Katie Sylor-Miller
@ksylor.bsky.social
Principal Frontend Engineer. Fairy Gitmother at ohshitgit.com. Thoughts are mine not my employer’s #GNUTerryPratchett
Pinned
Interrupting your doomscrolling with a fun project I did to prevent myself from doomscrolling: a LEGO MOC of the world map from The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past video game. I used bricks we had on hand, so the colors and shapes aren’t perfect, but pretty dang close for small scale!
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!
September 17, 2026 at 7:34 AM
Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!
I just need everyone to know that my 15 y.o. Daughter just beat Elden Ring, a game that I would never even attempt to play because it looks way too hard.
June 4, 2026 at 10:03 PM
I just need everyone to know that my 15 y.o. Daughter just beat Elden Ring, a game that I would never even attempt to play because it looks way too hard.
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
This is becoming a common but not enough interrogated buzzphrase for a very real problem - LLM output is verification and technical debt. One person can generate plausible enough looking results that they can pass through several hands before a close enough reading shows it's full of shit.
This! Someone sent me a plan for a research project that they'd got chatgpt to write, and it was 3x longer than what I usually get and honestly I was like "why should I spend my time reading this when you haven't spent yours writing it, you may not even have read it yourself"?
I think one of the things that is probably the main factor in this is that LLM agents generate *a lot* of text and reading/parsing that much text all day if you're really serious about checking and validating things is exhausting.
June 4, 2026 at 11:18 AM
This is becoming a common but not enough interrogated buzzphrase for a very real problem - LLM output is verification and technical debt. One person can generate plausible enough looking results that they can pass through several hands before a close enough reading shows it's full of shit.
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
looking forward to the near future when these 7-day workweek dorks burn out and invent weekends + 8 hours of sleep but call it something goofy like "REM-maxxing" and start ridiculing each other like "bro you don't let your subconscious cook on problems 8 hours a day bro you're ngmi"
June 1, 2026 at 12:22 AM
looking forward to the near future when these 7-day workweek dorks burn out and invent weekends + 8 hours of sleep but call it something goofy like "REM-maxxing" and start ridiculing each other like "bro you don't let your subconscious cook on problems 8 hours a day bro you're ngmi"
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
I say it every year - if you're even the least bit interested or involved in web performance, this is THE place to be every year. It's the one trip I prioritize my travel budget for.
The talks are awesome, but the hallway track is unbeatable. The concentration of experts in one place is insane.
The talks are awesome, but the hallway track is unbeatable. The concentration of experts in one place is insane.
performance.now() 2026 is coming. Ticket sales will open in May with cheap and ultra-cheap early bird tickets.
These will be announced in our newsletter first. So subscribe via perfnow.nl/subscribe
perfnow.nl
These will be announced in our newsletter first. So subscribe via perfnow.nl/subscribe
perfnow.nl
performance.now(); 19th and 20th of November 2026, Amsterdam
On 19th and 20th of November 2026, the seventh edition of performance.now() will take place in Amsterdam—a single track conference, covering today’s most important web performance insights.
perfnow.nl
April 23, 2026 at 3:11 PM
I say it every year - if you're even the least bit interested or involved in web performance, this is THE place to be every year. It's the one trip I prioritize my travel budget for.
The talks are awesome, but the hallway track is unbeatable. The concentration of experts in one place is insane.
The talks are awesome, but the hallway track is unbeatable. The concentration of experts in one place is insane.
At some point soon (if not already) businesses are going to lose customers from the degraded experiences that no-human-has-reviewed-LLM-generated code spits out. And then what?
p75 and p90 JavaScript bytes on the web have exploded since May, 2025—easily the largest 10 month period based on HTTP Archive data since 2023.
The long-tail is getting worse, very quickly.
Gemini, what happened in May 2025?
The long-tail is getting worse, very quickly.
Gemini, what happened in May 2025?
March 27, 2026 at 11:20 AM
At some point soon (if not already) businesses are going to lose customers from the degraded experiences that no-human-has-reviewed-LLM-generated code spits out. And then what?
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
Same pattern, every team.
Designer annotates everything.
