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I'm doing experiments with short attention-span students and code. Starting with python, and, oddly, now working in BASIC. As a C programmer of 40+ years, I find this aesthetically and pedagogically displeasing, but I am delighted to see them getting fully absorbed in writing 130 PRINT "You have been eaten by a bear!" : GOTO 900. Yes there is spaghetti, but it's their spaghetti and they seem to take delight in debugging it. Python will come later.

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I was talking about this with some alumni students, specifically their experience learning python with us a few years earlier (these are college students who are not really using python any more). What it seems to boil down to is that with python you have the feeling that there is this huge forest of solutions to any problem you are having -- but you will never know the whole forest. BASIC feels like you "know" it after a day or two of playing around, evidently.

most akkor mit kezdjek ezzel a Windows 10, Windows 11, Ubuntu Linux 3-as operációs rendszerrel egy két felé particinált winchesteren, jobb lesz ha előbb megvárom, ameddig törli magát a Windows 10, nem azt mondták, hogy lassítani kell az MI projekteket, annyira tetű módon csinálom

Now what should I do with this Windows 10, Windows 11, Ubuntu Linux 3 operating system on a hard drive partitioned in two? It would be better if I wait until Windows 10 deletes itself first. They didn't say that AI projects should be slowed down, I'm doing it in such a lousy way.

Today, I wrote a new Business Continuity Plan, worked with my SRE manager to improve responses to alerts, got a cringe email from HR and have to tell my staff to RTO 3-days a week if not classified as remote. Worked out for my 8th day streak, and cuddled in bed with my girl. Hello World

(∩╹□╹∩) ``

Have recently consolidated my different chat apps (Signal, Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, Google Messages) into a single Matrix client + bridges - I'm 100% sold on Matrix.

You never tried IRC, did you? Good luck on Slomatrix! 😅

really want to find a job where I can go to work in the

curious to know whats the experience of production push in other companies? e.g lots of documents/approvals…

"Sharing economy" once meant something. You'd Uber someone B→C when already driving A→B→C→D; you'd AirBNB your home when vacationing and stay at someone else's home who was doing the same. No driving just for Uber; no houses just for AirBNB. I fear this history will be forgotten.

Agree, it was once like that. But a very long time ago and for very short period of time. Then, capitalism did its tricks.

My hometown is a popular tourist destination and we no longer can rent apartments on a year-basis. Everything is AirBnB and they only rent them to locals pretty expensive and off-season. As a local I can't live in my hometown anymore, so I'm staying in the mountains.

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one good example of this is actually 2good2go, no?

I am writing a GIS app for Android and iOS. Any opinions/suggestions?

Make it easy for users to export polygons. My municipal GIS didn't for some reason so I had to guess by moving the mouse around and manually type the coordinates into Marble.

Thanks for the suggestion. Export feature added.

I've written a small persistent agent wrapper for agent.py. I'm impressed with how well it works. I feel like a CEO issuing global memos to all my agents after reading their status reports.

After running them for a weekend and spending $2 on openrouter I've put the wrapper script at public.swiley.net/agents.sh

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⠀⠀⢠⠉⢹⢳⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡤⠔⡞⠛⣵⠀⠀⠙⡄⢸⠀⢸⠀⡜⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡴⠉⠈⡧⣀⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡰⠃⠀⢰⠀⠘⡆⠀⠀⢰⠈⡀⠀⡀⡇⡇⠀⠀⠀⡰⡱⡝⠀⡜⠀⡜⠀⢈⠆⠂⠤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡀⢏⠀⢇⠀⠀⢃⠀⠸⡀⠀⠀⡆⡇⠀⡇⠁⡇⠀⠀⡰⢡⡱⠁⡐⢀⠌⢀⢴⠋⠀⠀⠀⣈⡆⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡁⠈⠹⣦⠈⢆⠀⠈⡆⠀⠱⠀⠀⢰⢁⠀⢃⢸⡇⠀⢠⢁⢧⠃⡰⢀⠎⢠⡾⠁⠀⠀⡠⠊⡠⠃⠈⣄⠀⠀⠀

Body's awake, eyes are sleepy. Mind's awake, brain is sleepy.

