Posts tagged with "housekeeping"

2026-08-10 / tags: projects, security, quick reads, sidebar updates, ai, housekeeping

Scenes from my inbox over the past month:

July 10th: [Constance Bello's Blog] Your site has been updated to WordPress 7.0.1
July 17th: [Constance Bello's Blog] Your site has been updated to WordPress 7.0.2
August 6th: [Constance Bello's Blog] Your site has been updated to WordPress 7.0.3

I had my blog running on a managed WordPress site run by May First, a technology cooperative I'm a member of – and their staff have been busy. I'm far from the only person having to deal with frequent updates for my software of late. And WordPress is far from the only affected software. Though 7.0.1 was a maintenance release to follow up on non-security bugs from 7.0 a month and a half prior, 7.0.2 and 7.0.3 fixed critical- and high-severity security bugs that are being discovered at a rapid clip thanks to advances in frontier LLM capability combined with more and more researchers pointing them at software projects, intentionally or not^[1]. You may have noticed that your operating system, web browser, or other important software has been needing updates more than usual lately – this is why.
The most secure code is the code that never runs, so I've decided to switch to a static site generator-based website. Instead of a WordPress process running on a server at all times to give you access to my posts, this setup spits out a folder that contains static files that make up the website, which can be served by a variety of service providers and HTTP servers with ease. This trades off a bit of functionality for users (like the ability to comment on posts and subscribe to a mailing list without going to another website) with lots of upside for all parties (better security and a more privacy-respecting posture for users, and the same for me, plus less maintenance overhead and more customizability). If you're interested in all the gory details, I might put out a technical writeup at some point, but for now feel free to look at a mirror of the code.

Personally, my life has been a hot mess the past couple months, between moving (twice... ask me about my Airbnb experience when I was between apartments) and continuing to look for work. I've only recently had time to settle back into projects and getting back to the blog was on top of the proverbial priority queue. I'm bundling that with an update to my #branding; that logo in the top left of the screen^[2] is also in my wallet now!

I'm looking forward to giving some of these out at the New Yorker Hotel, where I'll be next weekend for HOPE!

And, as per usual, sidebar additions:

• The Casual Finance YouTube channel tackles the AI bubble from an economics perspective, explaining how fucked everything is in the ✨capital markets✨ that allocate resources in the systems we exist within.
• Simon Willison's Weblog has lots of insights on the day-to-day use of LLMs for software engineering. I resisted for a long time, but I finally bit the bullet and started using LLMs in a very limited way for my projects, with Zed's built-in AI features hooked up to Ollama running models locally. This way, I won't need to worry about what might happen to my model access when the bottom falls out from under OpenAI and Anthropic, since I'm not using any of their tech anyway, and by using open weight models I'm not propping up their business model predicated on extraction.

Until next time, friends...

2026-05-09 / tags: housekeeping, sidebar updates

Hello, and welcome to my newfangled blog! Folks have been writing their thoughts in this format since time immemorial^[1] and I am standing on the shoulders of giants to take part in this tradition.
By way of introduction, my name is Constance Bello. I'm a rebel technologist with strong interests in privacy, security, and anonymity; the relationship between tech and disability justice; and how tech can be used for the interests of the people instead of the powerful. I'm also deeply invested in sharing what I know with others, building community, and meaningfully contributing to social movements. I am about to complete my B.S. in Computer Science at Fordham University.

I'm starting this blog at a crossroads in my life where I've realized that to take another step on the path I thought I was following would make no sense. I've put in a few thousand hours on writing software through the lifecycle: conception, development, shipping, and maintenance; and I only now have the qualifications most people expect in order to consider hiring a "new" software engineer without much professional experience, despite having much more practical experience than folks who might be newer to CS topics getting their degree at the same time.
At the same time, the job market for software engineers is abysmal. AI, or more accurately, the people promoting it for their own benefit, have come in and wrecked this industry (among plenty of others) in another brazen smash and grab attempt on the economy.
I interned at BlackRock in the summer of 2024 because I thought I needed a big paycheck to be okay in this life, and to get that I had to sacrifice my values. As someone who believes in egalitarianism, it stained my soul to show up to work every day at 50 Hudson Yards and work on an LLM chatbot. Since then, I've learned a lot about who I am, and what trade-offs are right for me to make.

I'm a rebel. I always have been. And I've always been able to identify what's a fad and what's real innovation. Right now, AI is at the end of tulip mania and the petals are falling quicker and quicker by the day^[2]. The real innovation in 2026? Jumping ship from Big Tech, decentralizing infrastructure, and getting ready for a world that'll be undergoing more and more rapid changes.
Being forthright and saying the things in this blog post is a professional risk for someone trying to break into the tech industry. You know what else is a risk for someone like that? Applying for job after job for months and month and months, burning down their resources and spirit. And I know more people in the tech industry – with established careers and polished résumés – in this position or in a precarious spot with their job than with stable work. I'm done trying to break into a burning house.

For a long time I've tried to keep my private beliefs and public persona separate. But part of me has been nagging at the idea that I need to shut up and collect my bread to get through. Is that really true? I am one of the best communicators I know, especially on technical topics. Every time I am in a technical space, and almost always in non-technical spaces, as soon as people find out what I know, they ask me for help with their questions. I have made myself available for that and been helpful to so many people that I've been slowly realizing that is where my potential lies. I can throw together code with the best of them – but I can explain how to use the tools, how they work, and how they will impact you like few people I know.
This is my pivot. I'm planning on fighting this fire that started with the tech industry and is burning the world. AI threatens natural resources like fresh water and green space more than any other computer workload, increases energy demands the same way, and it's all deployed by the powerful in the service of trying to wrest as much economic control as they can from what remains of middle class workers. Not to mention the social issues caused when people are convinced to speak to a chatbot instead of a therapist, or a "character" instead of a romantic partner. Fuck all that. I am very interested in how we, as individuals and as communities, can protect ourselves from this force, and I've been doing myself and the people around me a disservice by hiding. That ends today.

If you're similarly inclined, I would truly appreciate if you would consider subscribing to RSS updates from this blog. While I'm not totally sure what the frequency of posts will be at this point, you can expect some ranting, thoughts on privacy, security, anonymity, and my other interests, and highlights from the things I'm reading. I value citing my sources, and I have a sidebar with links to other resources I check out regularly on the blog home page; any time I add something new to it I'll write a post about it too.