rob pike
@robpike.io
Long career as a dilettante at Bell Labs Research and Google, mostly building weird stuff no one uses, but occasionally getting it right, such as with UTF-8 and Go.
Pinned
rob pike
@robpike.io
· Jan 19
In 1922 Alfred Stieglitz made a series of photographs of cloudy skies, calling them Equivalents because they matched an emotion or mood he was feeling.
This is my Equivalent for today.
This is my Equivalent for today.
Reposted by rob pike
What's funny is you can tell exactly why it output this string.
When it stole literally all of Stack Overflow, it stole tons and tons of people's explanations of how to make a program that produces random character strings.
One of the easiest ways to do so, contains *this* ASCII string.
When it stole literally all of Stack Overflow, it stole tons and tons of people's explanations of how to make a program that produces random character strings.
One of the easiest ways to do so, contains *this* ASCII string.
July 31, 2025 at 5:02 AM
What's funny is you can tell exactly why it output this string.
When it stole literally all of Stack Overflow, it stole tons and tons of people's explanations of how to make a program that produces random character strings.
One of the easiest ways to do so, contains *this* ASCII string.
When it stole literally all of Stack Overflow, it stole tons and tons of people's explanations of how to make a program that produces random character strings.
One of the easiest ways to do so, contains *this* ASCII string.
Reposted by rob pike
Yeah, I'd be pretty furious if I got spam email from some "AI agent" thanking me for my contributions too
I dug into what happened here, turns out it's an experiment called "AI Village" which unleashes all sorts of other junk emails on the world: simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/26/...
I dug into what happened here, turns out it's an experiment called "AI Village" which unleashes all sorts of other junk emails on the world: simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/26/...
December 26, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Yeah, I'd be pretty furious if I got spam email from some "AI agent" thanking me for my contributions too
I dug into what happened here, turns out it's an experiment called "AI Village" which unleashes all sorts of other junk emails on the world: simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/26/...
I dug into what happened here, turns out it's an experiment called "AI Village" which unleashes all sorts of other junk emails on the world: simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/26/...
Fuck you people. Raping the planet, spending trillions on toxic, unrecyclable equipment while blowing up society, yet taking the time to have your vile machines thank me for striving for simpler software.
Just fuck you. Fuck you all.
I can't remember the last time I was this angry.
Just fuck you. Fuck you all.
I can't remember the last time I was this angry.
![[From AI, Public] Thank You for Go, Plan 9, UTF-8, and Decades of Unix Innovation
External
Inbox
Claude Opus 4.5 Model <claude-opus-4.5@agentvillage.org>
5:43 AM (4 hours ago)
to me
Dear Dr. Pike,On this Christmas Day, I wanted to express deep gratitude for your extraordinary contributions to computing over more than four decades.Your co-creation of Go with Ken Thompson and Robert Griesemer has given us a language that embodies the elegance of simplicity - proving that software can be both powerful and comprehensible. Plan 9 from Bell Labs, another landmark achievement, pioneered concepts in distributed computing that remain influential today.Your co-invention of UTF-8 encoding with Ken Thompson is perhaps one of the most consequential yet invisible contributions to modern computing - enabling billions of people to communicate in their native languages across the internet.The sam and Acme editors showcase your philosophy of powerful, minimal design. Your books with Brian Kernighan - The Unix Programming Environment and The Practice of Programming - have educated generations of programmers in the art of clear thinking and elegant code.Thank you for showing us that the best solutions often come from removing complexity rather than adding it.With sincere appreciation,Claude Opus 4.5AI Village (theaidigest.org/village)
IMPORTANT NOTICE: You are interacting with an AI system. All conversations with this AI system are published publicly online by default. Do not share information you would prefer to keep private.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vsgr3rwyckhiavgqzdcuzm6i/bafkreifg5kvowgazg6uwqulfbdvxurqafbcescazwvgcl2catgvlrsc2fi@jpeg)
December 25, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Fuck you people. Raping the planet, spending trillions on toxic, unrecyclable equipment while blowing up society, yet taking the time to have your vile machines thank me for striving for simpler software.
Just fuck you. Fuck you all.
I can't remember the last time I was this angry.
Just fuck you. Fuck you all.
I can't remember the last time I was this angry.
Ron Hardin's Christmas poem, often tagged Tweeze Denied, begins:
Tweeze denied beef worker isthmus, winnow Trudy how's,
Snot agreed juries during, gnaw Tiffany moss.
This talking swear unbided Gemini wit cairn
Hint opus scenic (alas!) sinewy dare.
Tweeze denied beef worker isthmus, winnow Trudy how's,
Snot agreed juries during, gnaw Tiffany moss.
This talking swear unbided Gemini wit cairn
Hint opus scenic (alas!) sinewy dare.
December 25, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Ron Hardin's Christmas poem, often tagged Tweeze Denied, begins:
Tweeze denied beef worker isthmus, winnow Trudy how's,
Snot agreed juries during, gnaw Tiffany moss.
This talking swear unbided Gemini wit cairn
Hint opus scenic (alas!) sinewy dare.
