raganwald 🍓

It says "Reginald Scott Braithwaite-Lee" on my 🇨🇦 passport. You may know me from a book called "JavaScript Allongé" or from my work at companies like PagerDuty, Sitraka, and—briefly—GitHub.

May your next sip of coffee find you well.

Public Key

npub1padn32pcncp8w2zy9sev5fjt05cfv6uns9pj4xqeqskfxffn9aqsfq8zcg

NIP-05 Address

raganwald@social-bau--ha-us.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq7kec4qufuqnh9pzzcvk2ye9h6vykdwfczse2nqvsgtyny5ej7sgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qxnmnzs

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub1padn32pcncp8w2zy9sev5fjt05cfv6uns9pj4xqeqskfxffn9aqsfq8zcg

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Last Notes

2025-05-06 14:21:28

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@nprofile…sczv Is there a girl in the fireplace?

2025-05-05 16:30:35

Timeline cleanser. Where does this performance take you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdgWiWrtMZo

2025-04-07 18:12:23

Just about forty years ago... Where did that long hot summer go?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCYCLKstW_M

2025-03-27 00:41:21

Thanks to @nprofile…fv4z, I've cast my memory back to the 1990s when my business partner and I were trying to bolt a software product boutique onto our consulting business.
We made several bets. I remember paying big money for an OpenDoc course, and it was at Apple's offices, so we had to fly to Cupertino to take it.
I wrote a Newton App. That wasn't the bet, but we wanted to "have our hand in" just in case Newton turned out to be iPhone.
And oh yes, this thing called Java. That bet paid off.

2025-01-20 13:41:15

A woman in the jungle encountered a tiger. She fled to a precipice, where she caught hold of a wild vine and climbed down. The tiger waited above. Trembling, the woman looked down to where, far below, another tiger waited. Only the vine sustained her.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. Just then, she saw a wild strawberry growing from a crack. Grasping the vine with one hand, she plucked the strawberry with the other.
It was delicious! 🍓
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/113/860/938/384/126/297/original/736d95e7f81754ec.jpeg

2024-11-30 13:29:04

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@nprofile…03wc That was a load-bearing function you deleted!

2024-11-14 18:59:01

"I speak fluent profanity, but even I know there are limits. The gratuitous profanity is appalling. The book has the feel of being written by an unsupervised teenager. I can't even follow the content because the author seems more intent in squeezing in every bad word she knows than in actually delivering a decent book. The audio book version is a hot mess. It offers poor quality sound and a disturbing echo reminiscent of being recorded in a bathroom stall."
👇🏽
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/113/482/838/691/401/804/original/1b21a057df2e6086.jpeg

2024-11-12 22:08:46

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."—Rush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6pn8O7nXKY

2024-10-12 15:46:19

"The search for AI is the search for a better slave."
—@npub1psd…9sr7
Tech bros watch Blade Runner, and immediately set about trying to become the next Dr. Eldon Tyrell.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/113/295/222/223/136/738/original/e4e8592ff76f063d.jpeg

2024-10-11 03:35:29

"How Complex Systems Fail" is a classic. My gratitude to @npub1ec5…ygzs for reminding me that complex systems are everywhere, hiding in plain sight.
https://how.complexsystems.fail/

2024-09-29 16:56:01

The current iteration of GenAI strikes me as a near-perfect artefact of a post-truth society. It doesn't know anything about the truth, merely what seems to resemble what has been written somewhere. GenAI is the "Many people are saying" of tech.
More and more of our lives are becoming subject to post-truth. Just wait until regulatory agencies are taken out back and shot. What will be a safe product? It will be "up to the public to decide," not bureaucrats with their tests and standards!
👇🏽

2024-09-10 19:48:10

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@npub1dts…6798
Here he is introducing Trump to the audience:
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/113/114/984/452/308/360/original/1c36bad6307d9c67.mp4

2024-09-09 14:28:20

I have met very few people truly undecided about whom to vote for in any provincial or national election in Canada.
I have met more than a few who knew exactly who they were voting for, but were undecided about exactly how to justify a choice they knew would be unpopular and/or divisive with their peers.
While this is anecdotal at best, one thing that makes me wonder if that is common is how hard the media works to provide that exact demographic with plausible excuses.

