Carlos Scheidegger
@cscheid.net
Engineer at Posit (fka RStudio), technical lead at quarto.org
Learning Brazilian Choro, the 7-string guitar, and to deal with the Minneapolis winter after 10 years in Tucson
Learning Brazilian Choro, the 7-string guitar, and to deal with the Minneapolis winter after 10 years in Tucson
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
Happy 20th anniversary to "Samoyed and teddy bear" on Wikimedia Commons.
"This is a picture of my samoyed with a teddy bear. I release all rights to it, it would just be nice if her image could survive forever."
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...
"This is a picture of my samoyed with a teddy bear. I release all rights to it, it would just be nice if her image could survive forever."
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...
December 26, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Happy 20th anniversary to "Samoyed and teddy bear" on Wikimedia Commons.
"This is a picture of my samoyed with a teddy bear. I release all rights to it, it would just be nice if her image could survive forever."
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...
"This is a picture of my samoyed with a teddy bear. I release all rights to it, it would just be nice if her image could survive forever."
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
Weird how The Free Press was able to publish all of these without comment from the Washigton University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital.
December 22, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Weird how The Free Press was able to publish all of these without comment from the Washigton University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital.
Armin Ronacher: lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/12/22/a...
This guy has impeccable taste in designing APIs (I consider Flask to be a real triumph). Worth your reading
This guy has impeccable taste in designing APIs (I consider Flask to be a real triumph). Worth your reading
A Year Of Vibes
A personal recap of 2025 and a year of a new style of engineering.
lucumr.pocoo.org
December 22, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Armin Ronacher: lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/12/22/a...
This guy has impeccable taste in designing APIs (I consider Flask to be a real triumph). Worth your reading
This guy has impeccable taste in designing APIs (I consider Flask to be a real triumph). Worth your reading
I don't know who needs to hear this, but wow: recent speech recognition software like MacWhisper Pro is really very good. (And yes, I used MacWhisper Pro for this skeet with minimal edits)
December 20, 2025 at 9:19 PM
I don't know who needs to hear this, but wow: recent speech recognition software like MacWhisper Pro is really very good. (And yes, I used MacWhisper Pro for this skeet with minimal edits)
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
I see a lot of complaints about untested AI slop in pull requests. Submitting those is a dereliction of duty as a software engineer: Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/...
Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work
In all of the debates about the value of AI-assistance in software development there’s one depressing anecdote that I keep on seeing: the junior engineer, empowered by some class of …
simonwillison.net
December 18, 2025 at 2:57 PM
I see a lot of complaints about untested AI slop in pull requests. Submitting those is a dereliction of duty as a software engineer: Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/...
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
I read American Canto and I think it’s wonderful. haha jk
American Cant | Defector
Dante Alighieri thought he could write himself out of exile. In 1300, while serving on a governing committee in his beloved Florence, the poet was involved in a factional dispute among city leaders. T...
defector.com
December 17, 2025 at 3:31 PM
I read American Canto and I think it’s wonderful. haha jk
I haven’t been an ACM member in half a decade, and I’m seething about this.
The naked disrespect for the people who wrote the papers, my god. They make you write an abstract! And then… they set it aside for their own shitty slop?
This is worse than eg the NYT picking story titles!
The naked disrespect for the people who wrote the papers, my god. They make you write an abstract! And then… they set it aside for their own shitty slop?
This is worse than eg the NYT picking story titles!
The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.
December 17, 2025 at 1:07 PM
I haven’t been an ACM member in half a decade, and I’m seething about this.
The naked disrespect for the people who wrote the papers, my god. They make you write an abstract! And then… they set it aside for their own shitty slop?
This is worse than eg the NYT picking story titles!
The naked disrespect for the people who wrote the papers, my god. They make you write an abstract! And then… they set it aside for their own shitty slop?
This is worse than eg the NYT picking story titles!