After everything's awake and a good kind of sore. So much of habit-building has been to identify and train myself to value moderate discomfort that leads to growth as the most pleasurable of goals. Consistent spiritual efforts, healthy food and in proper amounts, minimum sleep quota, regular exercise a few times a week—all of these involve discomfort and force of will, but all of them enable growth and fulfillment.

This is a very silly thing to be doing in 2026, but I finally tried some Quake 1 recently. Pretty cool, it's amazing how much it really does just end up feeling like Doom in 3D.

Since I played both Doom and Quake 2 back in the day, it does feel like I've finally bridged that gap, to where I think I understand what people mean when they talk about Romero's influence in the design.

Another thing I think it makes really clear is just how much room-over-room changes the way the game spaces feel, even if no one's actively thinking about that while they play.

🐉 show code

let N=6,D0=[0,1,0,-1],D1=[1,0,-1,0],s=[],g={},d=x=y=xa=xb=ya=yb=0;
for(let n=0;n<N;n++){s=s.concat([1]).concat(s.map(x=>!x).reverse())}
for(let i=0;i<s.length;i++) {
  x<xa && (xa=x);y<ya && (ya=y);x>xb && (xb=x);y>yb && (yb=y);
  let t=s[i]?1:-1,e=(d+t+4)%4;
  g[x]||(g[x]={});
  g[x][y]=g[x][y]?"┼":"┌┐└┘"[(t*(D0[d]+D0[e])>0?0:2)+(t*(D1[d]+D1[e])>0?0:1)];
  x+=D0[e];y+=D1[e];d=e;
}
for(j=yb;j>=ya;j--) {
  let u=""; for(i=xa;i<=xb;i++){u+=(g[i][j]||"·")} console.log(u);
}

·┌┐┌┐·······
┌┘└┼┘····┌┐·
└··└┐┌┐···└┐
···┌┼┼┘···┌┘
···└┼┼┐┌┐┌┼┐
···┌┼┘└┼┼┘└┘
···└┼┐·└┼┐··
····└┘··└┘··

OK, so you only get 10 lines of output. (I tried to get ChatGPT to write this program but it kept messing up, so I wrote it by hand.)

hi everyone

my teacher printed out pictures of vulpes Inculta! My friend asked me if I sided with the legion, lol..

What's happening

Do you code in silence or do you listen to music? If so, what kind of music do you prefer? Personally, I prefer Synthwave, vaporwave or the occasional country.

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Awesome! Let me know what you think!

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Man this was so up my alley. Thank you for these recommendations, several of these tunes have gone straight in on my "WUBRG Goodstuff" playlist

I used to listen to marketing team say zingers like

twenty twenty vision in $current_year (before 2020)
I don't disagree but... (What does that even mean‽)

Because office floor plans I am very thankful to work from home now... In complete silence.

Oh wow, this I feel in my soul. I am so glad I work from my own office nowadays and don't need to listen to these constant non-conversations marketing people tends to have

good videogame music is often my coding sweet spot--no lyrics, something familiar

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I can recommend rainwave.cc if you want an online radio for video game music. I tend to hang around there quite often and listen to their chiptune station.

Trying to gently work my way back to the target intensity needed for the Norwegian 4x4 to get my weekly dose of suck and feel accomplished after. Chronic left leg pain unfortunately likes reminding me it's there though.

I notice that language models are much better at programming than at writing. This is largely because, in programming, they have a closed feedback loop that allows them to find errors. Writing is much more complicated because the feedback is much more diffuse and delayed over time. In fact, it is often not well-defined.

What is the function that determines whether a poem is good? This means that models do not know how to think; they lack judgment. If they do not know how to think, it means that we humans are still essential. In fact, even when programming, you have to stay right on top of them. My conviction is that this will not change.

They will become increasingly useful, but they will never be able to replace the human who defines objectives and evaluates the quality of the work. All these news stories claiming that AI is going to kill us all are stupid. Humans will always be able to turn off the machine.

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