There are two wolves inside you:
Remote
Bob Nystrom
@munificent@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Dad, husband, brother, son. Programming language developer at Google working on Dart, ex-game developer at EA, UI nerd, author of "Game Programming Patterns" and "Crafting Interpreters". Into electronic music, hardware synthesizers, cooking, procedural generation, fishing, knitting, and too many other things.
3261 Followers
608 Following
44 Posts
Joined April 05, 2023
Music:
It is the year 2040. After the AI Wars of the 2030s, only two programming languages remain: JSON and Markdown.
New nerd knuckle tattoo idea:
C T O R
D T O R
Boosted by @ferrix@mastodon.online
I didn't get Frog's jacket done in time but otherwise Frog and Toad was a success. The kids adore them, which is everything I hoped for and everything I need in this world. #knitting
A day in the life of a perfectionist:
1. Be making a bullet list.
2. Don't put periods at the end of each item because they are short and it's cleaner without them.
3. Eventually reach a bullet that has multiple sentences. This one is.
4. Ugh, have to go back and update them all to have periods, otherwise they are inconsistent.
Live your life with the unquenchable optimism of a FedEx delivery date estimate.
New plan: Be a completely selfish sociopath and when people call me out, respond like an LLM.
"You're absolutely right, I did slap your baby and steal groceries out of your cart. I should not have done that. I have apologized to the baby and put the items back." (I keep the groceries and slap the baby again.)
Spent the long weekend in Central Washington wandering around in nature looking for critters. One of my goals was to find a rattlesnake, and we succeeded! I've wanted to see a rattlesnake in the wild since I was a kid.
Here is a northern Pacific rattlesnake hiding under some sagebrush.
Forgive me, I wrote a thing about AI:
https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2026/01/24/the-value-of-things/
Little guy is built like a jackrabbit. #caturday
You're no fun, Washingon DOL.
This makes me embarrassed to admit, but I suspect that a big part of the reason that LLMs and AI make me so uncomfortable is that injecting a chat-like UI in the middle of a creative process triggers the social anxiety that I heretofore used solitary creative work to get a reprieve from.
Like, I love people and love working with them, but part of why I like programming is it lets me switch off my tense social brain part of the day. But when I "talk" to an AI, all of that tension comes back.
Yesterday I received a total ankle arthroplasty, so now I am officially a cyborg. Hoping this means our AI overlords will let me live a little longer than the rest of you 100% organic meatbags.
If you should ever find yourself with a lower leg injury that requires you to be non-weightbearing, try to get your hands on an iWALK knee crutch. It's an amazing piece of technology. Being able to walk around while still having the use of both hands (unlike when using crutches or a knee scooter) is so helpful. I can make a cup of coffee and carry it to the couch.
I've never really been an audio quality snob. I figure almost all audio I listen regardless of source is high enough quality to not be able to tell a difference.
But I just switched from Spotify to Tidal, migrated all my playlists over and, well, I was wrong. It literally sounds like I bought a new better pair of headphones.
Why did it take me >40 years to think to put Cheez-Its in tomato soup?!
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@tim_lavoie@cosocial.ca Yes! The pattern is https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/laprawnda-the-shrimp I'm knitting them using Malabrigo Rios yarn in the Belinda colorway.
Current status: Reading the entire manual for my new (to me) vehicle. Because I guess I am that kind of nerd. But at least now I finally know what "ECT PWR" does.
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When you sit on the floor with your legs criss-cross applesauce style, are you:
The little snare roll in "Sunday Love" by Bat for Lashes is one of (well, I guess several of) those tiny musical moments that brings me so much joy.
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@jack@berlin.social @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io this is such a good insight. I keep thinking about it over and over.
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@d@waferbaby.com @bnut@aus.social that would be adorable but my daughter who strongly prefers shrimp to be alive would alas not be amused.
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@jmiven@piaille.fr I've been pretty pessimistic about technology lately, but this hunk of plastic is a really good reminder of how transformative it can be.
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@xgranade sometimes you just want a beverage and not, like, a Craft Beer Flavor Experience. Coors Banquet is my favorite in this category.
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@d@waferbaby.com waferbaby!!! Yes, recovery is going well so far. I'll know more when I have a post-op soon.
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@krig@goto.liten.app @sarna@types.pl
The article keeps saying "assuming the utility is there" - well, is it?
Assuming that's true let's me make a stronger point about when to use AI. I'm saying even if AI does what it's supposed to and has no negative externalities or societal harms, even then there are still many places where I wouldn't want to use it.
If we often shouldn't use the best possible AI we can imagine, we should certainly use the worse AIs we actually have even less.
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they would certainly be worth the hype, wouldn't they?
Possibly, but there is still the question of externalities and societal impact. Internal combustion engines are excellent for helping get people where they want to go quickly, but that doesn't mean they are overall worth it to the world.
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@Biovf@mastodon.gamedev.place Apparently, I have Spotify's quality set to "high". I haven't tried "very high" or "lossless".
@grampajoe@jorts.horse it is! Great pattern.
@rawrmonstar@social.vivaldi.net Oh, crap you're right. I didn't word this well. Yes, the one on top.
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the assumption is that the utility is there
The article does state that assumption explicitly, but yes it's an important point. What I'm trying to work through is that to the degree that AI does do useful stuff, when would I want to use it or avoid it?
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@datarama@hachyderm.io it makes sense in that there is a high correlation that if you like reptiles, you probably like amphibians, and vice versa. Scientific fields are organized according to human interest more than anything else.