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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3h

Copilot seems to have stopped working in the last few days? Now it won't even enable the Accept/Keep buttons after it applies its suggestions. Have people seen this before?

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 4h

I vibe-coded a GUI toolkit in Python. The LLM seems really, uh, cautious with all these try/except statements. The source file is full of stuff like this: Catch an exception and print an error message, and catch any exceptions that might happen while printing the error message.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 1d

I'm reminded of a quote like, "There are three groups: fascists and anti-fascists who understand the law is whatever people with power say it is, and a third group who has a deeply unexamined belief that the law is some kind of magic force field that will keep the government from doing bad things."

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 1d

We live in a fascist regime. Resist. Organize with others. Be careful.

Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · 1d

Just today, here's a story from the @chicago.suntimes.com -- not only are ICE/feds masking themselves constantly (and some local cops too, I've seen it), now they're driving around without license plates. More "laws for thee, whatever I wanna do for me" in action chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...

Federal immigration officers wear masks, no name tags — now some drive cars without license plates

The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 2d

Kind of a reminder that these things can break or go away at anytime.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 2d

Damn. And AI was working perfectly until I touched it.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 2d

There's no point trying to appease someone who won't be appeased. You don't make a deal with a backstabber about how far they'll put in the knife.

"MIT President Sally Kornbluth formally rejected the Trump administration's proposed compact"

thetech.com/2025/10/10/m...

BREAKING: MIT rejects federal compact | The Tech

On Friday Oct. 10, MIT President Sally Kornbluth formally rejected the Trump administration's proposed compact in an email to the U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

thetech.com

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3d

Hey, has anyone noticed that Copilot in Visual Studio Code has just... stopped working? It used to apply the code changes into the editor, but now it doesn't. At best, I can apply the tiny changes one at a time, each taking 30 seconds as it rewrites the entire file.

This is completely unusable.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3d

I was playing around with AI art to generate those mindless "corporate memphis" style graphics. When I asked it to turn it into a photorealistic drawing, the man and woman turned argumentative, the other woman obviously doesn't want to be there, and the black guy was cropped out almost entirely.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3d

I thought about asking if anyone knew of any apps made by non-programmers, but then realized I'd probably get more responses if I said it was impossible and waited for people to try to prove me wrong.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3d

My first test of the Grok Code Fast 1 model for AI-assisted coding... did not go well.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 3d

It's not possible for a non-programmer to use AI to create software.

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Reposted by Al Sweigart

Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · Jun 19

In the novel A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, a disgraced tv personality who is now broke is paid by a morning talk show to say an angel that looks like Matt Damon talked him out of killing himself. It was humiliating for him. But he got 5,000 pounds, and they got their clickbait tabloid headline.

Screenshot of CBS Saturday Morning show with an interview and caption: He proposed to an AI and she said yes.

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Reposted by Al Sweigart

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 4d

Gavin Newsom isn’t trolling Trump, he is not actually the one posting, the person you love is the anonymous underpaid staffer who runs his social media

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 4d

Instead of "AI proponents" I started saying "AI evangelists".

Then instead of "AI evangelists" I started calling them "AI evangelicals".

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 4d

Oh, even before that: Missing colon, wrong keyword, extra underscore...

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Reposted by Al Sweigart

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 4d

Pete Hegseth practices day drinking the right way.

by Ezra Klein

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 4d

I've come up with a new game. I ask AI to create an image of some Python code, and you point out all the mistakes in it:

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 5d

Not really. I've always stuck with writing quick little Python tools, and in my reading, these no-code/low-code tools always seem as much work as learning to program.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 5d

I find the timing suspect. Ranked choice in NYC has been around for years, but she didn't write this article until it became apparent it would let a progressive take office.

It's just that being against ranked choice is *such* a weird stance and her reasons are so flat.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 5d

This thread is worth reading:

Wagatwe Wanjuki @wagatwe.com · 5d

we showed the brutality of the anti-Black (and anti-ally) violence by police in 2020 (and before) yet we still got Trump for a second term and police violence has only worsened.

Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 5d

We’re in a moment now where it would be worth people taking three hours to watch Gandhi, particularly the scene of the salt march. There is value to making the brutality of your opponent so plain as day that no one can argue with it. The clarity of that brought down an empire

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 5d

Hey experienced software dev folks: do you use any low-code/no-code tools for your job, hobbies, or work? Either for polished products or rough in-house tools?

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 5d

Annie Lowrey, wife of Ezra Klein, gets an Atlantic Cuomo-apologist hit piece (with a scary illustration) against Zohran Mamdani, and is against ranked choice voting.

"Liberals" like this are why Trump wins. They'll throw aay "vote blue no matter who" and even democracy to stop progressives.

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 6d

A scene from the video game Night in the Woods, a talk show host says to his cohost, "My my, Garbo, we got a little political there!" and Garbo replies "Gotta get political every now and then."

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Al Sweigart @alsweigart.bsky.social · 7d

Curl project maintainers have had enough of AI slop "contributions":

"We still have not seen a single valid security report done with AI help."

"We are effectively being DDoSed. If we could, we would charge them for this waste of our time."

www.linkedin.com/posts/daniel...

#hackerone #curl | Daniel Stenberg | 254 comments

That's it. I've had it. I'm putting my foot down on this craziness. 1. Every reporter submitting security reports on #Hackerone for #curl now needs to answer this question: "Did you use an AI to fin...

www.linkedin.com

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