Joe Lanman
@joelanman.bsky.social
Design Lead on data.gov.uk at the UK Government Digital Service
Projects include Register to Vote, Petition Parliament, GovWifi and the GOV.UK Prototype Kit
https://joelanman.com
Projects include Register to Vote, Petition Parliament, GovWifi and the GOV.UK Prototype Kit
https://joelanman.com
Pinned
Joe Lanman
@joelanman.bsky.social
· Oct 19
It's a designer's job to design for people who use
- screens
- screen readers
- screen magnifiers
- touch screens
- trackpads
- voice input
- keyboard-only
(a non exhaustive list)
#a11y #accessibility #design
- screens
- screen readers
- screen magnifiers
- touch screens
- trackpads
- voice input
- keyboard-only
(a non exhaustive list)
#a11y #accessibility #design
Reposted by Joe Lanman
Godot's GitHub has increasingly many pull requests generated by LLMs and it's a MASSIVE time waster for reviewers – especially if people don't disclose it. Changes often make no sense, descriptions are extremely verbose, users don't understand their own changes… It's a total shitshow. #godotengine
February 16, 2026 at 9:03 AM
Godot's GitHub has increasingly many pull requests generated by LLMs and it's a MASSIVE time waster for reviewers – especially if people don't disclose it. Changes often make no sense, descriptions are extremely verbose, users don't understand their own changes… It's a total shitshow. #godotengine
Reposted by Joe Lanman
yes. the things that would make social media safer for children are almost all just the things that would make social media non-harmful/much less harmful for *all of us*.
if you do it by age verification then nothing will stop a child in a difficult home accessing stuff via parents' accounts
if you do it by age verification then nothing will stop a child in a difficult home accessing stuff via parents' accounts
The under-16 social media (and VPN, and chatbot) ban is part of a broader policy problem IMV, which is that it is politically easier to talk about e.g. 'child poverty', and you can do a lot of good with that approach, but it has hard limits because ultimately you are also just talking about poverty.
February 16, 2026 at 3:23 PM
yes. the things that would make social media safer for children are almost all just the things that would make social media non-harmful/much less harmful for *all of us*.
if you do it by age verification then nothing will stop a child in a difficult home accessing stuff via parents' accounts
if you do it by age verification then nothing will stop a child in a difficult home accessing stuff via parents' accounts
Cube, but all the rooms are like inconveniences or awkward rather than fatal
February 16, 2026 at 10:49 AM
Cube, but all the rooms are like inconveniences or awkward rather than fatal
Beat XCOM 2 on Veteran, good game with poor onboarding and annoying ui and voiceovers
February 16, 2026 at 10:13 AM
Beat XCOM 2 on Veteran, good game with poor onboarding and annoying ui and voiceovers
Reposted by Joe Lanman
"Both slot machines and LLMs are explicitly engineered to maximize your psychological reaction. For slot machines, the makers want to maximize how long you play and how much you gamble. LLMs are fine-tuned to give answers that humans like, encouraging sycophancy"
www.fast.ai/posts/2026-0...
www.fast.ai/posts/2026-0...
Breaking the Spell of Vibe Coding – fast.ai
Sinister variations on the positive state of flow
www.fast.ai
February 15, 2026 at 5:14 PM
"Both slot machines and LLMs are explicitly engineered to maximize your psychological reaction. For slot machines, the makers want to maximize how long you play and how much you gamble. LLMs are fine-tuned to give answers that humans like, encouraging sycophancy"
www.fast.ai/posts/2026-0...
www.fast.ai/posts/2026-0...
Reposted by Joe Lanman
🎶 welcome to the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 checkout with the clerk
🎶 that's how hotels work
🎶 plenty of room at the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 we won't keep you here
🎶 that's a crazy fear
🎶 checkout with the clerk
🎶 that's how hotels work
🎶 plenty of room at the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 we won't keep you here
🎶 that's a crazy fear
February 15, 2026 at 3:43 AM
🎶 welcome to the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 checkout with the clerk
🎶 that's how hotels work
🎶 plenty of room at the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 we won't keep you here
🎶 that's a crazy fear
🎶 checkout with the clerk
🎶 that's how hotels work
🎶 plenty of room at the hotel Normal Hotel
🎶 we won't keep you here
🎶 that's a crazy fear
Reposted by Joe Lanman
Short musings on "cognitive debt" - I'm seeing this in my own work, where excessive unreviewed AI-generated code leads me to lose a firm mental model of what I've built, which then makes it harder to confidently make future decisions simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/...
How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt
This piece by Margaret-Anne Storey is the best explanation of the term cognitive debt I've seen so far. Cognitive debt, a term gaining traction recently, instead communicates the notion that …
simonwillison.net
February 15, 2026 at 5:22 AM
Short musings on "cognitive debt" - I'm seeing this in my own work, where excessive unreviewed AI-generated code leads me to lose a firm mental model of what I've built, which then makes it harder to confidently make future decisions simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/...
