ID, I don't need to worry about what they're up to".
That's even as an aside when you consider that there will be plenty of illicit circumventing of these policies that I can already imagine (and probably plenty that haven't even been thought up yet).
So where does that leave us? Who fucken knows, man. Shit is only gonna get worse for people by locking it down.
As an aside to the age conversation, Discord has become a monolith in a way it never should have. As a group chat app / friends list chat program? Sure. That's its main purpose. But it's moved on to replace community forums, websites, even fucking FILE hosting; I travel in a lot of emulation and modding circles and there's nothing more bonkers than “Join our Discord to download the latest update”. I legitimately hate being put in a situation where I long for a goddamn github link.
Will this photo ID thing be the "death" of Discord? No - but like Twitter being bought by a maniac with a humiliation kink that I shouldn't be forced to know about, a lot of the people who I'd trust to make good calls in this space have wanted to distance themselves from the platform for a while and I think the addition of the ID policy gives the extra push to start making that happen. And hopefully not to just one new or alternative platform.
Maybe it's because I went through this with the death of twitter and then cohost (DAYS SINCE COHOST MENTIONED ON THIS BLOG: 102?? no, that can't be right) but I don't want one place for everything. One login, one platform etc. If my band's group chat needs to be in a different app than the one where I share shitposts in a channel called [checks notes] #cloaca with fellow audio people? That's ok with me!!
I know I sound like a fucking grumpy old bastard all the time when it comes to discussing modern internet but god damn - we had it so good and we didn't even know it. Back to websites. Back to forums. Back to RSS. Back to competing platforms that don't have a monopoly on fucking everything. I know this sounds rich coming from a Website League sicko, but even that platform I don't use monolithically. If anything, I blog first and then go to various socials. It's pretty freeing, tbh.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Here's a cat. Her name is Skitters.
2026-02-10 04:57:21
Well, I did it! I finally found a cosy little spot on the web to call my own. (I played around with the appearance a bit, but will do so again later, once I've learned more coding and made some more imagery.)
This blog's purpose won't be anything special, to be honest. Just a place for me to casually spill my thoughts, record what I've been up to, and share photos (and maybe art). My memory's not amazing, so I hope that by writing things down, I can remember them better. Or... if not, then at least I'll have something to look back at to refresh my memory.
A quick bit about myself (though, I'll make a proper about page, eventually): The name's Tash. I live in the UK, with my husband, my daughter (whom I'm a full-time carer for), and my cat. I started getting into gardening just over a year ago, and it's been a great boon to my mental health. (I struggle with depression and severe ADHD, but I'm currently doing well. Amazing what less screen-time and more dirt-time does for the mind, body, and spirit.)
I need to go cook dinner now, but will write again soon. TTFN!
"My very hairy companion, Jaga."
Currently...
2026-02-10 00:21:00
My friend Ava recently dropped a post are you out of touch?. The gist of the post was a breakdown of Adam Aleksic's quote of saying that quitting or severely reducing social media was equivalent to sticking your head in the sand. With this quote giving me a particularly good chuckle:
Each Reddit argument and YouTube comment war is an epistemic basis for understanding the current state of cultural discourse. If you ignore those, you lose touch with reality as most people experience it.
I have been without social media for over a year at this point. It's telling of someone who is chronically online to think that a youtube/reddit comment war is in any way paramount for understanding the cultural zeitgeist.
I wanted to piggyback off of Ava's post and give my perspective of how I stay informed since quitting social media and daily-driving a dumb phone.
I agree with Ava that the importance of social media for staying informed is largely overrated.
Going back to Aleksic's quote about comment section wars, it's kinda laughable to take comment section arguments seriously. Comment sections are largely bots/trolls posting something inflammatory, people fighting battles of who can be the snarkiest for internet points, and dog-piling people who don't participate in the group think of that particular group/subreddit.
Social Media is not indicative of reality, because most people don't act like how they do on social media. Most people don't comment on social media, especially older generations (Facebook being an exception).
To give an example, if I based my views on American conservatives off of what I've seen on the conservative subreddit. I would think all conservatives were delusional and drinking the pro-Trump kool aid. However, if I go outside, I would see that all of my pro-trump neighbors have taken down their signs and instead going back to the pre-2016 generic freedom/America/God/guns shtick. Going to No Kings I saw plenty of anti-Trump republicans, my best friend's dad being one of them. This perspective would have been lost had I not left social media and chose to look at what is going on outside. There are certainly those nuts that are hell-bent on dying for Daddy Donnie and doing olympic-level mental gymnastics before they ever swallow their pride, but you'd be surprised how much of a minority these people are. There's a reason Trump has continued to lose Republican votes with each election cycle.
