Daniel Temkin
@dtemkin.bsky.social
Artist + esolanger, he/him
New book: Forty-Four Esolangs—the first artist’s monograph of programming languages—out now: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553087/forty-four-esolangs/
New book: Forty-Four Esolangs—the first artist’s monograph of programming languages—out now: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553087/forty-four-esolangs/
Pinned
Hey Seattle folks! I'll be talking esolangs at Ada's Technical Books on 11/11. Would love to see you there. RSVPs are now open: luma.com/n30butuj
AUTHOR TALK: The Art of Esoteric Code with Daniel Temkin · Luma
The new book Forty-Four Esolangs collects programming languages by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or…
luma.com
Hey Seattle! Tuesday night I’ll be talking esolangs, code aesthetics, and expressiveness in the text of code
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
for spooky season this year I wrote about Italo Calvino's remarkable 1967 lecture "Cybernetics and Ghosts", wherein he speculates about whether a machine could ever write great literature. joelgustafson.com/posts/2025-1...
The Orientation Game
Joel Gustafson
joelgustafson.com
October 29, 2025 at 10:08 PM
for spooky season this year I wrote about Italo Calvino's remarkable 1967 lecture "Cybernetics and Ghosts", wherein he speculates about whether a machine could ever write great literature. joelgustafson.com/posts/2025-1...
Hey Seattle! Tuesday night I’ll be talking esolangs, code aesthetics, and expressiveness in the text of code
Hey Seattle folks! I'll be talking esolangs at Ada's Technical Books on 11/11. Would love to see you there. RSVPs are now open: luma.com/n30butuj
AUTHOR TALK: The Art of Esoteric Code with Daniel Temkin · Luma
The new book Forty-Four Esolangs collects programming languages by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or…
luma.com
November 5, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Hey Seattle! Tuesday night I’ll be talking esolangs, code aesthetics, and expressiveness in the text of code
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
not sure yet if I'm going to be able to attend this myself, but tomorrow afternoon The Digital Media Workshop is presenting a discussion with @dtemkin.bsky.social about his book Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Codes. Definitely worth checking out if you can make it...
November 3, 2025 at 5:10 PM
not sure yet if I'm going to be able to attend this myself, but tomorrow afternoon The Digital Media Workshop is presenting a discussion with @dtemkin.bsky.social about his book Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Codes. Definitely worth checking out if you can make it...
I did assignment #4 when I was in @naylandblake.bsky.social’s class. I picked Cat Fancy, and its pieces on cat care and ancient cat worship — however ahistorical — make for a more utopian vision of society hyperallergic.com/1040396/100-...
100 Assignments From Nayland Blake
While these assignments will not turn someone else into me, they will provide the practitioner with a path to the deviations within themselves.
hyperallergic.com
November 2, 2025 at 11:27 PM
I did assignment #4 when I was in @naylandblake.bsky.social’s class. I picked Cat Fancy, and its pieces on cat care and ancient cat worship — however ahistorical — make for a more utopian vision of society hyperallergic.com/1040396/100-...
Claude's first move is always a React app, but it sucks at React
October 30, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Claude's first move is always a React app, but it sucks at React
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
if y'all haven't read something about art worth pausing and making a quick voicemail to record and share it, that's sad but [gestures around at all this] understandable. if y'all are just too lazy to click thru for the number, fine. it's 34-SOUVENIR.
I'm compiling another volume of Phone It In, an art writing mixtape. So if you find a nice, great, or compelling bit of art-related text, call the greg.org voicemail and share it [no bots, slop, hate, or twitter] greg.org/archive/2025...
greg.org
October 29, 2025 at 2:51 PM
if y'all haven't read something about art worth pausing and making a quick voicemail to record and share it, that's sad but [gestures around at all this] understandable. if y'all are just too lazy to click thru for the number, fine. it's 34-SOUVENIR.
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
#fontober day 28: the font in the first image is plain old Times, just upside down, right? now look at the second image where i turn it right side up. wtf!! (1/5)
October 28, 2025 at 8:28 PM
#fontober day 28: the font in the first image is plain old Times, just upside down, right? now look at the second image where i turn it right side up. wtf!! (1/5)
Windows-1252 is so embarrassing. What is wrong with you, Excel?
October 28, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Windows-1252 is so embarrassing. What is wrong with you, Excel?
Hey Seattle folks! I'll be talking esolangs at Ada's Technical Books on 11/11. Would love to see you there. RSVPs are now open: luma.com/n30butuj
AUTHOR TALK: The Art of Esoteric Code with Daniel Temkin · Luma
The new book Forty-Four Esolangs collects programming languages by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or…
luma.com
October 27, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Hey Seattle folks! I'll be talking esolangs at Ada's Technical Books on 11/11. Would love to see you there. RSVPs are now open: luma.com/n30butuj
This was fun to see; also, the Bay Area folks brought great energy. Ended the first leg of my book tour on a high note!
October 27, 2025 at 2:39 PM
This was fun to see; also, the Bay Area folks brought great energy. Ended the first leg of my book tour on a high note!
