Mastodawn

Dawn Ahukanna

@dahukanna

1.7K Followers

747 Following

10.3K Posts

Software Alchemist - Turning base code into precious applications. Devsigner == 'Dev'eloper + De'signer'. Married to @Anni ❤️ 🏳️‍🌈. Pronouns == she/her.

Dawn Ahukanna 1d ago

Elisabeth Hendrickson 2d ago

I want to understand how often teams estimate bugs. I'm also curious about how it differs for teams that use points / velocity vs. time estimates. How does your team handle estimates and bugs? (And if you're willing please boost for reach -- I'm hoping to reach a broad cross-section of the industry.)

	We use points / velocity and DO point bugs
	We use points / velocity, but do NOT point bugs
	We do time estimates and DO estimate bugs
	We do time estimates, but do NOT estimate bugs

Poll ends at Sep 1 at 4:52am.

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

A gentle introduction to anchor positioning

Anchor positioning allows you to place an element on the page based on where another element is. It makes it easier to create responsive menus and tooltips with less code using only CSS. Here’s how it works.

Source: A gentle introduction to anchor positioning | WebKit

A gentle introduction to anchor positioning

Anchor positioning allows you to place an element on the page based on where another element is.

WebKit

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Ruth — of systems & em dashes Mar 25

Ironies of Automation, Lisanne Bainbridge, 1983

https://www.complexcognition.co.uk/2021/06/ironies-of-automation.html

Ironies of Automation

This paper discusses ways in which automation of industrial processes may expand rather than eliminate problems with the human operator. ...

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Ruth — of systems & em dashes 2d ago

“The only way to reconcile that is to drop the quality bar for outputs. But some executives think they’ve found a loophole: put the responsibility for correcting the LLM’s mistakes on the people who are mandated to use that LLM. This is being called “human in the loop” to reassure customers (who also know that AI constantly lies) that the final call is still being made by a qualified professional.”
— @PavelASamsonov

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/human-in-the-loop-is-a-thought-terminating-cliche

"Human in the loop" is a thought-terminating cliche

Without thoughtful guard rails, asking people to clean up after machines doesn't make machines better — it makes people worse.

The Product Picnic

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@timixretroplays See this recent thread: https://mathstodon.xyz/@andrewt/115040589464280735. The important thing is that you only need the middle fifth of each square. So I isolated those pixels and then manually drew the rest of the rectangles. Each black centre square ended up as part of the black grid or a blue rectangle, and each white centre square ended up as part of a white or yellow rectangle. The red rectangles were drawn only in the redundant spaces.

Andrew (@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz)

I've put this into a more user-friendly interface so you can make your own silly QR codes. (Watch out, they scan less well than regular QR codes so bear that in mind if you want to use one for anything important. Don't blame me if nobody who gets your flyer can visit your website.) https://www.andrewt.net/dithered-qr-codes/

Mathstodon

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

A working QR code in the style of Piet Mondrian. Inspired @divbyzero and @andrewt.

#Art #PietMondrian #QRCode

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

J. Nathan Matias 🦣2d ago

10 months ago, a company across the world put my neighbor's access to medical care at risk, giving us 2 weeks notice that software behind our 40 electric car chargers would be shut down.

This is the story of how my neighborhood broke free from this potential disaster.

https://natematias.com/portfolio/2025-08-22-unchaining-from-broken-software-tethers/

Escaping the chains of tethered products: the Juice Rescue project

How could a group of executives halfway across the world, with a single email, disrupt my community’s mobility, and what could we do about it?

J. Nathan Matias

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Listening with dismay at the post office today as a customer and two clerks tried to figure out what the customs duty would be on a package and how the recipient was supposed to pay it and where. No you can't pay it here, now. Maybe there wouldn't be any duty due, maybe it would be $28, maybe the'd get a notice? If the package was refused, maybe it would be sent back? No one really knows but there was pretty universal disgust at the government here for creating this mess.

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Iris van Rooij 💭2d ago

I would really like it if we could talk about AI without having to talk about LLMs. It is getting quite boring, especially since LLMs are distracting us from important and deep scientific questions.

Dawn Ahukanna 2d ago

Daniel P. Aldrich 3d ago

Natural hazards, tornado formation edition

×

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

A working QR code in the style of Piet Mondrian. Inspired @divbyzero and @andrewt.

