Ben Torkington
@bentorkington.bsky.social
I want to make software that makes people's lives better, not worse.
Tones to -18dB. All vehicles parked at owners' risk.
Tones to -18dB. All vehicles parked at owners' risk.
Willis went to school in the late 1980s at Marsden Collegiate, a decile 10 years 1-13 school in Karori. Now, the website is disappointingly scant on details of electrical outfits over the years, but I'm getting Didn't Happen vibes from the main distribution board being accessible to students.
November 22, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Willis went to school in the late 1980s at Marsden Collegiate, a decile 10 years 1-13 school in Karori. Now, the website is disappointingly scant on details of electrical outfits over the years, but I'm getting Didn't Happen vibes from the main distribution board being accessible to students.
Google is now at the point where searching [username] [repo name] often doesn't turn up a Github repo with the exact spelling. Probably good to break the habit of searching just to avoid typing github dot com slash anyway, but… ugh.
November 21, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Google is now at the point where searching [username] [repo name] often doesn't turn up a Github repo with the exact spelling. Probably good to break the habit of searching just to avoid typing github dot com slash anyway, but… ugh.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
I am by no means a prominent public intellectual, but my inbox is increasingly filled with messages from people who have been convinced by sycophantic chatbots that they have discovered revolutionary theories that entirely upend our scientific understanding of the universe.
November 21, 2025 at 2:49 AM
I am by no means a prominent public intellectual, but my inbox is increasingly filled with messages from people who have been convinced by sycophantic chatbots that they have discovered revolutionary theories that entirely upend our scientific understanding of the universe.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
This was an IQ test.
November 20, 2025 at 11:30 PM
This was an IQ test.
Jury Duty is just sentencing for people who have not been charged with a crime
Reminder that juror fees have not been increased since 2004 (yes 21 years ago). The maximum payable is $127 for more than 3 hours and beyond 9 pm.
The usual daily rate is $62 for more than 3 hours but not beyond 6 pm.
Jury duty is obviously nowhere near as important as being on a board.
The usual daily rate is $62 for more than 3 hours but not beyond 6 pm.
Jury duty is obviously nowhere near as important as being on a board.
😡 #NZ Neoliberal RW Govt approves HUGE pay hikes for #CrownBoard, #authority members after fee framework changes, in many cases doubling the amount they receive, despite huge cuts in pay for teachers, nurses, carers & others #pay #inequality #AtlasNetwork #nzpol www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...
November 21, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Jury Duty is just sentencing for people who have not been charged with a crime
Reposted by Ben Torkington
Extremely upset that a throw-away XKCD joke somehow became the organizing principle for the Internet.
November 20, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Extremely upset that a throw-away XKCD joke somehow became the organizing principle for the Internet.
In software we can release MVPs and then continue to build the plane while it's flying, because nothing is real. It's not a goal, just a milestone where the thing is no longer useless.
It's not a concept that migrates well to things built from concrete and steel.
It's not a concept that migrates well to things built from concrete and steel.
Did I just hear "minimum viable product" coming out of the mouth of the Centerport head regarding what Winnie has asked him to deliver for the ferry terminals?
Minimum
Viable
Product
Minimum
Viable
Product
#nzpol
Minimum
Viable
Product
Minimum
Viable
Product
#nzpol
November 19, 2025 at 7:03 AM
In software we can release MVPs and then continue to build the plane while it's flying, because nothing is real. It's not a goal, just a milestone where the thing is no longer useless.
It's not a concept that migrates well to things built from concrete and steel.
It's not a concept that migrates well to things built from concrete and steel.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
Startup English in the public sector is a reliable sign that something is going to be half-arsed just long enough for someone to tick off a KPI and then left to die.
Did I just hear "minimum viable product" coming out of the mouth of the Centerport head regarding what Winnie has asked him to deliver for the ferry terminals?
Minimum
Viable
Product
Minimum
Viable
Product
#nzpol
Minimum
Viable
Product
Minimum
Viable
Product
#nzpol
November 19, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Startup English in the public sector is a reliable sign that something is going to be half-arsed just long enough for someone to tick off a KPI and then left to die.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
I think user pays is a silly philosophy for infrastructure in general but if New Zealand has nowhere near the traffic volumes to fund these roads then…why do we need these roads?
Hard choices lie ahead, Bishop says, as he explains funding the $56 billion in motorways promised by the Government would require a nearly 50c per litre lift in petrol taxes.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop says funding $56b in roads a 'challenge'
Hard choices lie ahead, Bishop says, as he explains funding the $56 billion in motorways promised by the Government would require a nearly 50c per litre lift in petrol taxes.
dlvr.it
November 19, 2025 at 3:49 AM
I think user pays is a silly philosophy for infrastructure in general but if New Zealand has nowhere near the traffic volumes to fund these roads then…why do we need these roads?
If we can't stop the word "Wellngton" making it into a headline despite that being a Very Easy Thing to Do for longer than most people have been alive, it might be time to revisit our approach for how we apply technology to serious stuff like living vs. dying.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
IT system at Wellngton Hospital a 'constant risk' to patient safety, says union
Health NZ chief information technology officer Darren Douglass said performance problems arose in March.
www.rnz.co.nz
November 17, 2025 at 5:36 AM
If we can't stop the word "Wellngton" making it into a headline despite that being a Very Easy Thing to Do for longer than most people have been alive, it might be time to revisit our approach for how we apply technology to serious stuff like living vs. dying.
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
what if bullshit overtaking Nitrogen as the most abundant element in the atmosphere actually fixes recruitment?
