Articles

Nobody wants to use any software - characterworks

Maybe this article resonated with me more because I am an old and bitter software developer. I don’t want any more software, and I don’t want to use any more software myself. My phone is full of apps I dont want to have. I think we can do well to remember that when we are making software, most people don’t want software they want to get stuff done so they can get on with their lives.

There are two kinds of advertising – Chris Coyier

The web is broken by tracking and targeted advertising, and it doesn’t even work.

three deep, recent studies that show: broad reach beats targeting for incremental growth; that the cost of targeting outweighs the return; and that second and third party data does not outperform a random sample. First party data does beat the random sample – but contextual ads massively outperform even first party data. And they are much, much cheaper.

Look at any site and see how many hundreds of requests are sent to get ads or update tracking information, and it doesnt even work. Ridicilous.

Procreate defies AI trend, pledges “no generative AI” in its illustration app - Ars Technica

This is up my alley. I am so looking forward to the AI bubble bursting, and we can go back to being normal dumb humans.

Civilization VII hands-on: This strategy sequel rethinks the long game - Ars Technica

Super hyped about the new civ game. I am a long time Civ-enjoyer and I hope this iteration is good. It seems they have fixed some of the issues I had with the old game, namely the dark/golden-age system.

Go is my hammer, and everything is a nail

An interesting exploration of how focusing on getting good at a tool can be more useful than using the best tool for the job.

Books

DevOps Handbook

I have spent a long while trying to get through this book. It’s interesting enough, but a bit dry I guess. It feels like trying to read a cook book from start to finish. I recently had to admit defeat and buy it as an audiobook as well. Almost finished now, maybe I will write more about it in the future.