@ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

I have, after two years, allowed myself to talk about my experiences with AI madness again, this time with the benefit of speaking to people all around the world, including Fortune 500 executives. This one is on my regular blog for casual readers, and cross-posted to the company blog if you need to share this with someone and have it look official. https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decision-making/ https://hermit-tech.com/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decisionmaking

ludic.mataroa.blog

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making — Ludicity

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Zitron just sent me a post that Casey Newton wrote, where Newton uncritically talked about Replit's CEO saying that his company is now just run by AI, and the CEO is a "glorified router" Remember, if a fawning, boot-licking, sychophant-incompetent like Newton has managed to make it big, there's hope for everyone else. Think about the overwhelming advantage that your brain cells give you

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

@phated@fosstodon.org just linked me to this and I love it, and by extension, this Dave fellow https://daverupert.com/2026/07/number-chart-go-up/

daverupert.com

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

I have elected not to read any HN or Reddit comments on my latest post, but I am accepting nominations for the wall of shame: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/compliments/ Ideal candidates are mean-spirited ad hominem. 🫡

ludic.mataroa.blog

Compliments — Ludicity

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to on mastodon.social

@Viss@mastodon.social @hailey@hails.org I'm glad you asked because I have looked into this space several times and been unhappy (main options are Nocodb and Baserow), but this time around I discovered Mathesar: https://github.com/mathesar-foundation/mathesar I am becoming a weirdo that refuses to use many things before inspecting at least parts of the codebase, but the non-profit structure and other things are giving me good vibes.

github.com

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Hi folks, thought I'd reach out to Mastodon for some thoughts on this. I recently got Ed Zitron for my podcast, and am about to get [REDACTED] this Thursday. I like having random friends on to just talk about our hobbies or whatever sometimes, but it's been nice getting a few influential people on because they get to think about certain topics full-time. Are there any folks that you can think of (that have indicated an awareness of me) that would make for a fun conversation?

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 3mo ago

https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/06/10/announcing-stack-overflow-for-agents/ I'm laughing so hard that I'm having trouble breathing

stackoverflow.blog

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Great news everyone! I'm still alive and have dropped a post on my plans to violently knife as many software recruiters as possible, and also talk about how all the managers that seemed incompetent were, in fact, totally incompetent: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/the-worlds-left-to-conquer/

ludic.mataroa.blog

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 3mo ago

Greetings fellow humans. My podcast editor has suggested that I start uploading episodes to YouTube, and to accomplish this, that I should get some artwork done to serve as a wall-paper-y thing for the audio to play over. Is there any chance that there are any artists here that would be interested in a small job? Might be a long shot, but someone that listens to the podcast will probably have great opinions on the vibe!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

@iris_meredith@mastodon.social sold out and wrote a marketing quiz that tells you your engineering class, but it has succesfully nerd sniped me: https://deadsimpletech.com/quizzes/whats-your-technical-character-class And like, that's pretty accurate!

deadSimpleTech

What

Personality tests: we all love them, we have fun doing them, sometimes we can even put just a bit too much weight on the results. Fact is, though, these tests are usually about as credible as your average

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

@iris_meredith@mastodon.social has just put out a super high-quality course for software engineers that would like to brush up on fundamentals or engage in Deeper Magic. We're buying it for our team and I thought I should give it a quick shout-out here: https://deadsimpletech.com/arca It's one of the rare courses that is so cheap that management will probably buy it for you just to stop talking about it.

deadsimpletech.com

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to on mastodon.social

@Viss@mastodon.social @phated@fosstodon.org I'm cancelling Spotify right now for Qobuz because of the post, something I've meant to do for a while, and they straight up try to threaten you with ads 🙃 Get fucked, Spotify

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

*Mari's artwork is the version when the actual episode is playing, not the louder thumbnail version.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Just came across Cam Wilson's reporting guide for folks that want to raise stories, particularly leaks about how AI stuff is going on at companies. https://cameronwilson.com.au/guide-to-my-reporting/ A lot of folks send me stories, and I don't publish them because I don't have the bandwidth or network to do so while keeping you safe. Cam does! Send them his way instead. (He's also highly regarded by several of my friends and is on Mastodon, which probably tells you a lot about his stance on source safety.)

