Ben Buchanan
@200ok.bsky.social
I make some bits of the web
Elsewhere:
http://200ok.blog/
https://mastodon.social/@200ok
https://www.instagram.com/200ok/
Melbourne, Australia (recently ex Sydney). he/him
Elsewhere:
http://200ok.blog/
https://mastodon.social/@200ok
https://www.instagram.com/200ok/
Melbourne, Australia (recently ex Sydney). he/him
"What do you want for christmas?"
Honestly, I'm probably good for next year too.
#NRL #bronxnation #WeChargeOn
Honestly, I'm probably good for next year too.
#NRL #bronxnation #WeChargeOn
December 23, 2025 at 4:28 AM
"What do you want for christmas?"
Honestly, I'm probably good for next year too.
#NRL #bronxnation #WeChargeOn
Honestly, I'm probably good for next year too.
#NRL #bronxnation #WeChargeOn
Reposted by Ben Buchanan
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted by Ben Buchanan
Benoit Blanc and Philomena Cunk independently investigate the same murder and come to the same correct conclusion for vastly different reasons
December 20, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Benoit Blanc and Philomena Cunk independently investigate the same murder and come to the same correct conclusion for vastly different reasons
You've heard of elf on a shelf, now get ready for baffling image with a supposedly rhyming combination that made sense to the original poster who was absolutely blitzed when they posted it.
December 22, 2025 at 5:47 AM
You've heard of elf on a shelf, now get ready for baffling image with a supposedly rhyming combination that made sense to the original poster who was absolutely blitzed when they posted it.
You don't have to change your username but it's good to understand the impact. In some cases the content might sit better in the bio (ie. where it's not read out for every message).
Just FYI in case anyone's interested, when you put a bunch of emojis after your screen name it makes it unnecessarily challenging for people who use screen readers to read your posts and follow you. The screen reader will read out every single emoji description every time you pop up in their feed.
December 21, 2025 at 4:17 AM
You don't have to change your username but it's good to understand the impact. In some cases the content might sit better in the bio (ie. where it's not read out for every message).
Bitbucket is going to delete "unused Free Bitbucket workspaces", noting that "active" is poorly defined and everyone had a "personal workspace" auto-generated for them many years ago they may not even be aware of.
community.atlassian.com/forums/Bitbu...
(1/2)
community.atlassian.com/forums/Bitbu...
(1/2)
Bitbucket cleanup of free unused workspaces: what you need to know
Hello Bitbucket Community. At Atlassian, we’re committed to delivering a secure, high-performing Bitbucket Cloud experience for all our customers. As part of our ongoing platform improvements, we’re ...
community.atlassian.com
December 16, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Bitbucket is going to delete "unused Free Bitbucket workspaces", noting that "active" is poorly defined and everyone had a "personal workspace" auto-generated for them many years ago they may not even be aware of.
community.atlassian.com/forums/Bitbu...
(1/2)
community.atlassian.com/forums/Bitbu...
(1/2)
We won't know all the details for some time. We also know active misinformation will be spread in the meantime.
www.wnyc.org/story/breaki...
#bondi
www.wnyc.org/story/breaki...
#bondi
The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook | On the Media | WNYC
Rampant misreporting following shootings and other breaking news events is so predictable that we unintentionally developed a formula for covering them.
www.wnyc.org
December 14, 2025 at 12:23 PM
We won't know all the details for some time. We also know active misinformation will be spread in the meantime.
www.wnyc.org/story/breaki...
#bondi
www.wnyc.org/story/breaki...
#bondi
"You can fake a brand. You can fake a personality. You can fake a moment. You cannot fake ten years in oak. Whiskey isn’t special because it’s romantic. It’s special because it refuses to cooperate with our impatience." - TMB/Whiskey Tribe
I like that.
I like that.
December 13, 2025 at 1:27 AM
"You can fake a brand. You can fake a personality. You can fake a moment. You cannot fake ten years in oak. Whiskey isn’t special because it’s romantic. It’s special because it refuses to cooperate with our impatience." - TMB/Whiskey Tribe
I like that.
I like that.
Every service: here's a wrap of your entire year! Check out what your year of data looked like!
Me: what about December?
