Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

@mikedecr.computer

One bewildering piece of condescending Apple UI is that, while you *can* attach files to iMessage, you can't do it with the obvious UI element that should do it.

If you're audacious enough to realize that your computer has these things called "files" there's drag-and-drop or the menu bar?

October 28, 2025 at 11:40 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

weird idea: map in terms of reduce

screenshot of python code:

# this is the classical definition of map
def map(fn, xs: list):
if len(xs) == 0:
return []
else:
return [fn(xs[0]), *map(fn, xs[1:])]

# but you can implement as a reduce
from functools import reduce

def map(fn, xs: list):
return reduce(_as_binary_op(fn), xs, list())

# casting func into a binary operation
def _as_binary_op(fn):
def binary_op(accum: list, x):
accum.append(fn(x))
return accum
return binary_op

map(str.upper, ["a", "b", "c"])
# ['A', 'B', 'C']

September 27, 2025 at 6:59 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

Look, I ride a bike and I want better bike infrastructure, but this is magical thinking. If every car disappeared there would be way more bikes, way more bikers who don't ride as fast as you want to go, so way more bike traffic

September 21, 2025 at 7:16 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

will anybody ever want this? idk. a cheaper / better way might be to just define the fns with lambdas

$text in the R console: R > by_sex = \(x) group_by(x, sex, .add = TRUE) R > mean_mass = \(x) summarize(x, mass = mean(body_mass_g)) R > penguins |> by_sex() |> mean_mass() # A tibble: 3 × 2 sex mass <fct> <dbl> 1 female 3862. 2 male 4546. 3 NA NA$

September 21, 2025 at 4:18 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

I re-published this post about "lazy" pipeline functions: mikedecr.computer/blog/lazy-dp...

Basically, exploring how to make pipeline-style R code more re-usable and composable by abusing partial function application

Screenshot from the text of the blog post:

More abstractly, what I want is more separation of functions from data in the R pipeline style.
In some situation, I want to pass data `x` to functions `f`, `g`, and `h`.
But instead of writing this:

```{r}
#| eval: false
x |>
f(...) |>
g(...) |>
h(...)
```

I want to write something like this:

```{r}
#| eval: false
# first argument omitted from each of these expressions
pipeline = compose(f(...), g(...), h(...))

# supply data to the ultimate function call
x |> pipeline()
```

`pipeline` is a function that captures unevaluated function calls on `f`, `g`, and `h` with their first arguments omitted.
Then I pass data `x` such that the data pass through the first argument of each function in the chain.

Why do I want this?
Because it should be easier to build a pipeline of expressions that can be re-used on different datasets.
I am thinking specically of examples like this:

```{r}
#| eval: false
# I could evaluate this function as-is
x |> pipeline()

# and I could also drop in extra steps j and k
x |> j() |> pipeline()
x |> k() |> pipeline()
```

September 21, 2025 at 4:01 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

I wrote a "lazy pipe" operator %=>% that lets you build function compositions from partial function expressions in a linear way.

Instead of passing data up front, you define pipeline steps without reference to the data. You get reusable + composable pipeline steps w/out as much function boilerplate

Screenshot of R code that reads:

library(dplyr)
library(palmerpenguins)

# how a normal pipeline looks
mass_stats <- penguins |>
group_by(species, island) |>
summarize(
mean_body_mass = mean(body_mass_g, na.rm = TRUE),
sd_body_mass = sd(body_mass_g, na.rm = TRUE),
) |>
print()

# using lazy pipe
# create a function by composing partial expressions with %=>% operator
compute_mass_stats =
group_by(species, island, .add = TRUE) %=>%
summarize(
mean_body_mass = mean(body_mass_g, na.rm = TRUE),
sd_body_mass = sd(body_mass_g, na.rm = TRUE)
)

# then pass data
compute_mass_stats(penguins)

Screenshot of R code that reads:

# by using .add = TRUE we can prepend extra groupings to our pipeline
# so we can re-use code more efficiency when we need to slice data more ways
by_sex = group_by(sex, .add = TRUE) |> as_partial()

penguins |>
by_sex() |>
compute_mass_stats()

September 14, 2025 at 3:05 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

good slide from this talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGLo...

slide from a presentation that reads "Syntax don't solve your problems"

September 1, 2025 at 7:45 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

i'm chewing on this

fly.io/blog/youre-a...

Screenshot of text from the linked blog post. The text reads:

but the craft

Do you like fine Japanese woodworking? All hand tools and sashimono joinery? Me too. Do it on your own time.

† (I’m a piker compared to my woodworking friends)

I have a basic wood shop in my basement †. I could get a lot of satisfaction from building a table. And, if that table is a workbench or a grill table, sure, I’ll build it. But if I need, like, a table? For people to sit at? In my office? I buy a fucking table.

Professional software developers are in the business of solving practical problems for people with code. We are not, in our day jobs, artisans. Steve Jobs was wrong: we do not need to carve the unseen feet in the sculpture. Nobody cares if the logic board traces are pleasingly routed. If anything we build endures, it won’t be because the codebase was beautiful.

Besides, that’s not really what happens. If you’re taking time carefully golfing functions down into graceful, fluent, minimal functional expressions, alarm bells should ring. You’re yak-shaving. The real work has depleted your focus. You’re not building: you’re self-soothing.

June 14, 2025 at 6:11 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

at a high level it's basically this

screen shot from the blog post. Text reads:

I am being silly, but I have this irrational beef with Python. Python has a lot of trivial syntax sugar for operations that could simply be functions. I like functions because you can do things with functions: composing, mapping, reducing, currying. You can’t do much with syntax sugar. In Python, all the sugar is parsed away to C code before any operations are actually executed against your data. So the syntax sugar in Python is convenient, but programmatically it is kind of useless.