Design system specifies focus states, heading structure, the lot.
Engineering ships something broken anyway.
Not an awareness problem. A skills gap the industry built deliberately.
Rant here - gbbns.co/journal/acce...
#Accessibility
Designer annotates everything.
Design system specifies focus states, heading structure, the lot.
Engineering ships something broken anyway.
Not an awareness problem. A skills gap the industry built deliberately.
Rant here - gbbns.co/journal/acce...
#Accessibility
The Accessibility Problem Isn't Design. It's Engineering. | gbbns.co
Accessibility failures aren't design oversights — they're engineering failures. The full-stack hiring trend, AI-generated code with no context, and a compliance-first mentality have combined to create...
gbbns.co
March 23, 2026 at 9:50 AM
Same pattern, every team.
Designer annotates everything.
Design system specifies focus states, heading structure, the lot.
Engineering ships something broken anyway.
Not an awareness problem. A skills gap the industry built deliberately.
Rant here - gbbns.co/journal/acce...
#Accessibility
Designer annotates everything.
Design system specifies focus states, heading structure, the lot.
Engineering ships something broken anyway.
Not an awareness problem. A skills gap the industry built deliberately.
Rant here - gbbns.co/journal/acce...
#Accessibility
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
OK so this young trans gentleman was cut off by his parents, has been unable to get MIT to up his financial aid, has been working multiple jobs while maintaining an A- average AT MIT (no one does this), but he is gonna need to actually pay his tuition to graduate: www.gofundme.com/f/help-matth...
Donate to Help Matthew Graduate From MIT, organized by Irene Dong
Hello everyone, my name is Irene. I'm writing this on behalf of my friend, fellow MIT studen… Irene Dong needs your support for Help Matthew Graduate From MIT
www.gofundme.com
March 16, 2026 at 2:29 PM
OK so this young trans gentleman was cut off by his parents, has been unable to get MIT to up his financial aid, has been working multiple jobs while maintaining an A- average AT MIT (no one does this), but he is gonna need to actually pay his tuition to graduate: www.gofundme.com/f/help-matth...
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
The most disturbing aspect of the AI era is realizing how many people have only ever valued others for their labor and not their humanity.
March 15, 2026 at 10:14 PM
The most disturbing aspect of the AI era is realizing how many people have only ever valued others for their labor and not their humanity.
:nod-crying-bufo:
Company Lacks Manpower To Complete Newest Round Of Layoffs https://theonion.com/company-lacks-manpower-to-complete-newest-round-of-layo-1819574660/
March 10, 2026 at 3:39 PM
:nod-crying-bufo:
The paralympics have been so fun to watch, just amazing athleticism on display
March 9, 2026 at 10:58 AM
The paralympics have been so fun to watch, just amazing athleticism on display
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
having used claude extensively for the past couple of months, i think there is still a lot of value to understanding your code and steering it intentionally. the amount of incidental complexity claude accumulates otherwise (which mostly results in bugs that it can't ever fix reliably) is staggering.
March 7, 2026 at 3:00 AM
having used claude extensively for the past couple of months, i think there is still a lot of value to understanding your code and steering it intentionally. the amount of incidental complexity claude accumulates otherwise (which mostly results in bugs that it can't ever fix reliably) is staggering.
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
I started a new chapter of my Agentic Engineering Patternw guide about anti-patterns - things NOT to do
So far I only have one: Inflicting unreviewed code on collaborators, aka dumping a thousand line PR without even making sure it works first simonwillison.net/guides/agent...
So far I only have one: Inflicting unreviewed code on collaborators, aka dumping a thousand line PR without even making sure it works first simonwillison.net/guides/agent...
Anti-patterns: things to avoid - Agentic Engineering Patterns
Anti-patterns: things to avoid - Agentic Engineering Patterns
simonwillison.net
March 4, 2026 at 6:19 PM
I started a new chapter of my Agentic Engineering Patternw guide about anti-patterns - things NOT to do
So far I only have one: Inflicting unreviewed code on collaborators, aka dumping a thousand line PR without even making sure it works first simonwillison.net/guides/agent...
