I’m more excited about what the Frame means for Steam on ARM Linux. In a year or two, third-party ARM handhelds may be amazing — provided the DRAM cartel gets sorted out, one way or another.
(If you haven’t checked out Armada, it gives a glimpse of what the future might hold.)
And/or trying to use the cash to buy a technical/regulatory moat.
Idk what form that would take for memory, but it’s a pretty standard tactic for big tech, so I could see them convincing themselves it’s possible even if it’s not.
Doing so would expose the lie at the heart of the neoliberal proposition — that if we gave up our dignity as workers, we would regain it ten times over as consumers.
If you have to do gig work on top of your two conventional jobs, but you still have to be frugal? Well, then it starts to seem like maybe workers sold their rights away for nothing.
The 99% doesn’t want to believe that. But more than that, the 1% really doesn’t want the 99% to believe that.
You’re not wrong. But you’re also not going to see Americans change their thinking on that anytime soon.
I won’t begrudge anyone their definition of art, because it’s an extremely slippery concept.
But I do think it’s worth pointing out that there are clearly at least two rather different notions of art: one as a product with value that rich people like to buy and trade, and one as a behavior that all human beings perform. I don’t think the latter category has any inherent “elevation” to it, the way the former does.
And also that having a utilitarian specific practical purpose doesn’t automatically prohibit it from being art, in most popular conceptions of the term. Some of the earliest artifacts that are widely considered art were primarily utilitarian: cups, bowls, and other tools.
If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking. -Leslie Lamport
Regarding the rest:
It seems like he’s really only arguing that some programming is art. I’d argue that nearly all programming is art. And that all art is political. Therefore, nearly all programming is a political act.
I think that framing does a better job of explaining why some devs are not merely indifferent to AI coding but view it as a threat to the future of computing. But the author seems to be pro-AI, so I don’t think he can really put himself in that headspace.
Edit:
I was just reflecting on how exactly programming is an art form, and I related it back to the way I usually explain how games are art.
In a game, unlike in a book or a movie, you don’t just witness what’s “supposed to happen” — you can personally interject and ask “what if this happened instead?” By offering you the ability to actively inspect the game’s world from any angle you choose, it can create a deeper sense of the shape of the elements and themes of the game.
Code is similar. Any non-trivial chunk of code invites dozens of “what if?” questions, and the way the author chooses to handle each of those scenarios expresses some kind of philosophy about how the world should be. (Not just what the code currently does, but how it encourages or discourages certain kinds of edits.) These scenarios often have mutually-exclusive options, so it’s not possible to do the “proper” thing in all conditions. Trade-offs are inevitable, and so the code becomes a window to the values of the coder.
I think that part right there is why there’s such a gap between open source sentiments toward AI and enterprise adoption of AI. For FOSS code, the esoteric behavior of the edge cases of a subsystem’s subsystem is not a chore but a moral test.
In a megacorp though? The answer the corp wants is “whatever everyone else does”, or “whatever maximizes revenue”, or “whatever minimizes liability”. You kinda know the morality of the biz before you even consider the specific question. It’s not surprising, it’s not interesting, and delegating to a chatbot whose morals run on autotune doesn’t change much.
It is still art, and it is still political… but it’s Walmart home decor aisle art, and the politics of a Coke ad.
"The United States has a strong interest in this court rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law" based on concerns including scientific advancement and national security, the brief said.
Lmao, it’s not even “they didn’t break the law”, it’s “I’d be real sad if you called them out on it”.
Oh come on.
NPR’s goal is not mass surveillance. Their goal is to stay employed.
Which is really only possible by playing the role of court jester for the folks whose goal is mass surveillance.
So you see, it’s totally different. Except for the ways in which it produces an indistinguishable outcome.
See, normal people go “How do I live my life such that nobody wants to kill me?”
CEOs go “So obviously a lot of people are gonna want to kill me. How do I make sure their bullets kill someone else?”
Mobile: Orion
Work laptop: Chrome (mandatory)
Everything else: Firefox
In the context of Omarchy, the salient desire is to avoid affiliation with fascists. Which NixOS hasn’t exactly excelled at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NixOS#Community_controversy
(I say this as someone whose main laptop, desktop, and homelab are all NixOS.)
Everyone’s life works differently. Let them enjoy themselves.
