19. What is a healthy habit that you believe more people should do?

Sucking at stuff.

you gotta be bad before you get good. skill takes practice. and if you never "git gud"? Who cares? if it's fun for you and you get enjoyment out of it, keep doing it.

--Me, on Discord somewhere

Sucking at stuff is human. Clumsily putting together what you know is one of the most human things you could do. And in this age of AI Slop, it feels even more poignant.

I wonder if this is why I've been so hyper-fixated on Linux stuff: for the learning and feeling of accomplishment. I may be at the level of "know just enough to be dangerous," but that is all me. And I can only improve organically from here, with my own two hands.

A brief anecdote

I haven't written about this anywhere else (other than a vague poll), but I guess I'll mention it now: I rejected a site for the first time.

It looked nice but it was slotted to the PENDING box until I heard back. It is no issue when people spin and tweak the webring code how they like– it's in the spirit of smallweb, and I love seeing different ways to display it. But the site was PENDING because the code was malformed. No biggie. Do a fixxie, and I'll stick you in the webring.

And then, for funsies, I did some extra snooping around. I looked again at their about page and I paraphrase: "I have that github AIbot under a free trial, so I decided to vibecode some of this site!"

Initially, I was understanding– shiet, I can't understand most of JS on a good day, which is why I gave them a headsup about their code. But after reading that sentence? My impression tanked. No wonder they fucked up the webring code, I thought to myself rather uncharitably. They didn't bother to learn. And that pissed me off a little. And I don't care why; I don't have the patience.

Pick up a tutorial from 32bit.Cafe like the rest of us

So, I wrote the letter in a very casual "you know why I'm doing this" and "vibecoding is not in the spirit of smallweb." But I wish I was a touch kinder about it, because it could've been a teaching moment instead of an abrasive brush-off.

If only I knew about Just Say No (to AI) a little sooner; I could have linked that too. I could've offered them to try again once they fix the site regardless if I had any handy links. But ah well. I can't be the perfect teacher all the time. And this lesson was probably just a harsh one. But I'll know for the future.

I've since added that disclaimer on the Join page for Our Favorite Void. Which has 17 members as of this writing!

とにかく

... I just wanted an excuse to post this little comic somewhere, because it is one I think about a lot.

Alt text for above image:

Mage and a liberated fully sentient Pentium-M Man stand by a brick wall, overlooking the desert. They are talking.

Mage is looking anxiously into the eyes of the machine. Penguin is standing behind her, holding on to her.

Pentium-M Man: "...they despise your kind because you understand the machine, while they have to turn jungles into fuel and enslave thousands of computers just to pretend that the machine speaks to them too."

You can find more of Tomas' work on their website, analognowhere.