Another example, if you based your entire understanding of Atheists off of the infamous r/atheism you'd think atheists were all a bunch of pseudo-intellectual, fedora-wearing, neckbeards. You'd forget that most atheists are just regular people going about their life.
When you base your worldview off of what you see online, you're basing your opinion on people who hold strong enough opinions to go to niche-within-niche spaces. The internet is largely occupied by lurkers.
I stay in touch with the world largely by proxy of the creators I'm subscribed to on Youtube and family. I follow creators that will talk about social media trends, or the current political climate, or hell the news just shows up on the home page of the browser I use at my work.
Social media doesn't simply inform you, it inundates you, constantly. It's not just one article talking about something, it's post after post feeding you the exact same thing.
There was a quote I heard recently that stuck with me "once you've heard the message, hang up the phone".
We don't live in a monolithic society anymore. Everything is a micro-niche now. The latest tik tok trend that seemingly everyone is doing might go unknown to the vast majority of the people online. If you compare whatever trending dance is going on online to when Gagnam Style was popping off, it would be such a stark contrast because everyone knew Gagnam Style, nobody outside of the people who the feed explicitly targeted would see the new trending tiktok dance.
Having been chronically offline for some time now, I don't feel like I'm any less informed now than I was then. Yeah I saw the 24/7 news cycle on my feeds, but at a certain point most of that was just bullshit fluff.
I don't need to see every dipshit thing the current administration is doing. I already know they're already a bunch of pedophiles/pedophile-defenders who want to line their pockets with taxpayer cash and screwing over the working class. I don't need that reminder day after day after day. I got the message, now I have to hang up the phone.
I once heard that people aren't starving for information, they're malnourished. We have an abundance of information being sent to us, but how much of it is actually meaningful in any way? Not much I'd say.
The internet isn't what it used to be. Where it didn't matter what circle you were in, you were at least familiar with the big memes at the time, and those memes stayed popular for months if not years. The older you get the less "hip" you become. That's natural. You have a job, kids to raise, and bills to pay.
I grew up in a time where the popular memes were found in every corner and in every niche. Bad Luck Brian, Rage comics, hell everyone and their dementia-riddled grandma knew about Grumpy Cat.
We still have some big memes like Wojack or Skibidi Toilet, but they're far from how popular the most popular memes used to be back in the day.
Where the fuck am I going with this? I don't know, the HMS Pirate's Consciousness hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Anyway, I guess it's a really roundabout way of saying it, but you don't need the internet to stay informed. You just gotta be able to listen out in real life. That is the most indicative of what is REALLY going on. If people are talking about these things IRL, then it actually managed to transcend algorithms. Keep that in mind, and go touch some grass... especially you, Alex.
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I'm working from home. Been playing Ocarina of Time on my N64 and have gotten pretty far. Trying to find enough skulltulas to get the wallet upgrade to get the Zora armor. I'm understanding why this game is considered one of the best of all time. Despite it's age, there's so much stuff in it and so much to do. Side tasks actually mean something, the story is simple but engaging, the music is catchy, and the exploration is still plentiful. I've been making great headway beating games. Finally beat Portal 2 after first starting the single-player in 2014. Been playing the Restoration Mod for Payday 2 which brings back that feel that 2013 Payday 2 had with a lot of QoL balancing that makes the game feel fresh.
2026-02-09 21:05:00
Bear Hug is my latest creation for Bear Blog.
Unlike my other projects, this is not a theme in itself. It’s an add-on for the default theme.
It doesn’t try to replace what’s already there. The idea is simply to embrace the original design and add a layer of consistency, spacing, and a few extra touches. You can use the whole thing, or just pick the parts you like.
Bear Hug also comes with a few extra goodies, both for plugins and native features.
Alongside that, there are also a few optional styles that might come in handy every now and then. To use any of these, simply wrap the content like <div class="style-name">Content</div> and watch the magic happen.
Just to give you an idea of how it looks live, starting with centered text.
Centered text
And if you want to include something in a more subtle way, there's a style for that.
And there’s a curve divider to throw in anywhere...
...if you want a little breathing room inside a post or page.
Sometimes you might just want to add a little side note. It will look like this.
If you want to add a simple photo grid, Bear Hug takes care of that too. Just add the photos inside a list and it will look like this:
And if you want to highlight part of a text...
Doing it with a pull quote like this will most likely get your reader’s attention.
Sometimes you might want to add a caption to a photo, but feel that using <figure> and <figcaption> tags is a bit too much hassle. Simply make the first paragraph italic, and Bear Hug takes care of the rest:
Behind the scenes of Bear Hug.
That’s all for now, but I have a few more ideas.
The plugin code snippets are available from Herman’s GitHub page, and if you have any wishes for Bear Hug, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Happy blogging!