Category: Technology

How AI slows me down

Last night I was working on this site, and wanted to change the banner at the top of the page to be more inkeeping with the rest of the site, I wanted a pixellated sky towards the top (which I’m still not 100% happy with), so after creating a gradient in Aseprite1, I loaded up the CSS file of this site in Visual Studio Code, as part of the project.

I use VS Code to do all my coding. I love the tool, it just works, but lately I’ve noticed the AI Code completions picking up a lot more hallucinations. Here’s one that was suggested to me last night.

Notice on line 160 the AI Code Completion the line suggests the background image to be a file that doesn’t exist.

You can see the image within the “images” folder of the theme called top-bar-background.webp, but the AI Code completion suggested the file to be top-bar-bg.webp. It was late, I’m developing my cold, and it’s my site – so I accepted it, without proper checks and uploaded it.

It didn’t work.

Now there is the point where AI proponents should say “It’s AI! You should check this”, but here’s the thing – I really shouldn’t. Copilot already has access to my theme and file library. Surely a “check if that file exists” with the returned data should be done? You don’t need AI. There’s a function in most modern languages, here’s PHP’s for example. Surely AI can check if a bloody file exists?

Other AI proponents will say “Cursor (for example) won’t do this”, but that’s my point. Cursor is built on VS Code, but there’s probably some weird quirks that are different that I would have to learn.

That friction adds time, and slows me down.

And that’s me as an 20+ year developer who can spot things. I shudder to think what those who blindly vibe code miss.

  1. Aseprite is one of those programs that really should be three times the cost, it does one thing and one thing very well. I’ve never glided through a graphics program like it before. ↩︎

Whimsical Website, Grumpy Webmaster

If you visited the site on the last post, you’ll notice that the site has had a bit of a makeover. Or a makedown.

I’ve talked about Ana Rodrigues’ talk at Loopconf before, on how personal websites should make a comeback. It was inspiring. So inspiring that I spent a good 20 hours wrestling with Twenty Fifteeen to make it a bit more modern behind the scenes. I think I’ve succeeded, and it plays well with the block editor. Were nearly there. Gaps still don’t work, for example. And there’s a bug list.

The joy of web crafting

Could I have done it faster? Sure. but here’s the thing, I had fun. Every evening for a few hours I listened to BBC Radio 3 Unwind with a Bird and Blend tea and crafted. Crafting is fun. Doing pixel art with Aseprite is fun. Building and creating is fun, and this was a fun project that I dedicated my evenings to for a couple of weeks. My blood pressure dropped. I relaxed. I zoned out. And I created this.

Sure it’s a bit creaky, the same way the bathroom lock I installed wiggles a bit. It is dated, but so are my curtains. This site is my home on the internet. I want to make it homely. Sure it’s not the nicest, or the one that sells my skills the best. But the displays in Ikea are designed to sell the product, not live in. This is my home. It is mine. It is unique1. I also wasn’t wrestling with AI prompts2 and getting angry at creating something soulless.

Go Explore!

I also recently ticked off another 50 of my 50 list – I went to The Cave. One of the things that does so well is that you’re encouraged to explore, pick up, interact, read, play, and just discover things. I want a similar experience to that here. I am fighting with attention with everything else on the internet. I want to make this website a joyful experience that makes you smile. To encourage discovery of the whimsical web. My Trello board is bursting with idea. When will they get implemented? I dunno, but there’s a few here already. Go and explore! Things may appear in the upcoming weeks! Come back!

I want this website to do that as a love letter to internet culture. I also will try and blog more. I have enjoyed it. Though I’ve found myself becoming more grumpy at the state of the internet, with AI, and enshittification. I am reminded how things were. Were things perfect? No. But they were better. I want a place where I can be grumpy online. After all, I am a white middle aged man on the internet. Of course I have opinions. I want to share them with the world. So whilst the site may be whimsical, the posts may be a bit grumpy.

So this the new layout of my site, hopefully for the next wee while. Where I’m probably going to post a lot of grumpy posts. Hope you like it!

  1. As much as a Twenty Fifteen child theme can be, obviously. ↩︎
  2. For full disclosure I used one piece of AI on the site – I wireframed the structure of me stealing a traffic cone, because I struggle with drawing humans that look somewhat realistic. The colouring and shading was done by me – this video is a great guide to get into pixel art, by the way. ↩︎

A Full Circle Reaction

One of the highlights of my year is Play Expo – a weekend away in Blackpool that has a bunch of retro and modern video games. It’s pretty much the same every year: arcade machines as you walk in, trading hall to the left, pinball machines to the right, home consoles towards the back along with the main stage. Play Expo has a familiarity to it, which makes it a must attend every year for me. If only to see the same faces every year.

The traders hall is often a place I go for a wander. Not straight away, as it’s hectic, but towards the middle afternoon on Saturday it dies down a bit and you get to check out the trading hall, have a bit of a chat and just generally have a better buying experience. You feel less pressured as you check through the boxes on the floor (which – as somebody who has dropped 3 stone in the past year – is a lot more easier experience on the knees).

