DEV Community: Jason Bann

A 90-second drill for release notes (that you’ll actually use)

Jason Bann — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 17:03:45 +0000

Release notes pile up. People skim. Outages happen.

I use a tiny drill:
1) Paste the changelog (or fetch the URL).
2) Pull out breaking changes, new defaults, flags/toggles.
3) Produce a migration/rollback checklist + Markdown buckets.

Tool: https://vibeaxis.com/patch-notes-summarizer/

Buckets: Added / Changed / Fixed / Removed / Deprecated / Known issues / Open questions / Highlights.

Export JSON if you want to feed a docs pipeline.

Bonus: gut-check your prose with Slop Index → https://vibeaxis.com/slop-index/

Shipping Without the Slop: A Receipts-First Workflow for Marketing Copy

Jason Bann — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 19:14:43 +0000

If you’re moving fast, you’re probably shipping a little slop. Not because you’re lazy because the marketing web is booby-trapped with FOMO, fake intimacy, techno-mysticism, and “trust us, bro” vibes that sneak into drafts when you’re sprinting.

Here’s how we’ve been shipping cleaner, faster: a receipts-first workflow that flags manipulation language, rewrites it neutral, and leaves a paper trail you can point to later.

The one-click check: Adblock for Feelings

We built Adblock for Feelings
to lint persuasion tactics the way ESLint lints code.
Paste copy (or run the bookmarklet on any page) and it highlights:

FOMO & scarcity (last chance, ends tonight, waitlist…)
Authority-laundering (experts agree, scientifically proven…)
Fake intimacy (just between us, we noticed you…)
Hype (revolutionize, 10x, world-class…)
Fear bait & flattery

…plus a cleaned version you can ship without sounding like a cartoon villain.

It’s all client-side, no login, and you can export the flags as CSV or download a “receipt” (HTML) with hashes so future-you can prove you did the right thing.

Why receipts? Because arguments on the internet end when the evidence starts. See: How To Run Your Own Receipt Study

The receipts-first loop (15 minutes)

Draft like you mean it. Don’t self-censor in the first pass.

Run a feelings-lint. Paste into Adblock for Feelings → set strictness to Normal or Ruthless.

Neutralize & compare. Skim the Cleaned output; if meaning holds, keep it.

Export flags. Save CSV (for content QA) or the Receipt HTML (for audits).

Re-score the page. If it’s a long form, scan the published URL too.

Log the win. Drop the receipt link into your PR/issue to prevent “who changed the tone?” fights later.

If you’re fighting platform sludge in general, you might like:

AI Slop Index: Text
— grade a page’s “slop density” in ~60 seconds.

Boring On Purpose: Why Our Plugins Don’t Chase Hype
— the philosophy behind all this.

Algorithmic Possession: A DIY Exorcism for Your Recommender
— detox when feeds go feral.

When to turn the dial up (or down)

High-stakes pages (pricing, policy, comparison pages): set strictness to Ruthless and enable FOMO/Fear/Authority.

Community posts: go Gentle, leave Ambiguity on to catch weasel words.

Performance ads: try Neutralize mode (no highlights), compare CTR vs. bounce—then decide which tradeoffs you actually want.

Bookmarklet for field work

Adblock for Feelings has a “Copy Bookmarklet” button so you can run highlights on any page you’re analyzing yours, competitors’, or internal drafts in your CMS. Great for teardown threads or “before/after” screenshots.

Speaking of teardowns:

Digital Dumpster Diving: Reverse-Engineering Deleted TikToks

Rage-Click Olympics: Timing the Web’s Petty War Crimes

Ethics is velocity

The fastest teams codify taste. Linting language isn’t about being nice it’s about being consistent and defensible. If your brand voice is “honest over hype,” your toolchain should enforce it.

Start here: Adblock for Feelings
.
Ship copy you don’t have to apologize for later.

PS: More experiments you might like

Friendly vs. Honest: Which AI Voice Actually Builds Trust?

Open-Source AI vs Closed Models: Who Wins?