cameronwilson.com.au

A guide to Cam Wilson’s reporting (v1.0) – @cameronwilson – cam wilson

I'm the ABC's national AI technology reporter. My job is to help inform the Australians about one of the most exciting, fast-moving and consequential stories of our time. A lot of people don't know much about how journalism is done. I don't blame them! A lot of it is done…

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@rogersm@mastodon.social Gerry Weinberg mentored Jesse Alford in many ways, and Jesse mentors me. Very sad I never got to meet him. Secrets of Consulting has made my life a lot better.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@huronbikes@cyberplace.social @samzvr@tech.lgbt @pluralistic@mamot.fr I am going to get this made

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@jannem@fosstodon.org I think HN normally agrees with me. I actually like most of the people there, but the reality is that as the business has gotten busier, I think it's better to signal to myself that I have time for more important things, than to signal to myself that I can handle a few mean people. My co-founders just shipped this page when someone found a dead link though: https://hermit-tech.com/business-owners

hermit-tech.com

Hermit Tech ⚬ Radically Ethical Data Consulting

A data consultancy that doesn't suck, doesn't sell you cheap labour, and has a 100% on-time delivery rate.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@samzvr@tech.lgbt @pluralistic@mamot.fr ??? Who on earth is saying I'm pro LLM I talk to Ed Zitron every day, like what are they reading

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 3mo ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

I've got a client looking to hire five senior engineers in Sydney -- they work in data engineering, but they'll take anyone that's competent and work it out from there. Pay's about A$160K to A$180K + superannuation for someone that nails their interview process. No LeetCode stuff, though there is an online screen that is reportedly at the level of "You weren't lying about programming, right? Can you like, read a CSV and write some SQL?" Hit me up if you know anyone that'd be interested!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@JulianDumitrascu@social.vivaldi.net @Viss@mastodon.social @phated@fosstodon.org I have fortunately had a very good experience with Qobuz so far, but account creation failure would have put me off entirely too

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@imclaren@infosec.exchange @phil@front-end.social We have finally achieved a website that Iain has given the thumbs up after all these years. $1B valuation inbound

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@dashdsrdash@tilde.zone Part of the circular problem is that, if they could identify a competent recruiter, they could probably find the candidates themselves anyway. One of the larger in-house teams we've worked with asked me to stop screening candidates because they had so much faith in their automated process... which an applicant attempted and reported it immediately broke entirely I was telling @huronbikes@cyberplace.social bikes the other day that, if they knew how to hire someone, they wouldn't need to hire someone

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@sosquqer@en.osm.town One of my co-founders read it and made the PR. I think they also hand-drew the doodle.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@wendynather@infosec.exchange You have to shut the episode off in the next 30 minutes or we're doing an episode on you

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@lkanies@hachyderm.io Oh interesting (by the way, you are obviously on the big list I am compiling to power the podcast through to 2027) I hadn't read Ries, though I think you've mentioned that it's quite a good book before.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Sevoris@mastodon.social Of particular relevance is that I had no idea if it would work, it's just that I knew the median sale was worth about A$20K, so the coaching would have to be REALLY unlikely to help to not be worth the risk (I also cheat a lot because frankly the people reading my blog are, for the most part, extremely talented in their subdomains, so I can sort of get The Best Guy for anything. Like I might need security advice in a month, and I know @Viss@mastodon.social!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@luyin@lgbtqia.space @peritia@alovely.space @iris_meredith@mastodon.social I can't believe that I boosted Iris initially and now her blog gets listed before mine This cannot stand

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@muvlon@hachyderm.io This is pretty good!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ajn142@infosec.exchange I will STRANGLE you if you don't read my article ❤️ Did that help

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Sevoris@mastodon.social It's a good mix. A job can be good exposure to the types of pathology you'll experience as a consultant, or good exposure to sound engineering practice, but rarely both, and you have to patch the once you're lacking somehow. I also get to cheat because the blog community is quite large, so I can get specialist advice from people I trust quite quickly. A thing engineers are bad at which I have tried to become good at is that I frequently compensate people to teach me things

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@tpfto@mathstodon.xyz I'm definitely very comfortable and being kinda whiny, haha. But only because I would like enough to spend on things that aren't myself while still being personally responsible!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@sassdawe@infosec.exchange I think you might somehow be holding YouTube wrong (it has a lot of organic traffic so I know it's working)

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@wendynather@infosec.exchange Are you the mythical CISO that isn't all-in on AI, and can I talk to you about how you are handling the entire world going insane?

