Ben Scofield

I love it as well! Though I was surprised by how much less I liked the back half of AUs2 after what seems like it should be a minor change to the flow of the show (vague to avoid spoilers)

Also, I'm strongly reminded of Lindley Darden's work on mechanisms in science (especially biology); it's been a very long time since I was in her class in grad school, so it's probably time for some reading to refresh my memory.

Finally getting around to reading The Mind in the Wheel from @slimemoldtimemold.bsky.social, and boy howdy does the prologue do double duty as an exploration of both superficial science and overblown claims about LLMs. Statistics ≠ understanding, even when useful for, e.g., prediction.

Zen View (134) Problem The archetypal zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name. Solution If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessant...

@tenderlove.dev We were talking about views (landscape, not page) earlier, right? This is the Christopher Alexander pattern I mentioned: patternlanguage.cc/Patterns/Zen...

Reminiscing about the Rails Rumble and wondering if it’d be fun to run a Context Quarrel: teams submit prompts plus context, judging consists of handing it off to a model to vibe code

I'm in Philadelphia for the last RailsConf. The Ruby community has been pivotal in my life -- friends, work, inspiration -- for almost as long as RailsConf has existed. I'm grateful that I was able to contribute in whatever small ways I could. This is the end of an era, and I already miss it.

Oh man, I think I need to reboot Moodprint ASAP

Don't McBlock me “That cannot be done.” Is rarely true, but it’s a phrase I’ve heard more and more from technical people without offering any rationale or further explanation...

This is a very good practice: www.schneems.com/2025/06/03/d...

The real bottleneck for useful AI isn’t just model quality.
It’s the walls around our data.
A thread on walled gardens, economic incentives, and why even the best models can’t help us if they can’t see us. 🧵

So, yes to being able to expose the full context to a model, but please give me controls so I can choose _not_ to, and have it know about the subset that it needs to do the job I want it to do most efficiently.

(There's already an agent whose job it is to manage _all_ my context: me.)

context of my life to each group would be counter-productive to the unifying thread of each group.

I think it's the same with AI models -- we'll use different instances of models for different things, and we'll want those models to have access to different subsets of our overall context.

both intentionally and accidentally, and for the most part that's good. I don't want my sport friends to be distracted by the most recent book I've read while we're playing a game.

There's absolutely a place for crossing those boundaries occasionally, but offering the full

Nice provocation! Taking it a little further, I think the benefit is being _able_ to offer models any specific subset of our context, not _always_ offering _all_ of it.

Take groups of friends: I have my job friends and my book friends and my sport friends. I'm a different person to each group,

I just had a conversation with an old Ruby friends and got re-excited to be going to the last ever @rubycentral.org RailsConf in July.

If you didn't know it's the last one and you used to go, maybe the fact that some of us old folks will be there is enough to tip you into coming?

Are Good Texts Always Better? Interactions of Text Coherence, Background Knowledge, and Levels of Understanding in Learning From Text Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction-integration model of text comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated the role of text coherence in the comprehension of science tex...

This reminds me (tangentially) of McNamara's work on what resources work better for people with differing levels of experience in a domain -- clearer texts help novices, but are worse for people with more background knowledge (e.g., doi.org/10.1207/s153...)

Investment Account Inc. Company Retreat T-Shirt We’re not sure what we’d do if we were given $1,000 to invest, but we were incredibly moved by Vic’s choice to start a company and run it into the ground in ...

You are in luck! store.dropout.tv/products/inv...

@scalzi.com Random question, but who designed the covers for the latest OMW mass market paperbacks? I'm in the bookstore paging through and can't find a credit...

+1, lemme know if you want any help!

Expertise: Brooke Macnamara We've just finished the fiction series, so it's time for another meta episode! Dr. Brooke Macnamara is an associate professor of psychology at Purdue. She...

We’re following up season three of Ten Thousand with Dr. Brooke Macnamara (@brookemacnamara.bsky.social). She’s worked extensively in expertise, skill acquisition, and more. Have a listen, and look for Ten Thousand to be back in 2025! tenthousand.fm/episode/expe...

This week, we’re wrapping the fiction season by talking to Gwenda Bond (@gwenda.bsky.social), who’s written across genres and formats, and who is focused on finding that one reader who connects with the story she’s telling. Take a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

In 1976 Siskel looked like a cop on the edge and Ebert looked like his boss who was telling him he was over the line and a loose canon.

This week on Ten Thousand, Ken Liu (@kyliu99.bsky.social) joins to talk about language as a tool, and how being good at writing fiction involves inventing new ways to communicate your unique perspective on the world
tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

We're moving to the indie side in Ten Thousand this week, with Chris Huisjen (who writes as Aest Belequa online). We talk about serialized fiction, the writer's toolkit, and how lowering the stakes makes for better learning opportunities. Give it a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Fiction: Andrea Phillips This week's conversation is with Andrea Phillips, novelist and storyteller across prose, games, and immersive experiences. We talk about the importance of...

Fiction continues, this week with Andrea Phillips (@andrea.bsky.social)! We talk about writing for different media (short stories, novels, interactive fiction, scripts) and different ways that collaboration can work. tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Ten Thousand series 3 starts today! This time, we’re looking at expertise in writing (fiction), and the first episode is an interview with Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel - philosophy professor and short storyist. Take a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Expertise: Barbara Gail Montero Ten Thousand's first meta episode! Dr. Barbara Gail Montero is a philosopher (and former professional ballet dancer) who works on expertise. We dig into...

Two seasons of Ten Thousand are in the book, and we're celebrating with an interview with Barbara Gail Montero -- former professional ballet dancer, current philosopher, and author of articles and books on expertise!

tenthousand.fm/episode/expe...

Philosophy: Johnathan Flowers This episode is a conversation with Dr. Johnathan Flowers, assistant professor of philosophy at California State University Northridge. We talk about philos

We’re wrapping up the philosophy season! This week, I talk with Johnathan Flowers (@shengokai.bsky.social) covering good public philosophy, how philosophers practice, and how important (and rewarding!) it is to get past the grind of the typical intro class.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

A visualization of the following quote from Louise Antony: "I mean, the practice is the doing. It's not like I'm going to work on philosophy of mind for a while so that I'm better at philosophy of language. You don't do that. You sometimes realize that there are deficits and maybe there are some tricky argument patterns that you need to rehearse a little bit so you remember them, or you have to think hard about exactly how that argument worked, but that's all part of the actual doing of philosophy, too."

This week's interview is with Louise Antony, professor emerita at UMass Amherst, and a foundational figure in philosophy of mind, feminist philosophy, and other fields. Find out what "the practice is the doing" means in philosophy!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

Continuing the philosophy season, our next episode features Nicholas Drake - grad student at the ANU, working on measures of national well-being. Is being good at philosophy the same as being good at finding truth? podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ten...

Season 2 of Ten Thousand starts today! We're excited to kick off our interviews with philosophers by talking to Mary Kate McGowan. Check it out at podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ten...