Daniel De Laney

Free software scares normal people. The FOSS world is full of great tools that only have a “power user” UI. danieldelaney.net/normal/

We already have more goods than anyone needs. Our remaining problem is distribution. Currently, workers are able to generate enough value that they can trade their labor for wages, thus they can afford necessities. If automation can deliver all the benefits of human labor for less money, companies which do not employ humans will outcompete those that do. Humans who do not possess capital will have nothing to trade. This is a quick spiral downward: mass unemployment, homelessness, starvation, civil war.

@mean_field_zane This is silly. If AI got that effective we would effectively be living in a post scarcity world

At this point I’m completely blackpilled on automation. I no longer believe AI will be labour-augmenting. I’m predicting unbelievable wealth/income inequality, labour as an inferior substitute, and global societal collapse.

Bob makes a software product. Many of his customers are unsubscribing. This is high-quality feedback. It’s not in itself evaluable, though; it doesn’t tell Bob how his attempt at a solution (the product) is incompatible with the outcome he wants (loyal customers). More feedback (additional customer churn) will not help him find the answer. For Bob to learn, he needs a window into how his customers interact with the software. This will show him where he can productively make changes to produce a better outcome. Otherwise he will just implement bad guesses until he gives up.

@C_Hendrick Gonna have to reread this thread a few times 😂

Working on instructional invariants today and the idea that evaluability is far more important than feedback. In fact, feedback is not an invariant at all.🧵

@PSkinnerTech Sent you a DM.

If this is you AND you have an extreme passion for education (K-12), DM me.

@EricJorgenson Relatedly, the answer to the question “Why are we here?” is “Because we haven’t died yet.” The reason we haven’t died yet is procreation.

Procreation is the meaning of life. Procreation distinguishes living (plants, animals, humans) not living (like rocks). The best answer we have so far to "What is our purpose?" is simply... "Procreation." The most obvious idea imaginable. Yet few seem to agree.

@BarryRoland19 “Okay, but I have to charge you for my day” is weak, apologetic, and apparently not true. Maybe next time he will find the courage to simply say “Great, that job will be $400.” Excessively detailed pricing looks like justification, and invites negotiation.

Me: hey mr. handyman, I’m going to need you for 3 hours of work Handyman: ok but I have to charge you for my day, $400 Me: no prob, here is my revised scope, which should take you 7-8 hours, for $400 Handyman: no that’s much more work

For less than $100 you can solve being interrupted in your home office forever.

@benjamincrozat A smart lock for my office door has been one of the best purchases of my entire life.

Dad developers. How can you even work at home when you have a kid and a pregnant wife who are always interrupting you? Yes, I have my own office. But it seems like they are mistaking it for a hallway or something.

"Scanning" is triggered by webcam motion.

1. Get one-way mirror from Amazon for $50 2. Place one-way mirror over any display 3. Open a fullscreen HTML document that pulls data from your preferred fitness tracker

I just read a review of one of my macOS apps, written by someone who never downloaded it. He was trying to to use a screenshot of the app, confusing the screenshot for the app itself. Unsurprisingly, he could not get it to work.

@gucaslelfond Exactly! Why not? You can just do things.

he goes ahead and rolls a new (very simple) UI called Magicbrake with LLMs. pretty interesting thought experiment; why not do this for every clunky OS interface (ffmpeg, qpdf, etc). 80% of people use 20% of the features!

keep thinking about @pixelrumination ‘s recent “Free software scares normal people.” why do open source projects have so many knobs!!

this note in the readme is also so good

@adriaandotcom Fixed! Thanks for the heads up. apps.apple.com/us/app/intenti…

@pixelrumination Cool, but can't buy from The Netherlands.

@adriaandotcom Sometimes you have to say no to feature requests, but my favorite is when you get to say “Yes, but not that way.” Like a kid who wants all his toys on the floor. Shelving will make everyone (including him) happier, but he doesn’t know that until he tries it.

Great write up! It might be an issue for FOSS, but it’s happening with so many tools. You need somebody that says no to a lot of users and feature request. And if you do listen to your users, you might end up doing lots of those. Until the point the tool does not solve the simple task anymore.

Free software scares normal people. The FOSS world is full of great tools that only have a “power user” UI. danieldelaney.net/normal/

Getting normies to use a command line be like "Just do ffmpeg -i file.webm file.mp4" "What does that mean?" "Paste that into your terminal." "My what?" "Open your Applications folder, open Terminal, and paste that text into it." "Now what?" "Press Enter." "It says zsh: command not found: Just"

@pixelrumination I've argued in the past this is a case where command line tools are easier to use than a complicated GUI. ffmpeg -i file.webm file.mp4 But this target audience isn't using the commandline anyway so your point remains valid.

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