Ok, I’m sorry, but Shyamalan’s Trap is parodying itself, right? What in god’s green earth is going on?
December 17, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Ok, I’m sorry, but Shyamalan’s Trap is parodying itself, right? What in god’s green earth is going on?
If I had to summarize the state of software in 2025, it is "I wish software engineers respected their audience"
It's not just enshittification or AI everywhere. It's things like VS Code not letting me decide on a window layout because it thinks it knows better.
It's so grating.
It's not just enshittification or AI everywhere. It's things like VS Code not letting me decide on a window layout because it thinks it knows better.
It's so grating.
December 16, 2025 at 4:38 PM
If I had to summarize the state of software in 2025, it is "I wish software engineers respected their audience"
It's not just enshittification or AI everywhere. It's things like VS Code not letting me decide on a window layout because it thinks it knows better.
It's so grating.
It's not just enshittification or AI everywhere. It's things like VS Code not letting me decide on a window layout because it thinks it knows better.
It's so grating.
RIP Mitch Hedberg :(
December 14, 2025 at 4:24 PM
RIP Mitch Hedberg :(
I think it's the venality of the lies in Google's products that upset me the most. Just now, Google tells me my iPhone 14 iOS browser "doesn't support full-screen videos"
AYAFKM?
AYAFKM?
December 14, 2025 at 2:34 PM
I think it's the venality of the lies in Google's products that upset me the most. Just now, Google tells me my iPhone 14 iOS browser "doesn't support full-screen videos"
AYAFKM?
AYAFKM?
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
Shrooms 2 just dropped
Experts Explore New Mushroom Which Causes Fairytale-Like Hallucinations
Between traditional folklore and modern biology, the wild forest floor and the sterile scientific laboratory, lies the story of the lilliputian mushroom.
nhmu.utah.edu
December 13, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Shrooms 2 just dropped
-7F out, -25F wind chill. It is technically what i signed up for, yes. But, for real? 😧
December 13, 2025 at 12:42 PM
-7F out, -25F wind chill. It is technically what i signed up for, yes. But, for real? 😧
Billy Strings: Tiny Desk Concert
YouTube video by NPR Music
www.youtube.com
December 12, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Y'all. Y'all.
If you recently caught yourself saying "I'm sorry to report that this, too, is gender" —and let's be real, it's 2025, you better have!— READ THIS BOOK. Be warned though: you will never see our world the same again.
If you recently caught yourself saying "I'm sorry to report that this, too, is gender" —and let's be real, it's 2025, you better have!— READ THIS BOOK. Be warned though: you will never see our world the same again.
Still time to get the "Too Like the Lightning" ebook for $2.99 today in the goldbox sale: www.amazon.com/Too-Like-Lig...
December 11, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Y'all. Y'all.
If you recently caught yourself saying "I'm sorry to report that this, too, is gender" —and let's be real, it's 2025, you better have!— READ THIS BOOK. Be warned though: you will never see our world the same again.
If you recently caught yourself saying "I'm sorry to report that this, too, is gender" —and let's be real, it's 2025, you better have!— READ THIS BOOK. Be warned though: you will never see our world the same again.
Ok, so The Substance is so much better than I expected.
Wildest last act I’ve seen in a decade. I can’t believe it got made.
Wildest last act I’ve seen in a decade. I can’t believe it got made.
December 11, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Ok, so The Substance is so much better than I expected.
Wildest last act I’ve seen in a decade. I can’t believe it got made.
Wildest last act I’ve seen in a decade. I can’t believe it got made.
Here I am, once again, begging people to read Revelation Space
I think all the time about how Ray Kurzweil's dad died young and then Kurzweil spent his entire life imagining a world where a magic moment would arrive where technology suddenly advanced so quickly he could somehow get his dad back.
It's very sad and very sweet, but that does not make it real.
It's very sad and very sweet, but that does not make it real.
IN DEPTH | If you could speak to your dead grandmother forever, would you?
