Alien

arms dealer

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

new keeb

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

how do I explain to my mother that AI has access to all human knowledge but also knows nothing?

[giyu_codes @giyu_codes]

Every time I get asked to integrate AI within a company they are surprised with how "anti-AI" I am.

A dental SaaS was trying to sell an "AI scheduling" feature to a local dentist office (friend of mine) and I asked if the account manager if the AI can handle a few key use cases.

- Can it handle personnel scheduling preferences?

- Will it reschedule and optimize a calendar on the day of, for the whole practice, when cancellations and emergencies are requested?

- What is the adoption rate for older clients versus younger clients and how do they handle the cutover?

- Do practices ever experience client attrition in the first few weeks due to any errors on their software? (they do)

Their answers:

- Nope.
- Nope.
- "We don't handle that".
- Nope (so they lied)

So I said hit the road, we don't need your AI crap.

The Dentist thought I would be an advocate for it but tbh AI is trash in most cases. I didn't even advocate to build it in-house... they just simply didn't need that type of system because it doesn't answer their main problems.

AI sucks for the most part tbh.

[terminally onλine εngineer @tekbog]

Of 11,000 vibe coding software engineers, only 327 had pre-AI experience with writing code.

[htmx.org / CTO of Deprecated Software (same thing) @htmx_org]

sorry folks:

https://t.co/Mc59S037hf

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

how it feels using slopus sometimes

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

It's just going to get worse btw

[Theo - t3.gg @theo]

Security things from the last few days:
- CopyFail (linux pwn'd)
- CopyFail 2/Dirty Frag
- 13 advisories in Next.js
- Over 70 CVEs addressed in MacOS 26.5
- ~50 CVEs addressed in iOS 26.5
- YellowKey (Windows Bitlocker pwn'd entirely)
- GreenPlasma (Windows privilege escalation)
- CVE-2026-21510 and CVE-2026-21513 confirmed to be used by Russia for Windows RCE
- CVE-2026-32202 separately confirmed to be used by Russia for sensitive document access
- Mini-Shai Hulud (over 300 JS and Python packages compromised via GitHub Action cache poisoning)
- Google confirms they have identified AI-powered exploitation of zero days in an unidentified "open-source, web-based system administration too"
- Canvas (popular LMS used in most schools) pwn'd entirely
- PAN-OS (palo alto networks) pwn'd with a 9.3 severity CVE-2026-0300

Are you scared yet?

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

coinbase: we're letting non-technical people ship to production

*outage*

coinbase:

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

We experienced an outage at Coinbase last night, which is never acceptable. The root cause was a room overheating in an AWS datacenter when multiple chillers failed. We design our services to be redundant to downtime in any one AWS Availability Zone (AZ), and most of our systems worked this way last night, but not all.

Our centralized exchange did not. Exchanges have unique architectures that optimize for latency and co-location of clients. It is possible to make exchanges resistant to AZ failures, but this can introduce latency delays that are not desirable along with breaking customer co-location. Given this incident, we'll revisit these tradeoffs to ensure we're giving you the best possible venue to trade. At a minimum, the duration of an outage should be able to be reduced considerably when an AZ move is needed.

Thank you to the AWS and Coinbase teams for working through the night to mitigate the issue. We’ll share the detailed technical summary once it's ready.

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

a good way to steal training data and weights would be to rent out your compute to a competitor

luckily that never happens in practice

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

replacing captchas with IQ tests on my site to filter NPCs

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

carbon monoxide is an antioxidant btw

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

iphone users wish they could

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

🫪

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

> "Non-technical teams are now shipping production code"

Coinbase's days are now numbered

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase:

Team,

Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future.

Why now
Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both.

First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth.

Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day.

All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.

What this means
To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice?

- Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles.

- No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

- AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.

To those who are affected
I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done.

All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information.

To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements.

Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters.

How we move forward
To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together:

Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it.

The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission.

Brian

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

AI companies accusing each other of distilling from each other

meanwhile all AI companies are distilling from humans

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

why do all my fellow programmers want to KISS me

then they call me stupid

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

>"set a hugging face token for faster downloads"
>I set one
>downloading speed halves

[Stefan Smith @TheStefanSmith]

As a single Millennial with no dependents and a six figure income, I’m apparently this country’s only tax base.

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

you americans simply don't understand what it's like to eat radishes with salt while doing research in the middle of the night

[David Hansen 🇺🇸 🇳🇿 @boxcardavid]

These seem like a liability nightmare but the mean free path of a ballistic child is pretty short

Tort law understands plinko math

[Alien @KaroshiAlien]

wtf do you mean salt is a natural preservative

didn't life start in saltwater