Jamie Brandon
Programmer based in Vancouver who writes at scattered-thoughts.net about databases, programming language design and developer tools; author of the Imp, Dida and Zest language experiments.
Jamie Brandon did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
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What they believe
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Current AI coding models make poor decisions despite strong mechanical execution
But they are terrible at making decisions. They have the worst judgement.
scattered-thoughts.netSaid 1 Jul 2026This on korrents
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Thoughts, feelings, decisions and bodies are not real in themselves, only useful abstractions layered over the underlying chaos of atoms.
Thoughts, feelings, decisions, even bodies don't exist, they're only abstractions that we use to manage the chaos.
scattered-thoughts.netSaid 24 Jun 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
21 September
20 September
24 August
1 July
From one piece Artificial adventures 3 beliefs · scattered-thoughts.net
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korrents.com
Cheap flat-rate AI subscription pricing is a temporary loss-leader that will be phased out once users are hookedTheir words
The subscriptions to frontier models are a very good deal, but it looks like they are being phased out now that everyone is hooked.
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korrents.com
Frontier AI models essentially never fabricate outright false facts, unlike smaller modelsTheir words
I haven't seen anything I would call a hallucination from the frontier models.
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Their words
But they are terrible at making decisions. They have the worst judgement.
24 June
From one piece I'm not a cat 3 beliefs · scattered-thoughts.net
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korrents.com
It was naive to think a sufficiently powerful AI system could be safely contained in a 'box'.Their words
In hindsight, it was childish to think that we'd put it in a box at all.
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Their words
I have no faith in the people in charge of the future, but humanity isn't going to change any time soon.
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Their words
Thoughts, feelings, decisions, even bodies don't exist, they're only abstractions that we use to manage the chaos.
21 June
5 June
15 May
22 April
From one piece Borrow-checking without type-checking 2 beliefs · scattered-thoughts.net
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Their words
Ensuring that moving, borrowing, and sharing don't break the illusion is surprisingly easy to do with a static type system, and surprisingly hard to do with a dynamic type system, or at least hard to do cheaply.
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Their words
The dynamic type system provides flexibility and easy meta-programming, while the static type system removes the overhead in most of your code.
7 April
From one piece Borrow-checking surprises 3 beliefs · scattered-thoughts.net
From one piece 0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, links 3 beliefs · scattered-thoughts.net
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Their words
While the core borrow-checking rules are simple, there are so many exceptions (admittedly for solid ergonomic reasons) that it's easy to internalize the wrong rules.
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korrents.com
Once an explanation is revealed, people tend to believe they already knew it, even when they did not.Their words
Once you see the answer it's easy to believe that you already knew
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korrents.com
Most people who write Rust regularly are missing subtle details of how its borrow-checker actually works.Their words
I suspect most people who write rust regularly are missing these details too.
+ 3 more
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Their words
Libertarians always want to let industries regulate themselves, arguing that if they do harmful things then the market will respond. But the market will only notice immediate, severe harm.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, linksscattered-thoughts.net
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korrents.com
Ultra-processed foods have epidemiological evidence of harm comparable to what existed for smoking.Their words
There's strong epidemiological evidence associating ultra-processed foods with a range of negative health outcomes, at least on par with the evidence we had for smoking.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, linksscattered-thoughts.net
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korrents.com
Formalizing math is a translation task, so AI will boost top mathematicians' productivity more than top writers'.Their words
I expect AI to increase productivity of top mathematicians much more than that of top writers, because formalization is a kind of translation task, it doesn't require much judgement, and as long as it compiles noone needs to read the result.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, linksscattered-thoughts.net
17 February
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Their words
Both estimates make me think that the concern about global energy demand for LLMs is over-blown.
4 February
27 January
6 December 2025
1 November 2025
4 September 2025
2 September 2025
19 July 2025
28 April 2025
7 October 2024
10 July 2024
18 May 2024
20 October 2022
7 September 2022
14 April 2022
27 February 2022
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 15 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Current AI coding models make poor decisions despite strong mechanical execution
But they are terrible at making decisions. They have the worst judgement.
