Nate B

"Oh wow I made a functional, useful app with a polished user interface in 2 hours!"
–Me, using Visual Basic 4.0 in 1995

No offense, but it will be conquering the world in the meantime, for better or worse.

I hate to disappoint all my friend who wrote in my yearbook, but I both changed and failed to stay cool.

Not sure who needs to hear this, but AI doesn't exist. This "intelligence" is the marketing product of scrambling human-created content and our brains filling gaps that exist in a very clever algorithm whose output is censored and curated by...humans. Massive bubble burst incoming.

Take down ALL of the names: representatives, judges, officials. It's critical that we record the history of this period accurately and objectively.

Brain worm, question mark?

When I want to know the true nature of a person I don't know well, my go-to is watching how they treat servers, rental car clerks, or anyone else providing a service to them. It has never failed me once.

Don't forget a quick plug into the "FO" port.

Ironically, the very words we're condemned for using by the far left are exactly the words with enough "stank" to describe the far right.

The way to ride this out is to genuinely care about and respect the people with whom you interact. And laugh at ourselves. Bulletproof.

Brought to you by folks whose holy grail is the live service model.

Currently playing Blue Prince. Perhaps its genius is that I first thought it was a typical puzzle game, with obligatory story, but rather than increasingly complex puzzles, it constantly hits me over the head with mysteries and nuance that were in plain sight the whole time. Brilliant.

Imagine an amazing new artificial intelligence to benefit mankind. Then imagine it was fed nothing but the internet and data specially curated by its tech bro stakeholders.

What could possibly go wrong?

While I do truly love building software, and tend to think in logic, I'm still (allegedly) human. Just a shout out of appreciation to the musicians, artists, writers, game-makers, poets, and other creative types that add that all-important layer of beauty to my (and many others') human existence.

Not normally a turn-based game fan, but Expedition 33 has hooked me quickly. Still early, though I can already see what the fuss is about. And that musical score...

I agree with the barrage of outrage and WTF in my feed, but I'm also finding it ultimately ineffectual. Personally, I've been working on forgiving friends and family members who got conned, and not rubbing their faces in it. I think that's the only way forward.

"Legalized" extortion.

Agree on the rubber ducky. Also saves a bunch of time when solving an odd edge case. For me, the code completion is just meh, as it tends to make enough mistakes that I end up reviewing whatever it creates, often nullifying any time savings.

I'm that weird nerd who has a hard time enjoying a lot of sci-fi because it tends to focus too much on tech and/or contrived settings over engaging characters. Some examples I like include Severance, Silo, 3 Body Problem and Westworld. Any suggestions for similar shows/movies would be appreciated.

Copilot/ChatGPT/etc. is useful when I need to look up certain implementation details, or even get some higher-level guidance for certain topics, but I've been in the industry long enough to know it's not the panacea the hype machine likes to pretend it is.

Are there any up-and-coming third political parties doing anything of substance? Honest question. The Dems seem to be more worried about being "right" than fighting back, and I'm sick of it. Get your hands dirty.

"Useful" is not, and has never been, their end goal.

Had a discussion with my youngest--who is LGBT, I am not--about how Burt and Irving's relationship in Severance is so well done. No sermons, no artificially-attractive people, just an expression of an honest relationship between good characters that I feel even if it's not for me. Art.

I've been waiting for this since the pictures.

A reminder to myself as much as anyone else: things that "should" or "should not" be will not magically resolve themselves, no matter how many times you say it, or how vehemently. If you're constantly outraged, you're standing still, and doing nothing to fix anything. That's their plan.

I can appreciate Azure Cosmos' model of RUs/sec, which also quantifies the amount of work rather than strictly call volume. Implicitly, it's directly correlating work to cost, and on a time/capacity basis rather than overall usage. That said, as the caller it's not always easy to forecast.

The world is playing chess, and our government is playing "eat the paste."

Ah, so SpaceX is actually an ultra-premium fireworks maker. All those explosions are features, not bugs. Got it.

Make an intentionally stupid joke today. You'll feel better.

I disagree with everyone: on most topics, solely by degree. Good ideas get taken to ridiculous extremes, and always have. I don't disagree for fun, but it's called having your own actual opinion. I encourage everyone to try it. Don't be afraid if it evolves.