2024-09-01 02:25:11

In the resistance against the enshittification of the web, it’s best to keep your pw;dr dry.

2024-08-20 16:19:53

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@npub1dzn…4dfn
I see that "X" is well on its way to becoming half of the world's banking system, exactly as Elon Musk boasted.

2024-08-20 14:22:22

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@npub1e7p…nvup
You probably hang out with a crowd that was born in this century, not 62% of the way through the last one 🙂
Which reminds me…
😀 = ♨️🔫

2024-08-20 13:36:09

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@npub1e7p…nvup
I’m looking at your handle and suddenly it’s 1981 and the club is playing the obligatory slow-jam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPikYsi6_zU

2024-08-20 13:19:38

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@npub1e7p…nvup
Not sprawled over three seats. Very considerate, I think the kids are allright.

2024-08-16 11:40:14

When you owe millions of dollars, you have a creditor.
When you owe billions of dollars, you have a partner. Who owns a bone saw and is not afraid to order someone to use it on people who displease him. And can tell you who and what to support, even if that means doing a complete 180 on climate change and sustainable energy.
You made your bed. Get comfy.

2024-08-05 13:36:35

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@npub1src…fms4
You left out a word: It’s the paper of broken record.

2024-07-31 14:43:58

So yes I’m looking for a job, either 100% remote or hybrid in Ontario’s GTA.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raganwald/details/experience/
All the usual stuff is on my LinkedIn, but here’s my pitch:
I’ve lead product development teams from “finding product/market fit” to “hockey stick revenue growth” to “liquidity for investors.” Multiple times.
I foster agile, rapid iteration to gain traction rapidly. And then we transition to predictable value streams with strategic precision.
This won’t be my first goat rodeo.

2024-07-30 15:23:20

The first forty years of my career:
"Copypasta coding is bad! Let's build elaborate employee filtering processes to weed out those who solve every problem by cribbing somebody else's work."
The last four years of my career:
"Copying and pasting code at scale is the future, provided we wave our hands furiously and say that an LLM is nothing at all like copying and pasting code from StackOverflow."

2024-07-22 21:05:50

I don’t think you need another reason to promote the #fediverse, but here’s one:
It doesn’t have an owner who will unilaterally block you from following a politician they don’t like in an effort to swing an election.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/832/160/477/942/944/original/c123c5418a20cfe8.png

2024-07-19 21:03:58

Company full of white males fucks up. Elon Musk’s Twitter feed?
Crickets.
Company that at some time or another embraced DEI, fucks up. Elon Musk’s Twitter feed:
“Look at this DEI company, they should call it DIE!”
I see this motherfucker. I see him very clearly.

2024-07-11 13:22:04

There is an old stockbrokers joke about a company that sells sardines. One of the young employees eats some and tells his boss they they taste like shit. His boss says, "Don't worry, those sardines are just for trading. Nobody eats them."
—@That-Whereas3367 on Reddit
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/768/062/754/604/870/original/f269b85cad23cd84.jpeg

2024-07-06 18:27:20

America HAS been a shining beacon of hope for democracy. In spite of its racism. In spite of its predatory capitalism. In spite of its foreign policies.
But what made it a shining beacon of hope wasn't its constitution, elections, or laws. None of its institutions offered the world hope for democracy:
What America has done to offer the world hope, is to model how protesting injustice can be the seed that grows into the tree of change.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/740/930/064/132/785/original/de32f184bb3425de.png

2024-07-04 00:34:27

I keep reading that the New York Times is not the paper it once was.
But what if it is still the paper it's always been? What if—like so many other things in modern society—what has changed is our ability to see it for what it really is?
What if it has always been this, but we didn't notice because what they were doing used to be considered "normal?"

