austin (e/accordion 🪗)
@thebadcode.com
if you didn’t need that lesson, you wouldn’t have had it
Pinned
austin (e/accordion 🪗)
@thebadcode.com
· Aug 10
Is it piano or man or a monument
To our hubris our malice our sin
And it sits at the bar still stinking of tar
My god what the hell next will walk in
To our hubris our malice our sin
And it sits at the bar still stinking of tar
My god what the hell next will walk in
the reaction of normal humans to a picture of clavicular implies that creatures which look *exactly like clavicular* were once a deadly threat to our tribal ancestors
February 15, 2026 at 12:39 AM
the reaction of normal humans to a picture of clavicular implies that creatures which look *exactly like clavicular* were once a deadly threat to our tribal ancestors
One of the nicest things you can gift to your future self is immediately taking a selfie after you get a haircut that just fuckin’ nails it
Love to torture a new hairstylist by arriving for my first appointment and having no real opinion of how long my hair should be, where I want to part it, whether I want layers or bangs, oh and also I don’t have any pics of hairstyles I like on other people
February 14, 2026 at 9:09 PM
One of the nicest things you can gift to your future self is immediately taking a selfie after you get a haircut that just fuckin’ nails it
coding used to feel like a base builder that punishes you for mistakes: removing buildings takes time, or you dont get all your resources back. coding with LLMs feels like factorio, where you can trivially rebuild huge projects at zero cost
okay i get all the comments about people finding it hard to stop working with llms now
i'm trying out claude code on a new crate design, and it's honestly a little bit magic to see it grasp all the edge cases i'd been considering and then just write all the "obvious" code
February 14, 2026 at 6:10 PM
coding used to feel like a base builder that punishes you for mistakes: removing buildings takes time, or you dont get all your resources back. coding with LLMs feels like factorio, where you can trivially rebuild huge projects at zero cost
“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it”
- Robert Baden-Powell
- Robert Baden-Powell
I'm going to try imposing a rule that all dependencies get forked and cloned alongside the projects that depend on them, with the agents instructed to fix upstream bugs and handle keeping the fork up to date until the fixes are merged
(Keeping me in the loop for PRs to avoid annoying maintainers)
(Keeping me in the loop for PRs to avoid annoying maintainers)
February 13, 2026 at 11:48 PM
“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it”
- Robert Baden-Powell
- Robert Baden-Powell
it’s extremely weird that *right* before the AI takeoff, we had a round of tech “innovation” that simultaneously
1) spent a trillion dollars building faster GPUs
2) made everyone think tech hype cycles were always bullshit
in this essay i will prove that satoshi nakamoto was a time traveler
1) spent a trillion dollars building faster GPUs
2) made everyone think tech hype cycles were always bullshit
in this essay i will prove that satoshi nakamoto was a time traveler
February 13, 2026 at 11:46 PM
it’s extremely weird that *right* before the AI takeoff, we had a round of tech “innovation” that simultaneously
1) spent a trillion dollars building faster GPUs
2) made everyone think tech hype cycles were always bullshit
in this essay i will prove that satoshi nakamoto was a time traveler
1) spent a trillion dollars building faster GPUs
2) made everyone think tech hype cycles were always bullshit
in this essay i will prove that satoshi nakamoto was a time traveler
We grew up in a world where the only ethical way to gather empirical data on cognition was to wait for a guy to have a terrible railroad spike accident. We are just now entering the era of experimental philosophy
Fundamentally the reason we have such a hard time and fuss and fight about the AI thinking, or even if it can is, that we don't know a lot about thinking and cognition and its components on a deep enough level to make any of those claims as finely as would be required in this case
February 13, 2026 at 4:10 PM
We grew up in a world where the only ethical way to gather empirical data on cognition was to wait for a guy to have a terrible railroad spike accident. We are just now entering the era of experimental philosophy
my main man ben is how i learned what nominative determinism is
February 13, 2026 at 2:34 AM
my main man ben is how i learned what nominative determinism is
fully half of the most-insane software ive ever had to setup always starts with "first, open these 26 different ports"
February 13, 2026 at 2:15 AM
fully half of the most-insane software ive ever had to setup always starts with "first, open these 26 different ports"
Horrors aside, it’s interesting that he’s so incurious that he has zero sources of information outside the viziers. We spend like $100bn/year to make POTUS the most well-informed person on earth, but the current guy has only absorbed slop and lies for years
February 12, 2026 at 9:51 PM
Horrors aside, it’s interesting that he’s so incurious that he has zero sources of information outside the viziers. We spend like $100bn/year to make POTUS the most well-informed person on earth, but the current guy has only absorbed slop and lies for years
What actual opsec looks like:
And if you have an iPhone and you have the sinking realization as the federal agent is bearing down on you that you forgot to disable biometrics: hit the right-side down button 5x very quickly to enter the power down menu.
Reminder- turn biometric locks on your phone OFF, and shift to a passcode if you think you’ll be in any situation where you’d be filming.
February 12, 2026 at 8:57 PM
What actual opsec looks like:
Fired for spending too much time reading poetry in case I need to resign
I bet it's fun as hell to pick what poem to use in your frontier lab resignation letter.