So far I only have one: Inflicting unreviewed code on collaborators, aka dumping a thousand line PR without even making sure it works first simonwillison.net/guides/agent...
Now I know how I’ll be spending my funemployment!
March 3, 2026 at 11:52 AM
Now I know how I’ll be spending my funemployment!
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
Block was a really great place to work for the past four months. Unfortunately, I’m part of today’s 40% layoff.
If you need an old hand at web stuff, who has staff software engineering experience at multiple international corporations, hit me up. ❤️
If you need an old hand at web stuff, who has staff software engineering experience at multiple international corporations, hit me up. ❤️
February 27, 2026 at 12:04 AM
Block was a really great place to work for the past four months. Unfortunately, I’m part of today’s 40% layoff.
If you need an old hand at web stuff, who has staff software engineering experience at multiple international corporations, hit me up. ❤️
If you need an old hand at web stuff, who has staff software engineering experience at multiple international corporations, hit me up. ❤️
Getting laid off sucks, but I just realized that I have never taken more than 2 weeks off between jobs before, and I’ve always juggled interviews with actually working. So, silver lining, I’ll get a nice long break for the first time ever, and I’ll be able to focus on studying for interviews
February 27, 2026 at 4:38 AM
Getting laid off sucks, but I just realized that I have never taken more than 2 weeks off between jobs before, and I’ve always juggled interviews with actually working. So, silver lining, I’ll get a nice long break for the first time ever, and I’ll be able to focus on studying for interviews
Hi friends I just got laid off along with 40% of Block. No idea what comes next, but if you have need for a Principal Frontend Engineer hit me up!
February 26, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Hi friends I just got laid off along with 40% of Block. No idea what comes next, but if you have need for a Principal Frontend Engineer hit me up!
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. not just in communities, but companies too. I have never in my long career worked with anyone who deliberately *made the choice* to be a “low performer” without curiosity/discipline/agency, it’s always been beaten out of them
I would echo this. I *have* found people "without" discipline and curiosity, but usually this is correlated with:
1. They've been shut down and shut out
2. They don't feel valued
3. They've been stripped of self efficacy
4. They don't feel safe in their environment
So, y'know... I can't blame them
1. They've been shut down and shut out
2. They don't feel valued
3. They've been stripped of self efficacy
4. They don't feel safe in their environment
So, y'know... I can't blame them
Why assume these are people without discipline and curiosity? As a learning expert in tech so with some professional perspective here I think, much more than that beginner, I've met the toxic expert who throws beginners into the garbage (usually with a side serving of sexism and racism)
February 25, 2026 at 1:16 PM
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. not just in communities, but companies too. I have never in my long career worked with anyone who deliberately *made the choice* to be a “low performer” without curiosity/discipline/agency, it’s always been beaten out of them
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
Props to @scott.hanselman.com for naming the elephant in the room in big tech.
AI coding tools boost senior engineers but create challenges for juniors who lack context to judge outputs. Cutting junior hiring for near-term gains weakens the future pipeline. We’ll need apprenticeship-style paths.
AI coding tools boost senior engineers but create challenges for juniors who lack context to judge outputs. Cutting junior hiring for near-term gains weakens the future pipeline. We’ll need apprenticeship-style paths.
Redefining the Software Engineering Profession for AI | Communications of the ACM
dl.acm.org
February 25, 2026 at 5:19 AM
Props to @scott.hanselman.com for naming the elephant in the room in big tech.
AI coding tools boost senior engineers but create challenges for juniors who lack context to judge outputs. Cutting junior hiring for near-term gains weakens the future pipeline. We’ll need apprenticeship-style paths.
AI coding tools boost senior engineers but create challenges for juniors who lack context to judge outputs. Cutting junior hiring for near-term gains weakens the future pipeline. We’ll need apprenticeship-style paths.
Oooh this is super exciting to see Container Timing come to life! This will be so helpful for measuring user-triggered page updates!
How do you measure when a component is “ready”? ⏱️
LCP is too global; Element Timing is too specific.
🛠️ I’ve been working with Bloomberg on a new #webperf API: Container Timing. Think of it as “LCP for a web component”, providing aggregated paint timing for a subtree.
