Ludic 🧛

Don't talk to me about spreadsheets.

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ludicity@mastodon-sprawl-club.mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2025-03-19 04:26:55

My friend Matt Seddon was doing some open source work and found a huge amount of spam from some sort of LLM project.
https://github.com/sankalp112kashyap/SoftwareCode-Debloat-LLMs/issues/3
It's "debloating" projects, but the "debloating" seems to be doing things like, you know, just undoing all the linting because that reduces lines of code:
https://github.com/Textualize/rich/pull/3669/files
It looks like all the OS maintainers are being spammed so the LLM folks can get research data or something
https://github.com/sankalp112kashyap/SoftwareCode-Debloat-LLMs/blob/main/ECS%20260%20Tracking%20-%20Sheet1.csv
Thank you, GenAI!

2025-03-19 03:04:04

Deep down, in my heart of hearts, I am only programming in Elixir because it has the name that reminds me most of D&D, what with Elixir and Mix and Hex
If it was not Elixir, it would be Ruby, because I like the word "gem"
This is the extent of my technical decisionmaking capability and I will never apologize

2025-02-28 06:25:34

Great news everyone! I have infodumped all my job search advice into a gigantic article, and I have channeled all my benevolent sociopath energy on your behalf. Godspeed!
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ludics-guide-to-getting-software-engineering-jobs/

2025-02-25 08:41:59

- reply

@nprofile…3sf2 I never finished writing for MIT Tech Review, and never claimed my money, because the editor who I otherwise liked sent me 3-4 notes saying I felt too "anti-AI".
The final draft was just me stating extremely lukewarm facts, just a limp-dicked piece advising against investing in AI without a business goal, and I got the same note.

2025-01-13 22:06:35

Great news everyone! I open the grifter playbook and talk about all the people that now try to sell me time with your boss' boss' boss and why they keep buying trash software.
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/brainwash-an-executive-today/

2025-01-09 06:19:58

- reply

@nprofile…48vs @nprofile…lst5 This guy's so good at business

2024-12-19 02:45:47

I just tried so, so hard to use GenAI for the venerated "rapidly do easy project in language you're trash at". I was writing a quick mobile app for a researcher at Uni of Melb as a personal favour, got like 30% of the way further than I had any business to...
... and then had to stop and just learn how to do it properly, the old-fashioned way, and I think I've mostly wasted time not doing it that way.
I'm impressed I got that far but also it fell so far short of saving me real time.

2024-12-18 20:41:20

@nprofile…sluf has gone unreasonably hard:
https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/altman_dunce

2024-12-14 04:03:18

When I am an employee, employers are like "you have to accept Scrum". When I'm consulting, employers are like "oh, you must be elite, you're using something that isn't Scrum"
This industry has brain worms

2024-12-03 04:35:39

I roll a d20 every morning, and today I rolled two 20s in a row, so I guess I'm literally invincible for the rest of 2024.

2024-12-01 05:13:56

The comments on the latest thing to blow up has given me many fine additions to my collection:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/compliments/

2024-12-01 01:03:58

This article I wrote hit the HN frontpage again:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/you-must-read-at-least-one-book-to-ride/
Just wanted to shout out the one guy that said I seem like such a nerd that he could never enjoy time with me 😢 I've never been more owned

2024-11-18 00:11:26

I've had a few programmers from third-world countries reach out, and a persistent problem is "buying even a used laptop is $500, which is extremely expensive in my local currency".
Anyone have any giga-brain ideas on the cheapest possible development environment that doesn't freeze up? We'll not stress about the availability of parts in different parts of the world for now.

2024-11-12 05:55:20

Great news everyone! I've outright threatened vehicular violence against some of the consultancies I've worked alongside!
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/why-i-will-always-be-angry-about-software-engineering/

2024-10-22 09:09:07

Last week I couldn't attend my gaming group's PlateUp! session, and they immediately fell apart in spectacular fashion without me. Two of them are directors of technology at medium-sized businesses, which means I must be a stronger director, and I now insist that winning PlateUp! runs is the only metric of leadership ability.
Factorio is also the only metric for engineering ability.

