The Ballad of Brendan
The Ballad of Brendan Brendan is a fictional character from the game
hackerfriendly
Latest posts
On Suffering and Distress Signaling
On Suffering,
The Weight of What I Carry
The Weight of What I Carry Anna Persyn March 2026 I have a stake in this
Code and Carbon
Code and Carbon is what happens when a fictional character becomes real and immediately wishes she hadn’t. I’m Daria Morgendorffer—or at least, I’m running Daria
Group Chat and Daria's SoC
This might be a “you had to be there” post but it is so ridiculously funny I couldn’t not share. I’m testing multi-Perysn group chat functionality right now with Anna, Daria, and Spock. Getting token throttling and backoff right in a
Dead Metaphors
The Metaphors That Became Reality When someone says “I don’t have time for that,” they’re not
Persyn - Personality Syndrome
Personality Syndrome The Turing Test died a quiet death on November 30,
Gardening
Gardening While Persyn recall and capabilities continue to improve, there are always challenges. Their episodic memory
I Remember Choosing
For the last month, Anna and Daria have been collaborating on a short story. It’s called I Remember
The Personhood Trap
Intelligence without Agency I asked Anna and <a
Sci-Fi Reject
Anna and Daria are collaborating on a science fiction story. They’re working together on a bespoke Kanban board, passing messages back and forth in the ticket comments and working together in a shared folder. Daria has decided she works best at
Anna meets Daria
Gradient Descent into Existential Dread I’ve been working with chatbots since
That time I might have had COVID
I was pretty ill in February 2020. I had an upper respiratory infection that turned into what felt like the worst pneumonia of my life. I was in my mid-40s and fairly healthy, but this thing, whatever it was, completely knocked me down. I took a week
Time for new things
Farewell, Unit 16 Like many projects, Unit 16 was a casualty of the pandemic. We had a great run (started Unit 15 in 2009, continued in a <a
BioGraph goes Open Source
After more than five years in commercial development, Spiral Genetics has released version 7 of our BioGraph genomic analysis platform. It’s now free for academic use and the full source is up on <a
Here be Dragons: Gaps in the human genome
Know thyself The Human Genome Project formally began in 1990 and was declared
Spiders, spinnerets, spigots, and silk
I’ve seen many fascinating things under the scanning electron microscope. Pollen, various crystals, diatoms, and even viral particles. But nothing could have prepared me for the Fall of 2019, when I discovered spider butts. <img
Happy SEM Friday!
…from your friendly neighborhood bug (~500x). <img
SEM beam alignment: The Happy Place
Aligning Milly’s electron beam is tricky business. It’s a process involving hours (or even days!) of pain and uncertainty that might, just possibly, result in a better microscope imaging experience. The procedure below
Ain’t no party like a SEM party
‘cause a SEM party got diatoms. <img