I’m more excited about what the Frame means for Steam on ARM Linux. In a year or two, third-party ARM handhelds may be amazing — provided the DRAM cartel gets sorted out, one way or another.
(If you haven’t checked out Armada, it gives a glimpse of what the future might hold.)
And/or trying to use the cash to buy a technical/regulatory moat.
Idk what form that would take for memory, but it’s a pretty standard tactic for big tech, so I could see them convincing themselves it’s possible even if it’s not.
FCC approval is probably the most viable moat.
Doing so would expose the lie at the heart of the neoliberal proposition — that if we gave up our dignity as workers, we would regain it ten times over as consumers.
If you have to do gig work on top of your two conventional jobs, but you still have to be frugal? Well, then it starts to seem like maybe workers sold their rights away for nothing.
The 99% doesn’t want to believe that. But more than that, the 1% really doesn’t want the 99% to believe that.
You’re not wrong. But you’re also not going to see Americans change their thinking on that anytime soon.
I won’t begrudge anyone their definition of art, because it’s an extremely slippery concept.
But I do think it’s worth pointing out that there are clearly at least two rather different notions of art: one as a product with value that rich people like to buy and trade, and one as a behavior that all human beings perform. I don’t think the latter category has any inherent “elevation” to it, the way the former does.
And also that having a utilitarian specific practical purpose doesn’t automatically prohibit it from being art, in most popular conceptions of the term. Some of the earliest artifacts that are widely considered art were primarily utilitarian: cups, bowls, and other tools.
Also, a good excuse to share this excellent piece: Tomatoes, or How Not To Define “Art”
Regarding the last paragraph:
Regarding the rest:
It seems like he’s really only arguing that some programming is art. I’d argue that nearly all programming is art. And that all art is political. Therefore, nearly all programming is a political act.
I think that framing does a better job of explaining why some devs are not merely indifferent to AI coding but view it as a threat to the future of computing. But the author seems to be pro-AI, so I don’t think he can really put himself in that headspace.
Edit:
I was just reflecting on how exactly programming is an art form, and I related it back to the way I usually explain how games are art.
In a game, unlike in a book or a movie, you don’t just witness what’s “supposed to happen” — you can personally interject and ask “what if this happened instead?” By offering you the ability to actively inspect the game’s world from any angle you choose, it can create a deeper sense of the shape of the elements and themes of the game.
Code is similar. Any non-trivial chunk of code invites dozens of “what if?” questions, and the way the author chooses to handle each of those scenarios expresses some kind of philosophy about how the world should be. (Not just what the code currently does, but how it encourages or discourages certain kinds of edits.) These scenarios often have mutually-exclusive options, so it’s not possible to do the “proper” thing in all conditions. Trade-offs are inevitable, and so the code becomes a window to the values of the coder.
I think that part right there is why there’s such a gap between open source sentiments toward AI and enterprise adoption of AI. For FOSS code, the esoteric behavior of the edge cases of a subsystem’s subsystem is not a chore but a moral test.
In a megacorp though? The answer the corp wants is “whatever everyone else does”, or “whatever maximizes revenue”, or “whatever minimizes liability”. You kinda know the morality of the biz before you even consider the specific question. It’s not surprising, it’s not interesting, and delegating to a chatbot whose morals run on autotune doesn’t change much.
It is still art, and it is still political… but it’s Walmart home decor aisle art, and the politics of a Coke ad.
Learning How to Smile, by Everclear
No no, ==3
See, communism is when bread lines. And America doesn’t communism.
Lmao, it’s not even “they didn’t break the law”, it’s “I’d be real sad if you called them out on it”.
I mean, there is some historical precedent for the tactic of forcing authoritarians to look silly if they try to arrest you:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand-2/#autodisparagement
And my kink is karma.
Code is a liability. The only thing that balances it out is people who understand the code. The people are the asset.
If you contribute LLM-generated code but not your understanding, you’ve essentially taken out a loan in the maintainers’ names.
“The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.”
Over the past 5 years or so, I have really come to despise the phrase “just a tool”.
Has there been “slave” anywhere for a while? The last time I can think is PATA, which is ancient by now.
It seems like most (all?) uses of “master” these days are in the sense of a “master copy”, which doesn’t really have a “master/slave” dynamic to it.