2026-10-02 15:23:57
I use LLMs as much as I can for software development. Bug fixing, analysis, various automations. But there’s one thing no one should use AI for: writing texts to be read by humans.
I learned it the hard way. No, I have never generated a full multipage blog post from a single prompt and posted it without reading. Would never do that.
I just used a single phrase suggested by an AI agent.
That was enough to trigger AI slop detector many of us now have. People considered the whole article generated, despite it being me who typed every word there except that one phrase.
So, the basic rule is simple: never accept a word suggested by AI. Use it only to correct grammar. Be careful with punctuation though, AI tends to overuse commas, for example.
I’m not alone in this stand against generated text, see more tips in “How To Write With LLMs” published on sockpuppet.org.
This text was typed by me.
2026-10-02 04:11:11
Marcin Wichary has posted today an article “The left hand should know what the right hand is doing” on his blog Unsung. It shows several scenarios across different apps and websites, in which one part of the app suggested something useless or impossible, while the other should already have been aware that it makes no sense.
I immediately remembered two similar cases.
This one is maybe borderline, but I suppose not many people decide to buy a second refrigerator immediately after they have bought one.
The same is also valid for Amazon’s selection of similar products, where they often show duplicate things, which people usually buy just a single item.
This is my favorite and it repeats every other Friday for me.
I often start the day by listening to the Release Radar playlist or going directly to the New Releases section and playing new albums. Some of them I have pre-saved, but it doesn’t trigger a notification when I first open the app on the release day.
It’s only in the afternoon when Spotify finally reminds me about the album I’ve already listened.
2026-09-29 01:03:36
I’ve seen three blog posts about major performance improvements recently. Two of them are from Cloudflare: How we saved 100 terabytes of memory by optimizing 1.1.1.1’s DNS cache and Saving another 100TB of RAM with math (and Rust).
The third comes from Anthropic: How we made claude.ai 3x faster in two weeks. And they couldn’t be more different.
Starting with the title, which in the case of both Cloudflare’s posts gives a (pretty big) hint on the area of the performance improvement. They go deeper and explain in detail, what and how they optimized, explaining memory layouts and alignments, cache strategies, and so on. Overall, it is an excellent read, from which everyone can learn something. Or at least be amused by the scale of Cloudflare operations, where every byte saved on some structures stored in memory can lead to gigabytes and terabytes of savings across their datacenters.
Anthropic’s blog post has a very different goal. You wouldn’t learn much from it. Instead, you will repeatedly hear how they tasked Claude (without disclosing any prompts) and how it improved something (without disclosing exact solutions or results).
What worked best from the marketing perspective? A SEO-optimized post mentioning Claude in every other sentence or a real optimization story where one actually learn how the system operates?
For me, the answer is pretty clear.
2026-09-27 02:16:57
The Steve Jobs Archive has published the second book after the Make Something Wonderful, a collection of Steve Jobs’ speeches, letters, and interviews.
I enjoyed that book and expected the same level of inspiration here as well. But Letters to a Young Creator didn’t keep up with the promise.
It features some big names, but only few of their letters worth mentioning or quoting. Here are some:
…don’t do the right thing, avoid it like the plague. So, what am I suggesting you do, the wrong thing? Of course not. Do the brave thing.
—Lee Clow
Many people are precious about their ideas. But ideas are cheap. It’s good ideas that are hard to find.
—David Kelley
“The days of thoughtless design for thoughtless consumption are over”, I also wrote that years ago. Unfortunately, this wish has not yet been fulfilled. I pass on my wish to you. Do less, but better things.
—Dieter Rams
“Do what you think is right and treat everything as a learning experience.”
—Alice Rawsthorn
The crazy ones are sometimes the ones who do crazy impossible things.
—Larry Brilliant
If you can learn to harness your fear—to let it push you forward instead of holding you back—it’s incredibly powerful.
—Jimmy Iovine
Don’t think about building a career; think about making something every day.
—Mona Simpson
Besides the quoted letters, I’d recommend the ones from Samuel Ross and Jon M. Chu.
★★★☆☆ short, and worth it only when you have nothing else
2026-09-23 02:15:16
My upcoming trip to the JetBrains Amsterdam office reminded about the elevators there. They are using the destination dispatch system. It features a kiosk on each floor where you choose your destination floor and it assigns a car for your ride, optimizing the wait times for everyone.
Unsurprisingly, the research shows the effectiveness of the algorithm. Well, at least when there are enough elevators.
But the user experience is somewhat mixed. Yes, sometimes it leads to a faster ride, but more than often I need to fight with the touchscreen device to select a correct floor, and then frantically look around to find the assigned car.
Sometimes, I’m okay to wait a little bit longer to just tap a button.
2026-09-22 02:34:44
Starting February next year, consumer electronics in the European Union must come with a replaceable battery, if they have any.
Some companies like Logitech don’t like this change, claiming that the change was not requested by any customers.
But I, for one, very much support the legislation. Especially with regard to Logitech devices.
I once had a Spotlight presenter, which unfortunately got into a deep discharge state during the pandemic. And since it had non-replaceable battery, it wasn’t even possible to open it without destroying. With this EU regulation, it wouldn’t have become electronic waste.
