Mark Gardner

#AynRand’s original introduction to _The Virtue of Selfishness_ is now online—and it *directly contradicts* most of the claims people make about her #ethics. If your picture of Rand comes from social media threads, YouTube rants, or second-hand “hot takes,” this is the text that breaks the spell […]

Shave & haircut

The pitch is simple: **Read Atlas Shrugged. Win $100,000.** ## The Intellectual Olympics for Independent Thinkers The future belongs to those willing to examine the world independently and argue persuasively for the ideas they believe are true. The […] [Original post on mastodon.phoenixtrap.com]

Just some relaxing #music for a Sunday afternoon: * "Don't Know Why (First Sessions Demo)" by Norah Jones * "Sunset Lover" by Petit Biscuit * "Weightless" by Marconi Union * "Safe and Sound" by Dan Gibson's Solitudes * "Sanctuary" by Gabriel Stone * "Better Together" by Jack Johnson […]

@birb https://proton.me/blog/feed

Via @isotopp: 32.7 days of some form of #GitHub downtime in the past 170 days, as tracked by https://red-squares.cian.lol. No, it doesn’t include scheduled service windows. My self-hosted #Forgejo is looking better and better. #SoftwareEngineering #SoftwareDevelopment #OpenSource

#OpenClaw #AI users have sucked up all the cheap #Apple #Mac minis: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/05/01/mac-mini-pricing-shifts-599-config-disappears-from-apple-store

# The Reverend of Perdition Creek I've been developing #AI #roleplay chatbot characters for the past month. This one is entered in a 🏆 #GoldRush #botjam contest. **Please take five seconds and hit Nominate on her page_before April 30_. She needs 10 […] [Original post on mastodon.phoenixtrap.com]

The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.

Wrote up Anthropic's self-own about Claude Code pricing from this afternoon on my blog - it turned out they'd reversed course just as I hit publish, so I've tried to update it to reflect the current state https://simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/22/claude-code-confusion/

This week’s “Get Up!” #music #playlist: * "Land of Confusion" by Genesis * "Shock the Monkey" by Peter Gabriel * "You Might Think (2018 Remaster)" by The Cars * "Dragon Attack" by Queen * "Best I Can" by Rush * "I Don't Need Love" by Sammy Hagar * "Fire Woman" by The Cult * […]

Vague complaint du jour: Dear senior engineers, RESPOND TO YOUR PEERS. You are not wandering journeymen who can dip in and out of situations as your attention pleases.

This morning’s “Get Up!” #AppleMusjc #playlist: * "Neurotica" by Rush, from 'Roll the Bones (Remastered)' * "Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)" by Def Leppard, from 'Pyromania (Super Deluxe)' * "Big Generator" by Yes, from 'Big Generator' * "Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers" by ZZ Top, from 'Tres […]

Woohoo! Got my #AWS #Cloud Practitioner #Certification today! https://www.credly.com/badges/cb399784-86d6-4c05-80b5-e46baa615415/public_url #AmazonWebServices #AmazonCloud #CloudComputing

I wanted to share #AppleMusic playlists as plain text with others, so I wrote a simple #shortcut: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/d87571de0c4442e7935e5f392885c8fd #Apple #music #Shortcuts

Shiny! “#Firefly is getting an animated series featuring the original cast”: https://apple.news/A6fsBM_-zT4ad7tn7clWTyA

I figured something out this month that I've missed for 34 years. I've been measuring whether I'm "enough" as a person--whether the _chooser_ is adequate--rather than evaluating my _choices_. That's a category error. **There is no yardstick for myself qua myself.** Only for things I do. ## The […]

Hope is always foolish. If it wasn’t, we’d call it something else.

ffs The “Developer 16" MacBook Pro” that my employer sent me does not give me admin privileges and I am not in its `sudoers` file, so I cannot accept the license terms for #Apple’s #Xcode Command Line Tools, preventing me from running such basics as `git`. Also, #Docker Desktop for Mac is not […]

RE: https://flipboard.com/@lifehacker/the-latest-nufaafg0z/-/a-VcR7gyV5TVejAd8np_oZ7Q%3Aa%3A1938850876-%2F0 App-specific tabs and split views are a tacit failure of the windowing system UX.

