Allen Wittenauer
@aw.effectivemachines.com
Globehead. Believe platypuses are real. Professional babysitter. Occasional hot take. Sometimes hockey talk. Influencer to the influencers.
Ex-Sun, Ex-Yahoo!, Ex-LinkedIn, and Ex-a bunch of companies you've probably never heard of...
Ex-Sun, Ex-Yahoo!, Ex-LinkedIn, and Ex-a bunch of companies you've probably never heard of...
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
October 2, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Today is definitely one of those "I hate @developers.google.com" days.
Why yes, I'm dealing with Dataflow? How did you guess?
Google's corporate gaslighting by hiding under the ASF roof just makes it that much worse.
Why yes, I'm dealing with Dataflow? How did you guess?
Google's corporate gaslighting by hiding under the ASF roof just makes it that much worse.
October 2, 2026 at 3:27 PM
Today is definitely one of those "I hate @developers.google.com" days.
Why yes, I'm dealing with Dataflow? How did you guess?
Google's corporate gaslighting by hiding under the ASF roof just makes it that much worse.
Why yes, I'm dealing with Dataflow? How did you guess?
Google's corporate gaslighting by hiding under the ASF roof just makes it that much worse.
Today I've been reading a bunch of AI generated reports from various other people's sessions. These reports all had 'suggested fixes.' All of my feedback has been solving the problems from a very different perspective. It isn't a context problem; it's a creativity one.
September 29, 2026 at 8:01 PM
Today I've been reading a bunch of AI generated reports from various other people's sessions. These reports all had 'suggested fixes.' All of my feedback has been solving the problems from a very different perspective. It isn't a context problem; it's a creativity one.
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
September 29, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Madonna's PR team is going into overdrive on this MTV VMAs thing. Way too many "articles." They know that no one _actually_ gives a shit about MTV anymore right? [Ofc, she's also doing what she always did and latch onto whoever the youth are listening to in order to stay relevant.]
September 29, 2026 at 12:21 AM
Madonna's PR team is going into overdrive on this MTV VMAs thing. Way too many "articles." They know that no one _actually_ gives a shit about MTV anymore right? [Ofc, she's also doing what she always did and latch onto whoever the youth are listening to in order to stay relevant.]
Another "@microsoft.com has randomly locked our M365 tenant" story on /r/sysadmin . I just don't know how you can trust them as a cloud provider.
September 7, 2026 at 3:59 PM
Another "@microsoft.com has randomly locked our M365 tenant" story on /r/sysadmin . I just don't know how you can trust them as a cloud provider.
Companies love to choke out the customer and "oops it was an error" is often policy in my experiences.
www.wired.com/story/i-dema...
www.wired.com/story/i-dema...
I Asked 100 Companies for My Data. I Got Deletion Notices Instead
California residents have a legal right to access the data that companies collect about them. Actually exercising that right is a burdensome nightmare.
www.wired.com
August 29, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Companies love to choke out the customer and "oops it was an error" is often policy in my experiences.
www.wired.com/story/i-dema...
www.wired.com/story/i-dema...
As AI automation takes over, we're going to see more and more of these hallucinatory problems impact people who then have no recourse because the AI's eliminated the people who can fix the reasoning.
www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/c...
www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/c...
From the sysadmin community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the sysadmin community
www.reddit.com
August 29, 2026 at 5:00 PM
As AI automation takes over, we're going to see more and more of these hallucinatory problems impact people who then have no recourse because the AI's eliminated the people who can fix the reasoning.
www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/c...
www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/c...
I really want to know how this compares to the tools pros use: Serato, djay pro, VDJ, rekordbox, etc
StemDeck, a free, open-source and local AI stem separator | Discussion
GitHub - stemdeckapp/stemdeck: Stemdeck is an modern stem extraction platform for musicians,producers and hobbyists, designed to isolate vocals, drums, bass, piano and guitar for practice, transcription, remixing, and creative audio workflows through a modern and interactive interface
Stemdeck is an modern stem extraction platform for musicians,producers and hobbyists, designed to isolate vocals, drums, bass, piano and guitar for practice, transcription, remixing, and creative ...
github.com
August 29, 2026 at 5:48 AM
I really want to know how this compares to the tools pros use: Serato, djay pro, VDJ, rekordbox, etc
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
brilliant essay on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, including brief considerations of the great work of literary naturalism, McTeague, the regression enabled by California, and why Blood Sugar Sex Magik sounds so good
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Beyond Good and Evil | Defector
California. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It is the edge of the continent, it is the apocalypse state, and it is the subject of many songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, though fewer than you might think...
defector.com
August 27, 2026 at 1:51 PM
brilliant essay on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, including brief considerations of the great work of literary naturalism, McTeague, the regression enabled by California, and why Blood Sugar Sex Magik sounds so good
> along with pledges to improve snack quality in office microkitchens
"The peons are pissed! Quick, put more sprinkles on the donuts!"