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
November 17, 2025 at 5:24 AM
what if bullshit overtaking Nitrogen as the most abundant element in the atmosphere actually fixes recruitment?
slop can sneak into your workflow anywhere: it's not enough to just say "we don't use AI", or make a policy. You've got to be on the lookout for it, and there's more to it than just looking for em-dashes.
A new ruling on AI means the Ockhams are in the strange position of judging a book by its cover
Ockhams dump AI books from awards
newsroom.co.nz
November 17, 2025 at 4:55 AM
slop can sneak into your workflow anywhere: it's not enough to just say "we don't use AI", or make a policy. You've got to be on the lookout for it, and there's more to it than just looking for em-dashes.
guess this this didn't go so great
November 17, 2025 at 4:39 AM
guess this this didn't go so great
November 17, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Ben Torkington
Asset "recycling"? What a fun euphemism that NZME have immediately picked up and used.
November 16, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Asset "recycling"? What a fun euphemism that NZME have immediately picked up and used.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
i spend 29 seconds brushing each quartile of my teeth, and spend the 4 seconds i save reading up on the newest philosophies and techniques in business management
November 16, 2025 at 6:48 AM
i spend 29 seconds brushing each quartile of my teeth, and spend the 4 seconds i save reading up on the newest philosophies and techniques in business management
Absolute banger article on usability:
verou.me/blog/2025/us...
"You cannot uncover friction by asking users. Users are much more vocal about things not being possible, than about things being hard."
How many times do we run into "oh, nobody else has complained, sure you're not just crazy?"
verou.me/blog/2025/us...
"You cannot uncover friction by asking users. Users are much more vocal about things not being possible, than about things being hard."
How many times do we run into "oh, nobody else has complained, sure you're not just crazy?"
In the economy of user effort, be a bargain, not a scam • Lea Verou
Treat user effort as a currency. To create a product users love, design the tradeoff curve of use case complexity to user effort with the same care you design your pricing scheme.
verou.me
November 16, 2025 at 5:20 AM
Absolute banger article on usability:
verou.me/blog/2025/us...
"You cannot uncover friction by asking users. Users are much more vocal about things not being possible, than about things being hard."
How many times do we run into "oh, nobody else has complained, sure you're not just crazy?"
verou.me/blog/2025/us...
"You cannot uncover friction by asking users. Users are much more vocal about things not being possible, than about things being hard."
How many times do we run into "oh, nobody else has complained, sure you're not just crazy?"
I wonder how we can recover from this. How can we, when billions is being spent marketing the current iteration of tech in the form of "half your job will be done for you before you wake up, and you only have push a button for the other half to be done, lol don't worry your job will be very safe"
this goes right along with my theory that the AI obsession in *users* is often bc…
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
November 15, 2025 at 11:13 PM
I wonder how we can recover from this. How can we, when billions is being spent marketing the current iteration of tech in the form of "half your job will be done for you before you wake up, and you only have push a button for the other half to be done, lol don't worry your job will be very safe"
The "U" in UX stands for shareholder.
November 15, 2025 at 10:53 PM
The "U" in UX stands for shareholder.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
UX or “user experience” design means stealing your wallet, with computers.
November 12, 2025 at 2:42 AM
UX or “user experience” design means stealing your wallet, with computers.
Reposted by Ben Torkington
HCI (Human Computer Interaction), first foreshadowed by Ted Nelson as "fantics" and then formalized by Apple is effectively dead as a field of human-factors engineering.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
learning to program in the late 90s and early 00s, you’d inevitably run across classic works like Goto Considered Harmful and No Silver Bullet, even if you weren’t particularly bookish, and there was tons of discourse about HCI as well, all grounded in decades of research
i’m afraid that’s all gone
i’m afraid that’s all gone
November 12, 2025 at 2:25 AM
HCI (Human Computer Interaction), first foreshadowed by Ted Nelson as "fantics" and then formalized by Apple is effectively dead as a field of human-factors engineering.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Severance gets less and less weird the more you realise it’s a series made by Apple about working at Apple.
A few years ago they moved their technical documentation team to the spaceship, to an office that had NO bookshelves. They posted on Slack that their entire library was basically up for grabs.
I got an autographed copy of Ted Nelson’s Possiplex out of it, among other treasures.
I got an autographed copy of Ted Nelson’s Possiplex out of it, among other treasures.
November 15, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Severance gets less and less weird the more you realise it’s a series made by Apple about working at Apple.
this "border: 50px solid white;" could have been an email
November 15, 2025 at 8:40 PM
this "border: 50px solid white;" could have been an email
Duncan Garner may just be some bus stop drunk with a podcast these days, but it's good to see he hasn't lost his journalism skills, particularly the act of just shitting a few numbers and coloured rectangles over a stock image of the beehive.
November 15, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Duncan Garner may just be some bus stop drunk with a podcast these days, but it's good to see he hasn't lost his journalism skills, particularly the act of just shitting a few numbers and coloured rectangles over a stock image of the beehive.
This morning boffins are asking us to surrender the Asbestos Sand hard working mums and dads have bought their kids, and now cops are sticking their noses in people's "brakes", whatever the fuck those are.
So much red tape these days. Kiwis are just trying to get ahead
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
So much red tape these days. Kiwis are just trying to get ahead
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
Quarter of all trucks tested in blitz fail brake test
The brakes on more than a quarter of trucks tested in a recent police operation on central North Island roads were found to be faulty.
www.rnz.co.nz
November 15, 2025 at 8:28 AM
This morning boffins are asking us to surrender the Asbestos Sand hard working mums and dads have bought their kids, and now cops are sticking their noses in people's "brakes", whatever the fuck those are.
So much red tape these days. Kiwis are just trying to get ahead
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
So much red tape these days. Kiwis are just trying to get ahead
www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...