2025 has been an incredible year for using computers to make things worse

"what is a nutcracker if not teeth? ... very 'A Marvel Christmas'" - @danpsimpson.bsky.social

Wake Up Dead Man was more Catholic than Conclave

Jesus Christ.

If you’re in a situation where you can see Guy Branum do a show, you should see Guy Branum do a show.

When The Soft Pink Truth lets the violins take over

Unfortunately the study of tech is the study of bussy.

people who are amazed by AI should learn about keyboard shortcuts

I know it's sacrilege in this economy, but when I was a computer scientist, both database courses and cyber security courses made it clear that the first principle was "do not save anything you do not need, and do not keep anything longer than you need it."

A fun sudoku sudokupad.app/james-sincla...

For what it’s worth, I think the mistake is alway that thinking radicalisation and de-radicalisation are symmetric processes. Unfortunately platforms and rhetoric only work on the first.

Is this what dying feels like?

Rob Reiner was one of the key people behind the effort to go to court to overturn California's anti-marriage equality Proposition 8 when it passed in 2008. Working with Chad Griffin, they founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights and got Ted Olson and David Boies to team up to fight Prop 8.

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

the line is actually "no JESUS for us meeses," an oblique reference to the fact that, as muppets are unable to take communion, they are forbidden from entering the kingdom of god

This is actually a slutty ruffled miniskirt

I cannot stress enough that this is true but also no one in Australia thinks the Australian health care system is in any way, sense, or form actually good.

Sometimes I look on arxiv and see a worse version of a paper I wrote as a PhD student in 2007 that wasn’t good enough to be published and I feel things.

Also, not infrequently I wish to forget the concept of letters. Retvrn to only seeing shapes with inscrutable meanings.

The thing you simply cannot deny about Protestants is that when their music hits it fucking hits. (I’m sorry Sister Janet Mead, you tried) youtu.be/MIUNftAi_z4?...

This is a very satisfying colouring puzzle but the final deduction is really really hard to see. But gorgeous. sudokupad.app/i31o1sk1xs

Having a Soft Pink Truth kinda Tuesday. It’s not vibe coding. Just coding while vibing out. youtu.be/5KwO8F0hGfE?...

Forget “Virginia is for Lovers”, where’s “Horny on Maine”?

If anything, statistics is clearly not hard enough.

My working definition of AGI is “well know it when Microsoft lawyers up”

One of my friends gave a really cool CppCon talk about a new memory profiling tool she wrote for C++ youtu.be/U23WkMWIkkE?...

@bronder.deals's CppCon talk gives a nice overview of C++ implementation of Stan's autodiff

I had to change the settings on my alarm playlist after the experience of waking up to Throb several mornings in a row.

I mean there is a problem with this because I use one playlist as an alarm clock, which kinda explains the double something for Kate (great album, but I wasn’t listening to it _that_ much)

there is no reason to expect—or fear—computers becoming intelligent. we should be afraid that people have already stopped thinking for themselves

Coming to our show Double InDUMBnity at Green Room 42 on December 20th? All tix are HALF OFF today for Cyber Monday with the discount code CYBER! Snag one and then bring a friend! thegreenroom42.venuetix.com?code=CYBER

Thought of a title: Tech Twink Fascism

I just don't need to know what the Telegraph has written about Dungeons & Dragons. It's a newspaper for people who are frightened of samosas.

lol I had _a lot_ of posting energy when I got home from a party last night l, didn’t I…

I always remember that my PhD supervisor could’ve done my whole PhD in like maybe a year because he was pretty busy, but months if he focussed. Would it have been the same? Of course not! I was chasing down a lot of important stuff that he didn’t need to. And it showed. That’s the process!

Two things: the least interesting is that a PhD is in the public domain and works off a bunch of other work. It is not surprising that an LLM can make one. The more important thing is that if you want a PhD thesis like let me know and I’ll write you a good one. It’s not hard.

Move semantics in C++ are like the subplot in queer as folk where one of the characters had a “facelift” and looked exactly the same but started behaving like a chaos twink.

Look you can’t convince me that some of the truly wild good bell labs stuff (like, say, S) isn’t at least in part from acid. I met some old bell labs people, is all I’m saying

One of the reasons I always said no to podcasts etc (not that anyone asks anymore but there was a small period…) is that I was pretty sure that I’d come across as an idiot (or feel like one). And seeing some interviews with someone who is probably not an idiot, I feel like I was correct

For my sins, YouTube sent me this and like. Mate. Maybe the evals are just shit. youtube.com/shorts/aIvHf...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

As someone who spends a lot of time professionally face down in the JSON schema specification, I feel his pain.

Sometimes it’s not written explicitly, but you can see the exact bit in a paper where the authors removed the phrase “with the sense of flexibility and creativity god granted a particularly uninspired spanner”

Just a holiday reminder! 😂

The newsletters will continue until morale improves

Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’

me when I abuse std::sync::Mutex

I recall reading a paper by Peter Whittle that talked about how intractable these problems were in WW2, to the extent that someone proposed dripping the problem over Germany to distract *their* engineers