December 10, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Here I am, once again, begging people to read Revelation Space
It's been zero days since homebrew completely fucked itself and my macos python environment with it.
I didn't even install python through homebrew. Something did it through dependencies.
Just incredible stuff.
I didn't even install python through homebrew. Something did it through dependencies.
Just incredible stuff.
December 10, 2025 at 8:41 PM
It's been zero days since homebrew completely fucked itself and my macos python environment with it.
I didn't even install python through homebrew. Something did it through dependencies.
Just incredible stuff.
I didn't even install python through homebrew. Something did it through dependencies.
Just incredible stuff.
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
“Why did you build the train then?” I didn’t build the train. “Talking about the train is doing marketing for the train” fine, can we get off the tracks now?
December 10, 2025 at 5:48 PM
“Why did you build the train then?” I didn’t build the train. “Talking about the train is doing marketing for the train” fine, can we get off the tracks now?
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
Just because it's being passed around a lot: NO, data centers in space do NOT benefit from space being cold. Space is cold in the formal sense we use to define temperature. But it is very bad at cooling. What would you rather have to cool hot metal: a lukewarm water tub or a giant cold atmosphere?
December 10, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Just because it's being passed around a lot: NO, data centers in space do NOT benefit from space being cold. Space is cold in the formal sense we use to define temperature. But it is very bad at cooling. What would you rather have to cool hot metal: a lukewarm water tub or a giant cold atmosphere?
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
Incredible things are happening
ELDEN ZOHRAN - The Zohran Mamdani Elden Ring Mod (with Hasan, Cuomo, AOC, Bernie)
YouTube video by erbafleahpar
m.youtube.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Incredible things are happening
Reposted by Carlos Scheidegger
I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.
I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
December 9, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.
I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
That's a very important observation.
To turn it into something actionable, I think folks are better served spending less time on "what is it?", and more time working on "what does it do, how do _I_ tell apart the shitty output from the good output, and how do _I_ get better at controlling that?"
To turn it into something actionable, I think folks are better served spending less time on "what is it?", and more time working on "what does it do, how do _I_ tell apart the shitty output from the good output, and how do _I_ get better at controlling that?"
one reason the framing as "AI" is so bad is that it makes people think "interact with this like a person" when in fact the only way to make it remotely useful is "interact with it like an extremely powerful but extremely weird user interface"
This is really a huge part of why upper management is so in on AI. They think it will let them manage computers the way they currently manage the people who make the computer work. It will not.
December 9, 2025 at 3:26 PM
That's a very important observation.
To turn it into something actionable, I think folks are better served spending less time on "what is it?", and more time working on "what does it do, how do _I_ tell apart the shitty output from the good output, and how do _I_ get better at controlling that?"
To turn it into something actionable, I think folks are better served spending less time on "what is it?", and more time working on "what does it do, how do _I_ tell apart the shitty output from the good output, and how do _I_ get better at controlling that?"
![Partial transcript of that skeet of mine, from back in august:
"The real doomsday scenario [is] these companies working out advertisement deals that are incorporated into the [RL] part of training their models."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ls5433sf4bxpw53d47y7f2of/bafkreiasollmc35mas76hdxvbokst5okyvh4ol6kspkj5iyq2vbp6gpo74@jpeg)
December 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM
I'm wondering: is the median engineering manager at a software company better than the median engineering manager at a non-software company at navigating internal fights and turf wars?
it is officially Interesting Times for software companies, I wonder how many people see the stuff about to happen.
it is officially Interesting Times for software companies, I wonder how many people see the stuff about to happen.
December 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
I'm wondering: is the median engineering manager at a software company better than the median engineering manager at a non-software company at navigating internal fights and turf wars?
it is officially Interesting Times for software companies, I wonder how many people see the stuff about to happen.
it is officially Interesting Times for software companies, I wonder how many people see the stuff about to happen.