Artificial adventures Said 1 Jul 2026
Frontier AI models essentially never fabricate outright false facts, unlike smaller models
I haven't seen anything I would call a hallucination from the frontier models.
Artificial adventures Said 1 Jul 2026
Cheap flat-rate AI subscription pricing is a temporary loss-leader that will be phased out once users are hooked
The subscriptions to frontier models are a very good deal, but it looks like they are being phased out now that everyone is hooked.
Artificial adventures Said 1 Jul 2026
Show 12 more
Thoughts, feelings, decisions and bodies are not real in themselves, only useful abstractions layered over the underlying chaos of atoms.
Thoughts, feelings, decisions, even bodies don't exist, they're only abstractions that we use to manage the chaos.
I'm not a cat Said 24 Jun 2026
Humanity is unlikely to change in any fundamental way any time soon.
I have no faith in the people in charge of the future, but humanity isn't going to change any time soon.
I'm not a cat Said 24 Jun 2026
It was naive to think a sufficiently powerful AI system could be safely contained in a 'box'.
In hindsight, it was childish to think that we'd put it in a box at all.
I'm not a cat Said 24 Jun 2026
Layering a static type system atop a dynamic one, capable of proving the dynamic checks redundant, combines the flexibility of dynamic typing with the performance of static typing.
The dynamic type system provides flexibility and easy meta-programming, while the static type system removes the overhead in most of your code.
Borrow-checking without type-checking Said 22 Apr 2026
Enforcing safe mutable value semantics (e.g. via borrow-checking) is far easier to do cheaply with a static type system than with a dynamic one.
Ensuring that moving, borrowing, and sharing don't break the illusion is surprisingly easy to do with a static type system, and surprisingly hard to do with a dynamic type system, or at least hard to do cheaply.
Borrow-checking without type-checking Said 22 Apr 2026
Formalizing math is a translation task, so AI will boost top mathematicians' productivity more than top writers'.
I expect AI to increase productivity of top mathematicians much more than that of top writers, because formalization is a kind of translation task, it doesn't require much judgement, and as long as it compiles noone needs to read the result.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, links Said 7 Apr 2026
Ultra-processed foods have epidemiological evidence of harm comparable to what existed for smoking.
There's strong epidemiological evidence associating ultra-processed foods with a range of negative health outcomes, at least on par with the evidence we had for smoking.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, links Said 7 Apr 2026
Markets only respond to immediate, severe harm, not gradual or delayed harms from industries left to regulate themselves.
Libertarians always want to let industries regulate themselves, arguing that if they do harmful things then the market will respond. But the market will only notice immediate, severe harm.
0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, links Said 7 Apr 2026
Most people who write Rust regularly are missing subtle details of how its borrow-checker actually works.
I suspect most people who write rust regularly are missing these details too.
Borrow-checking surprises Said 7 Apr 2026
Once an explanation is revealed, people tend to believe they already knew it, even when they did not.
Once you see the answer it's easy to believe that you already knew
Borrow-checking surprises Said 7 Apr 2026
Rust is hard to learn because its borrow-checking rules have so many exceptions that people internalize the wrong simplified rules.
While the core borrow-checking rules are simple, there are so many exceptions (admittedly for solid ergonomic reasons) that it's easy to internalize the wrong rules.
Borrow-checking surprises Said 7 Apr 2026
Concern about global energy demand from LLMs is overblown.
Both estimates make me think that the concern about global energy demand for LLMs is over-blown.
0057: consulting, zest progress, reads that lasted, books, links Said 17 Feb 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 11 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Recommends The Life Goals of Dead People
I won't summarize it - it's only a few minutes read. But I often catch myself being a dead person, and having a term for it has noticably improved my life.
Liked Not the End of the World
What struck me the most about both of these was the strength and pervasiveness of the media bias towards negativity, and how fervently people want to continue believing in downfall of all that is good and the intrinsic evil of modernity, even when faced with clear evidence otherwise.
