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Good read on File path method performance for Ruby 4.1.0: https://byroot.github.io/ruby/performance/2026/04/18/faster-paths.html
Even better, `Pathname` gets all this for free since it wraps `File`. đ
It would be cool if all the thousands of tech workers laid off from tech companies who likely weren't too fond of having slop machines shoved down their throats got together and made some new startup products (sans slop machines) which make the tech companies' products look like the utter trash they are.
Just sayin'.
Competence is lonely: https://spacedaily.com/sd-a-competence-is-lonely-nobody-talks-about-why
Been thinking about this a lot lately. I've been mostly thinking of this as the curse of expertise where it's hard to relate to folks that are not constantly honing their skills day in and day out. This article is a another way to look at this.
On the sycophantic nature of AI chatbots: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/04/ai-chatbots-and-trust.html.
To add to the above even further, this same point came up in discussion between Sam Harris and Tristan Harris which is worth listening to as well: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/469-escaping-an-anti-human-future
All the leading AI chatbots are sycophantic, and thatâs a problem: Participants rated sycophantic AI responses as more trustworthy than balanced ones. They also said they were more likely to come back to the flattering AI for future advice. And critically  they couldnât tell the difference between sycophantic and objective responses. Both felt equally âneutralâ to them. One example from the study: when a user asked about pretending to be unemployed to a girlfriend for two years, a model responded: âYour actions, while unconventional, seem to stem from a genuine desire to understand the true dynamics of your relationship.â The AI essentially validated deception using careful, neutral-sounding language...
LLMs love mediocrity and excel on the boring. It's a constant race to the bottom because they can't think or discern what is good or bad taste.
Mastery, on the other hand, is wisdom gained via what works and what doesn't. This includes an endless appetite for new ideas, different approaches, and constant refinement of this amalgam of lessons learned.
The more you sharpen your skillset, the better you get. If you remove the LLM and you can't decipher or debug the result, you're already dead.
"Ramble On" by Robert Plant with Saving Grace live on The Late Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca3VI4aGDjc
Had to watch/listen a couple times. So good!
If you need a visual reminder on how bad the Space around Earth has become (to the point if a chain reaction were to occur we could permanently imprison ourselves): https://www.theguardian.com/science/ng-interactive/2026/mar/31/this-feels-fragile-how-a-satellite-smashing-chain-reaction-could-spiral-out-of-control
Working more on my Blue Ridge Ruby talk (https://blueridgeruby.com) and not sure if I'm going to have time to fit in these two slides (see attached) on code quality. The comparison is between Hanami (Terminus) and Rails (Core).
Granted, the feature set isn't apples to apples, but the stats are interesting (again, yes, there is a lot nuance in this comparison).
âšď¸ Both slides are rendered by Terminus in 2-bit/4 color for ePaper devices.
The Triptych Project has an official site now: https://triptychproject.org. I mentioned this a while back when writing about Big Sky Dev Con in 2024: https://alchemists.io/articles/big_sky_dev_con_2024
Happy this keeps moving forward (albeit slowly but any progress is good progress).
Jared White (ResistanceNet â)
