Related posts
Thomas Ptacek x.com
One startling thing nobody ever expected an agent to do was to take notes about what it was doing for future agents to read. And, again: look at these tree-traversing programs, traversing trees!
The the words it uses that this site has seen least often elsewhere. Posts are matched on those words alone — nothing here is a summary of this one.
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18 September
17 September
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korrents.com
Terminal programs bias toward dark modes, and explicit colors are hostile to light modes and themes.Their words
Terminal programs bias to dark modes and explicit colors are hostile to light modes and themes.
8 September
5 September
4 September
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korrents.com
A conspiracy theory can be used as a pretext to dismantle government programs and target researchers and citizens.Their words
Since 2025, MAGA ideologues have been using this alleged plot as an excuse to dismantle government programs, stifle research, intimidate American citizens, and even distort American foreign policy.
The Myth of the “Censorship Industrial Complex”anneapplebaum.substack.com
30 August
11 August
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Structure and Interpretation of Computer ProgramsTheir words
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson. SICP is my all-time favourite programming book. It's also where I learned about the power of wishful thinking when coding. SICP uses wishful thinking as a design tool: write code as if the abstraction already existed. Pretend. Then, once the ideal abstraction has taken shape, you go ahead and implement those functions. This meta-level is what made SICP so valuable. Ultimately, it's a book that teaches how to think about code and problem solving. I'm tempted to even say that SICP is more a work of art than a pure coding book, but I won't go there. A beautiful book.
10 July
1 July
From one piece How Kent Beck shapes the software engineering industry 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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You look under the underneath though at the code and it was just a horrible unmaintainable mess. But the fact that people could program the programs that they wanted was a a significant step forward as opposed to I'm going to write a thousandpage requirements document and then wait 8 years and not get what I want which was the alternative that we were offering at the at the time.
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So a a big challenge in object-oriented programming is dividing the responsibilities because you're moving the computation to where the data is. Saying, "Well, this object does this and that object does that is a really critical decision because you want to you want the computation near to the data so that there's less coupling between them." which is a lesson that I I think uh kind of got lost in the noise. That's the fundamental design move in ob in designing object-oriented programs and I I think I stand behind that.
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part of the goal of programs is to communicate intent to other human beings and now to models as well which which is a much more open-ended problem. We understand a lot more about how to communicate to other human beings whether we apply that understanding or not. We don't understand at all how to communicate effectively to models
30 June
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korrents.com
Housing subsidies cannot scale to the size of the problem, and the YIMBYs are right to say so.Their words
While there are certainly some benefits to these programs, YIMBYs are right to doubt that housing subsidies alone are a scalable solution to affordability challenges.
Some Things YIMBYs Tend To Get Wrong (and Right)strongtowns.org
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Their words
Which actually goes to show you that you there's not a correct huristic for science. You actually just need multiple independent research programs with their own huristics.
29 June
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In truth, rather rapid electrification projects, without decade-by-decade continuity, exist outside the UK and are often quite reasonable in their costs, as in Denmark, Israel, and especially India.
11 June
3 June
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Their words
do not say AI because what we don't want to do is use a big umbrella to describe what you're doing. Let's get concrete details. These are computers. These are computer programs.
1 June
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Their words
If AI-driven labor displacement ends up being large in magnitude and permanently drives down the demand for labor, it will likely be necessary to go beyond mere incentive programs to long-term income support for a significant fraction of the labor force.
13 May
From one piece TypeScript, C# and Turbo Pascal with Anders Hejlsberg 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
That was always the idea, and that that goes back even to the predecessor of Turbo Pascal, this idea that it's not just a compiler. It's an experience, right? I mean, you don't just compile your programs. You also edit them. You also run them. You also debug them. You also have a runtime library. It all has to like fit together.
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because if you were to force AI to write a type annotation on everything, then it would probably get it wrong more often because now it has to keep track of all these types and and it and it has to just repeat itself over and over and over, right? And so, types are important where there's no context.
23 March
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Their words
writing programs in this style makes it much easier to write correct and safe concurrent code
From error-handling to structured concurrencyblog.nelhage.com
1 March
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Usesrcmnd.app
Claude CodeTheir words
With Claude, I've built a host of software like this. Mostly small tools for myself — programs that instantly append copy buffers to text files (I keep a running file of nice things people write to me called notapieceofshit.txt) or quickly perform live currency conversions.
21 February
19 January
18 November 2025
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korrents.com
You cannot learn to code by having a model write it: the mental models only come from writing programs by hand.Their words
The answer, I believe, is not too different from before: if you want to learn to code, you need to start by creating programs by hand.
20 August 2025
10 June 2025
8 June 2025
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korrents.com
Most software has too few users or too short a lifespan for long-term maintenance costs to matter.Their words
Very few programs ever reach the point that they are heavily used and long-lived. Almost everything has few users, or is short-lived, or both.
28 May 2025
15 May 2025
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korrents.com
A country cannot fund its own industrial strategy and call the same policy cheating when China does it.Their words
But you cannot support these programs while calling out China for “cheating” for doing the same.
8 April 2025
6 March 2025
30 December 2024
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Likedrcmnd.app
Principles of the SPIN Model CheckerTheir words
This book gave me both insight and a deeper curiosity about the subject. This book introduces the SPIN model checker and exposes the reader to the nuances of verifying programs using SPIN. A nice feature of the book is how it explains concepts using thoughtfully developed, freely available tools (such as jSpin) that the author created for pedagogical purposes. It's a demanding book, but the content was interesting. The book presents details about concurrency, temporal logic, non-determinism, advanced SPIN topics, and even case studies. I've already written a few blog posts about the topics I explored while reading this book, and I plan to write more. Overall, it's a good book. I'm sure I'll revisit the latter half again.
12 December 2024
31 August 2024
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The selling point of generative A.I. is that these programs generate vastly more than you put into them, and that is precisely what prevents them from being effective tools for artists.
22 March 2024
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Well, not just at Area 51, but in all the different national security and military intelligence and intelligence programs. And I personally have no reason to believe that aliens have ever visited Earth. That’s just me personally.
6 February 2024
24 January 2024
1 October 2023
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The truth is that moral hazard concerns very often are worse with government programs than with markets.
23 March 2023
28 February 2023
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Our job is to write programs that run well on the hardware that we are given.
21 November 2019
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Mixed onrcmnd.app
Adobe CS4Their words
I occasionally use these Adobe CS4 programs: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator, and Flash. I don't use any of them enough to justify a subscription to their latest cloud offerings.
5 November 2019
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korrents.com
Both the special-purpose-programs view and the blank-slate view of human intelligence are likely incorrect.Their words
Today, it is increasingly apparent that both of these views of the nature of human intelligence - either a collection of special-purpose programs or a general-purpose Tabula Rasa - are likely incorrect
15 October 2019
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korrents.com
Generators emit thousands of lines where ten would do, and that waste is why people think their phone is slow.Their words
These programs that generate a website, app, or file for you spit out thousands of lines of unnecessary junk when really only 10 lines are needed.
14 April 2019
9 April 2019
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korrents.com
Each programming language embodies a distinct mental model for thinking about computation and writing programs.Their words
Each language contains a different mental model, a different perspective for thinking about computation and how to write programs.
30 July 2018
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