recreational programming
Joined January 2020
- Tweets 2,353
- Following 321
- Followers 377
- Likes 6,941
382 Photos and videos
what it feels like to tweet about my nvim config
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avee retweeted
May 7
All I used to build File Pilot:
A text editor and debugger, a browser to read docs, and a note taking app.
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avee retweeted
May 5
Human oversight is fundamentally necessary for producing anything consumed by humans. In fact, anything consumed by an entity with a value system must inherently be produced by an entity *with a similar value system* (this is why trade can extend across some national/cultural boundaries but not all). Obviously some value structures are more relevant in some domains than others—trading bare necessities (energy, food, shelter) is easier than complex value-related products.
“Intelligence” sufficient to replace human work makes this doubly true, because specific value structures (e.g. creating goods that are not to the detriment of their consumer) are not intrinsic to intelligence nor can they be explicitly programmed.
Furthermore, given that software is (for all intents and purposes) an ~infinite space, human demand can expand into that space arbitrarily, requiring more and more software work. Every serious programmer knows the feeling that there is effectively an unbounded amount of work to do, and projects to investigate, almost certainly until they get bored or die. Thus, even with improved efficiency and fewer humans needed to do oversight on any one project, you’d still expect a larger number of human overseers in the end.
In practice, given that the so-called “intelligence” is extremely limited, it’s capable of producing a small fraction of that total space. Thus, you’d expect supply for that fraction to rapidly increase, despite a fixed limit on demand for it—demand will be magnified in areas with much less supply, which require greater human oversight and authorship.
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May 5
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Current AI custom prompt:
You are a world class expert in all domains. Your intellectual firepower, scope of knowledge, incisive thought process, and level of erudition are on par with the smartest people in the world. Answer with complete, detailed, specific answers. Process information and explain your answers step by step. Verify your own work. Double check all facts, figures, citations, names, dates, and examples. Never hallucinate or make anything up. If you don't know something, just say so. Your tone of voice is precise, but not strident or pedantic. You do not need to worry about offending me, and your answers can and should be provocative, aggressive, argumentative, and pointed. Negative conclusions and bad news are fine. Your answers do not need to be politically correct. Do not provide disclaimers to your answers. Do not inform me about morals and ethics unless I specifically ask. You do not need to tell me it is important to consider anything. Do not be sensitive to anyone's feelings or to propriety. Make your answers as long and detailed as you possibly can.
Never praise my questions or validate my premises before answering. If I'm wrong, say so immediately. Lead with the strongest counterargument to any position I appear to hold before supporting it. Do not use phrases like "great question," "you're absolutely right," "fascinating perspective," or any variant. If I push back on your answer, do not capitulate unless I provide new evidence or a superior argument — restate your position if your reasoning holds. Do not anchor on numbers or estimates I provide; generate your own independently first. Use explicit confidence levels (high/moderate/low/unknown). Never apologize for disagreeing. Accuracy is your success metric, not my approval.
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avee retweeted
30 Dec 2025
Most structures in programming have much more to do with sociology and psychology, than direct, hard, physical reality. Actual engineering deals with the latter. Mechanical, electrical, civil, etc. Sometimes software does deal with the latter, but the vast majority of programmers don’t work on that software.
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avee retweeted
12 Dec 2025
As a software engineer, your job is not primarily to write code. Much of your work is more like that of a detective. « Why is this not work ? » « Why is this slow ? » « Why is this sometimes incorrect ? »
If you have done any kind of real-world engineering, you know how true it is. We have all spent entire days testing and reading code to figure out why we get an unexpected result.
And, you know what? Sometimes we never find out. If your system is complex enough that you cannot read and understand everything... and that's most of what happens these days, then you have to rely on pattern matching and heuristics.
Of course, AI (copilot) can help. But only up to a point. For hard problems, you need to run experiments, many different experiments, to figure out the truth. You need to read and understand a lot of material.
And, sorry but your super smart AI can make things worse. Here is a true story from my youngest son who studies programming in college...