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@imclaren@infosec.exchange @iris_meredith@mastodon.social @phil@front-end.social I've been thinking about branding myself as Lawful Evil Human Consultant

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@imclaren@infosec.exchange @iris_meredith@mastodon.social @phil@front-end.social Surely all lawyers are warlocks

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@KatS@chaosfem.tw Saw two senior and one principal engineer in the office of a $1B market cap company last year, all having a heated discussion over whose ChatGPT output was the best solution. The thing they were trying to do is make one VM in a VPC. There were no other constraints, they just needed one VM in a VPC, with nothing installed on it. I cannot emphasize this enough, there is no gotcha, the problem was "how do I make a computer not be exposed to ingress via the internet"

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@leo_pudu@mastodon.social This is quite hard! There's a bit of overlap in domains because my thesis used a lot of Markov models, which do sometimes appear in NLP though I'm like, way out of date on specifics Maybe @iris_meredith@mastodon.social has some thoughts?

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@leo_pudu@mastodon.social I'm sure I've mentioned it somewhere but I don't remember where. Probably not a talk. I really enjoyed the book though! Not much of a web developer, but the book is very well-written and gave me an immense appreciation for hypermedia at the conceptual level, as well as some level of bafflement that HTMX had to pick up the torch. But that "not much of a web developer" bit is doing a lot of lifting. Maybe someone like @phil@front-end.social has a HTMX Opinion better than mine.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de @iris_meredith@mastodon.social You just have to be a cleric of a sufficiently cool god and it works itself out

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Sevoris@mastodon.social I plan company strategy the same way I plan for Twilight Imperium games, i.e, pacing up and down corridors, mumbling to myself like a madman, and stacking lots of contingencies at all the visible points of failure (So yes, it's honestly exactly like playing a game with a high-dimension action space. Also I've been too scared to play Eve ever since learning about it because I think I'd never escape its gravity)

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@leo_pudu@mastodon.social Iris is the sort of girl that will probably be able to weigh in on this kinda thing! We must simply wait for the right time in New Zealand

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@leo_pudu@mastodon.social Which machine learning project? Do you mean my old master's thesis, mentioned several posts ago, or something for a client? For clients, almost everything gets solved by XGBoost if I'm being honest. For my master's thesis, I was working with David Dowe at Monash University, and he asked me to implement everything from scratch in MATLAB so I did lol lmao It was a great learning experience but I was so anxious all the time during it, haha

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@deliverator@infosec.exchange I subscribed in Mataroa solidarity!

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@draconacht@infosec.exchange There is a picture of me in my basement that degrades every time I sign a contract

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@llorenzin I didn't know this: "Oh, and Klarna? The company that loudly announced it would replace Salesforce with internal AI solutions? They quietly replaced Salesforce with another SaaS vendor instead. The backyard furnace couldn’t produce real steel. They bought it from a different mill." But that is very, very funny

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@jackeric@beige.party We are already doing stuff internationally! But it depends a lot on whether readers work at employers in Scotland that are interested in working with us this way. So far we get a lot of American and Australian outreach.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Sevoris@mastodon.social Do I actually have to grind in Eve or can I automate things like some sort of degenerate, because if it's the latter then we should take over the world ASAP

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity@mastodon.sprawl.club

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@dkalintsev@infosec.exchange I already arrange a lot of this stuff informally for people, but I'm not sure how it'd work as a service. For the most part, making those referrals is just a part of having a good relationship with peers, and depersonalizing the process enough to act as a middleman that charges probably removes most of the value. (And if I'm not charging then I guess I'd just have a big "here are my favourite contractors" page, which I'll do eventually anyway)

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