Wednesday session

Monday session

If I were to photocopy this article, nobody would argue that my photocopier wrote it and therefore can think. But add enough convolutedness to the process, and it looks a lot like maybe it did and can.

In reality, all we’ve created is a bot which is almost perfect at mimicking human-like natural language use, and the rest is people just projecting other human qualities on to it. Quite simply, “LLMs are doing reasoning” is the “look, my dog is smiling” of technology. In exactly the same way that dogs don’t convey their emotions via human-like facial expressions, there’s no reason to believe that even if computer could think, it’d perfectly mirror what looks like human reasoning.

adactio.com/links/22087

Did a live server migration over the weekend, switching over DNS like…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gU35Tgtlmg

I was thinking about something I wrote yesterday when I was talking about styling underlines on links:

For a start, you can adjust the distance of the underline from the text using text-underline-offset. If you’re using a generous line-height, use a generous distance here too.

For some reason, I completely forgot that we’ve got a line-height unit in CSS now: lh. So if you want to make the distance of your underline proportional to the line height of the text that the link is part of, it’s easy-peasy:

text-underline-offset: 0.15lh;

The greater the line height, the greater the distance between the link text and its underline.

I think this one is going into my collection of CSS snippets I use on almost every project.

We shouldn’t rely on colour alone to indicate that something is interactive. Take links, for example. Sure, you can give them a different colour to the surrounding text, but you shouldn’t stop there. Make sure there’s something else that distinguishes them. You could make t...

I just found out that Stephanie “Steve” Shirley passed away.

She was an absolute hero to me.

Monday session

I was in Nor’n Irelan’ at the end of July for my annual week of Belfast Tradfest. It was the best one yet. Classes in the morning, sessions all day, and concerts in the evening. There were also some excellent events at Ulster University during the afternoons—talks, film sc...

This website is for humans, and LLMs are not welcome here.

Cosigned.

adactio.com/links/22081

Reading Bee Speaker by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Float like a bee, sting like a butterfly.

The last of the Apollo 8 crew is gone.

I’m somewhat obsessed with CMAT’s Euro Country. An opening verse in Irish and a blistering bridge that might single-handedly scupper Bertie Ahern’s presidential ambitions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SVNTv44C4g

Thursday session

There was a time when you needed to make a native app in order to take advantage of specific technologies. That time has passed. Now you can do all of these things on the web: push notifications, offline storage, camera access, and more. Take a look at the home screen o...

Wednesday session

The web is just people. Lots of people, connected across global networks. In 2005, it was the audience that made the web. In 2025, it will be the audience again.

adactio.com/links/22072

Tuesday session

I’m almost certainly preaching to the choir here because I bet you’re reading these very words in a feed reader, but what Molly White has written here is too good not to share:

RSS offers readers and writers a path away from unreliable, manipulative, and hostile platforms and intermediaries. In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder.

adactio.com/links/22070

When you vibe code, you are incurring tech debt as fast as the LLM can spit it out. Which is why vibe coding is perfect for prototypes and throwaway projects: It’s only legacy code if you have to maintain it!

The worst possible situation is to have a non-programmer vibe code a large project that they intend to maintain. This would be the equivalent of giving a credit card to a child without first explaining the concept of debt.

If you don’t understand the code, your only recourse is to ask AI to fix it for you, which is like paying off credit card debt with another credit card.

adactio.com/links/22069

• Building HTML pages is easy
• Pure HTML is evergreen
• Bloated web pages are too slow
• I can host it anywhere, often for free
• Accessibility and SEO benefits are automatic
• It won’t need security patches
• There are no build steps

adactio.com/links/22068

1. Install Stuff Indiscriminately From npm
2. Pick a Framework Before You Know You Need One
3. Always, Always Require a Compilation Step

adactio.com/links/22066

SPAs were a clever solution to a temporary limitation. But that limitation no longer exists.

Use modern server rendering. Use actual pages. Animate with CSS. Preload with intent. Ship less JavaScript.

adactio.com/links/22067

Monday session

Ceol sa cultúrlann i mBéal Féirste

Substack willingly platforms and allows bad actors to monetize, hate speech and misinformation.

Says who?

Here are some well-reasoned pieces on the subject for you to educate yourself and decide.

adactio.com/links/22063

Saturday afternoon session in Belfast

Táim i gaeltacht Bhéal Feirste!

Saturday morning session in Belfast