Agentic coding tools (and LLMs more broadly) have all the energy of an undergrad who is more interested in a passing grade than actually correct systems or mastery of the underlying concepts, and I am sick to death of pretending that's not the case.

Thanks to everyone who attended @kcdc.bsky.social and a special thanks to the folks that put it on. That quality of conference is a huge amount of labor, and it was an amazing event. If I didn't see you there this year, here's hoping I see you there next year!

Just a couple more days. I'm driving out tomorrow, but my talk about highway maintenance will have to wait until Thursday. In the interim, I'll be speaking about data structures and Big O notation and wandering around the hallway track. Please come say hello!

I suppose I should use the little title card generators they gave me too. I'll be giving that Data Structures talk on Wednesday. I'm really excited about it. Still can't believe it gets accepted, so quick, before they realize their mistakes.

In a week I'll be out @kcdc.bsky.social. I'm giving a workshop on data structures and a talk on how AI planning approaches can be used to plan for highway maintenance. There's a big slate of content I'm really excited for. You can get tickets here: www.kcdc.info/tickets Hope to see you there!

In less contentious and depressing conversations, I gave an internal talk on how I use LLMs for the work I do that's not writing source code, like blogging, presentations, and planning how to work events: youtu.be/e5wCxM8zA60?...

I took some time out of writing about AI in our industry to write about marginalization. It's got a super uplifting title, but I promise it's not just venting or bitching. It's an anectdote laden discussion of being othered and advice on how to avoid that. jordanthayer.com/every-day-br...

So, I also got rolled up in this. I have a fantasy novel and a set of open letters about the trans experience published under a pen name that are no longer discoverable. Many of the things delisted here weren't anywhere near pornographic, they were just queer or discussed heavy topics.

Most AI “research tools” aren’t helping you research. They’re just helping you produce. (Un?)Fortunately, real research isn’t about output, it's about building expertise. I wrote a slightly more nuanced version of this that you might care to read: jordanthayer.com/ai-research-...

Once again, if someone is looking for a gently used AI expert, my home has made it abundantly clear that my family, my tax dollars, and my capabilities are unwelcome here.

Today I fulfill a lifelong dream. I've wanted to see weird Al live since I was 7. I used to record myself singing his songs because my folks forbade me from buying the albums.

Got a visit in to the Vonnegut museum today. I'd hoped for more correspondence, but it's still lovely

I misread a calendar, and so now I have an hour to read white papers on LLM evaluation techniques. Under a tree. Next to a pond. There's a fountain! You can take the girl out of academia, but you can't take academia out of the girl I guess.

A colleague suggested that I produce a sheet of pop culture references for all of my talks so that he can stop asking "Wait, what is that from?" and get back to focusing on the educational content. Is this a thing people would actually want? I feel terrible bringing leave behinds no one takes.

So there I was, chatting with my friend from Germany about how we're processing the political killings in the US this weekend when this lumbers across the sky... I suspect I will spend the rest of my life unpacking this moment.

I know it's a bit belated, but thanks to the folks that came out to Stir Trek (if you missed it, it's a lovely show, you should go!) and to the folks that swang by the talk.

This Friday, I'll be talking about AI (specifically combinatorial optimization and machine learning) were used to improve planning for highway maintenance @stirtrek.com Looking forward to seeing you all there!

I think "They suck and aren't useful" is pretty right, actually. It's a matter of having standards. Interaction with LLMs are an exercise in excusing incorrect, irrelevant, or mediocre output. When building with them, the bulk of the effort is safeguarding output against those three things. (1/n)

Waiting for the ladies room at the Wild Kratts live show is the first time I've had buyers remorse on this whole trans thing. That line was unrreal.

I'm now getting old enough that my slide references are substantially older than my audiences. There's a fundamental issue with modern data availability that sort of cuts the legs out from under memes and mass media, so I'm not sure that "watch new shows" is gonna get me there.

Hey! Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility. I didn't get around to buying the high vis vest for the sight gag this year, so let's take it as read. A few years ago, just as I was coming out, I wrote some words about what it's been like to be me: jordanthayer.com/whats-in-a-n...

I'll be talking about how we used AI to improve the maintenance of public roadways in a few short weeks at Stir Trek. Independent of my being there, it's a well produced conference with great content and lovely people. I'd love to see you there. You can register at stirtrek.com

My kid brought this home for me from her girl scout meeting yesterday. She's a sweetheart.

