Notices by James Thomson (jamesthomson@mastodon.social)

@NanoRaptor
You do dinosaur comics, apparently! So you are… Ryan North?

Tried out the new and popular “Deepseek” LLM with my standard “tell me facts about the author of PCalc” query. At least half were misleading or straight up hallucinations. LLMs are not a suitable technology for looking up facts, and anybody who tells you otherwise is… probably trying to sell you a LLM.

Now is a great time to enthusiastically confirm your support for LGBTQ+ rights - particularly those of trans and enby folks at the moment - and the rights of women, BIPOC communities, and anybody else that the new US administration is actively trying to oppress.

I wholeheartedly support the rights of all of these people.

It shouldn't need to be said, but right now it _does_ need to be said. If you are able, consider donating to organisations that are trying to protect them.

I am starting to suspect that the sites actually know that I'm not a robot, and just want to me to train their self-driving cars for free.

@sinbad I have to say, I am thankful I didn’t move every single day!

I wrote up the 25th anniversary of the unveiling of the Mac OS X Dock at Macworld Expo, from the perspective of a scared twenty-something engineer.

It's me. I'm the engineer.

https://tla.systems/blog/2025/01/04/i-live-my-life-a-quarter-century-at-a-time/

Time to update all those copyright strings.

Every AI story like this, my faith in the technology reporting of the BBC slips a bit further:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2evjxev4jo

Love this annoying window inside Photoshop which has all the design sensibilities of a malicious popup on a porn website.

PCalc is 50% off from now through Monday for our Black Friday sale! That's only $4.99 USD.

iOS / iPadOS / watchOS / visionOS:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalc

macOS:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalcmac

This has been a difficult year personally, and I know my updates have been slow as a result, so your patience with me is appreciated!

Anyway, yes, I'll do a Black Friday sale, but _next_ week.

So, guess who has two thumbs and was so tired he got the date for Black Friday wrong.

Babe, are you ok? You’ve barely touched your Blåhaj Mountain.

Dear American friends, please go and vote today. I don’t get to, but the outcome of this election will still affect me and many people I care deeply about around the world.

This is not a new thought at all, but I am frequently reminded of it. If you like a thing that somebody has made, be it art, apps, food, or whatever, consider telling them.

This post brought to you by the number of times I have told an author that their book means a lot to me, and they seem visibly moved. Turns out, creators are actually people too!

On the other hand, if you don’t like something, shut the fuck up.

One of those days when you look at a newspaper and think “how much news have I missed?”.

I think for the first time in around 30 years, I'm not going to have my apps ready for day one this time around. I've spent the last six months dealing with an ongoing family health crisis, and I've not had the time or energy to work on too much code during that time.

I feel really bad that I’ve not been as productive as normal, so I would like people to tell me I'm a complete idiot for thinking that way.

Genuinely, most interesting thing in this whole keynote is the hearing aid support in AirPods Pro.

And this is how you know I am in my 50s.

I'm working on an updated version of my screensaver for @relay's St. Jude's fundraiser. You can get it by backing by at least $60, and choosing the right reward.

It includes this new racy module!
https://relayfm.social/@relay/113040008863784730

@Gargron @viticci Most appreciated, thank you!