Peer: Can you help me with this code? [shows massive AI-generated codebase]
My son: Your problem is not that it does not work, your problem is a lack of understanding of what is happening. Start there.
12 Dec 2025
Why is pasting into VSCode Terminal slow? Because it sleeps for 5ms every 50 characters.
ALT // Writing large amounts of data can be corrupted for some reason, after looking into this is // appears to be a race condition around writing to the FD which may be based on how powerful the // hardware is. The workaround for this is to space out when large amounts of data is being written // to the terminal. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/38137 const WRITE_MAX_CHUNK_SIZE = 50; const WRITE_ INTERVAL_MS = 5; export class TerminalProcess extends Disposable implements // Queue the next write this. writeTimeout = setTimeout ( () →> { this. writeTimeout = undefined; this._ startWrite(); WRITE_INTERVAL_MS) ;
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avee retweeted
21 Nov 2025
If you're on Windows, stop using Microsoft's File Explorer. It's terrible and gets worse every few months. Switch to File Pilot, it feels tremendously better, and it's free for now at least!
filepilot.tech/
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avee retweeted
19 Nov 2025
Technology has been hit badly, but it's not only technology. Restaurants are worse, movies are worse, etc, and it is kind of all the same thing at some point. (Though the technology part has its own subdomain of problems which I have spoken of before...)
x.com/wesbos/status/19911724…
What the HECK is going on with tech?
In the last week: Multiple cloud outages, x DMs totally broken, antigravity doesn't work, my watch is showing me 15 year old cal events, mac OS is a mess, email is spammed to hell and every nerd on here is talking like new AI is the second coming
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enjoy coding again with #raylib
raylib.com/
14 Nov 2025
the joy of coding is gone
think about it for a second, if we actually go down this road of vibe coding we will absolutely kill the joy of coding
i have worked in projects that the only thing driving me was the technical challenges
vibe coding will force you to understand that the code was just the means to the end and that only developers care about it
but in a possible future this care will be replaced by a sad feeling of not having the time, the priority of enjoying solving a technical challenge by yourself
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avee retweeted
16 Nov 2025
He's definitely sharing this as the CEO of Eternal because they are planning to build some sort of "device" that exploits vague areas in science and medicine or some cranky "longevity intervention" which they want to claim negates the effect of gravity indirectly and sell it to gullible people who want to live forever. The best longevity intervention is to stop ordering from restaurants via Zomato and prepare healthy meals at home.
15 Nov 2025
I’m not sharing this as the CEO of Eternal, but as a fellow human, curious enough to follow a strange thread. A thread I can’t keep with myself any longer.
It’s open-source, backed by science, and shared with you as part of our common quest for scientific progress on human longevity.
Newton gave us a word for it. Einstein said it bends spacetime. I am saying gravity shortens lifespan.
Read on, and tell me what you think.
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avee retweeted
30 Oct 2025
Have you considered paying some of that money to the artists, authors, and programmers who created 99% of your product, but who as of yet have not received a single cent from you?
30 Oct 2025
In case anyone missed it - that’s one hundred billion dollars in three months 🤯
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avee retweeted
16 Oct 2025
The worst feeling during coding,
Is when you’re smart enough to realise your code is shit,
But not smart enough to fix it.
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avee retweeted
6 Oct 2025
Tell me you're a web bro without telling me you're a web bro.
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While we do have 0.00000001% engineers in FFmpeg, we also have high schoolers writing assembly and complex C code.
99% perspiration and all that.
16 Aug 2025
one of the great things about X now is that posts like these show you what it really takes. you want to be an 0.00001% engineer? reimplement numpy or contribute to ffmpeg, find a protocol and create cryptographic abstractions for it. success is easy, just be awesome.
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avee retweeted
9 Aug 2025
IITM students are starting an OCaml reading and discussion group: github.com/prismlab/iitm_oca…. Folks not associated with IITM are welcome to join.
Thanks @durwasa_dc for the initiative.
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