Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Mafia goon: Nice house you got here...it'd be a shame if something happened to it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
January 21, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Mafia goon: Nice house you got here...it'd be a shame if something happened to it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Right on cue, here are the push alerts from the 3 major newspapers lmao
January 21, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Right on cue, here are the push alerts from the 3 major newspapers lmao
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Whoa! Mind blown: the s/ORIG/NEW/ syntax predates Unix:
actually that editing syntax predates computers by more than a century: it's traditional copyeditor markup!
January 21, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Whoa! Mind blown: the s/ORIG/NEW/ syntax predates Unix:
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
The Nobel Peace Prize becoming so prestigious that wars are fought over a head of state coveting it is some real monkey paw stuff for Alfred Nobel.
January 19, 2026 at 8:47 AM
The Nobel Peace Prize becoming so prestigious that wars are fought over a head of state coveting it is some real monkey paw stuff for Alfred Nobel.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
What a great time to be staking your entire institutional infrastructure on a US company.
Big announcement from @manchester.ac.uk today:
"The University of Manchester has announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft, becoming the first university in the world to give Microsoft 365 Copilot access and training to every student and colleague."
#GenerativeAI #Research #Manchester
"The University of Manchester has announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft, becoming the first university in the world to give Microsoft 365 Copilot access and training to every student and colleague."
#GenerativeAI #Research #Manchester
World-first AI partnership between The University of Manchester and Microsoft announced
The University of Manchester becomes first university in the world to provide Microsoft 365 Copilot access and training to all students and staff.65,000 staff and students will receive full Microsoft ...
www.manchester.ac.uk
January 19, 2026 at 11:09 AM
What a great time to be staking your entire institutional infrastructure on a US company.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
One thing that now even the most hopeful have to admit, is that the unctuous European tactic of flattering, praising, massaging Trump has been a catastrophic failure and made things worse.
January 19, 2026 at 8:52 AM
One thing that now even the most hopeful have to admit, is that the unctuous European tactic of flattering, praising, massaging Trump has been a catastrophic failure and made things worse.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I stopped trying to debate software developers on LLMs a while back. It's fruitless. Even if they could be budged on empirical grounds, they are explicitly fine with using tools that are themselves deeply unethical.
January 18, 2026 at 12:18 PM
I stopped trying to debate software developers on LLMs a while back. It's fruitless. Even if they could be budged on empirical grounds, they are explicitly fine with using tools that are themselves deeply unethical.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
from Patrick McDonnell's book The Super Hero's Journey:
January 16, 2026 at 7:08 PM
from Patrick McDonnell's book The Super Hero's Journey:
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
"bluesky is boring" then youre a fake ass poster. youre not supposed to mindlessly scroll youre supposed to post your every thought for the five people who care about u
January 13, 2026 at 5:47 PM
"bluesky is boring" then youre a fake ass poster. youre not supposed to mindlessly scroll youre supposed to post your every thought for the five people who care about u
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →
January 15, 2026 at 7:57 PM
While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
"i just want to get paid to solve interesting engineering problems"
The reason I post this phrase is not to say that everyone who works in tech is bad; but the normative mode in tech is not asking critical questions about the products you are making, cashing in, and getting vaguely frustrated when you can’t just focus on “politically-neutral techno-optimism”.
January 15, 2026 at 3:43 PM
"i just want to get paid to solve interesting engineering problems"
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Instead of using the nebulous term "AI", I wish companies were more specific about the technology they use. For example, instead of saying "we analyze the data using AI", they could say "we analyze the data using a Large Lying Moron".
January 14, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Instead of using the nebulous term "AI", I wish companies were more specific about the technology they use. For example, instead of saying "we analyze the data using AI", they could say "we analyze the data using a Large Lying Moron".
Over the last couple of years I've seen countless of blog posts from software developers about how incredibly fast they are working thanks to their new tools.
I haven't seen a single one from a satisfied customer about how incredibly fast the software they use is improving. Quite the opposite.
I haven't seen a single one from a satisfied customer about how incredibly fast the software they use is improving. Quite the opposite.
January 14, 2026 at 7:36 AM
Over the last couple of years I've seen countless of blog posts from software developers about how incredibly fast they are working thanks to their new tools.
I haven't seen a single one from a satisfied customer about how incredibly fast the software they use is improving. Quite the opposite.
I haven't seen a single one from a satisfied customer about how incredibly fast the software they use is improving. Quite the opposite.
The strangest implication of this model is that even if we got AGI this week, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Sure, the genie would fulfill our wildest wishes in a snap of its seven fingers, but it would spend practically all of its time waiting for us to come up with those wishes.