I have a physical today. My GP is kind, but not so kind that he'll educate himself on trans healthcare. I will ask questions, he won't know the answer or follow up. Every year he says "Your blood pressure is so good for your age" and every year I reply "It's a side effect of the spiro, doc."

I'm very excited to listen to this. The episode they did on Something Awful was also really interesting to listen to.

I got a crown yesterday, and I'm like 90% certain they used SLAM to do it. They took a scan of my lower teeth to design the crown for the uppers. I watched the image of the scanned teeth show up on the screen, and as they moved around from one side to the other, I swear it 'closed the loop'.

Last night, my cousin's kid insisted on wii bowling, and then insisted on correcting my original pre-transition Mii, despite my not being there and living like 1000 miles away. It was a surprisingly sweet gesture.

This should be exceedingly obvious, but when Stonewall stays up while references to trans people come down, they will measure the silence of cisgender people as concurrence for whatever they plan next, and it still won't protect you in the end. So please get loud. Our mutual survival depends on it.

Am I the only person who routinely hears "Push It" by Salt-N-Peppa in their head when using git?

Everyone in my field could benefit from reading this, but especially this excerpt: "In fact when people give accounts of sexist and racist harassment they are often dismissed as having a wrong or faulty perception, as not receiving the intentions or actions of others fairly or properly."

If i had a nickel for everytime I'd seen someone using AI for dimensional lumber, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, and it's weird I've only seen it one other time. Vision, optimization, controls... the space is full of potential applications.

I think having a big knife switch that pressed enter and/or left clicked would make my life significantly better than it is now. Sometimes when you start a program or send the appropriate overture / pun / sick burn, it needs that extra bit of gravitas.

If anyone claims that the current anti-trans panic was caused in any part by trans people advocating for our human rights, that person is lying through their teeth. The religious right lost on marriage equality, and immediately started going after trans people instead. That's what happened.

Good things do not come from categories of people being erased from the legal, medical, and scientific record. It gets real hard to keep track of things like, say, how many of a group are displaced, killed, or abused when that group is robbed of a coherent definition...

If you are a straight, cis person and you feel that fucking knot in your stomach about what the administration is doing right now to trans people and trans children, you have to at the very fucking least say out loud in front of your friends and peers in real life "this is fucked up."

I started reading "A Little Vice" by Erin Elkin today. I'm not super far into it, but a lot of the main character's experiences echo mine, before I really knew what was going on. It's nice to see yourself in fiction, even if the reflection you see doesn't evoke the fondest of memories.

A small, overlooked tragedy of the current moment. It has become prohibitively expensive for me to go eat eggs about it.

A random idle thought. I'd play the hell out of a single player adaptation of FFXI. The game and expansions had some truly great story beats, but (like basically all ancient MMOs) it's unapproachable today due to a dwindling player base and an accumulation of systems and currencies.

So I wrote a book. Easy, easy. It's tawdry, not technical. It'd feel a lot more complete with a cover and a few illustrations, though. How does one buy art? There's this whole economy I havent participated in. It's intimidating. I feel like a freshman meeting their first dealer all over again.

I really enjoyed giving this talk, and came away with a few ideas on how to improve it going forward. Thanks for everyone that came out to see it, and especially to those of you who gave me feedback afterwards!

Getting ready to head out to the liminal space that is Ohio. See you all at @codemash.bsky.social .

Anyone in a sane state looking for a gently used AI expert with nearly 20 years of experience between planning, machine learning, and constraint satisfaction programming?

You know that feeling when your folks call you at a weird hour and the immediate thought is "Pocket dial or death in the family?" Anyway, grandma's still breathing and mom sat on her phone.

I finished a draft of a novel, and gave it to some friends for review. At first I was frustrated no one was leaving feedback. Now though? People are looking at it and I constantly feel nauseous. Very gene-wilder-as-wonka vibes. The suspense is terrible; I hope it lasts.

Truly, I love my job. (See you all next week @codemash.bsky.social )

Convincing us we could build a quick demo to test something, throw it away, and start over is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled. Looking forward to seeing you all at @codemash.bsky.social in a few days!

This is a really interesting set of thoughts on how hardware & technique improvements fuck with sense of place in incredibly long-lived game series.

If they are literally fae, can they still be manic pixie dream girls?

The discourse :tm: has gotten ahold of the notion of AI therapists. It's a bad, old idea that we've seen play out a few times now. ELIZA is from the 1960s, and (very roughly) did Rogerian psychology via old school NLP: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA People got real weird about it!