Pluralistic: Bragging about replacing coders with AI is a sales-pitch (05 Aug 2025)

Today's links

Bragging about replacing coders with AI is a sales-pitch: The reality is more complex.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: David Byrne vs Spotify; India's porn ban; Qanon ARG; Contextual ads; Leveraged buyouts aren't mortgages.
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

AI software assistants make the hardest kinds of bugs to spot: Errors that are tuned to be statistically indistinguishable from correct code.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: A universal remote for killing people; Win10 spies out of the box; MacOS firmware worm; Tor exit-node subpoena, 3D tube-station maps, Papercraft Addams Family house.
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Ellen Ullman's "Close to the Machine": "Technophilia and Its Discontents."
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Unethical ethicists; McKinsey covid profiteering; Homeschool-to-prison pipeline
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Cloudburst: The timely surge of "local-first computing."
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2018
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Your computer is tormented by a wicked god: Bootkits are why we can't have nice things.
Peter Thiel's evil, but he's not an "evil genius": How to criticize self-mythologizing villains.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2007, 2012, 2017, 2021
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

James Bridle's "Ways of Being": Dispatches from the more than human world.
Fake Christian health insurance and other big cons: If you have to trick people into hearing your message, you are in a cult.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2002, 2012, 2017, 2021
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Imperfections in your Bluetooth beacons allow for unstoppable tracking: Fingerprinting BLE with minor material variations in radio hardware.
This day in history: 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Machine learning's crumbling foundations: Doing 'data science' with bad data.
Hench: The madcap rage of life under vigilante rule.
This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

What would a live concert album sound like with all the songs taken out?: Gavin Edwards' "Having Fun On Stage With Everybody."
The infosec apocalypse is nigh: Ed Snowden on the NSO's malware.
This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

AT&T will lay off thousands more: After promising that Trump's $20B tax-break would create jobs.
Cuba is a vaccine powerhouse: A vaccine for the Global South.
Sacklers to use Purdue bankruptcy to escape justice: Crime pays.
AI has a GIGO problem: Bias-laundering at mass scale.
This day in history: 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading