Latest posts
- Foot Guns for SaleAug 25, 2026rss@idiallo.com
I don't think it's going to work out the way everybody thinks it will. The current narrative, at least the one pushed by the companies selling the shovels, is that AI will become centralized. Anthropic and OpenAI will offer safe, vetted AI. Developers will become mere prompt-engineers, submitting requests to these benevolent gatekeepers. They have tamed the dragon. We will benefit only if we becom
- Where Did the Productivity Gains Go?Aug 12, 2026rss@idiallo.com
There is a machine called Productivity, and on this machine there is a knob and a button. The knob increases productivity, and the button is labeled "reset." My job was data entry at a non-profit. It was my first job in the US where I didn't have to lift heavy objects. My main task was entering collected donations into a database. The data source was email attachments, which came in various fo
- Failing after SuccessAug 10, 2026rss@idiallo.com
What are you supposed to do after you've created the most successful product? Not just successful, but the most useful. In an ideal world, you would sail into the sunset and enjoy your riches. In this real world, you have to come up with another, even more successful product, or you're a failure. That's why it feels like Stack Overflow has failed. I remember being in the middle of debugging my
- When the Aliens Finally Came to VisitAug 10, 2026rss@idiallo.com
The aliens arrived, and their first instinct was to check our networks. They accessed one of our most important websites. A government website. Unfortunately, they were met with a reCAPTCHA. Are you a robot? They are not robots. But after fifteen minutes of squinting and trying to select all the fire hydrants and traffic lights, they gave up. Defeated by a checkbox, they returned to the stars.
- Invisible ProblemsAug 03, 2026rss@idiallo.com
During the pandemic, we completed one of our largest projects at work. To celebrate, since we couldn't meet in person, we all ordered food on DoorDash and played an online escape room game together. We were on a Zoom call, helping each other out and having fun. The first challenge was to escape a jail cell. To escape, each of us had to find clues in our own cell to figure out how to open the d
- BI SlopJul 30, 2026rss@idiallo.com
You must use the tool. We must justify it. These aren't the words companies use, but that's what it comes down to. When you buy an expensive solution before you've clearly identified the problem, you have to use the tool to justify its line item in the spreadsheet. At most companies I've worked in, there's always some application I've used once or twice. The third time I want to use it, it's gone.
- Why $550 Million Medical Debt only Cost $5.5 MillionJul 26, 2026rss@idiallo.com
A couple weeks ago, the CEO of Snap was all over the news in the US because he and his wife made a large donation. The weird part about it was that every news outlet that covered it had an acrobatic title where they didn't specifically say how much they donated, yet insisted on that $550 Million amount. When you read the article a bit deeper, you can do the math. They donated one hundredth of tha
- Have you read it?Jul 24, 2026rss@idiallo.com
I think I finally figured it out. That is, the reason why AI written articles suck: Both the author and I are reading the article for the first time. When an article is insightful I don't even mind the emdashes or that the stark truth is not X, but Y. A good take can transcend even llmism. But then you have questions, and somehow the author doesn't even know what you are talking about, it's simply
- Expensive Is Just a Brand NowJul 20, 2026rss@idiallo.com
You've probably heard this one before. It might have come from a parent, a teacher, or a friend who bought an expensive item and wanted to justify it. It goes something like this: A poor man buys a cheap pair of boots for a few dollars. They fall apart within a year, so he buys another pair. And another. Over five years, he spends far more than the man who bought one expensive, well-made pair
- Deleting Systems You Don't UnderstandJul 16, 2026rss@idiallo.com
When I was a kid, my father bought a family home computer and placed it in the living room for all to see. When guests came to our house, they would stop by the computer and admire its marvel without even turning it on. While everyone else was careful with the computer, treating it like an important investment, I quickly started inserting discs and installing games. One thing we take for granted t