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Most of the time I'm pretty critical of the way technology is headed, and that depresses me a bit as somebody who is part of that industry. Things are getting worse for users and we just put up with it. We accept that things take seconds when they should really be taking milliseconds on today's hardware. Websites are full of dark patterns, ads, and unnecessary cookie messages. Everything requires…
Of all the multitudes of feelings I have about LLMs and how they are affecting my life, the thing that really got me anxious was this: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/i-can-never-talk-to-an-ai-anonymously The whole point of this blog is anonymity . I made it for creative expression and to express myself more authentically, not having to worry about what my colleagues or friends would think for…
A couple of things happened to me recently in close enough proximity to each other that put two and two together and realised something naughty that my brain has been doing. I was playing Rise of the Golden Idol , which is a kind of detective game where you have to figure out various facts about what is going on in a scene by paying attention to details and making deductions. While playing, I…
I use Google Maps to drive to most places, even those that are pretty close by. I've come to rely on it; I don't ever really plan out my route before getting in the car. It does do that thing though on most journeys at least once where it'll tell you to come off the road to the left, but no, not yet . Get in the left lane - no, not that left lane, the left lane after the road has split!…
Disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional. Do not take the following as a substitute for real medical advice. I am simply sharing my own personal experience. I have an encrypted note on my phone called "Court Room", where I put all of the thoughts down in writing which cause what I call "spikes"; basically things that trigger some kind of anxiety response in me. At some point later, I sit…
When I first started my job as a software engineer, I was working on difficult C++ optimisation problems and trying to wrangle SQL databases to get a few extra milliseconds out of queries. Now I effectively glue different Lego brick cloud services together and spend more time in the browser configuring that in the editor coding. That's when I'm not trying to keep on top of the admin work that…
You know that time when you and your partner have a slightly different idea about which way to walk and you start to veer one way, questing while they hold true to their path and a psychic tug like a fundamental force between two fundamental particles guides you back together aligned in body and mind along the right path.
Until now I've been blogging under my real name. I write about technical topics that interest me, typically in a kind of tutorialized neutral tone. I've seen that blog as kind of an extension of my CV, a portfolio of work, that might one day help me get a different job. By keeping that as my only outlet, I've had to put everything I want to say through a kind of corporate-friendly Snapchat filter,…