One such place is The Gaming Newsagent – a long time attendee that started as SegaMags, but branched out into all such other magazines. It was in one of these boxes and a bit of time for exploring I found this magazine. St Format issue 70, from May 1995. An immediate buy. When I said immediate, I meant immediate. I never bothered looking through the rest.

So what was so special? This small PD Game on the cover disk, Chain Reaction. A simple addictive game I played so much and stuck with me for a while. Here whas what was written about it.

CHAIN REACTION BY: Stephen Taylor and Colin Whitehead MACHINES: All STs FALCON-COMPATIBLE: No MEMORY REQUIRED: 512K RESOLUTION: Low UNCOMPRESSED SIZE: 152K Getting started You must dearchive Chain Reaction to the root directory of a blank disk (it isn't hard-drive compatible). The MENU program does this automatically for you. About the program Chain Reaction is a thoroughly absorbing strategy game, which sees up to six players (human, ST or both) competing to ensure their atoms are the last left on the playing board. You take it in turns to place atoms on a grid, but each cell, depending on whether it is a corner, side or middle cell, can hold only a certain number of atoms before reaching critical and exploding outwards. In this explosion, the affected atoms explode one atom into each adjacent cell. If your opponents' atoms are in that cell, they become your atoms (they change colour) and if that cell now becomes critical it also explodes outwards. This results in some catastrophic chain reactions that can wipe other players from the board completely. And it's shareware Chain Reaction features colourful graphics and neat little sound samples to give it real atmosphere. Full instructions on how to set up the game are contained in the REACTION.DOC file, where you'll also find a justifiable plea to register the program for £5. If you want more games of this quality on your Atari, you'd do well to respond. (Caption next to the screenshot of the game grid:) Chain Reaction offers multi-player action that'll knock your socks off (before blowing you off the board).
Chain Reaction from ST Format Issue 70 (image taken from Atari Mania)

If you followed me online for a while, you’d know that this sounds a lot like a game I made. Gone Fission! was inspired by Chain Reaction (and a thousand other PD games, I’ve got an article in my drafts where I talk about all different versions of the game and everything cool that has happened post launch. This is another of those things to add to that post, in a fun coincidence.

Anyway, weird kind of full circle on a side project that dominated this year.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

I see that AOL has ended it’s dial-up service after 30 years with barely a whimper. I think the first times I explored the internet was on AOL sometimes in the early 2000s, usually playing Slingo or downloading Quake Maps off a friends internet connection.

It was also the first time I experienced some form of gatekeeping. With AOL being ubiquitous with early internet with it’s easy setup, and the fact it was incompatible with Netscape Navigator, meant that it was always for those who weren’t the most technically literate. Something I – sadly – participated in.

This gatekeeping was reinforced when, during University in 2002, the “Social and Technical Internet” module I studied in my degree included a fascinating few lessons on early internet culture, and things like Eternal September. Further studies meant I really wanted to go back to that time.

Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that the cause of Eternal September died on 1st October.

God speed, AOL Dial-up Internet.

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That’s what the YouTubers say isn’t it?

I miss folks commenting on blog posts really. At my peak I’d post a blog post at home, walk the half a mile from my student digs to university, and then be greeted with 4 or 5 comments. Now? I think I’ve had one comment in the past year. I still don’t stubbornly take the comments off here nor Dwi’n Rhys though, in a vain hope they come back. They won’t. But they may.

But seemingly like half the attendees at LoopConf last week in London (read Tim Nash’s post about his ridiculous schedule from Yorkshire > London > Poland to be at events), I too was inspired by Ana Rodrigues’ talk “Building, Sharing, and Owning Your Online Presence”, who had a number of inspiring slides, including the one I’ve used as the header image (albeit with a terrible photo :-

Personal websites are the perfect playground for experimentation. They afford a space to explore new technologies that might not yet be suitable for professional projects and a safe space to fail.

Ana Rodrigues – “In defence of unpolished personal websites“

So consider me inspired, and me testing more things that may fail. I’ve switched on Webmentions using this plugin, and also using Autoblue as well to try and foster some more comments from BlueSky (this post should automatically post there and also automatically pull in replies as comments). It may work. It may be utter rubbish. But we try.

It’s the first strand of things to do. I want to promote this blog to all the things. I want to take this blog back to the 00’s. I want to put 88×31 buttons on. I was bored on Sunday made a few because James Huff on the Post Status Slack wanted a retro button and the ones on the Web Archive were terrible. I want under-construction GIFs. I want to use my new found Aseprite skills to make this blog look a little less like the blog of a 41 year old business owner who renewed his home insurance today, and more of the bloke in his early 20’s who spend his evenings drawing little graphics, installing ridiculously unsafe PHP scripts, and generally having a good life online. Granted less of the PHP scripts, but more moving purposefully and breaking things.

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