"The peons are pissed! Quick, put more sprinkles on the donuts!"
August 27, 2026 at 5:17 PM
> along with pledges to improve snack quality in office microkitchens
"The peons are pissed! Quick, put more sprinkles on the donuts!"
"The peons are pissed! Quick, put more sprinkles on the donuts!"
"Madonna Is Still Queen of the VMAs"
Who is actually watching the VMAs? Actually, no wait, who is actually watching MTV anymore?
Who is actually watching the VMAs? Actually, no wait, who is actually watching MTV anymore?
August 22, 2026 at 5:37 PM
"Madonna Is Still Queen of the VMAs"
Who is actually watching the VMAs? Actually, no wait, who is actually watching MTV anymore?
Who is actually watching the VMAs? Actually, no wait, who is actually watching MTV anymore?
Hard agree and absolutely matches my experience.
August 8, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Hard agree and absolutely matches my experience.
I'm still sort of in shock that Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat left Google.
August 8, 2026 at 4:40 AM
I'm still sort of in shock that Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat left Google.
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
Terraform and OpenTofu really should have been called Schadenfreude.
July 29, 2026 at 3:57 PM
Terraform and OpenTofu really should have been called Schadenfreude.
losing aioresponses and having to migrate to aiointercept might actually make me move off of aiohttp entirely. the conversion process blows and i still don't have working tests on windows.
July 21, 2026 at 4:05 PM
losing aioresponses and having to migrate to aiointercept might actually make me move off of aiohttp entirely. the conversion process blows and i still don't have working tests on windows.
It has been interesting asking various AIs what they know about the WWIV BBS modding scene. Sometimes they even get it correct. To be fair, a lot of that is lost history. But is really funny when the AIs pick up on the “you were there!” fact.
July 13, 2026 at 6:51 AM
It has been interesting asking various AIs what they know about the WWIV BBS modding scene. Sometimes they even get it correct. To be fair, a lot of that is lost history. But is really funny when the AIs pick up on the “you were there!” fact.
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
The problem with spamming ASF projects with a PR that aligns with your assumptions is that sometimes your assumptions are wrong. A jerk move but whatever. Arguing about how your assumptions are correct makes you an asshole.
July 6, 2026 at 3:43 PM
The problem with spamming ASF projects with a PR that aligns with your assumptions is that sometimes your assumptions are wrong. A jerk move but whatever. Arguing about how your assumptions are correct makes you an asshole.
Reposted by Allen Wittenauer
This is bombshell stuff.
June 16, 2026 at 8:54 PM
This is bombshell stuff.
I re-read this every so often
www.technologyreview.com/2013/05/31/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2013/05/31/1...
The Dictatorship of Data
Robert McNamara epitomizes the hyper-rational executive led astray by numbers.
www.technologyreview.com
June 13, 2026 at 7:26 PM
I re-read this every so often
www.technologyreview.com/2013/05/31/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2013/05/31/1...
Yup. I've found this works quite well, and you can do sneaky things like just put a link in your html headers so users don't see it but the bots do.
This is Pattern 2: the competitor comparison page on your own domain.
The single highest-leverage citation play in 2026.
The single highest-leverage citation play in 2026.
June 4, 2026 at 5:10 PM
Yup. I've found this works quite well, and you can do sneaky things like just put a link in your html headers so users don't see it but the bots do.
I'm so glad ASF infra spammed all of our repos with PRs that update yaml files but fail yamllint and fail apache license checks. Clearly someone was in too much of a hurry to do this properly. I'm tempted to just close the PRs with "try again."
May 16, 2026 at 12:05 AM
I'm so glad ASF infra spammed all of our repos with PRs that update yaml files but fail yamllint and fail apache license checks. Clearly someone was in too much of a hurry to do this properly. I'm tempted to just close the PRs with "try again."
Dressing younger makes you look older when you hit a certain point. Just thought I'd throw that out there. No relation to a certain Coachella performance last night.
April 18, 2026 at 11:22 PM
Dressing younger makes you look older when you hit a certain point. Just thought I'd throw that out there. No relation to a certain Coachella performance last night.