Notices by @robpike.io (robpike@cosocial.ca)

@sundogplanets Welcome to the club.

https://bsky.app/profile/robpike.io/post/3matwg6w3ic2s

Let me say again how much I dislike scrolling down a page only to get stopped in my scroll as a map starts zooming because, as a Google Product Manager once said to me (really, truly) when I asked why a scrolling action on a map zooms, "what else would scroll do?"

Pure insanity. Also, for the record, insane that a continuous action can change meaning half-way through. That's on web design itself.

@jpallas

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00892-3

RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202

In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.

Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them

LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.

More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.

Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.

It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.

<sarcasm>Good thing climate change isn't causing any trouble or this could be an issue.</sarcasm>

Words fail, again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-center-texas-pollution.html?unlocked_article_code=1.31A.BKnE.5DhN0aBPzpDP&smid=url-share

We don't know for sure yet whether the AI business model will lead to consciousness, but we know for a fact that it creates insanity.

Hey, guys, when you ask me for my cookie choice and I say "reject", you're still allowed to remember that I said "reject" and not ask me again every damn visit.