LCP is too global; Element Timing is too specific.
🛠️ I’ve been working with Bloomberg on a new #webperf API: Container Timing. Think of it as “LCP for a web component”, providing aggregated paint timing for a subtree.
February 25, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Oooh this is super exciting to see Container Timing come to life! This will be so helpful for measuring user-triggered page updates!
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
I won't have time to debunk the old "yellow is not accessible" myth in my axe-con talk.
But, you are lucky: I already wrote a whole article on how accessibility does NOT limit color choices.
stephaniewalter.design/blog/yellow-...
#Accessibility #AccessibleColors #YellowColor
But, you are lucky: I already wrote a whole article on how accessibility does NOT limit color choices.
stephaniewalter.design/blog/yellow-...
#Accessibility #AccessibleColors #YellowColor
February 25, 2026 at 9:20 AM
I won't have time to debunk the old "yellow is not accessible" myth in my axe-con talk.
But, you are lucky: I already wrote a whole article on how accessibility does NOT limit color choices.
stephaniewalter.design/blog/yellow-...
#Accessibility #AccessibleColors #YellowColor
But, you are lucky: I already wrote a whole article on how accessibility does NOT limit color choices.
stephaniewalter.design/blog/yellow-...
#Accessibility #AccessibleColors #YellowColor
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
February 23, 2026 at 1:06 AM
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
BOMBOGENESIS
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
/ FOLKS
/ THIS IS IT
/ THE BLIZZARD OF 2026
/ READY 2 BLOB U UP
/ READY 2 BLOB U DOWN
/ UR GONNA GET ALL BLOBBED UP
/ STARTING SUMTIME AFTER 6 PM SUNEVE
/ & LASTING IN2 MONNITE
/ THIS WILL BE THICC HEAVY WET SNOWBLOBS
/ CHARGE UR BATTERIES AS POWER OUTAGES R LIKELY
/ THIS IS IT
/ THE BLIZZARD OF 2026
/ READY 2 BLOB U UP
/ READY 2 BLOB U DOWN
/ UR GONNA GET ALL BLOBBED UP
/ STARTING SUMTIME AFTER 6 PM SUNEVE
/ & LASTING IN2 MONNITE
/ THIS WILL BE THICC HEAVY WET SNOWBLOBS
/ CHARGE UR BATTERIES AS POWER OUTAGES R LIKELY
February 21, 2026 at 11:17 PM
/ FOLKS
/ THIS IS IT
/ THE BLIZZARD OF 2026
/ READY 2 BLOB U UP
/ READY 2 BLOB U DOWN
/ UR GONNA GET ALL BLOBBED UP
/ STARTING SUMTIME AFTER 6 PM SUNEVE
/ & LASTING IN2 MONNITE
/ THIS WILL BE THICC HEAVY WET SNOWBLOBS
/ CHARGE UR BATTERIES AS POWER OUTAGES R LIKELY
/ THIS IS IT
/ THE BLIZZARD OF 2026
/ READY 2 BLOB U UP
/ READY 2 BLOB U DOWN
/ UR GONNA GET ALL BLOBBED UP
/ STARTING SUMTIME AFTER 6 PM SUNEVE
/ & LASTING IN2 MONNITE
/ THIS WILL BE THICC HEAVY WET SNOWBLOBS
/ CHARGE UR BATTERIES AS POWER OUTAGES R LIKELY
Reposted by Katie Sylor-Miller
A sad day for rectangles
I've been experimenting with an upcoming CSS feature called border-shape lately.
It's really cool what you can do with it: lots of practical applications + it opens a lot of doors for non-rectangular UIs!
Try it in Canary w/experimental web platform features on, & read more:
una.im/border-shape
It's really cool what you can do with it: lots of practical applications + it opens a lot of doors for non-rectangular UIs!
Try it in Canary w/experimental web platform features on, & read more:
una.im/border-shape
una.im | border-shape: the future of the non-rectangular web
Learn about new geometry capabilities with this game-changing experimental CSS feature.
una.im
February 20, 2026 at 2:02 AM
A sad day for rectangles