Every service: nothing happens in December, years are 11 months long
Me: what about December?
Every service: nothing happens in December, years are 11 months long
December 2, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Every service: here's a wrap of your entire year! Check out what your year of data looked like!
Me: what about December?
Every service: nothing happens in December, years are 11 months long
Me: what about December?
Every service: nothing happens in December, years are 11 months long
Sometimes I think the annual Advent Of Code is just the January gym membership for programmers.
Lots of great intentions, but most people don't make it through a month.
(I'm aware it's only 12 days this year)
Lots of great intentions, but most people don't make it through a month.
(I'm aware it's only 12 days this year)
December 2, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Sometimes I think the annual Advent Of Code is just the January gym membership for programmers.
Lots of great intentions, but most people don't make it through a month.
(I'm aware it's only 12 days this year)
Lots of great intentions, but most people don't make it through a month.
(I'm aware it's only 12 days this year)
Have we coined "punching the monkey" for claiming to be revolutionising money, but actually just Sticking Ads On A Website?
Anyway. Punch that monkey, Sam.
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artific...
Anyway. Punch that monkey, Sam.
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artific...
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
OpenAI is now internally testing 'ads' inside ChatGPT that could redefine the web economy.
www.bleepingcomputer.com
December 1, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Have we coined "punching the monkey" for claiming to be revolutionising money, but actually just Sticking Ads On A Website?
Anyway. Punch that monkey, Sam.
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artific...
Anyway. Punch that monkey, Sam.
www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artific...
Reposted by Ben Buchanan
Like pretty much everything else in programming, using an LLM-backed coding tool well requires discipline and expertise. Which is annoying/frustrating to those who wanted/were told it would free them from needing those things.
At the risk of starting the flame war to end all flame wars...
Modern LLMs (GPT-5.1, Claude 4.5, Gemini 3) produce excellent code and can be a significant productivity boost to software engineers who take the time to learn how to effectively apply them - especially if used with coding agent tools
Modern LLMs (GPT-5.1, Claude 4.5, Gemini 3) produce excellent code and can be a significant productivity boost to software engineers who take the time to learn how to effectively apply them - especially if used with coding agent tools
November 28, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Like pretty much everything else in programming, using an LLM-backed coding tool well requires discipline and expertise. Which is annoying/frustrating to those who wanted/were told it would free them from needing those things.
> Returning to fundamentals is simply maturity and a normal shift towards practicality. It’s realizing that adding layers of abstraction to solve problems we created ourselves is not innovation.
thenewstack.io/css-in-js-th...
thenewstack.io/css-in-js-th...
CSS-in-JS: The Great Betrayal of Frontend Sanity
CSS-in-JS promised simplicity but delivered performance issues. Learn why ditching it for native CSS solutions leads to faster, more maintainable web apps.
thenewstack.io
November 29, 2025 at 7:46 AM
> Returning to fundamentals is simply maturity and a normal shift towards practicality. It’s realizing that adding layers of abstraction to solve problems we created ourselves is not innovation.
thenewstack.io/css-in-js-th...
thenewstack.io/css-in-js-th...
Doing one-fix-a-day stuff, a la @derekfeatherstone.bsky.social
Today it's re-setting the baffling "3M hook that managed to fall down a wall and re-affix itself in a different spot". We've no idea how that was even possible.
Today it's re-setting the baffling "3M hook that managed to fall down a wall and re-affix itself in a different spot". We've no idea how that was even possible.
November 29, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Doing one-fix-a-day stuff, a la @derekfeatherstone.bsky.social
Today it's re-setting the baffling "3M hook that managed to fall down a wall and re-affix itself in a different spot". We've no idea how that was even possible.
Today it's re-setting the baffling "3M hook that managed to fall down a wall and re-affix itself in a different spot". We've no idea how that was even possible.
Reposted by Ben Buchanan
You will be visited by three spirits
November 26, 2025 at 1:45 AM
You will be visited by three spirits
> Thinking of AI as an instrument recenters the focus on practice. Instruments require a performance that relies on technique - Frank Chimero
via www.densediscovery.com/issues/366
via www.densediscovery.com/issues/366
Dense Discovery – Issue 366 / How to work beside AI instead of under it
Read the archived version of Issue 366 / How to work beside AI instead of under it
www.densediscovery.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:59 PM
> Thinking of AI as an instrument recenters the focus on practice. Instruments require a performance that relies on technique - Frank Chimero
via www.densediscovery.com/issues/366
via www.densediscovery.com/issues/366
The Doom Scale seems highly appropriate.
