snikeris

I use it through reagent and re-frame. I don't have any complaints.

I was a little surprised to find when I gave an LLM REPL access to the running program, it readily started using it during development and debugging.

Yeah they probably wouldn't show up to a political rally because of this:

Separation from Evil

The community of Christians shall have no association with those who remain in disobedience and a spirit of rebellion against God. There can be no fellowship with the wickedness of this earthly world; therefore there can be no participation in the organizations, works, church services, meetings or civil affairs of those who live in contradiction to the commands of God (this may include Catholics and Protestants as well as other religions and pagans). All evil must be put away, including using weapons of force such as the sword and armor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleitheim_Confession

I think reading this helps me imagine a version of the future I'd actually like to live in. A version where technology is used well (rather than preaching for abstinence from technology)

I believe the Amish figured this out over a century ago.

This is my favorite alternative form of Magic:

https://articles.starcitygames.com/articles/the-danger-room/

"I have a feeling that roughly 25% of games are decided by a player drawing too few lands, 25% of games are decided by a player drawing too many lands, 25% of games are decided by a player having a legitimate bomb not get answered immediately, and the last 25% of games are the ones that everybody hopes for where there is a ton of back-and-forth on both sides. I wanted to create a format that eliminated those unpleasant 75% of games that are unfulfilling and foster a format where ALL of the games were as interactive as possible."

I know that it is now commonly defined that way, so I explicitly called out that I was referring back to an the older definition:

usury (loans made for unproductive purposes)

Yeah it was redefined to that at some point. See Belloc’s essay on usury if you’re interested.

It’s not about the interest rate. It’s the availability of loans for unproductive purposes on a societal level. It raises the price even if you choose not to partake in said loans.

When the money being lended is digital and not backed by anything it’s even worse.

Houses got expensive because of usury (loans made for unproductive purposes). It destroys civilizations over time. That is why it was encoded into ancient religious traditions.

Housing, education, and cars, all typically financed via loans, all exorbitantly expensive.

All good, I'm in!

After I log in, but before I confirm my email address I'm taken to a page in German. I'm guessing it is telling me that my email is not yet confirmed.

https://www.helleniscope.com/2025/07/31/august-1971-the-day-...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/august-15-1971_b_4284327

You don't have to read the whole thing to upvote it.

Taking the time to craft a well-formed message requires a degree of empathy. The golden rule suggests that we write messages in a way that dignifies the recipient. The Global Elite may lack these traits and sensibilities.

Science and engineering didn't begin with the Industrial Revolution. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza

This is cool.

While we're discussing optimizing emacs keybindings...I've found it key to have my bindings set up such that my thumbs operate the control modifier key.

This is a good point. Perhaps the poor attempt at grammar indicates a lack of empathy, which is a trait the Epstein-adjacent share.

It's a tale as old as life itself. Some organisms succeed in coping with the environment they find themselves in. The genes and culture of these organisms gets passed on to the next generation.

If you planted an apple tree and it never produced apples, you might start to wonder what's wrong with the tree. Maybe there's something wrong with the soil?

How do you know if an organism is thriving in its environment? You count the offspring over generations.

Joe Biden.

Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.

I've found it crucial to have Control mapped to the keys immediately next to and on both sides of the spacebar. Thumbs are stronger than pinkies for modifying keypresses.

"It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright."

- Benjamin Franklin

If you wish to not get stuck, seek to perceive what you have not yet perceived

This may seem like impractical advice. How does one increase the scope of perception? Personally, I’ve found that a meditation practice leads to this.

I think the idea is to reduce the set of memory that needs to be frequently collected. Long lived objects age to the old generation which can be large and infrequently collected. I've used this kind of collector in the past for applications which held a large and mostly static dataset in memory.

This is the ketchup you are looking for:

https://www.truemadefoods.com/

How good are LLMs at reducing code? For example, will they recognize a common problem and build an abstraction around it? I imagine that the solutions they produce tend to have a lot of repetition with small differences that could be improved by abstraction.

The point is also brought up a few times in SICP:

First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations, but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

I worked for a Walmart store as a young man. It was well run, and they were adamant that you took your breaks throughout the day. I faced no exploitative or abusive conditions and was well paid.

A quote from SICP:

First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations, but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

From this perspective, the code base isn’t just an artifact left over from the struggle of getting the computer to understand the business’s problems. Instead, it is an evolving methodological documentation (for humans) of how the business operates.

Thought experiment: suppose that you could endlessly iterate with an LLM using natural language to build a complex system to run your business. However, there is no source code emitted. You just get a black box executable. However, the LLM will endlessly iterate on this black box for you as you desire to improve the system.

Would you run a business with a system like this?

For me, it depends on the business. For example, I wouldn’t start Google this way.