AI Hallucinations: Why They Happen and How to Stop Them

A No-JS ‘Back to Top’ that isn’t cringe (VAX Micro UX)

Jason Bann — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 12:32:10 +0000

title: "A No-JS ‘Back to Top’ that isn’t cringe (VAX Micro UX)"
published: true
tags: wordpress, accessibility, performance, ux
series: "Micro UX That Respects Users"

canonical_url: "https://vibeaxis.com/Ai-tools/

description: "A tiny ‘Back to Top’ that ships zero JS, respects reduced motion, and only shows on long posts."

TL;DR: I shipped a WordPress plugin that adds a “Back to Top” button without JavaScript. It only renders on long posts, hides on desktop, respects prefers-reduced-motion, and doesn’t dunk your CLS. It’s called VAX Micro UX.

Why this exists
Most “Back to Top” widgets are 30KB of JS to do a native anchor jump. We turned a one-line feature into a cottage industry of scroll listeners, icon fonts, and layout jank.

I wanted the opposite: something you forget you installed.

No JS. Native anchor + smooth scroll (and we disable it for reduced-motion).

Contextual. Only appears on long posts (default ≥ 900 words).

Mobile-first. Hidden ≥ 900px by default—because desktops have page-up keys and sane scroll wheels.

Zero settings. Activate and move on.

How it works (boring on purpose)
Prints a #va-top anchor with wp_body_open.

On long single posts, prints a floating link with a small inline SVG arrow.

Injects a tiny CSS block for native smooth scroll and a focus ring.

No database writes, no tracking, no external assets.

Customize without opening the plugin
You can tweak thresholds and colors with filters:

php
Copy code
// functions.php or a small mu-plugin
add_filter('vax_backtop_min_words', fn()=> 1200); // show only on 1200+ words
add_filter('vax_backtop_mobile_breakpoint', fn()=> 768); // hide on >= 768px
add_filter('vax_backtop_bg', fn()=> '#ffd400'); // acid yellow button
add_filter('vax_backtop_fg', fn()=> '#000000'); // black arrow
That’s it. No admin pages. No “Pro” upsell. If you want a control panel for a back-to-top link, we disagree about life.

Accessibility notes
Uses a real link with aria-label, so it’s keyboardable and screen-reader friendly.

Adds a focus-visible ring.

Honors prefers-reduced-motion (native smooth scroll off).

Install
Install VAX Micro UX from wp.org (or upload the ZIP).

Activate.

Write something long and actually worth scrolling. The button appears on mobile near the bottom right.

When a feature can be done in CSS and markup, do it in CSS and markup. Save your JS budget for things that aren’t already built into the browser.

— VibeAxis (receipts, not vibes)

Anti-Influence Suit — Armor for the Feed

Jason Bann — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 14:26:11 +0000

title: Anti-Influence Suit — Armor for the Feed
published: true
tags: attention, productivity, psychology, social

canonical_url: https://vibeaxis.com/the-anti-influence-suit-browse-without-being-modeled/

The feed isn’t content. It’s a centrifuge for your mood.

The Anti-Influence Suit is a 30-second protocol you run once a week. It’s not a “digital detox.” It’s plumbing.

0) Baseline (1 minute)

Take a screenshot of your home feeds (YouTube, TikTok/IG, X/Threads). Label it with today’s date. If your pulse jumps, good—you’ve found the leak.

1) Kill the bait (90 seconds)

Mute words you compulsively click (celebrity names, outrage bait, your ex’s new hobby).
Turn off “personalized” notifications. Keep only DMs, calendar, payments, delivery.
Block the puppeteers who farm you for “engagement” then sell the corpse.

Rule: if it hijacks your Sunday, it doesn’t get Monday.

2) Rewire “recommended” into “requested” (60 seconds)

YouTube/Spotify: unsubscribe everything you don’t want weekly.
Home feeds: Follow → Lists (X) / Favorites (IG) / Collections (Threads). Visit lists first; kill home second.