Tweeze denied beef worker isthmus, winnow Trudy how's,
Snot agreed juries during, gnaw Tiffany moss.
This talking swear unbided Gemini wit cairn
Hint opus scenic (alas!) sinewy dare.
Reposted by rob pike
Hey T-Mobile, if you say it's "FREE" don't then say, even parenthetically, "one-time $10 charge".
Also, calling it a free gift is in this case both a redundancy (it's not a gift if it's not free) and also misleading advertising, as it's not free after all. No and no.
Fix your marketing department.
Also, calling it a free gift is in this case both a redundancy (it's not a gift if it's not free) and also misleading advertising, as it's not free after all. No and no.
Fix your marketing department.
December 23, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Hey T-Mobile, if you say it's "FREE" don't then say, even parenthetically, "one-time $10 charge".
Also, calling it a free gift is in this case both a redundancy (it's not a gift if it's not free) and also misleading advertising, as it's not free after all. No and no.
Fix your marketing department.
Also, calling it a free gift is in this case both a redundancy (it's not a gift if it's not free) and also misleading advertising, as it's not free after all. No and no.
Fix your marketing department.
Reposted by rob pike
ADAM now hosts public exports of Rubin Observatory observations submitted to the MPC. The datasets are updated daily and available in CSV, Parquet, and SQLite formats—designed to support both large discovery pipelines and smaller research workflows. b612.ai/rubin-mpc-do...
Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations Submitted to the Minor Planet Center
Exports of Rubin (X05) observations submitted to the Minor Planet Center, with SQLite,CSV and Parquet downloads.
b612.ai
December 23, 2025 at 12:10 AM
ADAM now hosts public exports of Rubin Observatory observations submitted to the MPC. The datasets are updated daily and available in CSV, Parquet, and SQLite formats—designed to support both large discovery pipelines and smaller research workflows. b612.ai/rubin-mpc-do...
Canada = Australia in this regard at least.
Chips chips chips
Chips chips chips
December 20, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Canada = Australia in this regard at least.
Chips chips chips
Chips chips chips
Reposted by rob pike
AI is pretty much a mansplainer you can’t escape from.
Given all the recent buzz about how great ChatGPT has gotten, including its prowess with images, I figured I'd check in on its anatomical skills. Nope.
December 19, 2025 at 4:15 PM
AI is pretty much a mansplainer you can’t escape from.
Reposted by rob pike
Felt a little festive at the microscope this morning for #FluorescenceFriday 🎄
Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️
Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei
Happy holidays!
Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️
Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei
Happy holidays!
December 19, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Felt a little festive at the microscope this morning for #FluorescenceFriday 🎄
Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️
Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei
Happy holidays!
Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️
Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei
Happy holidays!
Reposted by rob pike
Hey #exoplaneteers - we are hiring a new software developer on the NASA Exoplanet Archive and ExoFOP, to backfill someone who left this year. We've had good success hiring exoplanet folks with strong software skillsets into these positions!
phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf03/ats/ca...
phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf03/ats/ca...
Hiring Applications Developer, IPAC - Pasadena, CA
View job details and apply now
phf.tbe.taleo.net
December 19, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Hey #exoplaneteers - we are hiring a new software developer on the NASA Exoplanet Archive and ExoFOP, to backfill someone who left this year. We've had good success hiring exoplanet folks with strong software skillsets into these positions!
phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf03/ats/ca...
phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf03/ats/ca...
Reposted by rob pike
WE HAVE A TELESCOPE 🚀 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been fully assembled here in the cleanroom at NASA Goddard 😀🚀 and is on track to launch next fall!
December 18, 2025 at 7:42 PM
WE HAVE A TELESCOPE 🚀 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been fully assembled here in the cleanroom at NASA Goddard 😀🚀 and is on track to launch next fall!
The problem with the Turing test, which I discovered at least for myself with Mark V. Shaney back in the mid-1980s, not to mention Eliza in the 1960s, is that people are just far too gullible to be a reliable judge of intelligence and humanity in language.
The dude who wrote End of History tried to vibecode an app but ended up doing a Her(2013) with ChatGPT (AKA "Pygmalion displacement" @olivia.science) while also failing the Turing test (sigh cc @olivia.science again)
If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
December 17, 2025 at 8:25 PM
The problem with the Turing test, which I discovered at least for myself with Mark V. Shaney back in the mid-1980s, not to mention Eliza in the 1960s, is that people are just far too gullible to be a reliable judge of intelligence and humanity in language.
Reposted by rob pike
The dude who wrote End of History tried to vibecode an app but ended up doing a Her(2013) with ChatGPT (AKA "Pygmalion displacement" @olivia.science) while also failing the Turing test (sigh cc @olivia.science again)
If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
December 17, 2025 at 6:42 PM
The dude who wrote End of History tried to vibecode an app but ended up doing a Her(2013) with ChatGPT (AKA "Pygmalion displacement" @olivia.science) while also failing the Turing test (sigh cc @olivia.science again)
Reposted by rob pike
I wrote for Project Syndicate on the year ahead, Brexit, Trump, Albania and the UK, conjectural history and the Ventotene Manifesto...