February 12, 2026 at 8:49 PM
Fired for spending too much time reading poetry in case I need to resign
the only job after AI
Video game horse expert on Umamusume: ‘I have supremely mixed feelings’
aftermath.site/umamusume-hors...
aftermath.site/umamusume-hors...
February 12, 2026 at 6:56 PM
the only job after AI
not at all clear who the long-term AI winners/losers will be, but SWEs with crippling ADHD who got a 780 on their SAT verbals are racking up huge dubs
February 12, 2026 at 12:07 AM
not at all clear who the long-term AI winners/losers will be, but SWEs with crippling ADHD who got a 780 on their SAT verbals are racking up huge dubs
The DoJ has obviously been able to do this forever, it was nice little intelligence stream for them, and Bondi just permanently slams it shut because no one in this admin believes in the concept of “tomorrow”
CNN: "Another photograph - these are notes AG Bondi brought to the hearing today. This shows a list of Rep. Jayapal's search history. Lawmakers are allowed to go to a DOJ facility to search unredacted files. We learned from this photo that the searches are apparently being tracked & read by the DOJ"
February 11, 2026 at 10:25 PM
The DoJ has obviously been able to do this forever, it was nice little intelligence stream for them, and Bondi just permanently slams it shut because no one in this admin believes in the concept of “tomorrow”
we need a name for the phenomenon where a sales guy sends you an oddly detailed list of followup points not because they’re super diligent, but because they’re using a really good ai transcription service
February 11, 2026 at 3:39 PM
we need a name for the phenomenon where a sales guy sends you an oddly detailed list of followup points not because they’re super diligent, but because they’re using a really good ai transcription service
yesterday was a devastating shakeup for my personal “worst bluesky takes of all time” leaderboard. its anyone’s game now
bsky don't be weird about amanda askell for one day challenge failed
February 11, 2026 at 12:01 AM
yesterday was a devastating shakeup for my personal “worst bluesky takes of all time” leaderboard. its anyone’s game now
bad luck that the venn diagram of “enthusiastic prediction markets supporters” and “knowers of even a single person who destroyed their life with gambling” has zero overlap
February 10, 2026 at 9:41 PM
bad luck that the venn diagram of “enthusiastic prediction markets supporters” and “knowers of even a single person who destroyed their life with gambling” has zero overlap
datacenters do not, in fact, consume oceans of water. "nippon steel-georg", an industrial smelter hiding inside an old IBM facility to claim the renewables credits, was an outlier adn should not have been counted
February 10, 2026 at 8:30 PM
datacenters do not, in fact, consume oceans of water. "nippon steel-georg", an industrial smelter hiding inside an old IBM facility to claim the renewables credits, was an outlier adn should not have been counted
preventing burnout by switching opus-4.6 from "fast" to "low and slow"
February 10, 2026 at 7:51 PM
preventing burnout by switching opus-4.6 from "fast" to "low and slow"
im sorry but science has proven that this is the only good way to install software. look at you with your "apt" and your "brew", you are like a child
It's funny, to me, that after all these years the main way to install software on a Mac is still opening up a dmg that puts a big, dumb window on screen asking you to drag an icon from one side of that window to a folder on the other. Just a weird little ritual that somehow persists.
February 10, 2026 at 6:50 PM
im sorry but science has proven that this is the only good way to install software. look at you with your "apt" and your "brew", you are like a child
the future is going to contain a LOT of code that is trusted to basically work, and to the extent that it has non-obvious bugs, they'll be figured out by some future set of eyes
am i writing about open source software in 2006 or vibecoded software in 2026?
am i writing about open source software in 2006 or vibecoded software in 2026?
February 10, 2026 at 2:36 AM
the future is going to contain a LOT of code that is trusted to basically work, and to the extent that it has non-obvious bugs, they'll be figured out by some future set of eyes
am i writing about open source software in 2006 or vibecoded software in 2026?
am i writing about open source software in 2006 or vibecoded software in 2026?
As the amount of completely uninsurable real estate in this country continues inexorably climbing, the last thing we need is lying that actually we could afford it except for capitalism
Sorry but you just can’t live there anymore. The time to do something was 50 years ago
Sorry but you just can’t live there anymore. The time to do something was 50 years ago
California’s private insurers are abandoning homeowners and dodging payouts while padding executives’ pockets.
A public disaster insurance system would cover everyone automatically, spread risk fairly, and invest in disaster prevention.
A public disaster insurance system would cover everyone automatically, spread risk fairly, and invest in disaster prevention.
We Need Natural Disaster Insurance for All
California’s private insurers are abandoning homeowners and dodging payouts while padding executives’ pockets. A public disaster insurance system would cover everyone automatically, spread risk fairly, and invest in disaster prevention.
jacobin.com
February 9, 2026 at 11:51 PM
As the amount of completely uninsurable real estate in this country continues inexorably climbing, the last thing we need is lying that actually we could afford it except for capitalism
Sorry but you just can’t live there anymore. The time to do something was 50 years ago
Sorry but you just can’t live there anymore. The time to do something was 50 years ago
what watching the olympics for one day does to a mf’er
I need to get smarter and more jacked and move to the tropics and just hang around coding with my shirt off all day
February 9, 2026 at 11:00 PM
what watching the olympics for one day does to a mf’er