#Art #PietMondrian #QRCode

Deborah Apthorp Aug 18

@andrewt @OscarCunningham @divbyzero OMG I need this in my life

@deboraha ...but it's already here.

Dave Richeson Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @andrewt Wow! I love it!

Rocketman Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt Super cool 🥰

Chtixof 🦊🚲🌻Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
Nice. Tested Ok. Now, missing an app to make that 😉

robinhouston Aug 18

@divbyzero @OscarCunningham @andrewt We should also tag @edemaine, who was the transitive inspiration.

@OscarCunningham I love it! Now do one that goes to Marlow Moss's wiki page 😁

robinhouston Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @andrewt @divbyzero This is a very clever idea!

Magnus Ahltorp Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
Sadly, it doesn’t conform to the QR specification. But I guess the specification doesn’t matter anymore, only Google’s and Apple’s implementations. Independent developers are not welcome to participate in society any longer.

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@ahltorp Do you mean just because it isn't a perfect grid of black and white squares? Or was there a specific additional mistake I made that makes this less compatible? But yeah I agree with you in general. I wouldn't use this for anything important. EDIT: Indeed, I would not use a QR code for anything important!

Magnus Ahltorp Aug 18

@OscarCunningham No, the quiet zone around the code is only half a module, and it should be two modules. The reason I wrote this reply is only because I read a post about Google just forcing “standardisation” upon other implementers the second before I read yours.

And I don’t hold you responsible at all, it’s just that “QR code” nowadays doesn’t mean that it follows the standard. The problem is Big Tech dictating everything.

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@ahltorp Yeah I didn't know about the quiet zone which is a shame because it would have been easy to embiggen the border. I'll remember it in future.

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt I... I understand how this works, but I don't understand why!? Plenty of those blocks aren't aligned to the QR grid. What's going on? How was this even made? This is art and I need to know everything there is to know about it.

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@timixretroplays See this recent thread: https://mathstodon.xyz/@andrewt/115040589464280735. The important thing is that you only need the middle fifth of each square. So I isolated those pixels and then manually drew the rest of the rectangles. Each black centre square ended up as part of the black grid or a blue rectangle, and each white centre square ended up as part of a white or yellow rectangle. The red rectangles were drawn only in the redundant spaces.

Andrew (@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz)

I've put this into a more user-friendly interface so you can make your own silly QR codes. (Watch out, they scan less well than regular QR codes so bear that in mind if you want to use one for anything important. Don't blame me if nobody who gets your flyer can visit your website.) https://www.andrewt.net/dithered-qr-codes/

Mathstodon

@OscarCunningham ohh, wow - so really only the middle ninth or so of a grid square really matters, the rest can be basically anything and it won't affect the result. That's brilliant. I guess it being a particularly large image on my screen helps with the clarity.

@dingens 6d ago

@OscarCunningham @timixretroplays very interesting. Do you have a screenshot of that step of the process? (Apart from my curiosity, I think it might be a great illustration of how the scanning works)

Oscar Cunningham 6d ago

@dingens This image reveals how it works. It's also scannable.

@dingens 6d ago

@OscarCunningham great!

@timixretroplays @OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt

This is a wonderful one, From what I can see the tracking points are there, (the black dotted lines between the big rectangles), so the scanner uses those to get the "grid" then since the right places are dark and light it does work out I guess we could overlay the grid and get out the right pieces. This is really cool though :D

Terence Eden Aug 18

@OscarCunningham That is gorgeous! Love it ❤️

shift/reset Aug 18

@OscarCunningham
That reminds me of when I wrote a procedural generator for mondrian style images using binary space partitioning.

My favourite was mond13.png — a completely blank image

Edit: scrubbing email from image

#procgen #PietMondrian

Daniel Bohrer Aug 18

@shift_reset FYI, editing doesn't work for censoring information after the fact since the original post is still available when you click on the timestamp. Delete-and-redraft might work better, but even then you cannot be sure that the original data is deleted on all other instances, or that users didn't already copy/save the old data locally…

shift/reset Aug 18

@daniel_bohrer I knew that previous versions of posts were retained, but for some reason it never occurred to me that this included attachments. So that's good to know for the future anyway.

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
I'd think that working depends on the scanner. One that uses red light will see a different image that one that uses blue light, and a grayscale one will see something different from either.