Liked Factfulness
More than anything, these books convinced me to work hard to avoid these negativity chambers entirely and aim to only hang out in spaces where people are trying to make things better, instead of delightedly bemoaning that everything is awful.
Show 8 more
Liked Digital Minimalism
This is when I first started to notice how much of my experience of life is determined by where and how I direct my attention.
Liked Deep Work
They argue that daily solitude is necessary for emotional processing, and that being deprived of solitude by constant entertainment leads to anxiety and insomnia, your mind racing in bed as it tries to catch up with the work it missed. Nearly a decade after reading I'm thoroughly convinced by this theory.
Liked Uncontrolled
I read this as a cognitive science post-grad and it perfectly captured my unease with the field.
Liked A City Dreaming
Pretending to be urban fantasy, but really a love letter to New York and to unplanned adventures.
Liked Microadventures
This book congealed for me the idea that adventure is more an attitude or a habit than a circumstance. I'd experienced that before, especially in the parkour scene in London, but always in narrow contexts. Alastair convinced me to treat my whole life the same way.
Mixed on The World Beyond Your Head
There is a lot I disagree with in this book (not least his intense distaste for safety features in cars), but I feel there is something important in there somewhere.
Loved Espresso Lessons
I also love Espresso Lessons, although it's much more climbing-specific.
Liked The Rock Warrior's Way
While notionally a book about climbing, it's really about what the author calls 'personal power' - the ability to act effectively in the world - and all the ways that that power can be drained by ego, fear, comfort-seeking, and even poor definitions of success and failure.
Where they publish
Site scattered-thoughts.net His site: essays, a monthly devlog, and the standing 'Reads that lasted' page.
Recent
- 0061: i'm not a cat, artificial adventures, synthetic sagas, anthropic, sponsors 20 Sept 2026
- Synthetic sagas 20 Sept 2026
- Artificial adventures 1 Jul 2026
Show 17 more
- I'm not a cat 24 Jun 2026
- 0060: SF 21 Jun 2026
- 0059: NYC and SF? 5 Jun 2026
- Borrow-checking without type-checking 22 Apr 2026
- 0058: borrow-checking surprises, books, links 7 Apr 2026
- Borrow-checking surprises 7 Apr 2026
- 0057: consulting, zest progress, reads that lasted, books, links 17 Feb 2026
- 2025 17 Feb 2026
- 0056: consulting, zest progress, existentialize, modular borrowing, do we understand sql, zjit updates, books 6 Dec 2025
- 0055: consulting, sql needed structure, slow forum, on the line, out of thin air, papers, other stuff 1 Nov 2025
- SQL needed structure 4 Sept 2025
- 0054: zest namespaces, store tags after payloads, go allocation probe, everyones got one, pprof labelguns, go value types, go perf probe, tpde, anyblox, books 2 Sept 2025
- Everyone's got one 5 Aug 2025
- Go allocation probe 18 Jul 2025
- Store tags after payloads 13 Jul 2025
- 0053: consulting, go tips, benchmark_mode, niri, linkrot, sea of nos, llm outsourcing, books 31 May 2025
- A rough survey of compilation, recompilation, and compile-time evaluation 4 Apr 2025
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
GitHub github.com/jamii His code: the Imp, Dida, Zest and Focus projects he writes about.
Recent
- focus — Minimalist text editor 21 Sept 2026
- jamii 24 Aug 2026
- jams 15 May 2026
Show 11 more
- zest 4 Feb 2026
- s3-splits 27 Jan 2026
- go_allocation_probe 19 Jul 2025
- gel-toy 28 Apr 2025
- maps 7 Oct 2024
- baby-2nd-bench 10 Jul 2024
- zig-honggfuzz 18 May 2024
- understanding-software-dynamics 20 Oct 2022
- preimp 7 Sept 2022
- dida — Differential dataflow for mere mortals 14 Apr 2022
- imp — Various experiments in relational programming 27 Feb 2022
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.