---
title: "Miscellanea for 2026-01-29"
date: 2026-01-29T23:59:00-07:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2026/01/29/miscellanea/
author: Les Orchard
tags: [miscellanea]
---

# Miscellanea for 2026-01-29

- Hello world!
- I keep meaning to do this style of post on a daily basis, but there are very few things I do on a consistent daily basis. So, enjoy this random occurrence.
- Isn't it super weird that back in 1997, Dave Winer was writing about "[Fractional Horsepower HTTP Servers](http://scripting.com/davenet/1997/09/14/FractionalHorsepowerHTTPSe.html)" embedded in every device that matters.
	- This, when setting up a web server was still a huge ceremony.
	- Now, almost 30 years later, I can run a web server on a microcontroller smaller than my fingernail that cost me less than a buck.
	- In fact, I [embedded one into a pumpkin](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2018/02/08/pumpkin/) for fun, about 8 years ago.
	- What if LLMs don't even improve radically, but gradually shed all the ceremony for running them on cheap personal devices?
- Apropos of that, [Dave Winer mentions a thing about LLMs & AI in coding](http://scripting.com/2026/01/28.html#a150041): "AI is going to be part of programming forever. There's no way to go back."
	- This, after reading "[Don't fall into the anti-AI hype](https://antirez.com/news/158)" from antirez
	- I keep thinking about this and I think it's true.
	- Specifically, two things can be true at the same time:
		- "AI" as it currently exists is a bubble and most of the high-flying companies pushing slop are going to die messily.
		- LLMs that generate code are going to be in the programming toolkit for a great many folks from here on, indefinitely, like calculators and compilers.
	- Remember [the dot-com crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble) back in the 2000s? Well, neither the internet nor the web went away. We built Web 2.0 atop the dark fiber - and [that could happen again for "AI"](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danrunkevicius/2025/03/24/is-the-ai-boom-headed-for-its-dark-fiber-moment/). Maybe.
	- Look, I know [technological inevitability is a myth](https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-technological-inevitability) - this stuff isn't self-executing, it still takes people to build it and carry it forward by choice.
		- But, like the internal combustion engine and jet aeroplanes, there are a lot of folks who find LLMs convenient & productively useful - even if there are measurable harms and perils in their use.
		- See also: smart phones, social media, same-day delivery, plastics, antibiotics, and eating meat.
		- While none of these are inevitable, I think more folks than not see more benefit than not. And, thus, it's unlikely we'll swear off them cold turkey anytime soon.
	- Like Dave says, "We get so mired in the question of should we do this -- well we're doing it, time to start looking at the next set of questions."
		- This is why, for example, I don't think it's entirely off-into-the-weeds for [a company like Mozilla to aim at bending the trajectory of this stuff](https://stateof.mozilla.org/tools/), rather than trying to halt or ignore it.
	- For what it's worth, I'm not trying to sell anyone on this stuff. I think, where it's genuinely useful, it sells itself.
		- To the extent that I talk about it is mainly me learning out loud.
		- And, honestly, being [serially enthusiastic](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2006/05/26/confessions-of-a-serial-enthusiast/) about a shiny object as is my wont.
	- But, still, I think "AI" is in a space of way higher value than some folks place it.
		- And yet, orders of magnitude lower than so many CEOs are hyping it.
		- I hope it someday settles down as [normal technology](https://www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-as-normal-technology), and I think [many of us are hoping for that](https://www.anildash.com/2025/10/17/the-majority-ai-view/). 
		- But, again, it's not going to just evaporate. Not even if the bubble pops.
	- Anyway. These are thoughts I've had and I felt like brain-dumping them today, like you do on a blog.