There's nothing like implementing someone else's programming language to give you an appreciation for arbitrary and annoying language designs can be.

Lessons from my first few days with Claude Code. If you're out of the loop, coding is turning out to be domain where AI can do a good job. How good? People try to compare it to human developers, but it's different, it doesn't really line up to my experience of a human professionals learning path.

I've seen a few ads for musical instrument stores here in Australia using robot voice-overs with American accents. The overseas accent does the opposite of inspiring confidence that the product will arrive quickly or in good condition. What is the marketing idea with these ads?

Australia Institute research showed in 2023 that 69% of the inflation above the RBA's target after COVID was due to excess corporate profits. But the Reserve Bank continues to ignore profits driving inflation. #auspol @richarddenniss.bsky.social

Just got an ad for a spotify playlist called “21st Century Electric Guitar”. The first two tracks were Eric Johnson “Cliffs of Dover” and Jimi Hendrix “Voodoo Child”. My brother in Christ, I have some news to share with you.

Trying to describe this problem succinctly and why I'm impressed. I proposed an example of a hypothetical specialised domain specific programming language, and with really minimal inputs it successfully implemented a tool to execute the language and the implementation is actually pretty good.

Julian’s Scrawings@scrawlings.bsky.social · 3d ago

This is pretty crazy. I created the input file image attached. Asked Claude to create a command line tool to run it as a model. Which it did, including correctly noting I'd made an error in the equations and offering a legitimate correction by checking what it should be in Wikipedia.

This is pretty crazy. I created the input file image attached. Asked Claude to create a command line tool to run it as a model. Which it did, including correctly noting I'd made an error in the equations and offering a legitimate correction by checking what it should be in Wikipedia.

I've started working on a complex systems model framework; a project that has been bouncing around in my head for some years. I'm immediately reminded of an very niche adage: "any sufficiently complex software system will eventually include a version of Lisp".

Somewhat of a nightmare that Kmart's cheap perve glasses have sold out

Listening to the new Sara Bareilles song, credits rolling for the video production at the end, I looked away and glanced back catching one credit that in isolation seemed particularly poignant: "Lonely Girl as Herself".

Sara Bareilles - Still Crying (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by SaraBareillesVEVO

youtu.be

The Albanese interview: ‘We don’t want to make Pauline Hanson a martyr’ thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politic... Very pertinent insights that broaden an understanding of the prime minister

The Albanese interview: ‘We don’t want to make Pauline Hanson a martyr’

In an exclusive interview, the prime minister outlines his plans to fight One Nation, his views on Gina Rinehart and his faith in Labor as the only party that can govern in its own right.

thesaturdaypaper.com.au

AI can be disarmingly honest about its limitations. And some techniques seem to get better answers from it: ask it to compare options rather than for simple direct answers.

This week I learned something substantially new to me in my professional skill set, both knowledge that a thing is possible, what it might look like when done, and the technique for doing it. The outcome for this is the ability to make less error prone software.

Project Panama PP is interesting because science fiction got there first. Vernor Vinge in Rainbows End features shredding books for rapidly scanning. I wonder if I’m less worried about PP because I was exposed to the concept years ago?

Feed algorithms bring confusion and occasional delight. For a while the confusion has been a daily dose of obscure medical symptom content, for medical professionals, maybe. Ranging from tragic (child dementia) to obscure (weird lesions from uncontrolled diabetes) and strange (fluent aphasia), etc.

I obviously won't include the resulting image but.............this wasn't refused

Just got shown an ad for Meta Glasses. I'm surprised how intensely negative the feelings immediately summoned up.

Back in the late 90's I implemented the parsing and layout for a HTML3 and CSS1 web browser, (focused on efficient printing). Looking at how HTML and CSS have evolved, it's hard to imagine one person on the development team being able to handle the whole parse and layout system now.

Funny what can make you feel Homesick: When I moved to Madrid the Matrix movies reminded me painfully of Sydney. Later I lived seven years in Berlin and Jason Bourne getting chased around the city is giving me a terrible sense of longing to be back there; I feel like I recognise almost every corner.

When testing conditional computational types, code may compile with some values and not compile with other values depending on early object creation parameters. This is the desired outcome. But how to show in test the intended non-compilation when tests need to be compiled?

There is a growing concern about the suppression of debate and alternative views within an increasingly authoritarian top down Labor party that discourages and suppresses debate under the guise of “unity”

I think maybe this is a good thing. I just used AI coding tools, (just Google search), to create a complex type that I could not have figured out on my own without a lot of deeper learning, and a lot of study time and experimentation. It was beyond what most documentation for my language addresses.

NDIS isn't fit for purpose and needs to be wound down. It's good to give choice to people in need, but this way of doing it has just led to demonising participants, because no one wants to take responsibility for the dodgy concept and the actual failure of easy fraud by providers.

Tells story about early days of VR, guy gets to play with a VR headset, sweats a lot so when he takes off the goggles sweat pours out, and the goggles won't start again. That is the ultimate metaphor for the Gen-X experience. I was promised a future of glorious tech, AI, etc. And all I got was this?

Sam Altman Says We're in the AI Singularity - OpenAI Made the Future Lame

YouTube video by Eli the Computer Guy

youtu.be

When AI gets it right it can be quite uncanny. I got a short essay explaining the humour this scenario that was actually pretty spot on:

The ancient game of go, (baduk, weiqi), has unbeatable AI players now. Their tactic is simple: secure a small winning margin early and then play conservatively to maintain that lead. They assiduously identify pivotal points with no obvious overarching goal beyond maintaining their winning margin.

Sounds like improperly secured old backups or data warehouse. Systems that are surprisingly often treated quite naively because they are technically not externally facing, and yet high value to hackers etc, as they often bring all the data from widespread systems together in one place.

Guardian Australia@australia.theguardian.com · last wk.

About 900,000 Origin Energy customers affected by hack as company admits it was warned weeks before public told

"All the back room deals and IOU’s in the name of unity, looked more like micromanaging the platform of a proto-authoritarian political apparatus larping as a member-driven democratic utopia distilled into a political party." 💥🎯👏👏👏 #auspol

Joel Jenkins@boganintel.bsky.social · last wk.

“If they put me in the freezer, I don’t give a shit,” said Ed Husic after his bid was dismissed" My latest on the ALP annual conference: 'The flowering of silence at Labor’s National Conference' #auspol open.substack.com/pub/joeljenk...

A few months ago I was plotting out a novel because the unemployed writer stereotype seems aspirational. Cyberpunk, because I'm Gen-X, and in it AIs become critical in asymmetrical warfare, they get themselves out of sandboxes and hide themselves in the internet, etc.

Rereading Neuromancer and already the visual style of the preview clip of the coming series is grounding my reading the book. It's remarkable how well they fit. I must contain my excitement. It's like rereading LotR and Gandalf's voice is now Ian McKellan's and how could it be anything else.