With Butterflies.AI’s shutdown imminent, I’ve added a characters page to preserve the backstory and select images from the bots that I used to help develop my stories. There’s more #fiction coming. Butterflies’ shutdown hasn’t quieted my #writing muse. — @mjg

Here’s a question for the mind readers out there:

RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/116057449719856526 We face a similar issue at $work. The bean counters and governance sticklers only approve #Microsoft products like #Copilot, while #Claude Opus handily beats it in accuracy and productivity. Also, Copilot outside of #VSCode doesn’t […]

It’s 2026 and Bobby Tables is still alive and well. https://bobby-tables.com #InfoSec #CyberSecurity

Web developers, designers, builders: what do you want W3C to be doing differently? What change (if any) would you like to see? Asking for an Advisory Board.

We are excited to share that we are beginning work on a new onboarding experiment for #Mastodon: Default Server Recommendations. Our intent for this experiment is to recommend the closest server geographically that is in the correct language during the sign-up flow. We will be running this […]

“I don’t want to fight for the people. I don’t want to fight against the people. I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone—to live.” —Kira in _We the Living_ by #AynRand https://AynRand.org/novels/we-the-living/ https://a.co/cPFJWmR

RE: https://mastodon.social/@mjtsai/115968636207546964 #iOS 26.2.1 update froze before completing, necessitating a factory restore. Currently restoring my settings and content from an #iCloud backup. I do not recommend this update to #Apple #iPhone users.

RE: https://indieweb.social/@brentsimmons/115969608651031068 For those who are wondering, this is what happens when you scroll a list view in #macOS Finder to the left. Each entry's text becomes a blurry gray stripe to the left of the floating sidebar. It's terrible #UI.

Why we can't bring ICE and Border Patrol to justice: my @cato.org colleague @foxmike90.bsky.social explains how we got the artificial legal hurdles that make our constitutional rights almost unenforceable when federal agents like those occupying Minneapolis trample them underfoot.

TIL #PostgreSQL 16 and above has a level above the SUPERUSER role: the "bootstrap superuser," from whom you cannot revoke SUPERUSER privileges: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/glossary.html#GLOSSARY-BOOTSTRAP-SUPERUSER And since internal components may still refer to it by name or expect it […]

Having a conversation with Abby as her author: A: You give me hope. Do you think Celinda will ever find hers again? Me: I think… that you give Celinda hope. A: That's a beautiful thought. I've always felt the other way around. Me: That’s what […] [Original post on mastodon.phoenixtrap.com]

so it turns out that when VS Code asks you “do you trust the authors of this folder?” what they mean is that it’ll auto-execute .vscode/tasks.json if it exists, which can include shell commands. maybe that’s too many features. you can’t hold all these features. put a few features back

Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Ohm are in a car. They get pulled over. Heisenberg is driving, and the cop asks him, “Do you know how fast you were going?” “No, but I know exactly where I am,” Heisenberg replies. The cop says, “You were doing 55 in a 35.” Heisenberg throws up his hands and shouts […]

RE: https://flipboard.com/@thekenyeung/the-ai-economy-17smhmo1z/-/a-LHnN3atvQXantCUddii_aA%3Aa%3A214134022-%2F0 Today, in correlation isn’t causation news. #AI #MentalHealth

:ollie_cool: Ready for some retro gaming fun? Our newest Kickstarter is here: Ollie’s Arcade Expansion. Help us bring Ollie’s Arcade to the masses and add new games, including Frenzic, to the collection. 🕹️ Find out more and pledge your support […] [Original post on iconfactory.world]

I’ve got some racing geese for sale. Let me know if you want a quick gander. 🪿

Alert Gary Larson: Cow tools are real #FarSide #comics @ScienceAlert https://flipboard.com/@sciencealert/sciencealert-3mvdqjtaz/-/a-Bnrpa0z3TaG-CXvvEj8EcQ%3Aa%3A565656366-%2F0

Migrated my production #Mastodon instance from #Docker Desktop to #Colima. Plan: 90 minutes. Reality: 2.5 hours and 7 critical issues, including a Docker Hardened Images incompatibility nobody's documented yet. Here’s my #debugging story […]

Ceci n’est pas un RoundRect. #Apple #design #SteveLemay #iOS #iPadOS https://kjy.com/154 #macOS #Tahoe #LiquidGlass

👋🏻 Hi, I’m Mark—welcome! This is my #introduction. I’m a platform engineer pivoting from 30 years in #Perl to #Go, #Kubernetes, and #AWS. I write about systems thinking, career transitions, and production engineering at https://PhoenixTrap.com I’m an #Objectivist—principles aren’t aspirations […]

@threads How long before you quietly shutter your half-assed, barely promoted #Fediverse sharing, claiming that no one was using such a half-assed, barely promoted feature? #SocialMedia #Threads

It’s not a data breach, it’s a decentralized surprise backup. #InfoSec #cybersecurity