Notices by Jeff Johnson (lapcatsoftware@mastodon.social)

The hiring process for software engineers is often a glorified bait-and-switch scheme: employers look for someone who isn't just a clockwatcher, goes above and beyond the bare minimum, genuinely cares about the craft, ideally with personal side projects to demonstrate this, yet after the software engineers are hired, the same employers treat them like code monkeys, ruthlessly measuring performance only by lines of code and dollars added.

Employers who believe that AI can replace employees have likely already dehumanized their employees, treated them like machines, automatons, bereft of personal autonomy. With that misanthropic attitude, it’s not much of a stretch to switch from natural to artificial intelligence.

Relentless demands for "efficiency" stifle the most beneficial human qualities such as caring, creativity, and curiosity. In economic terms, the competitive advantage of human workers is actually their humanity.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@pxlnv/116559783670635896

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

The greatest danger of AI is not that it will become super-intelligent but rather that it will make humans super-idiotic.

Many software engineers have the career plan to work for amoral corporate overlords until they can retire early and then work on meaningful projects.

IMO this plan is questionable:
1) You spend your career serving the interests of amoral corporate overlords
2) The overlords have their own plans that may derail yours, such as mass layoffs and burning you out until you can’t work

I suggest a revised plan: work for amoral corporate overlords only until you can start your own meaningful business.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@pxlnv/116412581601258536

“nobody can effectively govern this many items, especially when they are all user-submitted. Walmart has a few hundred thousand individual products, while Costco has about four thousand and says most supermarkets have in the range of tens of thousands. The App Store is ungovernable at this size, and high-profile incidents like the ones above only reinforce that sentiment.”

Yes! This is what I’ve been saying for years.

I hate toilets so much. How are we stuck with a design that’s so… crappy? They get totally clogged in normal use. It’s ridiculous.

And I have a plunger! Of course it’s difficult to use a plunger when the bowl is filled to the top.

@octothorpe What situation? It’s not my fault!

A lot of publics have pressure-assisted flush though, which would actually help.

@octothorpe Toilet plungers are ubiquitous, so I would say it is normal and expected.

Maybe your shit is just small.

LLM access is relatively cheap now because the LLM vendors are discounting their price at a massive loss, subsidized by VC, in order to get you addicted and to drive as much skilled human labor as possible out of the workforce permanently.

The goal is monopolization, and if they’re successful, you’ll see monopolistic pricing in the future.

I love how Netflix makes you sign in via email code, but then you still have to verify your email address separately.

If my email address is unverified, how the hell did I already sign in, huh?

The intention of the ultra-wealthy with LLMs is to turn workers as much as possible into identical, replaceable cogs. Crush the masses into a uniform slop.

It doesn’t even matter whether LLMs are as good as a skilled craftsperson: if they’re “good enough,” can produce SOMETHING, then the negotiating power of individual workers is destroyed.

You fear getting left behind if you don’t adopt LLMs, but in reality we’ll all get left behind if we all adopt LLMs. Now is the time to be Luddites.

“light mode has been slowly getting lighter, and I’ve got a graph to prove it.”

https://willhbr.net/2025/10/20/light-mode-infffffflation/

WebKit is vibe coded now. Prepare for more bugs, as if there weren’t enough already.

https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/commit/ceb4a05a51792bd00d02a515945edc092ca6ac6b

Any credential system that makes it impossible to write something down on a piece of paper, take it to a new computer, and login to a website is just a gateway to vendor lock-in.

And don’t tell me that we can “securely transfer” the credential from one vendor to another, because that’s just a lock-in syndicate.

The “something” doesn’t have to be a password! It could be a UUID. It could be Base64. But “you’ll get nothing and like it” is not an acceptable alternative.

StopTheMadness Pro, my web browser extension that stops web site annoyances and privacy violations, is on sale in the App Store for the first time!

For the next two weeks, StopTheMadness Pro is $4 USD off the regular price, with comparable savings in other countries and currencies.

https://underpassapp.com/news/2025/11/5.html

One reason market cap is stupid is that only a small % of outstanding shares move in a given week. Shareholders did not actually lose $400 billion. You can’t lose money unless you buy or sell shares, and the amount you gain or lose depends on the price you originally paid.

Market cap is imaginary, projecting the current selling price of a small % of shares onto all shares, but the price would drop like a rock if all current shareholders attempted to sell at once. https://c.im/@nickheer/115503849537099801

Apple hardware is more powerful than ever, but this is not reflected in the user interface, because as fast as the hardware has become, Apple software has become de-optimized faster.

It’s incredible how slow and clunky things feel on even the latest and greatest hardware.

It’s telling that AI maximalists aren’t even TRYING to pitch the technology as allowing you to work fewer hours per week for the same or higher standard of living as before.

The only pitch is that if you don’t adopt AI ASAP you’ll be left behind. In other words, AI accelerates the rat race with no benefit to the working class.

The “productivity” crap is all a lie.

Leadership pushing AI on the workforce is all a cover simply to scare and undermine labor, thereby gaining a permanent upper hand in hiring and negotiations. They’re inventing artificial workers as imaginary competition for your jobs.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/bank-forced-to-rehire-workers-after-lying-about-chatbot-productivity-union-says/

Book review: Apple in China by Patrick McGee

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/8/1.html