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I’ve been watching junior developers use AI coding assistants well. Not vibe coding—not accepting whatever the AI spits out. Augmented coding: using AI to accelerate learning while maintaining quality. [...] The juniors working this way compress their ramp dramatically. Tas...

I wrote about JustHTML yesterday - Emil Stenström's project to build a new standards compliant HTML5 parser in pure Python code using coding agents running against the comprehensive html5lib-tests testing library. Last night, purely out of curiosity, I decided to try porting...

2025 Word of the Year: Slop

Slop lost to "brain rot" for Oxford Word of the Year 2024 but it's finally made it this year thanks to Merriam-Webster!

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen slop as the 2025 Word of the Year. We define slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”

Tags: definitions, ai, generative-ai, slop, ai-ethics

Today's links Break up bad companies; replace bad union bosses: Labor should be fixed, capital should be vanquished. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: "Star Island"; "Mediactive"; Afraid of solar; Well-Armed Peasants; Dumpster fire exits; Wikipedia v...

Knowing when the compiler can't optimise is important too

Chris Coyier: There’s the thing where if you’re reading an article in the newspaper, and it’s about stuff you don’t know a ton about, it all seems well and good. Then you read another article in the same paper and it’s about something you know intimately (your job, your nei...

programming isn't a competition

Software ate the world. Agents are going to eat SaaS.

I recently came across JustHTML, a new Python library for parsing HTML released by Emil Stenström. It's a very interesting piece of software, both as a useful library and as a case study in sophisticated AI-assisted programming. First impressions of JustHTML I didn't initial...

When aliasing can prevent loop-invariant code motion

Last Thursday, 11th of December, saw the launch of the new Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium. In attendance were delegations from the launching member states (and the observers). Also present were the many forefathers (and mothers) of this initiative. Of particular note, the launch also included demonstrations of LaSuite software from France, as well as the OpenDesk software from Germany. The Dutch government showcased their amalgamated suite MijnBureau, which joins parts of the German and French initiatives.

Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry Brian Merchant has been collecting personal stories for his series AI Killed My Job - previously covering tech workers, translators, and artists - and this latest piece includes anecdotes from 12 professional copywriters...

In the 1980s, the dead space between our television programs was filled with… a clock.

Today's links Federal Wallet Inspectors: Does tech *really* move too fast to regulate? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Soda can Van de Graff; Amazon rents a copy of the web; Boardgame Remix Kit; No furniture photos please we're British; Youtube vs ...

If the part of programming you enjoy most is the physical act of writing code, then agents will feel beside the point. You’re already where you want to be, even just with some Copilot or Cursor-style intelligent code auto completion, which makes you faster while still leavi...

The compiler can move code outside of loops to speed things up

How to use a skill (progressive disclosure):

1. After deciding to use a skill, open its SKILL.md. Read only enough to follow the workflow.
2. If SKILL.md points to extra folders such as references/, load only the specific files needed for the request; don't bulk-load everything.
3. If scripts/ exist, prefer running or patching them instead of retyping large code blocks.
4. If assets/ or templates exist, reuse them instead of recreating from scratch.

Description as trigger: The YAML description in SKILL.md is the primary trigger signal; rely on it to decide applicability. If unsure, ask a brief clarification before proceeding.

— OpenAI Codex CLI, core/src/skills/render.rs, full prompt

Tags: skills, openai, ai, llms, codex-cli, prompt-engineering, rust, generative-ai

Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️

Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it. I hope this is true. They say they’ll call me back tomorrow, on 15 December 2025. In the mean time, it’s been covered by Daring Fireball, Apple Insider, Michael Tsai, and others, thanks folks! I’ve received 100s of emails of support, and will reply to you all in time, thank you. Finger’s crossed Apple calls back.

One of the things that most excited me about Anthropic's new Skills mechanism back in October is how easy it looked for other platforms to implement. A skill is just a folder with a Markdown file and some optional extra resources and scripts, so any LLM tool with the ability...

The sheer scope of cybercrime can be hard to fathom, even when you live and breathe it every day. It's not just the volume of data, but also the extent to which it replicates across criminal actors seeking to abuse it for their own gain, and to our