#speedbumps — Public Fediverse posts

Just Not Feeling It Today

Some days you just don’t feel it, whatever “it” may be. I’ve been there, certainly, we all have, but today I’m not talking about myself.

I’m talking about AI. (Or as John Scalzi puts it, “AI.”)

Here’s (my tongue-in-cheek analysis of) the issue: I have a nonfiction project that’s been sitting on the back burner for a while (fine, years) because I’ve been avoiding the tedious formatting work required to put it all together. Like a more complicated version of getting Excel to extract URLs from a long list of hot links; hardly rocket science but annoying to have to do by hand.

What if, I asked myself, I could get this new fangled tech-no-logy to do that boring work for me? I’m not interested in it as a creative tool, but is this the sort of task it might do well?

At first, the answer seemed to be a solid yes. Terrific, I thought, I just need to prep a list of inputs and I’ll be good to go. 

But that was yesterday.

Today, I used the same prompt and got a much different, and not nearly as useful, answer. Many followup prompts along the lines of “Hang on, this isn’t at all what you gave me before” and “Please return the thing I asked for, for crying out loud!” later and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the program just isn’t feeling it today.

It also got me wondering: Is this the way actual intelligence arises from the primordial soup of 1s and 0s, in a haze of distracted mediocrity and foot-dragging compliance? More Murderbot than Star Trek’s tirelessly competent Data? And if so, what does that mean for the future?

Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow!

* * *

The #DailyTelegraph is off its meds again. 🙄

"Socialist speed bumps" turns out to means legally compliant #speedbumps which cannot be navigated by #cars with absurdly low suspension. Note that posh #twazzocks who drive SUVs or ordinary cars can pass over the bumps just fine.

https://archive.is/6UhBV / https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/10/labour-council-installs-socialist-speed-bumps/

"There's no four-way stop. We're on the corner of the district office, and there's not a school #crosswalk here. There's three hills where people #speed down. We don't have #SpeedBumps. It's just, it's a dangerous intersection.” https://www.ksbw.com/article/pacific-grove-student-injured-scooter-crash/65608797

Also see our post "Consumer Advisory: Is it an e-bike—or something else?” in https://bikemonterey.org/resources/resources-on-riding-skills-bike-laws-and-safety

#SchoolZones #TrafficCalming #TrafficSafety #SlowSpeedsSaveLives #eScooter #ElectricMotorcycles #ebikes #eMotorcycles #School #BackToSchool

#MontereyCounty #PacificGrove

We've learned that the difference between successful projects and abandoned ones isn't avoiding problems - it's pushing through when everything goes wrong. Persistence beats perfection.

What's the biggest obstacle you've overcome on a build? Sometimes the hardest challenges create the best stories.

#speedbumps #pushingthrough #bobberculture #persistencepays

🎥 👉 @first.forty.eight

One prompt, 5 minutes, and $0.22 USD later Claude Code CLI made me a super useful custom color palette for this startup frontend I'm working on today. Details in this post: https://frankwiles.com/posts/claude-created-color-palette/ #speedbumps

Finally took some time to start writing my thoughts down on something I keep talking about with coworkers and clients. Thoughts? Examples from your life? https://frankwiles.com/speedbumps/ #speedbumps

New on the blog this evening: Following a consultation on speed cushions to which I submitted an objection on cycle safety grounds, the Portfolio Holder's Report seen today appears to ignore most of that objection with only a cursory reference to cycling.

https://fiets.uk/2024-07-12/an-appropriate-response-to-a-consultation-submission

#CroftRoad #Nuneaton #SpeedCushions #SpeedBumps

APPealing: Imagine an app that protects its users from itself!
#Cloverly of #Speedbumps does just that in this #gagcartoon!

#Innovation #Apps #Tech #Applications #Technology