Rick Ballard
rballard.bsky.social
Rick Ballard
@rballard.bsky.social
Xcode engineer, @ Apple since '05. Cheerful Californian. World traveller. Food geek. I'm not a snob, I'm an enthusiast. (He/him)

📍 San Mateo, CA
Also:
🐘 https://mastodon.social/@rballard
🧵 (inert; no thank you, Meta) https://threads.net/@rickaballard
Obviously, fire safety is incredibly important. But dual-stair design doesn't have evidence-based benefit below 7 stories, assuming sprinklers &etc. Sidenote, having lived in a small dual-stair apt building, the layout it forces really messes with the sense of community & building feel too.
October 25, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Rick Ballard
5/ You’ve told us you want public health updates that are timely, clear, and relevant to your family. This is our response.

The first issue drops next week. Click here to be the first to get California public health news: yourlocalepidemiologistca.substack.com
Your Local Epidemiologist in California | Substack
Translating the ever-changing science of public health for Californians so you can take action for your community’s health. Click to read Your Local Epidemiologist in California, a Substack publicatio...
yourlocalepidemiologistca.substack.com
August 7, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Huh. You’re still using it without logging in? I guess the takeaway here is that “use code” doesn’t work when the tool isn’t allowed to use code — but that it will pretend it did 😬 Pretty funny that it lists a different output language than the source language.
August 14, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Huh, it originally output w/ formatting as if it ran code without actually doing so? Or it was someone else’s unverified screenshot? If it can lie about running code, that’s wild. Also a really bad bug… OpenAI’s infra should be able to tell if code ran and not allow fake code output formatting.
August 14, 2025 at 6:53 AM
Wait what? How... did that get messed up? That looks like it's using the python interpreter, and that output isn't what that code would output.

Can you share a link to that chat? That's really interesting.
August 14, 2025 at 6:08 AM
This post brought to you by someone's 20-message-long post of ChatGPT gaslighting them about the number of 'r's in "boysenberry" + me adding "use code" 🤷🏻 chatgpt.com/share/6896bf...
August 14, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Delete this graphic. How about we fix legislation to allow import and tax-efficient production of small EVs instead, + micromobility and transit, and stop pushing giant, energy-intensive, dangerous, tire-pollution-shedding trucks as the thing for everyone.
July 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM