glenn mcdonald

I think a large part of working on software, yourself, is immersing yourself in the problem you're trying to solve. When software takes a while to build, you spend more time immersed, and learn more about your problem. If AI builds it for you, based on your initial desires, you miss that.

That's not what "Analysis" means.

So you realized you could spare 4000 people, and you didn't believe you or any of them could come up with new ideas 2/3rds as good as what you're already doing?

Pondering some advice I received when I was younger, and I admit I now think it is reasonable of the ferryman to ask you to at least fix a price before he gets you to the other side.

Cartography is not a subbranch of calligraphy.

Sad to not have rec.music.gaffa or ecto around to talk about the new Emily Bezar album.

Demerits to me for thinking "what a great price, and free shipping too!", instead of "wait, is that really right?"

Points to BoA fraud dept for calling me minutes after I attempted to buy something from a fake Aeropress site (with a third "s", I notice only in retrospect).

Demerits to Google for allowing and promoting sponsored results from this fishing site.

It's OK if software waits for the human to hit Enter.

That's proposing, not programming.

Streaming, Spotify, Song Discovery: The Mind Behind the Algorithm

If you're in Zurich on March 20th, you could come see me talk about algorithms and music discovery and human creativity and machines and power. How many of the Swiss metal bands I personally like will I find excuses to mention?

www.m4music.ch/events/en/20...

There are easier ways to get in touch with me, but if you're trying to get in touch with me, I'm the guy for that, that much I agree with.

Play with AI and scowl, that's like half of my time these days.

SEVEN SEAS

Restored streaming, via a 30th-anniversary Aikawa Nanase compilation, is a great excuse to play this again:

open.spotify.com/track/21TM6m...

If you "vibe coded" a pile of web pages by writing a couple of sentences, I would be happy to look at them. And by "them" I mean the sentences.

Co-working space update. The guy who, when he gets a call in the call room, stands up, and talking loudly with one hand holding his phone to his head, walks through the no-call room into the bathroom and then 30s later back out and through the room again: still doing that.

You can't speed up the process of living with the solution you think you've found until you see how it forces the problem to evolve.

Systems are aways malleable, but to change them meaningfully, we have to understand how they work, how they affect us, and most importantly, how we actually want to be.

Number of AI-coded React components I have shipped: holding strong at 0.

I do not want
all the things in my life
to have been made for me
by an inattentive commuter
on their phone.

My alarm company is worth $27b, because my employees all quit to form three different competing companies that are each worth $9b because they used to work for me, but then they quit those and came back, and so that's why mine is worth $27b now.

Or if anybody who does not have one of these alarms moves in next door. Or it's the kind of day when someone like that might. Also, these alarms automatically learn to accuse passing strangers of crimes in your voice. Or proposition them, I forget which.

I have mailed one of these to every household that has at least one smartphone or door. Once a day it will politely remind you that you can upgrade to I Love My Family Mode, which adds the abiliity to guess when your home is being invaded, hit by a tsunami, or appreciating in value by more than 15%.

I have designed a fire alarm that can play an alarm audible for 1.3 miles, and automatically notify fire departments within 12 miles.

It is sometimes, however, wrong about fires. Actually, it has no real ability to detect fires, but it can guess times of day when fires have historically happened.

The modern twist on the tragedy of the commons is that a billionaire can buy and ruin the commons.

Without a premium account, no. With one, not sure yet.

Tall guy wearing a hat with a red pompom, standing right in front of the stage: you are ruining the metal vibe of every picture and video of this show except your own.

While parts of my body will understandably miss my head and arms and friends, these steps are necessary to secure our future.

You never really appreciate the swamp you had until after the billionaires come and drink it.

Honestly one of the worst 5-album stripe images I've ever seen.