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
this "Java's Crypt" thing sounds scary
April 14, 2025 at 8:58 PM
this "Java's Crypt" thing sounds scary
Begging anyone I can think of to get a photo of Mamdani with my wok when he’s at the museum on Fri
October 22, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Begging anyone I can think of to get a photo of Mamdani with my wok when he’s at the museum on Fri
Once in a while they let you experience experiential art
October 20, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Once in a while they let you experience experiential art
Hey SF folks! I‘ll have a reading (more of a free association of esolang thoughts) Friday Night at Gray Area grayarea.org/event/book-l...
Book Launch & Signing — Daniel Temkin: Forty-Four Esolangs
Gray Area celebrates Artist and Author Daniel Temkin and his new monograph, "Forty-Four Esolangs."
grayarea.org
October 20, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Hey SF folks! I‘ll have a reading (more of a free association of esolang thoughts) Friday Night at Gray Area grayarea.org/event/book-l...
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
London friends! @katiehofstadter.bsky.social & I (aka Superradiance Lab :) are very happy to be showing (excerpts from) SUPERRADIANCE at Outernet with Gazelli Art House during frieze weekend. Every hour on the hour till 11pm. Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day I believe!
October 19, 2025 at 9:23 PM
London friends! @katiehofstadter.bsky.social & I (aka Superradiance Lab :) are very happy to be showing (excerpts from) SUPERRADIANCE at Outernet with Gazelli Art House during frieze weekend. Every hour on the hour till 11pm. Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day I believe!
Nice instructions and illustrations for building a Forth-like healeycodes.com/compiling-a-...
Compiling a Forth
A bytecode compiler and VM for a Forth-like language.
healeycodes.com
October 15, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Nice instructions and illustrations for building a Forth-like healeycodes.com/compiling-a-...
“we create programming languages to experience new ideas; ideas that would have remained inaccessible had we stayed with the old languages” people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
Why Study Programming Languages | Rachit Nigam
people.csail.mit.edu
October 14, 2025 at 1:34 PM
“we create programming languages to experience new ideas; ideas that would have remained inaccessible had we stayed with the old languages” people.csail.mit.edu/rachit/post/...
After each talk the main thing I remember is the one question I wish I’d answered better
October 13, 2025 at 11:07 PM
After each talk the main thing I remember is the one question I wish I’d answered better
For anyone who thinks TypeScript tames the chaos of JS, here’s Typo, a tc language using only TS’s type system
github.com/aliberro3910...
github.com/aliberro3910...
GitHub - aliberro39109/typo: A toy programming language built entirely using TypeScript's type system!
A toy programming language built entirely using TypeScript's type system! - aliberro39109/typo
github.com
October 12, 2025 at 12:25 PM
For anyone who thinks TypeScript tames the chaos of JS, here’s Typo, a tc language using only TS’s type system
github.com/aliberro3910...
github.com/aliberro3910...
This is where esoteric dialects of mainstream languages can work some magic (my FatFinger for instance!) www.anthropic.com/research/sma...
A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size
Anthropic research on data-poisoning attacks in large language models
www.anthropic.com
October 10, 2025 at 12:48 AM
This is where esoteric dialects of mainstream languages can work some magic (my FatFinger for instance!) www.anthropic.com/research/sma...
Reposted by Daniel Temkin
We're excited to host a book launch with Daniel Temkin, one of the world's leading experts in esoteric programming languages (or Esolangs).
Book Launch: Forty-Four Esolangs
2pm, October 15
Ahmanson Lab (3rd Floor of Leavey) @dtemkin.bsky.social @ahmansonlab.bsky.social
Book Launch: Forty-Four Esolangs
2pm, October 15
Ahmanson Lab (3rd Floor of Leavey) @dtemkin.bsky.social @ahmansonlab.bsky.social
October 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM
We're excited to host a book launch with Daniel Temkin, one of the world's leading experts in esoteric programming languages (or Esolangs).
Book Launch: Forty-Four Esolangs
2pm, October 15
Ahmanson Lab (3rd Floor of Leavey) @dtemkin.bsky.social @ahmansonlab.bsky.social
Book Launch: Forty-Four Esolangs
2pm, October 15
Ahmanson Lab (3rd Floor of Leavey) @dtemkin.bsky.social @ahmansonlab.bsky.social
LA folks: my first book talk is next Tue at Plot, a new bookstore in Chinatown. Details and rsvp here: luma.com/2h591bh9?fbc...
Forty-Four Esolangs: A Book Launch with Daniel Temkin · Luma
The new book Forty-Four Esolangs collects programming languages by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or…
luma.com
October 6, 2025 at 1:45 AM
LA folks: my first book talk is next Tue at Plot, a new bookstore in Chinatown. Details and rsvp here: luma.com/2h591bh9?fbc...
Successfully delivered a working Minitel from Paris to the Large Scale Systems Museum outside of Pittsburgh!
October 5, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Successfully delivered a working Minitel from Paris to the Large Scale Systems Museum outside of Pittsburgh!