2024-06-20 01:19:03

“If all you know is capitalism, everything looks like a free-market problem”
—Benjamin Sandofsky, “Fast Crimes at Lambda School”
https://www.sandofsky.com/lambda-school/
🎓 @npub1nkl…u9ck

2024-06-14 03:30:12

I weep for The Onion. How do you parody this kind of thing?
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/612/852/422/391/081/original/28982c9874d3f259.jpeg

2024-05-31 14:46:18

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@npub1k4q…3lsq Heartstoppingly beautiful. Thank you.

2024-05-27 16:49:55

Situation:
I can watch some DRM content on my device, but the operating system puts up road blocks if I try to take a screen shot or recording, because “piracy” and because “IP Rights.”
But if the OS itself wants to record everything I do and see because “recall” and because “AI,” it will do so whether what I am doing is private or not.
This is a very boring dystopia.

2024-05-25 01:00:54

Those who describe moving all of an automobile’s controls behind a touch screen as “minimalist design,” don’t understand either word.

2024-05-22 20:27:09

“The Big Web has _users_ – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit.”— @npub1qg4…augv, “What is the Small Web?”
https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

2024-05-17 18:38:17

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@npub1hyk…3p33
Item #271 on the list of things George Carlin tried to tell us: Airport Security.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQdC-e82gmk

2024-05-15 11:53:12

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@npub1xdl…ks6q
whereas, that is me tooting and replying to begin with

2024-05-15 00:58:40

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Pardon me, that way was too cynical. What I meant to say was,
“Switching costs provide pricing power.”

2024-05-06 16:33:27

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@npub1hvk…9qam
George Carlin (1937-2008) agrees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lncLOEqc9Rw

2024-05-05 14:53:11

How does this story go if the bar is sold, renamed “X,” and it’s the new owner with iron crosses on their vest?
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/389/044/740/791/458/original/3740baa159b4855a.png

2024-05-03 21:14:06

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@npub1k4q…3lsq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE

2024-05-03 12:17:40

In a post-truth market, all stocks are meme stocks. Stocks are not bets on fundamentals growing, stocks are bets on which companies capture attention in an influencer and misinformation-saturated media landscape.
Behind the scenes, a toothless SEC watches as AI bot farms and human fellow travellers orchestrate disinformation campaigns. Everything is faster: Pump and dump schemes happen in minutes and hours, not days, weeks, or months.
Conservative populism has eaten the world.

2024-05-02 22:40:02

Hank Kniberg wrote a great essay about the rightfully viral illustration he created to explain the difference between:
1. Pre-planning a series of increments leading up to shipping a product that satisfies a customer, and;
2. Shipping a minimally testable product and iterating on that until it satisfies a customer.
https://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp
⤵️
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/373/874/799/930/459/original/3dd606e7560c9092.png

2024-04-30 15:16:22

One of the consequences of programming being a pop culture is a kind of dunning-kruger effect where programmers would often prefer to rewrite code than understand it in all its subtleties. This is obviously the Chesterton’s Fence anti-pattern at work, but let’s just go with “reading and properly understanding code you didn’t write is a hard problem.”
Ok, so now let’s talk about AI generating non-trivial code that a programmer has to understand in all of its subtleties.
Hmmm….

2024-04-22 14:59:36

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@npub1k4q…3lsq
Alan:
Surely this is performance art?
Bob:
It’s certainly performative, I’ll give you that. But stop calling me Shirley.