3) Friction layer (30 seconds)

Add a 1-tap filter: “Today only,” “New uploads only,” or a saved search.
Put your creation app on the home screen; bury the infinite feeds on page 3.

4) Weekly audit (30 seconds)

Open last week’s screenshot. Is today noisier? If yes, you got re-trained. Re-fit the suit (mute more words, remove one app’s notifications entirely).

Quick checklist (paste into notes)

[ ] Weekly screenshots saved
[ ] Mute list updated (5+ words)
[ ] Notifications: DMs/calendar only
[ ] Lists/Collections used first
[ ] Re-followed 0; unfollowed 5+
[ ] One app demoted to page 3

What this fixes

Doomscroll dopamine loops → muted triggers
Parasocial junk → lists/favorites instead of home
“Just one more” → friction on infinite feeds
Decision fatigue → scheduled audit, not willpower

Canonicals / Receipts:

Full breakdown lives here → https://vibeaxis.com/anti-influence-suit/

CLI for fast links:


bash
pip install -U vax-receipts-cli
vax-receipts list
# Windows cranky?  py -m vax_receipts_cli.cli list

Source Fidelity Playbook — Catch AI's Fake Citations in 90 Seconds

Jason Bann — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 12:39:43 +0000

Confident answer, dead link. Classic.

This is a 90-second drill to test whether an “AI answer” cites reality or decorates fiction.

The 90-Second Drill

1) Copy the claim. Pull the exact sentence the model is selling.

2) Open 3 tabs.

site: filter for primary sources (e.g., site:.gov, site:nature.com).
filetype: for reports and methods (filetype:pdf OR filetype:csv).
date range: match the timeframe the claim pretends to cover.

3) Verify author + provenance. Is the author real? Is the publisher the originator or a blog copying a blog?

4) Label the verdict.

✅ trustworthy / ❓ unknown / ❌ garbage (decorative link or irrelevant source)

Query Patterns (Copy/Paste)

"quoted phrase from the claim" site:.edu
topic name filetype:pdf 2022..2025
site:arxiv.org "exact method"

Your 5-Line Receipt

Claim:
Primary source:
Method check:
Date match:
Verdict:

When to Use Perplexity/Bing vs. Go Direct

Use aggregators to discover candidates (fast).
Go direct for verification (slow by design).

Full breakdown, examples, and failure cases: (canonical)

https://vibeaxis.com/perplexity-vs-google-find-the-source-not-the-hype/

We built a Slop Index: fingerprints for templated AI writing

Jason Bann — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:34:08 +0000

TL;DR: Clean ≠ human. The Slop Index scores template fingerprints—repetition loops, hedges, passive spikes, buzzword foam, paragraph uniformity—without tracking or uploading your text.

Why

“Looks fine” content often reads like it was extruded from a mold. We wanted measurable tells that a human can reason about—not a black-box “truth score.”

Signals

Repetition: share of top bigram vs all bigrams
Burstiness: sentence length variance
Lexical diversity: type–token ratio
Clichés / Buzzwords / Hedges per 100w
Passive hits per sentence
Paragraph uniformity (rhythm sameness)
Too-simple grade (only penalized when other signals fire)

Try it fast

Paste text or fetch a URL.
Export JSON for receipts.
Privacy: runs client-side; the optional fetcher strips scripts and caches for 10 minutes.

Live tool: https://vibeaxis.com/tools/slop-index/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=post

GitHub: https://github.com/vibeaxis/slop-index

If you want a one-click bookmarklet:


js
javascript:(()=>{location.href='https://vibeaxis.com/tools/slop-index/?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)})()

First post - hi all

Jason Bann — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 20:34:43 +0000

🚧 Building Emotional Resilience: Overcoming Guilt Trips 🚧

https://viableoutreach.com/guilt-trip-meaning/

No more feeling trapped! 💪 Learn effective communication strategies, assertiveness, and setting boundaries to combat guilt-tripping behavior.

You've got the power to reclaim control over your emotions and decisions!