May 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

...which will let me figure out why the checking for legal moves is broken. The existing code lets you just bring a piece out of bounds to the left, then when the piece settles it is somehow chopped between left and right sides of the board

A gif showing a tetronimo piece going out of bounds to the left of the game board, and when the piece is sent to the bottom of the board, some of it appears on both sides of the board.

April 19, 2025 at 7:53 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

- I had to add a few missing pieces? Originally S and Z were somehow blended into one piece, so had to be separated. We had an L but not a J? O needed to be added entirely.
- I am now running main() using typer, which lets me easily pass CLI args. This is very convenient for activating "debug" mode

A Git diff showing the addition of `import typer; typer.run(main)`

a git diff showing the addition of a debug argument to the main() function. The argument is used to pass a 0 fall speed to the TimeUpdate class if debug is True, else we pass a fall speed of 50.

April 19, 2025 at 7:53 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

The game display looks like this. I have already fixed a few things about it:

- colors were random which was confusing. I didn't expand it to full colors but did add some classics: I=blue, O=gray, T=yellow
- pieces were rotating counter-clockwise-only so that had to get fixed

a computer window showing a tetris-like game. pieces are red, green, blue, yellow, and red. Some pieces have already been played.

April 19, 2025 at 7:53 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

not my cat, not my balcony

March 29, 2025 at 12:03 AM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

if you can remap keys with either firmware or software I put the EQ here on key tap, and ctrl/cmd on key hold, so it’s on the thumb

Picture of a keyboard. The left GUI / Cmd key is circled

March 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

i let myself get nerd-sniped by this and I looked up the marginal rates and computed the weighted avg tax rate for some income blah blah

a plot of marginal and effective tax rate as income goes from $0 to $1mil. the effective tax rate is always below the marginal tax rate and is much smoother than the marginal rate

January 26, 2025 at 7:47 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

I want a way to search / interact with my archive of tweet data so I began a little project for parsing & presenting the data. extremely WIP, no designs are finalized, just kinda goofing around for starters

github.com/mikedecr/twe...

$screenshot of a terminal command and output: uv run tmd parse --archive ../twitter-archive/twits -o tweets.json && head -20 tweets.json [ { "tweet": { "edit_info": { "initial": { "editTweetIds": [ "1855701514406309953" ], "editableUntil": "2024-11-10T20:58:12.000Z", "editsRemaining": "5", "isEditEligible": true } }, "retweeted": false, "source": "<a href=\"https://mobile.twitter.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter Web App</a>", "entities": { "hashtags": [], "symbols": [], "user_mentions": [], "urls": []$

January 20, 2025 at 7:05 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

it’s Saturday

photo of apartment living room, v60 coffee making station on the counter in the foreground

January 18, 2025 at 4:46 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

I saw some people talking about "No syntactically significant whitespace Python" which was enticingly evil...

I am being too strict about it...function defs aren't even allowed, only lambdas, so the type hints are trying to make it interpretable but now it look messy.

Some of my worst filth yet!

$""" No-Significant-Whitespace Python. Not even function defs! """ import itertools from pathlib import Path from typing import Any, List, Callable as Function parse_words: Function[str, List[str]] = lambda chars: \ [s for s in chars.split(" ") if s != ""] parse_int_sequence: Function[str, List[int]] = lambda chars: \ [int(word) for word in parse_words(chars)] diff_series: Function[List[int], List[int]] = lambda series: \ [a - b for a, b in itertools.pairwise(series)] all_same_sign: Function[List[int], bool] = lambda seq: \ all(x < 0 for x in seq) or all(x > 0 for x in seq) # haters weep that we find a use for this yet again... juxt: Function[List[Function], Function[Any, List[Any]]] = lambda fns: \ lambda *args, **kws: [fn(*args, **kws) for fn in fns] good_seq_checks: Function[List[int], List[bool]] = lambda seq: \ juxt([all_same_sign, lambda lst: all(1 <= abs(x) <= 3 for x in lst)])(diff_series(seq)) is_safe_sequence: Function[List[int], bool] = lambda seq: \ all(good_seq_checks(seq)) part_one: Function[Path, int] = lambda filepath: \ sum(is_safe_sequence(parse_int_sequence(seq)) for seq in open(filepath).read().splitlines()) if __name__ == "__main__": pt2_data = Path("data/2024/02") test_file = pt2_data / "test.txt" final_file = pt2_data / "final.txt" assert part_one(test_file) == 2 print(f"{part_one(final_file)=}")$

December 3, 2024 at 4:48 AM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

Test post from BlueSky python client bsky-bridge

Screen grab of the Python code that created this post.

November 15, 2024 at 7:53 PM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

"the terminal is a vibe" but playing with personal website themes.

Quarto is great but I do not like the Bootswatch themes for websites and hacking on CSS is always miserable for me.

Remember the ol' Hugo days? I'm trying to make quarto x hugo go nicely. Theme is github.com/panr/hugo-th...

$Rendered web page, dark screen, monospace text, orange accent color, very retro terminal looking. Text is rendered latex from following code: Dollars $ a = x $ and parens $b + c$ Double dollar: $$ a = x $$ Square bracket: \[ a + 1 \] Escaping dollars between \\$100 and \\$200.$

November 9, 2024 at 2:08 AM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

the terminal is a vibe, what else is there to say

neovim home screen with a huge ascii art banner reading YOU'RE IN MIKE'S WORLD

November 9, 2024 at 1:56 AM

michael 📈 👨‍💻

@mikedecr.computer

progressive academics went insane about (a) Silver not using comma-robust or (b) accusing him of finding excuses to invent bad news for Democrats (?) instead of, idk entertaining the face validity that inflation might be a big part of a future story of Dem loss. Lefty derangement about NS is so odd