2024-04-17 13:26:02

One of the things about charlatans is that we—oops, “they”—are an uninformed person’s idea of a genius.
When you hear them speak about a subject you happen to know something about, the illusion is pierced and you see them for who they really are: Dilettantes.
Given this dynamic, charlatans have to always operate at the cutting edge, because that’s where expectations are highest while simultaneously, information is lowest.
1/2

2024-04-10 17:11:01

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@npub1rhr…gh5p
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/248/029/179/271/817/original/83eb2cf861ffa90b.png

2024-04-04 16:59:35

"It's cheaper to buy the default search box everywhere in the world than it is to make a product that is so good that even if we tried another search engine, we'd still prefer Google."
— @npub1hyk…3p33, "Too big to care:" https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/

2024-03-28 15:37:02

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@npub1yuj…4axc
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/174/052/166/707/951/original/38eb885afbd70cfc.mp4

2024-03-25 22:09:59

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@npub1k4q…3lsq You mention “nurses, not doctors.”
Can you elaborate on this?

2024-03-24 13:22:29

“Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind. Sometimes, it can be hard to guess what kind of bubble you’re living through until it pops and you find out the hard way.”— @npub1hyk…3p33, “What Kind of Bubble is AI?”
https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

2024-03-18 20:22:02

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@npub16u7…uend
There are few signs of a bubble as reliable as, “Shhhhhh! Do not criticize the tulip trade, you hater! You must have an agenda.”
When personal computers were taking over, nobody cared if there were cautionary voices or critics. The utility of information appliances was evident.

2024-03-18 18:56:56

The fraud he was convicted of is inflating the value of his assets when seeking loans. His defence was, “My lenders don’t care if I inflate the values.”
Now he needs money to cover the judgment, and it seems lenders are unwilling to accept real estate as collateral in general, and his word for what it’s worth specifically.
This is a farcical comedy on the scale of “The Producers.”

2024-03-16 18:00:51

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@npub1jx4…mf6e
#AgedLikeMilk #ThatAgedWell

2024-03-15 19:19:20

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@npub1k4q…3lsq
PG Wodehouse articulated the subdivision of the working class succinctly in the short story “Comrade Bingo.”
“I have,” said Bertie Wooster’s valet Jeeves, “but a nodding acquaintance with the working class.”
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/101/312/905/255/497/original/51ac66fcd50acc80.jpeg

2024-03-15 17:33:00

When thinking about the proposition that “tech is a pop culture,” I can’t help but also think about this observation:
“YCombinator is in the boy-band business.”

2024-03-13 19:45:21

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@npub1k4q…3lsq
Oh absolutely, and were Carlin alive today and writing the larger piece that contained this joke, he might have used those terms. He talked about “The owners of this country” repeatedly.

2024-03-12 17:15:08

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@npub1psd…9sr7
And yet, it feels like they’re onto something, even if it isn’t “This is why you should give us money.”
Many bestsellers in certain verticals (like self-help and business hagiographies) are highly formulaic and not particularly information-dense.
What makes them bestsellers has very little to do with the writing, and a lot to do with hustle, marketing, and promotion.
I can accept that Generative AI can write such a book for me. But then again… The writing isn’t the hard part.

2024-03-10 16:13:57

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If we printed all the powerpoint decks touting the productivity of generative AI on slides and piled them up, we could reach Mars without a rocket.
But the productivity of working without fear of a permanent SNAFU doesn’t contain any fashionable buzzwords. And yes, we can measure the productivity of undo. Whereas with generative AI… The metrics we use are as artificial as the non-GAAP accounting shenanigans bad companies love to tout on their way to an IPO.
We value optics over evidence.

2024-03-10 16:10:16

If we truly and deeply want to understand how poorly our VC model of software development undermines the idea of making useful tools, we must consider this:
Every device we own from watch to workstation is a supercomputer with access to (effectively) unlimited storage. And yet, the prevailing model of software distribution is web apps, and for all statistical purposes, there are zero web apps that support undo at all, much less infinite undo and redo.
https://social.bau-ha.us/system/media_attachments/files/112/072/260/615/401/883/original/6982ce8de0bafc54.jpeg

2024-02-21 14:25:50

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@npub1typ…c8hh Especially poignant coming from a singer who taught school after graduating from Northumbria.