2024-10-10 02:57:06

Great news everyone! I saw code so terrible yesterday that I quit my job on the spot, for realsies. Enjoy what should be the last post about me gazing directly into corporate-hell:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/get-me-out-of-data-hell/
Future posts will be about the dystopian hellscape that I conjure into being at my own business.

2024-10-04 04:48:25

My close friend @npub18c3…puc7 published this on corporate norms around "Who is allowed to know things" at companies. Tech debt isn't real unless someone in power affirms it in a PowerPoint.
https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/epistemology
I love it and have made the same point. On Hackernews, it was accused of being "extreme left wing content" and the author is trying to "seed violent ideas into the minds of mentally unstable people".
Read it, and if you liked it, please send Iris some positive vibes.

2024-09-19 04:55:09

Good news everyone! My magnum opus on Scrum just dropped, clocking in at almost 9K words! Prepare a drink, strap yourselves in, and enter the Torment Nexus.
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/tossed-salads-and-scrumbled-eggs/

2024-07-21 23:57:38

Everyone I know that actually trains as a sprinter is so violently opposed to terminology that implies knowledge work should be approached that way, yet we still call it a "sprint".
I feel like we could just call it a "fortnight" and half the Scrum industry would instantly evaporate as pseudo-leaders realize that you can't program at max speed forever in enterprise environments.
Unfortunately, at that point someone would invent "Faster Sprints" to recapture the gullible dweeb market.

2024-07-11 06:59:45

Great news everyone! I have allowed power to fully corrupt me and now self-identify as a thought leader! And have also written up the absolutely bizarre experience of going so viral from a blog post that I'm being offered journalism jobs and book deals
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/my-glorious-ascension-to-thought-leadership/

2024-07-10 01:55:49

I've been asked to write a book by a Real Publisher. The topic was a collection of thoughts on issues in the industry, leadership, etc.
Pros: I have control over the book.
Cons: Publisher has an extremely poor reputation in the tech community.
Does anyone here have experience self-publishing (probably my preference, I just want a physical copy for spiritual reasons) or know someone at a good publisher that might enjoy my writing? I'll have talks with these folks, but can probably do better.

2024-07-05 00:56:50

I have 308 emails and half of them are non-technicians telling me that the GenAI hype has made them feel like someone's been putting something crazy in the coffee for the last two years.
I'm now also hyperaware of executives describing their tech stack as "GenAI and some other stuff". Note: Knowing that your team hits the OpenAI API and nothing else does not make you a technical leader, it makes you a grifter.

2024-07-03 05:34:41

I was on BetterOffline with Ed Zitron by the way, I just kept quiet about it so the man could cook:
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-better-offline-150284547/episode/i-will-piledrive-you-if-you-191631096/

2024-07-02 02:11:55

Great news everyone! Now that I'm scarcely anonymous and some managers at my day job can weaponize this against me, I've decided to talk about mental health:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/on-burnout-mental-health-and-not-being-okay/

2024-06-20 23:16:16

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/ has done such a staggering amount of traffic that I have been asked to be in an honest-to-God documentary, I believe as an anti-AI-hype expert, and I think I may need a new job on Monday because there is NO WAY I fly under the radar this time.
Pray for me 🙏 (Or better yet, network me with cool people)
EDIT: I just had to remove an image because it displayed as GIGANTIC for unknown reasons. I am truly a tech genius.

2024-06-19 05:42:00

Great news everyone! I finally talk about AI hype. Someone finally mentioned LLMs one time too many, and the reckoning is upon us:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/

2024-02-13 06:39:04

This is going to be a hard one to explain tomorrow during standup.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonsprawlclub/media_attachments/files/111/922/791/839/374/055/original/40fe949a3976731b.png

2024-01-04 21:03:30

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, racism, sexism, poverty, you name it, have all been obliterated.
But the engineers still triple all their time estimates because Picard always immediately halves whatever number they say.
Why is my future bleak even in fantasy utopia, you sick fucks?