A friend brought, and I quote: “a few leftover snacks”. I wager the pineapple tarts one will be empty first 🤤

Behind the scenes it involves taking notes how much was given to whom, who gives how much, checking with close friends if the “market rate” is the same as the previous year or should be increased. Yesterday we had a gathering and our youngest is one angpao short. Now there are conversations on how to handle this. Also apparently the richest family gave the smallest amounts this year and that’s also a hot topic.

Never boring around new year 😄 (2/2)

The economics of giving and receiving ang pao 🧧(which I only observe, my wife handles it all) always amuses me.

On the surface it’s a small gesture to give kids a blessing. (1/2)

If you replace a junior with #LLM and make the senior review output, the reviewer is now scanning for rare but catastrophic errors scattered across a much larger output surface due to LLM "productivity."

That's a cognitively brutal task.

Humans are terrible at sustained vigilance for rare events in high-volume streams. Aviation, nuclear, radiology all have extensive literature on exactly this failure mode.

I propose any productivity gains will be consumed by false negative review failures.

Nobody managed to tell me what it’s called but it’s my favorite CNY snack discovery this year. Best I can describe it is like a mini papadam with whole peanuts and dried small fish (anchovies probably?) on top. Crunchy savory maybe-just-one-more 🤤

RE: https://mstdn.social/@bit101/116111846493714522

OK, this is cool. I don't need a pencil, but if I did ...

RE: https://mstdn.ca/@cdegroot/116086771614712320

This seems right up my alley, how about yours?

@SeaFury Gong Xi Fa Cai from Malaysia 👋 🎇

In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud — 'The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't,' notes the experiment creator
https://www.tomshardware.com/speakers/in-a-blind-test-audiophiles-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-audio-signals-sent-through-copper-wire-a-banana-or-wet-mud-the-mud-should-sound-perfectly-awful-but-it-doesnt-notes-the-experiment-creator?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Tom's Hardware @tom-s-hardware-TomsHardware

I'll re-iterate what I said yesterday:

- Once you outsource your manufacturing to other countries, you no longer retain the skills and workforce to spin it back up.
- Once you're reliant on outsourced work, the people you outsourced to have the power and get to dictate terms.

AI is *exactly* the same thing.

Once it's been relied on long enough that there are not enough juniors with the fundamental knowledge, few to no seniors left... that's the end of your ability to not rely on AI providers.

@MoritzGlantz BBBBBRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr….!!!

@SeaFury Quick recovery! 🍵

I wrote a bit about grief. Not for a person but the world that was.

(Original title: The World That Was)

https://tante.cc/2026/02/06/the-world-that-was/

A major win for the ocean ✊✊

An Australian company’s bid to mine the seabed off Aotearoa, New Zealand has been rejected after regulators found it would cause serious harm to marine life, including whales and penguins. 🌊🌊

This is what people power looks like, and it sends a clear signal to governments everywhere that seabed mining is too destructive to greenlight. Show

I’m properly down with the flu or something.

Being able to order comfort foods like this, at the press of a button, for ~2€, makes it significantly more bearable.

It took a long time to approve. But finally, after a three-year trial run, women in Japan can now buy the morning-after pill nationwide without a prescription. The move comes after years of opposition - including from men in Japan's medical community.

#japan #unseenjapan #women #sex

https://buff.ly/hikt6QW

Another painful one to write, given my life-long love of Apple.

The world must extricate itself from US big tech: https://mattgemmell.scot/liberty-as-resistance/

Updated my job description from "site reliability engineer" to "uptime girl"

This piece has been coming for a while, in one form or another. Makes me deeply unhappy to write it. https://mattgemmell.scot/the-fallen-apple/

Put another way, if you had $50,000 in annual disposable income (after tax), Apple’s $1m would be like you donating 41 cents… and issuing a press release about it.

(Edited for my miscalculation in Apple’s favour.)