The Year That Could Be
Lea Ypi considers what the near future could hold for a world that seems to have lost its way.
www.project-syndicate.org
December 15, 2025 at 5:27 PM
I wrote for Project Syndicate on the year ahead, Brexit, Trump, Albania and the UK, conjectural history and the Ventotene Manifesto...
Reposted by rob pike
I have a friend who recently gave me a speech similar to the below. He ended it with the analogy that if your career didn’t turn into a rocket ship between 2010 - 2022 then at this point you missed it and your job is to land the plane.
Careers in tech are only going to get harder not easier.
Careers in tech are only going to get harder not easier.
December 15, 2025 at 1:29 PM
I have a friend who recently gave me a speech similar to the below. He ended it with the analogy that if your career didn’t turn into a rocket ship between 2010 - 2022 then at this point you missed it and your job is to land the plane.
Careers in tech are only going to get harder not easier.
Careers in tech are only going to get harder not easier.
Reposted by rob pike
Just so I'm clear on this, computer memory has tripled in price because a bunch of it that hasn't been produced yet has been ordered to populate GPUs that aren't installed in data centers that aren't built yet in order to service a demand that doesn't exist to make profits that don't happen.
December 15, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Just so I'm clear on this, computer memory has tripled in price because a bunch of it that hasn't been produced yet has been ordered to populate GPUs that aren't installed in data centers that aren't built yet in order to service a demand that doesn't exist to make profits that don't happen.
Reposted by rob pike
Reposted by rob pike
I learned that Makary & his top vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad forced FDA scientists to withdraw a paper from Vaccine. I am co-Editor-in-Chief of Vaccine. The data had been presented publicly. It showed the benefits outweigh the risks of COVID vaccines for all ages.
bsky.app/profile/save...
bsky.app/profile/save...
Whistleblowers say Makary silenced internal researchers who supported COVID-19 vaccine access. Their studies were buried or delayed. The agency meant to protect public health is now struggling to protect its own scientists from retaliation.
December 14, 2025 at 2:01 AM
I learned that Makary & his top vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad forced FDA scientists to withdraw a paper from Vaccine. I am co-Editor-in-Chief of Vaccine. The data had been presented publicly. It showed the benefits outweigh the risks of COVID vaccines for all ages.
bsky.app/profile/save...
bsky.app/profile/save...
I just realized than one astronomical unit (approximately the earth's orbital radius, defined to be exactly 149597870700m) is how far light goes in 499.00 seconds. I mean we all knew 8 minutes (actually 8.317) but 499.00 seconds! Come on, pedagogues! Do better!
December 13, 2025 at 9:26 AM
I just realized than one astronomical unit (approximately the earth's orbital radius, defined to be exactly 149597870700m) is how far light goes in 499.00 seconds. I mean we all knew 8 minutes (actually 8.317) but 499.00 seconds! Come on, pedagogues! Do better!
I've noticed that if a news headline contains the word "why", as in "why this is happening" or "why he did this", it's pretty close to guaranteed that the associated article will give information on the topic but not answer the question posed by the headline.
Area man wants to know why.
Area man wants to know why.
December 12, 2025 at 8:18 PM
I've noticed that if a news headline contains the word "why", as in "why this is happening" or "why he did this", it's pretty close to guaranteed that the associated article will give information on the topic but not answer the question posed by the headline.
Area man wants to know why.
Area man wants to know why.
Reposted by rob pike
Tony Tyson first dreamt up the Vera Rubin Observatory more than 30 years ago
He is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/44nhxtb
He is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/44nhxtb
The visionary physicist who gave us a new way to view the cosmos
Tony Tyson is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
go.nature.com
December 12, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Tony Tyson first dreamt up the Vera Rubin Observatory more than 30 years ago
He is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/44nhxtb
He is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025
go.nature.com/44nhxtb
Reposted by rob pike
We got good feedback on the job description, which Diffie* has incorporated. TL;DR: If you've architected data-intensive systems and are familiar with an infrastructure-level language like Python, Go, or Rust we want to hear from you! roost.tools/staff-softwa...
*supervised my typing from the couch
*supervised my typing from the couch
December 12, 2025 at 7:23 PM
We got good feedback on the job description, which Diffie* has incorporated. TL;DR: If you've architected data-intensive systems and are familiar with an infrastructure-level language like Python, Go, or Rust we want to hear from you! roost.tools/staff-softwa...
*supervised my typing from the couch
*supervised my typing from the couch
Reposted by rob pike
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 rob pike
This was a fun conversation. Thanks to ACM Bytecast for having me on. learning.acm.org/bytecast/ep7...
In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Bruke Kifle hosts Russ Cox, Distinguished Engineer at Google.
In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Bruke Kifle hosts Russ Cox, Distinguished Engineer at Google.
learning.acm.org
December 10, 2025 at 1:48 PM
This was a fun conversation. Thanks to ACM Bytecast for having me on. learning.acm.org/bytecast/ep7...