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Tom

@contextfree.bsky.social

I make videos about computer programming at https://youtube.com/@contextfree - he/him - God is good. Black lives matter.

157 Posts174 Follower142 Folgt
Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 2w ago

Quick rp2350 speed summary from *simple* loops: Lua's about 3-4x slower than unoptimized C. MicroPython's more like 30x slower. MicroPython viper can get ints to like 50% slower than unoptimized C but can't handle floats. Unoptimized C on rp2350 is about the same speed as Python interpreter on rpi4.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 4w ago

320x240 can't scale integer fully to either dimension of the most common 1080p monitor resolution, which is sad. 320x180 scales perfectly on both axes, though. Also to 720p (which 240 also does).

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · last mo.

Inline skated over 6 1/2 miles on Saturday. And today I managed to get up and down the bridge over the train tracks (turning around at the top) without killing myself or anyone else. I'm still feeling very sloppy, but maybe making some progress.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · last mo.

PICO-8 might be *too* restrictive sometimes for my taste, but I'm glad it teaches code size part of the budget. Especially for hobby things, using whatever tech, I'm try to think that if something will end up as too much code (or takes me too much time to work through), maybe I need a simpler plan.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · last mo.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm getting tired of UIs that cram interactivity into every nook and cranny. Sometimes I feel like there's no safe place to rest my cursor.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · last mo.

Years ago, I enjoyed reading VSCode release notes. Now it's just AI stuff I don't care about at all. And I mostly wish they'd stop making other changes, too, unless they're making things faster or fixing bugs.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · last mo.

By the time they stop making Raspberry Pi 400 (as early as 2028?), I hope RAM prices have come down or else they start selling an RPi 500 with half the RAM. Maybe an RPi 50 or something???

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Dev platform I'm trying out: - 4gb RPi4 (effectively RPi 400) - No web browsers but still network access - No games - Lua/Love2D - LMMS and Audacity - LibreSprite and others - VSCodium and Lua Language Server - Terminal, Git, etc. Really not half bad. Losing web browsers is a super power for focus.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I think any home robots *shouldn't* have wireless networking. Data transfer should require a physical connection on the robot's body where it can't actually reach on its own.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 5mo ago

People often complain that current AI is just statistical predictions rather than real thinking. Thing is that more logical forms of AI have also been tried and haven't done as well, because the world is a messy place.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 7mo ago

For example, in Python: >>> { ... 0: "0", ... 0.0: "0.0", ... -0.0: "-0.0", ... False: "False", ... } ... {0: 'False'}

Temper Programming Language@temper.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Why a new language anyway? temperlang.dev/blog/2026/01... Each heterogeneous collection is heterogeneous in its own way, Anna Karenina style. Porting is not the same as translating. Semantic tarpits suck. Semantic consistency means Temper developers can support users of languages they don't know

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Started a new side project in Go. First time I've tried using the language seriously. Some things I like and some things I don't. And vaguely related, thinking that wide low res map grid screens should be 240x128.

Tom@contextfree.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Are there are any memory safe, reference counting languages that have a tiny implementation and compile directly to wasm? I'd like to think I know a good answer to this, but I'm unsure.