I still love how prescient and ironically anti-capitalist The Lego Movie is. Like, they have a literal room where the output of all the creative people is funneled into robots to create the most boring, mundane, cookie-cutter stuff imaginable. Sounds familiar in 2026...

TIL: the 1812 overture by Tchaikovsky commemorates the Russian military victory, not the American.

Not gonna lie, I can see the appeal of using agents and LLMs to make my vision a reality much faster with fewer mistakes. But does that leave any room for happy little accidents?

The Joy of Programming

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

We painted rocks today.

I remembered something about trying to do something even though I didn't think it would work.

Hubris

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

Isn’t this the guy who said the primary purpose of business is to maximize shareholder value? 🤦‍♂️

Cato Institute@cato.org · 3w ago

"The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus." — Milton Friedman. They were driven by individual liberty and free markets. And they always will be.

You know what's nice about Factorio? Is it gives the feeling of being productive and solving problems without actually being productive and solving problems. Which is nice — for some reason, I'd much rather play a game about solving problems than actually solve problems. Why is that?

Three novel JavaScript runtimes that I've seen pop up recently: antjs.org pocketjs.dev www.perryts.com Notable that all three of them have an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md Say what you will, but I doubt any of these projects would exist if it weren't for LLMs and coding agents.

i want to do a little ✨ ama about atproto ✨ in this thread. no question is too simple if you’ve been curious about atproto but don’t know much (anything?) about it, ask any question and i’ll try to explain it in my own words. (+ would love to hear from friends who aren’t very active on bsky)

My glasses are thick on the edges, and I have astigmatism. The correction produces a very strong chromatic aberration. Looks trippy if I’m paying attention.

I've found LLMs are really good at that first 90%. The problem is they make the second 90% even harder. Probably better to keep that first 90% as small as possible...

Just some noodling on fractals and looking deeply at things.

Reality is Fractal

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

Uh oh. The Octocat has made @enclose.horse into a ghost! 👻

I should add, this is in addition to the small side yard garden we started this year. It used to be a dog run, complete with turf and soil saturated with dog urine. Fortunately, the soil isn’t too salty for things to grow!

R. Alex Anderson@ralexanderson.com · last mo.

Next yard project is underway: replacing this very sad patch of grass with a vegetable garden. First step: KILL EVERYTHING! Black plastic sheets will create an oven that should take care of the grass roots, weeds, and even ungerminated seeds. Next spring, it will be ready for tilling and planting.

Next yard project is underway: replacing this very sad patch of grass with a vegetable garden. First step: KILL EVERYTHING! Black plastic sheets will create an oven that should take care of the grass roots, weeds, and even ungerminated seeds. Next spring, it will be ready for tilling and planting.

I'm stealing music, but not in the Limewire/Napster sense. In the "The only way I'll learn to compose myself is by copying other musicians" way.

Stealing

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

That space between conviction and humility, between standing up for what you believe in and changing your mind when presented with new data, between saying and doing things that might annoy people and cautiously tiptoeing around issues to avoid rocking the already shaky boat.

The yellowish cast of the sky, ash raining down, smoke filling the air… that’s probably as good an excuse as any for why I don’t feel like doing anything, right?

An offhand comment gave me a lot to think about stories, specifically the stories we tell ourselves.

Storytelling

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

I had a lot of fun summarizing this thread for my 5 year old. We just love learning science stuff!

Buttons (Ashley) 🏴‍☠️#OFMDForLife🏴‍☠️ 🏳️‍🌈🤡@sevensugars.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Since I did do my PhD in cyanobacteria growth and treatment optimization modeling AND work in the water treatment industry, I’m gonna share my theory as to what’s happening here and how to fix it. People are focusing on the painted bottom of the pool increasing residual heat, and while that 1/19

Just a few first-draft thoughts on React, Remix, and raw HTML sprinkled with JavaScript, inspired by this excellent piece: https://mohkohn.co.uk/writing/html-first/

Additive Ideas vs Paradigm Shifts

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

Part of the reason why making a spaceship game with realistic sizes and distances is such a pain. To make travel fast enough for fun gameplay, I have to crank the speed up to 200,000 C - that’s 200,000 times the speed of light! And it still takes about 5 minutes to get to Proxima Centauri!

Phil Plait@philplait.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Imagine the distance between Earth and the sun is one inch. How far away do you think the nearest star is? Nope. Try again. Still wrong. Again? Nope. Huh uh. Space is WAY bigger than you think. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/space-is-w... 🔭 🧪

Last weekend I did something I haven't done in over 15 years — put on a silly costume and played a silly acting part for a starship bridge simulation game. And I had a blast.

Playing Spaceship

alexanderson.leaflet.pub

Galaxy Quest is a better movie because it has no sequels or spin offs.

James@theunrestcure.bsky.social · 2mo ago

That neither this nor Galaxy Quest got sequels is indicative that humankind is the worst. WHY couldn't those producing companies have greedy executives??? We're up to like 7 SAW movies, but only one D&D???

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone reference Clayton Christiansen this week, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice, right? Anyway, I’m pouring one out for a real one. 🍻

I've had this question noodling for a couple of days: Who are the Mr. Rogers, Carl Sagans, Bob Rosses, Steve Irwins of this generation? People who inspire large audiences with their thoughtfulness, kindness, and empathy? I feel like John and Hank Green and Mark Rober are both contenders — who else?

Ugh, I just want to curl up with a good video game for an hour, but I haven't got one that I'm really into on tap right now 😭

Did a squirrel write this?

Laura E. Hall@lauraehall.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Not only should the Unicode Consortium introduce a squirrel emoji immediately, they should also make them for all the varieties of squirrel (there are more than 200)

Doing a little water conservation project by replacing the rocks under our birch tree with some native drought resistant plants. Should be nice when it’s done! It’s a prelude to replacing the lawn with native plants!

Can you imagine what would have happened if Trump was in charge during the leaded gasoline transition? Or asbestos? Both are really really effective at what they do. And also, really really bad for people and the environment. But clearly, people and the environment don’t matter to this admin…

Technology Connections@techconnectify.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Okay, so obviously this is very dumb, but for an explanation of why: The "rules being eased" is really "unwinding the phase-out of HFC refrigerants." HFCs are responsible for the extremely high global warming potential of refrigerants, and our previous saner government was working to fix this 1/x