James Asbury

I run all of my DNS queries through a local LLM because it’s more deterministic

Whenever anarchism — or any idea more radical than the status quo — gets dismissed as unserious, it's worth remembering the current system runs on things like "we put all the money on a scam machine that tells rich dipshits they're god." Justin Hendrix • @justinhendrix... • 1d "The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in Al now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year... In a way, then, America has become one big bet on Al." Headline: America is now one big bet on Al It's seen as the magic fix for every threat

it’s really interesting to see how the popular conception of AI is exclusively the chat products

There is no conception of things like an LLM acting as an engine for a different sort of product

it would be like dismissing the internet on the basis of not taking AOL chat seriously

Screenshot of dialog with Claude, reading Problem 1: Incorrect bit offset calculation You're incrementing offset by 2 bits, but then using offset % 32 directly as the bit position within a word. This doesn't work correctly because: - After 16 pushes, offset becomes 32, so word_offset = 32 % 32 = 0 - But you should be at word_index = 1, word_offset = 0 - Instead, your code gives word_index = 32 / 32 = 1, word_offset = 0 ✓ Wait, actually that part works correctly! Let me reconsider...

very relatable, honestly

This is not to take any stance on if AI is truly “good” for society. It is complicated, and there are some clear harms that need to be addressed (copyright laws, job disruption, environmental impact, etc.)

But claiming it is a fad is a naive denial of just how prevalent this tech is becoming.

I see a lot of rhetoric calling AI a “fad” that will fade away like NFTs a few years back.

This is missing a huge point. The next generation of college graduates find AI tools to be second nature. When you become comfortable with a technology that makes you feel more productive, you can’t go back.

Somewhere here is a reality that hits close to home for today’s developers (for better or worse).

Going forward we will see an abundance of college graduates who find AI tools second nature. Developers neglecting these skills will be seen as slower/falling behind

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Mov...

Dear AI coding helper, Sometimes a tab is just a tab and not a request to rewrite the line of code.

The hardest bugs I’ve had to root cause could not have been caught with flat tests. They often involve a complex combination of overlapping scenarios. Testing against complex scenarios efficiently often involves sharing test setup across a variety of test cases

Respectfully disagree. There is no “one size fits all” approach to testing. Start with a thoughtful analysis of where regressions, bugs, and edge cases are likely to arise. Then pick the best way to guard against them for your project.

The best documentation is not only how something works, but why it works that way. The “how” can be rediscovered easily whereas the “why” is easily forgotten.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially UNIX. If anyone cares... But what does that mean?

Not Unix source code… but certified Unix compliant for whatever that means in 2025 :-)

I find this incredibly interesting since you have to change the MacOS settings a lot to pass compliance. So it’s hard to understand why they are motivated to keep it certified. www.osnews.com/story/141633...

Collaboration is a part of the culture I’ve always been most impressed by. All engineers, including interns, are encouraged to explore the problems and have their voices heard. I hope this is the case universally across the company, because I think it’s an important time to support junior engineers

In any big company, practices will vary widely from team to team. As an anecdote, the principal and senior software engineer ICs I work with write significant amounts of code. They just also spend more time identifying problems and the bigger picture with what code should be written.

I don’t think it is very relevant today for marketing Macs as products themselves.

Instead, I suspect Apple maintains Unix certification as a promise for applications that are being developed on their platform. For example, making guarantees about POSIX APIs that are supported.

Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially UNIX But what does that mean?

What does it mean to be “unix under the hood?” These terms are overloaded. But macOS Sequoia is certified Unix.
www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/m...