Mastodawn

I did think $10/month was a bit too good to be true. I don't feel good about a future where developer productivity is a function of which LLM you can afford to subscribe to, but also even Microsoft seem to be struggling to make the numbers work to make it a sustainable business.

Ben Francis 3h ago

Typical that in the week I finally caved and paid for a Copilot Pro subscription after getting hooked by the Opus models in their free trial, GitHub removes Opus models from the Pro subscription. I guess I will have to start using my brain again. https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/changes-to-github-copilot-individual-plans/

Changes to GitHub Copilot Individual plans

We're making these changes to ensure a reliable and predictable experience for existing customers.

The GitHub Blog

Ben Francis Mar 25

Very excited at the prospect of the Web Thing Protocol joining a standards track at the W3C, as the "WoT Thing Protocol". This would be the next step towards standardising a universal web-based application layer protocol for the Web of Things. #WoT #IoT https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-thing-protocol/2026Mar/0001.html

Ben Francis Mar 23

A reminder that whilst countries fight reckless wars and set fire to gas fields and oil refineries, our climate is being pushed beyond its limits. Humans living on the surface are only experiencing 1% of the dangerous global heating. #ClimateCrisis https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/23/earth-being-pushed-beyond-its-limits-as-energy-imbalance-reaches-record-high

Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high

State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat

The Guardian

Ben Francis Mar 22

My microblogging is split across Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky. Twitter (I refuse to use its porn name) is full of vitriol, Mastodon is all geeks and Bluesky feels like a political bubble. Conversations feel fragmented, engagement is rock bottom and it's just not the same.

I feel like if we could just settle on one protocol (or at least bridge to the extent that it doesn't matter), bringing Mastodon and Bluesky together could really help.

Ben Francis Mar 21

Daniel Appelquist Mar 20

Yes, but is it the web?

What is the web? I’ve been working in the web since the beginning of the web, and I co-chaired the W3C Technical Architecture Group for over a decade, so you think I might be able to answer this simple question. Some think anything you can do “in the browser” is the web and anything that happens outside the browser (such as in a native app) isn’t the web. However, you can have very non-webby experiences in the browser and likewise apps can sometimes be very webby. I think the web […]

https://www.torgo.com/blog/2026/03/yes-but-is-it-the-web.html

Yes, but is it the web? – Dan's Blog

Ben Francis Mar 17

I've been working on the first time setup for @krellian Hub, which involves creating a temporary Wi-Fi hotspot and captive portal, before connecting to another Wi-Fi network.

It turns out that not even Claude can figure out how to use the NetworkManager DBus API. 😩

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Ben Francis Mar 17

I'm afraid to say this led to an hours-long debate with Gemini about the "right" way to implement MVC, where the LLM kept contradicting itself and going round in circles. It reached the point where it was literally saying one thing and then doing the opposite in its example code.

Ben Francis Mar 17

I recently found myself writing a desktop app, and realised that for the first time in my career I could actually implement the Model View Controller design pattern as it was originally intended (as opposed to the disjointed approximations we use in web apps).

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Ben Francis Mar 5

I explain how I think we can put the “web” back in the “Web of Things” with a universal web-based application layer protocol, enabling an open ecosystem of IoT web services which weave together the rich tapestry of the IoT rather than cementing the current fragmented landscape.

Home page	https://tola.me.uk
Twitter	@bfrancis