Reposted by Joe Lanman
This isn't something distant or far away. Super-agent & close Epstein ally, John Brockman had huge influence. His 'rockstar' writers, scientists and academics dominated our book pages & broadsheets.
We need nothing less than a total revisionist history of the last 20 years.
2/
We need nothing less than a total revisionist history of the last 20 years.
2/
February 15, 2026 at 11:18 AM
This isn't something distant or far away. Super-agent & close Epstein ally, John Brockman had huge influence. His 'rockstar' writers, scientists and academics dominated our book pages & broadsheets.
We need nothing less than a total revisionist history of the last 20 years.
2/
We need nothing less than a total revisionist history of the last 20 years.
2/
Reposted by Joe Lanman
What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it
February 11, 2026 at 10:03 PM
What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it
Reposted by Joe Lanman
What a great photo of Brazilian alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the first South American to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.
February 14, 2026 at 9:06 PM
What a great photo of Brazilian alpine skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the first South American to ever win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.
So Google play store has taken down Upscrolled but never did anything about X
February 14, 2026 at 10:34 PM
So Google play store has taken down Upscrolled but never did anything about X
One of my favourite tweets was from a blind product owner saying that the GOV.UK Prototype Kit meant that they could get involved in the design for the first time.
February 14, 2026 at 3:47 PM
One of my favourite tweets was from a blind product owner saying that the GOV.UK Prototype Kit meant that they could get involved in the design for the first time.
we're seeing knowledge collapse, ai reporting on ai
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/1...
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/1...
Taggart (@mttaggart@infosec.exchange)
Attached: 1 image
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
**UPDATE: Link was pulled; see bel...
infosec.exchange
February 14, 2026 at 12:56 PM
we're seeing knowledge collapse, ai reporting on ai
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/1...
infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/1...
Reposted by Joe Lanman
Just checking, it's now ok to flee your homeland, because you're afraid for your safety, and seek refuge in another Country?
Glad we've cleared that up. Let's hear no more about immigration and refugees then.
Glad we've cleared that up. Let's hear no more about immigration and refugees then.
February 14, 2026 at 7:55 AM
Just checking, it's now ok to flee your homeland, because you're afraid for your safety, and seek refuge in another Country?
Glad we've cleared that up. Let's hear no more about immigration and refugees then.
Glad we've cleared that up. Let's hear no more about immigration and refugees then.
Reposted by Joe Lanman
I launched a newsletter called Focus State. Turns out that name was already taken. That’s on me!
Rather than carry confusion forward, I renamed it.
Welcome to Digital Arcana: where I explore accessibility, product design, and design systems as one practice.
annaecook.com/writing/2026...
Rather than carry confusion forward, I renamed it.
Welcome to Digital Arcana: where I explore accessibility, product design, and design systems as one practice.
annaecook.com/writing/2026...
From Focus State to Digital Arcana — Anna E. Cook
A small but important change: this newsletter is now called Digital Arcana. In this post, I explain the rename, acknowledge the overlap that prompted it, and share why this new chapter feels like a st...
annaecook.com
February 13, 2026 at 5:02 PM
I launched a newsletter called Focus State. Turns out that name was already taken. That’s on me!
Rather than carry confusion forward, I renamed it.
Welcome to Digital Arcana: where I explore accessibility, product design, and design systems as one practice.
annaecook.com/writing/2026...
Rather than carry confusion forward, I renamed it.
Welcome to Digital Arcana: where I explore accessibility, product design, and design systems as one practice.
annaecook.com/writing/2026...
Google summaries are great
"Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire focused on this tight, claustrophobic visual style to create a, Festival de Cannes immersive, Wikipedia, BIFA visceral experience that, Exeter Phoenix puts the audience directly in the protagonist's, Independent Cinema Office perspective."
"Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire focused on this tight, claustrophobic visual style to create a, Festival de Cannes immersive, Wikipedia, BIFA visceral experience that, Exeter Phoenix puts the audience directly in the protagonist's, Independent Cinema Office perspective."
February 12, 2026 at 9:59 PM
Google summaries are great
"Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire focused on this tight, claustrophobic visual style to create a, Festival de Cannes immersive, Wikipedia, BIFA visceral experience that, Exeter Phoenix puts the audience directly in the protagonist's, Independent Cinema Office perspective."
"Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire focused on this tight, claustrophobic visual style to create a, Festival de Cannes immersive, Wikipedia, BIFA visceral experience that, Exeter Phoenix puts the audience directly in the protagonist's, Independent Cinema Office perspective."
So PowerPoint just puts a thin grey line around images and the workaround is to crop the image slightly? How have we ended up with such awful software
February 11, 2026 at 8:51 PM
So PowerPoint just puts a thin grey line around images and the workaround is to crop the image slightly? How have we ended up with such awful software
'original' is a contronym - a word that has opposite meanings.
It can mean 'the first one' or 'a new thing'
It can mean 'the first one' or 'a new thing'
February 11, 2026 at 1:58 PM
'original' is a contronym - a word that has opposite meanings.
It can mean 'the first one' or 'a new thing'
It can mean 'the first one' or 'a new thing'