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The online home of Jeremy Keith, an author and web developer living and working in Brighton, England.

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Scrappy: make little apps for you and your friends

pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/

I really like the thinking behind this project:

We believe computers should work for people, and dream of a future where computing, like cooking or word processing, is available to everyone. Where you can solve your own small, unique problems with small, unique apps. Where you don’t just rely on mass-market apps made by expert programmers. Where you share home-made little apps with family and friends.

Scrappy is our contribution to this dream.

adactio.com/links/21951

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Stronger Design Principles Start with One Question: ‘Versus What?’

mynameisjehad.com/stronger-design-principles/

In order for principles to truly drive the work and serve as a good framework for the outcomes, they have to be debated, opinionated, and painful.

Yes! Design principles aren’t there to make you feel good; they should provoke arguments.

One of the tests that I’ve developed in thinking through writing down principles, design or otherwise, is to ask the question: “versus what?”.

adactio.com/links/21941

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Toolmen | A Working Library

aworkinglibrary.com/writing/toolmen

Engaging with AI as a technology is to play the fool—it’s to observe the reflective surface of the thing without taking note of the way it sends roots deep down into the ground, breaking up bedrock, poisoning the soil, reaching far and wide to capture, uproot, strangle, and steal everything within its reach. It’s to stand aboveground and pontificate about the marvels of this bright new magic, to be dazzled by all its flickering, glittering glory, its smooth mirages and six-fingered messiahs, its apparent obsequiousness in response to all your commands, right up until the point when a sinkhole opens up and swallows you whole.

👏👏👏

adactio.com/links/21939

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Ensloppification – David Bushell – Web Dev (UK)

dbushell.com/2025/05/30/ensloppification/

Frankly, I’d rather quit my career than live in the future they’re selling. It’s the sheer dystopian drabness of it. Mediocrity as a service.

I tried the tab-completion slot machines; not my cup of tea. I tried image generation and was overcome with literal depression. I don’t want a future as a “prompt artist”.

I’m mostly linking this for what it says, but oh boy, do I love the way it says it with this wonderful HTML web compenent.

adactio.com/links/21940

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The Who Cares Era | dansinker.com

dansinker.com/posts/2025-05-23-who-cares/

AI is, of course, at the center of this moment. It’s a mediocrity machine by default, attempting to bend everything it touches toward a mathematical average. Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don’t care, it’s miraculous.

In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.

In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.

adactio.com/links/21936

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Uses

I don’t use large language models. My objection is to using them is ethical. I know how the sausage is made. I wanted to clarify that. I’m not rejecting large language models because they’re useless. They can absolutely be useful. I just don’t think the usefulness outweighs...

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Keeping up appearances | deadSimpleTech

deadsimpletech.com/blog/keeping_up_appearances

Looking at LLM usage and promotion as a cultural phenomenon, it has all of the markings of a status game. The material gains from the LLM (which are usually quite marginal) really aren’t why people are doing it: they’re doing it because in many spaces, using ChatGPT and being very optimistic about AI being the “future” raises their social status. It’s important not only to be using it, but to be seen using it and be seen supporting it and telling people who don’t use it that they’re stupid luddites who’ll inevitably be left behind by technology.

adactio.com/links/21930

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Tools

One persistent piece of slopaganda you’ll here is this: “It’s just a tool. What matters is how you use it.” This isn’t a new tack. The same justification has been applied to many technologies. Leaving aside Kranzberg’s first law, large language models are the very antithe...