How broken is today's frontend culture?
A friend points out that the median *mobile* page is now larger than a copy of DOOM (2.6 MiB vs. 2.48 MiB), the 75th percentile page is more than 2 DOOMs, and the P90 mobile page is 4.5x the size of DOOM:
httparchive.org/reports/page...
A friend points out that the median *mobile* page is now larger than a copy of DOOM (2.6 MiB vs. 2.48 MiB), the 75th percentile page is more than 2 DOOMs, and the P90 mobile page is 4.5x the size of DOOM:
httparchive.org/reports/page...
HTTP Archive: Page Weight
This report tracks the size and quantity of many popular web page resources. Sizes represent the number of bytes sent over the network, which may be compressed.
httparchive.org
November 24, 2025 at 12:39 AM
The Doom Scale seems highly appropriate.
Web Directions Dev Summit 2025, the Big Stonking Post™: weblog.200ok.com.au/2025/11/wdds...
#webdirections #devsummit
#webdirections #devsummit
WDDS25, the Big Stonking Post™ | the 200ok weblog
weblog.200ok.com.au
November 23, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Web Directions Dev Summit 2025, the Big Stonking Post™: weblog.200ok.com.au/2025/11/wdds...
#webdirections #devsummit
#webdirections #devsummit
I'm not surprised consumers don't realise this, but if investors claim *they* didn't know I'm going to have trouble believing it.
pub.towardsai.net/i-reverse-en...
pub.towardsai.net/i-reverse-en...
The Real Tech Stack Behind AI Startups: A 200-Company Analysis
Three weeks of network monitoring revealed the truth: 73% of funded AI startups are running $33M valuations on $1,200/month in OpenAI…
pub.towardsai.net
November 23, 2025 at 12:59 AM
I'm not surprised consumers don't realise this, but if investors claim *they* didn't know I'm going to have trouble believing it.
pub.towardsai.net/i-reverse-en...
pub.towardsai.net/i-reverse-en...
I almost envy people who haven't seen Dmitry speak before ;) Strap yourselves in... #WebDirections
November 19, 2025 at 5:25 AM
I almost envy people who haven't seen Dmitry speak before ;) Strap yourselves in... #WebDirections
Watching Jono Alderson's opening talk at #WebDirections and having to stop myself actually cheering.
I will however wryly tap the sign: noti.st/benbuchanan/...
I will however wryly tap the sign: noti.st/benbuchanan/...
Less, but better by Ben Buchanan (200ok)
After an era of complexity, perhaps it’s time the web had an era of simplicity.
noti.st
November 18, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Watching Jono Alderson's opening talk at #WebDirections and having to stop myself actually cheering.
I will however wryly tap the sign: noti.st/benbuchanan/...
I will however wryly tap the sign: noti.st/benbuchanan/...
For anyone in Sydney for Web Directions dev summit, if you are at a loose end I'm meeting some friends at the Glebe Hotel (www.theglebehotel.com.au) from about 6:30 and you are welcome to join us.
Glebe Hotel
Neighourhood watering hole, The Glebe Hotel has been Glebe's favourite local since 1862. Formerly known as the Australian Youth Hotel, the heritage listed public bar & dining destination is full of qu...
www.theglebehotel.com.au
November 18, 2025 at 5:53 AM
For anyone in Sydney for Web Directions dev summit, if you are at a loose end I'm meeting some friends at the Glebe Hotel (www.theglebehotel.com.au) from about 6:30 and you are welcome to join us.
LLMs absolutely do not replace cognition, and humans absolutely do not learn from history.
The plow, the steam engine, electricity — all replaced muscle. AI replaces cognition. If you spend your day “reading lots of stuff and turning it into straight English,” well… so does the machine. The goal now is to learn from history and cushion the blow better than last time.
November 17, 2025 at 1:56 AM
LLMs absolutely do not replace cognition, and humans absolutely do not learn from history.