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@leeloo Yes, I'm relying on blue being dark enough to be detected as black, and yellow being light enough to count as white.

@OscarCunningham
That is probably true for a scanner using red light, maybe even gracscale.

And tl be fair, every barcode reader I have used (that wasn't a phone) has used red light, but they were all linear, not 2d.

@leeloo@chaosfem.tw @OscarCunningham@mathstodon.xyz

QRcodes are almost ever scanned either with a smartphone, or with a scanner that uses a camera that is also used in smartphones or has characteristics like a smartphone camera. Single color scanners are used with line codes (EAN, UPN). They do not use a camera at all, but a light source and a single photo-sensitive diode. It would not be possible to scan any (QR, AZTEC, Data Matrix, ...) code that uses rectangles/circles instead of lines.

Most cameras come with sensors for red, green and blue. That makes 8 "basic colors":

no sensor receives light = black

all 3 sensors receive light = white

red sensor receives light = red

green sensor receives light = green

blue sensor receives light = blue

red and green sensor receive light = yellow

red and blue sensor receive light = magenta

blue and green sensor receive light = cyan

QR software will work best, if only this 8 colors are used, and if they are used with maximum contrast (0x000000,0xFFFFFF,0xFF0000, ...).

The QR software will receive a picture from the camera then convert all pixels to either the value "1" or "0". The the software will try to parse this two-color-only image as valid QR code. It will try with the "1"-values representing black and if that does not work, it will try with the "0"-values representing black.

@Life_is @OscarCunningham
QR codes are from 1994. Smart phones weren't commonly available at the time.

That means that industrial QR scanners are not descendent from smart phones, but have their own technology that dates much further back. And while these probably use/used some kind of camera technology, there would be no point in upgrading to a more fragile color camera.

That being said, I can't find any information on what kind of camera was/is used.

@leeloo@chaosfem.tw @OscarCunningham@mathstodon.xyz Yes, the QRcode was designed to work with minimal computing resources and low quality cameras. But when it came in common use, this was with almost only smartphones (with much better cameras, with gigantic computing power (wrt the needs of QRcodes), and color cameras).

@Life_is @OscarCunningham
If you define "common use" as a bunch of kids suddenly thinking an old barcode is cool new toy, and ignore the billions of Toyota parts it was used for before, sure.

But if you want to discount everything I'm talking about, why reply to me in the first place?

@leeloo@chaosfem.tw

I am very sorry if you think i discount anything you say. Maybe you should simply ignore me?

I do not think that Toyota has ever used Design QR codes in the manufactoring process of their cars (even if the car in question was the limited Mondrian Edition of the Toyota Piet). However Design QR codes are used in ads in newspapers, in museums, and yes also by bunches of kids as a cool new toy. There is nothing wrong with that.

@OscarCunningham

@Life_is @OscarCunningham
QR codes were invented at Denso, for tracking their production of car parts. And they make a lot of Toyota parts.

@leeloo@chaosfem.tw @OscarCunningham@mathstodon.xyz

Yes. Denso was a part of Toyota and still is owned 25% by Toyota. Masahiro Hara at DensoWave developed the original QR code in 1994. Later Denso gave the original QR code into the public domain, so that it could become an ISO/IEC standard. Denso owns patents on extensions of the original QR code that are not part of the standard.

Among the extensions of the original QR code are MicroQR, Rectangular Micro QR, iQR, Secure QR, Frame QR, Design QR, and more.

Denso Automotive and Toyota use QR and possibly Extensions, but I do not think, that they use Design QR code in the production of cars.

@Life_is@no-pony.farm @OscarCunningham
Oh, so you are still ignoring my entire argument.

Well, on that case, it stops here.

(Bin ja schon neugierig, was Leeloo eigentlich wollte 🤷🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️. Leeloo hat mich vermutlich geblockt, warum auch immer?)

@OscarCunningham
If I may suggest a different approach...

Someone pointed out a few days ago (not sure if that was you, it would be a weird coincidence if two people in my feed are playing with QR codes a few days apart), that only the center of each square counts.

So you could draw the black lines such that they go through the black centers, leave the rectangles containing one or more white dots as white, and color the remaining rectangles (that would probably be the small ones).