Likewise, if in software development the real bottleneck is the bandwidth of the communication channels that deliver the coding process its inputs and absorb its outputs, the ability to produce code faster will rarely be useful. 6/6
January 13, 2026 at 11:13 AM
The strangest implication of this model is that even if we got AGI this week, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Sure, the genie would fulfill our wildest wishes in a snap of its seven fingers, but it would spend practically all of its time waiting for us to come up with those wishes.
The concept of desynchronization is such a great way to frame the problems of automated code generation. It goes a long way toward explaining why we see huge productivity increases for individuals working on greenfield projects, and modest (if any) in bigger projects over longer time frames. 1/6
This was a wonderful read that complements the "coding is not the bottleneck" types of critiques of software development snakeoil with a more nuanced model. I love @jasongorman.bsky.social's pithy statement "faster cars != faster traffic"; this article makes it clear why that is so.
A systems-thinking approach tends to require a focus on interactions over components. Here I try to bring a temporal dimension to these interactions.
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
January 13, 2026 at 10:38 AM
The concept of desynchronization is such a great way to frame the problems of automated code generation. It goes a long way toward explaining why we see huge productivity increases for individuals working on greenfield projects, and modest (if any) in bigger projects over longer time frames. 1/6
This was a wonderful read that complements the "coding is not the bottleneck" types of critiques of software development snakeoil with a more nuanced model. I love @jasongorman.bsky.social's pithy statement "faster cars != faster traffic"; this article makes it clear why that is so.
A systems-thinking approach tends to require a focus on interactions over components. Here I try to bring a temporal dimension to these interactions.
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Drift accumulates across loops and creates inconsistencies as mental models lag when trying to keep up with acceleration.
ferd.ca/software-acc...
Software Acceleration and Desynchronization
A look at the ever-present drive to make software delivery faster and how it might break down various activity loops in organizations.
ferd.ca
January 12, 2026 at 2:26 PM
This was a wonderful read that complements the "coding is not the bottleneck" types of critiques of software development snakeoil with a more nuanced model. I love @jasongorman.bsky.social's pithy statement "faster cars != faster traffic"; this article makes it clear why that is so.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I'm thinking of all the poets silenced by tyranny throughout history, and how their poems last longer than any king.
January 8, 2026 at 4:49 AM
I'm thinking of all the poets silenced by tyranny throughout history, and how their poems last longer than any king.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I avoided Home Assistant for the longest time for being a UI mess and this isn't helping my impression of it
January 8, 2026 at 1:12 PM
I avoided Home Assistant for the longest time for being a UI mess and this isn't helping my impression of it
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I've completely lost interest in debating generative models or how big tech has almost completely transitioned into an authoritarian political project. These days what I try to do is just mentally flip the bozo bit on anybody still defending this shit and then do my best to move on.
January 5, 2026 at 11:50 AM
I've completely lost interest in debating generative models or how big tech has almost completely transitioned into an authoritarian political project. These days what I try to do is just mentally flip the bozo bit on anybody still defending this shit and then do my best to move on.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I got this email:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
ThanksAI.md
GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
gist.github.com
December 28, 2025 at 10:10 PM
I got this email:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
I'd argue it's worse than a blank page, in the same way that garment pieces cut slightly off the grain are worse than not having cut yet.
When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.
When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.
Just a thing about this: a common statement in writing is that you can fix crap, but you can't fix a blank page.
I have heard AI apologists claim that this is why it's fine to generate a first draft.
Now, to be clear, fuck this.
But also: an AI draft is a fucking blank page.
I have heard AI apologists claim that this is why it's fine to generate a first draft.
Now, to be clear, fuck this.
But also: an AI draft is a fucking blank page.
I know I don’t talk about writing much. It is because I am writing so slowly.
But I want you to know that I am taking a part of this story that absolutely sucked and took me months to produce four of the worst chapters I have ever written and in the edit I figured out how to fix it.
But I want you to know that I am taking a part of this story that absolutely sucked and took me months to produce four of the worst chapters I have ever written and in the edit I figured out how to fix it.
December 24, 2025 at 2:59 PM
I'd argue it's worse than a blank page, in the same way that garment pieces cut slightly off the grain are worse than not having cut yet.
When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.
When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Yeah, weird how no one pitched smartphones with "well, this is what phones are now, so get used to it fucko!"
December 21, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Yeah, weird how no one pitched smartphones with "well, this is what phones are now, so get used to it fucko!"
Reposted by Timo Mihaljov
Wildly different things, tasks, techniques, subspecialties being lumped into "AI" and then being conflated with each other, doesn't help. Different types of models vs the techniques to train them vs the tasks they are supposed to accomplish, all under "AI".
December 22, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Wildly different things, tasks, techniques, subspecialties being lumped into "AI" and then being conflated with each other, doesn't help. Different types of models vs the techniques to train them vs the tasks they are supposed to accomplish, all under "AI".