Computers now work the way I thought they did when I was 8. What does computing look like when most applications have an audience of 1-2 people? I'm leaving Fly.io to build a phone for that world.
The Virtual OS Museum
Over 1,700 pre-installed operating systems spanning 1948 to today, in a single Linux VM. Bundled QEMU, VirtualBox, and UTM. One-click launchers for Windows and Linux.
Apple at 50: eight technology leaps that changed our world
From Apple II to the iPhone, time and again this extraordinary company has anticipated the value of opening up computing to everyone.
Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity.
The desktop computer hasn’t changed much in the last 30 years. It’s still built on windows, folders and mouse input. But we have changed. We now use smartphones and tablets most of the time, since they are much easier to use.The traditional desktop computer is struggling to adapt the simple interfaces of mobile devices while also keeping its focus on productivity. With people switching to mobile devices for mundane tasks, we have the opportunity to rethink the desktop computer with a focus on getting professional work done.
Scott Jenson: Are we really going to use the same Desktop UX forever?
The Era of Software Quality, or the Era of Ostriches?
Humans are bad at writing secure code, and GNOME developers are no exception. GNOME is primarily written using unsafe programming languages where simple mistakes in our code lead to devastating...
No Fork Required - Scott's Thoughts
What if another operating system isn't the solution to anything at all? What if device-level identity could tie into existing systems to help pull users out of walled gardens, rather than creating new gardens?
Is AI causing a repeat of Frontend’s Lost Decade? | Mastro Blog
AI is doing to programming what framework-brain did to the frontend before. Deskilling, or just working at a higher level of abstraction?
Augment
A collection of essays on the future of personal computing — specifically, on the kind we’d like to see more of in the future, and the ideas that might help us get there.
It's Time To Leave Microsoft
Contrary to what you might believe from the title, this article isn't published to try to convince you to leave Microsoft (although, if you are still on the fence, please continue reading the section below); instead of providing you with a paralyzing amount of dystopian information that is already available
Opinion | The A.I. Disruption Has Arrived, and It Sure Is Fun
We’re entering a new renaissance of software development. We should all be excited, despite the uncertainties that lie ahead.
Something Big Is Happening
A personal note for non-tech friends and family on what AI is starting to change.
Calm Technology
Bits flowing through the wires of a computer network are ordinarily invisible. But a radically new tool shows those bits through motion, sound, and even touch. It communicates both light and heavy network traffic. Its output is so beautifully integrated with human information processing that one does not even need to be looking at it or near it to take advantage of its peripheral clues. It takes no space on your existing computer screen, and in fact does not use or contain a computer at all. It uses no software, only a few dollars in hardware, and can be shared by many people at the same time. It is called the "Dangling String".
I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux.
Since Android is becoming increasingly more locked down and slopped, I'm jumping ship.
Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It
In the era of A.I. agents, many Silicon Valley programmers are now barely programming. Instead, what they’re doing is deeply, deeply weird.
psf (@psf@oldbytes.space)
In their article ["Malleable Software"](https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software), Ink & Switch list various ways that modern software applications fail to serve the user: - Software is too rigid: users can’t tailor it to suit their workflow, except by entering the role of programmers. - Software applications are overspecialized "avocado slicers", not general tools like "knives", so their lack of tailorability is keenly felt. - Software doesn’t provide a reasonable learning curve from beginner to expert; in other words, time spent learning an application doesn’t unlock tailorability, instead the end user must learn an unrelated skill like a markup/scripting language or even the tool’s implementation language. - Software applications are increasingly siloed, so sharing data between apps, let alone orchestrating cross-app workflows, is overly difficult. These are real problems. From what I can tell, Ink & Switch are software researchers, and view the problems from a highly technical perspective, focusing on novel infrastructure that enables end-user programmability. They pose questions such as "how do we ease users into programming?" and "instead of shipping a dead, static binary, can we ship a living image containing programming tools allowing it to be modified in arbitrary ways while still running?" These ideas are technologically exquisite, but they fail to provide a gentle learning curve. (cont'd) 🧵
How the small web is creating an anti-slop internet
What is the small web? A new crop of platforms are answering algorithmic fatigue with a return to human-curated basics.
