"Why Good Summaries are Important to a Pull Request": shafik.github.io/software%20d... #programming

Happy Hobbit day! Happy birthday Bilbo and Frodo 🎉 www.americantolkiensociety.org/hobbit_day_a... Remember, it is a dangerous business going out your door and don't laugh at live dragons.

"Why Good Summaries are Important to a Pull Request": shafik.github.io/software%20d... #programming

It is not a healthy economy when most of the spending is by the well off: www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

"As businesses wait for a tariff ruling, some have run out of time" www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0... Small businesses are not doing well under tariffs.

Why does Yoda use -fno-exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Because there is no try 🥁 #Cplusplus

Why does Yoda use -fno-exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Because there is no try 🥁 #Cplusplus

Considering recent news today would be a good day to consider supporting ProPublica: www.propublica.org/propublicans and Wikipedia: donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?...

Retro C++ quiz #39 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1152... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls #Programming

This is a wild story "Librarians Are Being Asked to Find AI-Hallucinated Books": www.404media.co/librarians-a...

C++ quiz #303 append-citis Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1152... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

That is a lot of words when we simply could have done: echo "9.9 - 9.11" | bc -l

"Literature Review on the Economic Consequences of the Deportation of Unauthorized Immigrants": papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... This paper does a survey of the Economic literature.

Retro C++ quiz #38 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1151... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls #Programming

C++ quiz #302 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1151... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

If you are trying to write high quality code and your tools are failing you and the advice you get from folks is that "Your standards are too high" Please do yourself a favor and do not listen to those folks. #programming

4 bytes walk into an Ice Cream shop Person behind the counter asks "Can I make you a float?" #programming

4 bytes run into Pennywise by the sewer. They are scared 😱 Pennywise says “don’t worry, we are all float down here” #programming

I am on a P.K. Dick reading thing again and I am amazed at how prescient his books are. His stories are uncanny in the light of recent history. I just read "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" and I am finishing up "Time Out of Joint". You can see, it can get much much worse. #books

There is a lot going on in the world and getting reliable information is getting harder. You may want to think about continual donations to support organizations like Wikipedia: donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?... and ProPublica: give.propublica.org/give/346423/...

There is nothing like the scorn of a developer who bought into something and then realizes that they were very wrong. "Where's the Shovelware? Why AI Coding Claims Don't Add Up": mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the... #ai

There is nothing like the scorn of a developer who bought into something and then realizes that they were very wrong. "Where's the Shovelware? Why AI Coding Claims Don't Add Up": mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the... #ai

We are very quickly getting to the point where if you don't know the source of information first hand you need to assume it is AI slop and likely full of wrong and misleading ideas: www.404media.co/ai-generated...

"Vibe-coded build system NX gets hacked, steals vibe-coders’ crypto": pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/29/v... As someone who spent time in infosec and then more time infosec adjacent, this was painful to read. 1400 folks got hit on this, it won't be the last or biggest. #ai

"Why are consumers spending more even as consumer sentiment keeps dropping?": www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0... This was a fascinating story b/c it turns out that the wealthy are the ones holding up the spending in the US. So there is no paradox.

"The Whispering Earring": croissanthology.com/earring Is a short story that is a lot more impactful in today's world.

Every single time I see a large NFC (Non Functional Change) PRs that causes a regression I really wonder if NFC does more harm than good. It gives folks a false sense of, oh I can ignore this.

There are a lot of attacks against Wikipedia going on, so if you don't regularly contribute you should consider it now: donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?... It does not have to be a lot.

C++ Retro quiz #36 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1151... #CppPolls #cplusplus

C++ quiz #301 Of bits and bools Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

Did you hear about the theatrical show on puns? It was a play on words 🥁

Five ants got together w/ another five ants to rent an apartment Now they are ten-ants 🥁

Ugh it is so frustrating that recently Outlook decides to randomly fling you to the top of a mail folder when you are in the middle of catching up to your threads. Like who thought that was a feature?

Reading “The Psychology of Money” The irony

Reading “The Psychology of Money”

Reading “The Psychology of Money” That old pilots quip

Retro C++ quiz #35 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

How do you tell a boy from a girl ant? You put it in water, if it floats it is a boy-ant 🥁

Two muffins are in an oven. Muffin One: Gosh, I sure am backing in here! Muffin Two: Ahhhhh a talking muffin!!!

How do programmers curse? Oh shift! 🥁

C++ quiz #300 Private or not? Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

"What is ‘AI psychosis’ and how can ChatGPT affect your mental health?": www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/... This feels like a shocking number of folks for just one doctor to have admitted.

"FDA Warns Public Not to Consume Potentially Radioactive Shrimp" time.com/7310679/fda-... Now imagine how much less they will catch given all the cuts.

"The Futzing Fraction": blog.glyph.im/2025/08/futz... I really love this post, it tries to bring some rigor to the cost benefit analysis. It shows how if you shift some of the variables by just a little bit it quickly becomes a cost and not a gain. #AI

Retro C++ quiz #34 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

Folks are surprised how people are tricked into believing LLMs have some sort of understand but folks this happened fifty years ago with ELIZA which was way more primitive: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA It is not the LLM, it is us humans are too easy to fool.

Parenting legal question, If a child refusing to take a nap, are they A. Resisting a Rest B. Preventing a Kid Napping Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150...

C++ quiz #299 Answer here: hachyderm.io/@shafik/1150... #Cplusplus #Cpppolls

"Is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning of LLMs a Mirage? A Data Distribution Lens": arxiv.org/pdf/2508.01191 "Together, these findings suggest that LLMs are not principled reasoners but rather sophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text." #ai

A keyboard walks into the bar Bartender says: "Why the long space?" 🥁