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@leeloo Yes I did use the black lines for most of the black centres. I only used blue in a few places where it was more convenient. This image shows how I constructed things. You can see that I used more blue at the top and left because I started there and wasn't very experienced. By the end I think I could have done the whole thing without using blue for black.

hugovangalen 🤖 🕹️ 😼Aug 18

@OscarCunningham This is so cool!

@divbyzero @andrewt

Khleedril Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt It doesn't work for me.

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@khleedril Oh interesting! What setup were you using to scan it?

Khleedril Aug 18

@OscarCunningham Some generic barcode reader on Android.

Graeme 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt Brilliant! 😀

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt my phone's built-in camera app doesn't take the QR code very well and refused to scan it :(

Oscar Cunningham Aug 18

@Atirut Ah sorry about that. A good reminder not to play these kind of games with a QR code for anything important. Better yet, don't use a QR code for anything important!

Jernej Simončič �Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @Atirut I think part of the problem is that there's no white border around the edges. I had to lower the brightness before my phone picked it up (it defaulted to way too high brightness, which washed out nearly everything).

@OscarCunningham @andrewt @divbyzero amazing

Very cool! I wonder if it would be possible to make a [Piet programming language](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet) polyglot.

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt

Frank Engelhard Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
Checken it and it works!

blausand 🐟Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
OMG PLEEASE if you want to be creative, you are very welcome almost everywhere, happy Mondrialgorithming!
But folks, QR-codes are OPTIMIZED to be machine readable in difficult situations, bad light, flawy cameras, missing pixels.

Yes, even the Logo in the center ruins the intelligent idea of redundancy.
"Designing" a QR code basically tells everyboda that you are stupid.

Don't shoot the messenger.

@blausand You're being very rude! There's a big difference between posting this as a delightful proof of concept and actually deploying it on stickers out in the sun. Calling someone stupid for making this neat thing is not a pleasant or useful thing to do.

Chris Combs (he/him)Aug 18

@blausand @OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt Oh, I am definitely shooting the messenger. You are being quite rude. Blocking ya!

@blausand This is art, it's not made to work well.

blausand 🐟Aug 18

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt
Actually I am a fulltime artist - who happens to be upset by "designed" barcodes that don't work regularly. So I was speaking for the standard, somewhat rigorously.
All algorithms are beautiful.
Mondrian will never die.
Do some Vasarely Barcodes for remedy.
And yeah, just don't implement them for festival navigation 😆

Henry Wilkinson Aug 18

@blausand@chaos.social Don't shoot the messenger? You just told somebody they're stupid for the crime of... making art?

Anyone spending this much time to make a readable QR code is very much aware of how they're designed. Re-evaluate your behaviour.

Hackers needing a chuckle, join me:

Imma grab Monday morning coffee and watch @blausand get (deservedly) challenged on calling any artistic (ab)use of QR’s error-tolerance **stupid**.

Art & Hacking are utterly about not sticking to the spec.

A Mondrian-style QR provoking this comment is both art & hacking. 9.5/10, going full-points if given the needed white border.

@OscarCunningham @divbyzero @andrewt

blausand 🐟Aug 18

We warmheartedly welcome the White Border Fraction on the train 😅
Very funnily, the white border in art discussion had a prominent moment in my life long ago. And yes, of course I was Team Fullscreen in printed photography.

The hacker argument is full ack. To deepen the discussion, I really see the beauty of QR in it's purity & robustness, whereas it lacks potential as a media for art.

As said, it was me impersonating the QR standard, after bad practical experiences with designed QR codes.

@blausand ack? Gon’ go on the presumption that’s not a SYN/ACK networking thing but meaning “bad”. How so? Are you a hacker? Because ‘it works despite not following the docs’ is pretty much how we LIVE. And if this triggered emotion (lots of love, and your revulsion), that’s my personal rule for ‘when is something Art?’

Flip your mindset: sure, It ain’t pure QR or optimal to spec. But it’s cool that someone created a bit of art that (mostly) is parsed as a QR.

blausand 🐟Aug 19

@InkomTech
It was a SYN/ACK.
Also, yayah, doWhateverYouWant licence for your artwork; QR as canvas being a stupid idea relies on my personal, short experience, and this conclusio is based on aestetic and technical considerations.
If I help a niche phenomenon blooming, fine!

@InkomTech It's nice having servers like "chaos.social" (lol) blocked, and just seeing fragments of this thread :)

@golemwire I envy you this. That’s a nice vibe, and I regret engaging teh chaos.