pvh

pvh

@pvh.ca

once described as "pretty aspirational yet vapid" (director of research @ ink & switch, coined "local-first", contributor to automerge, former postgres guy, heroku staff, ex-game developer, arctic oceanographer.)

6.2K followers339 following338 posts

pvh reposted

Alex Warth
@alexwarth.bsky.social

Everyone’s seen the Sketchpad demo. Few understand how it actually works. I reimplemented Sketchpad from scratch, and I’m making short videos that recreate Sutherland’s demos and explain how they work. The first 8 are up — from drawing a line to the famous rivet. Link below 👇

pvh
@pvh.ca

What if Patchwork were a compositional modeling environment?

pvh reposted

Citizen Platano 🇵🇷
@daniloc.xyz

Replying to @daniloc.xyz

so what’s next: we’re going to see a Cambrian Explosion of verification tools to help model the internal and implicit structures of code we’ll see higher levels of abstraction that are easier to inspect, track and reason about for humans. models of a project’s internal structure we learn like maps

pvh
@pvh.ca

Really excited to be on the plane to Aarhus (okay, CPH) for SummerHCI. Grateful to @clemens.klokmose.net for the invitation and really looking forward to learning from everyone.

pvh
@pvh.ca

Thanks to @endlessaccess.org for partnering with us on this project. They saw the opportunity for our work to solve problems in the gamedev community and provided financial support to prove out the idea.

pvh
@pvh.ca

I've read that telegraph operators had a kind of "hand" that was recognizable. I feel the same way when I read someone's code: the way they name variables, or structure a file. They show me a little of who they are. I think those days are passing now, and I feel a little nostalgic about it.

pvh
@pvh.ca

Anyone out there know how to make my SharedWorkers visible in the Chrome DevTools? Navigating via chrome://inspect#workers is very annoying.

pvh reposted

Ivy Reese
@spiralganglion.com

Here are some of the letters I made for Tenfold, the fun little "birthday party" we're having as Ink & Switch turns 10 years old. • a catenoid, designed by todd matthews and coded by me • gizmos, from inkling • "enbossed" • a sphere made of circles, eclipsed 🤍 inkandswitch.com/project/tenf...

pvh
@pvh.ca

Spent all day procrastinating packing for my trip to London but I'm off. Looking forward to seeing folks in London in the next week and change. Hit me up if you're around!

pvh
@pvh.ca

I think a lot of the AI space is dominated by hot takes because the time it takes to write something thoughtful frequently exceeds the period where that information is accurate.

pvh
@pvh.ca

It's a relief to live in a region whose primary energy supplies are provided by hydroelectric dams. Relying on renewable energy doesn't just reduce the rate of climate change, it can protect against energy market supply shocks.

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pvh
@pvh.ca

What's more, the "levelized cost of energy" (LCOE) which represents the all-in cost of producing energy for our new Site C dam ranges from $40 to $125/MWh (CAD), comparable with grid-scale solar in the region at $75/MWh.

pvh
@pvh.ca

That said, hydroelectric dams have the benefit of providing inter-seasonal energy storage by (literal) construction, and a regional energy portfolio for a circumpolar nation obviously needs to take that into consideration.

pvh
@pvh.ca

It's a relief to live in a region whose primary energy supplies are provided by hydroelectric dams. Relying on renewable energy doesn't just reduce the rate of climate change, it can protect against energy market supply shocks.

pvh
@pvh.ca

British Columbia's history with hydro-electric is chequered. Construction of dams floods arable farmland and displaces communities. That was true in 1972 with our first dams and is true today with the new "Site C" dam as well.

pvh
@pvh.ca

Local-First Conf 2026 is back, and I want to hear what everyone's been doing this year. What have you built? What have you learned? How about interesting challenges we need to overcome?

Local-First Conf@localfirstconf.com

CfP is open! May 1 — CFP closes May 15 — candidates notified June 1 — speakers announced June 15 — schedule announced We want to hear from YOU!

pvh
@pvh.ca

Local-first Conf is back, and this year Ink & Switch will be hosting a one day "Lab Day" adjacent to the event. See you there!

Local-First Conf@localfirstconf.com

Tickets for Local-First Conf 2026 are now on sale July 12–14 · Berlin · 300 people · single track Theme: user empowerment in an age of fluid software. We're going beyond CRDTs and sync. If you're building for user agency, this is your conference. Tickets live now → localfirstconf.com

pvh
@pvh.ca

I don't even know how to vague-post about it. I'm so incredibly excited about the work we're doing right now at Ink & Switch and it's taking everything I have in me to avoid sharing it before it's ready.

pvh
@pvh.ca

Lately, I've been telling people that Patchwork is less like a house and more like a way of standing. I'm not sure it entirely makes sense to me, either.

pvh reposted

Alex Komoroske
@komorama.bsky.social

What if technology didn’t feel so… hollow? Some friends and I just released a manifesto about a world where tech leaves us feeling nourished (along with an evolving list of theses about how we can build it) resonantcomputing.org

resonantcomputing.orgThe Resonant Computing ManifestoTechnology should bring out the best in humanity, not the worst—a manifesto for resonant computing built on five principles that reject hyper-scale extraction for human flourishing.
pvh
@pvh.ca

After a week of meetings and calls, it was nice to dust off the ol' linear algebra and write a Delaunay triangulation and then the corresponding Voronoi cells. This wonderful post by @ianthehenry.bsky.social was my guide through some long-forgotten math. ianthehenry.com/posts/delaun...

ianthehenry.comVisualizing Delaunay TriangulationTake a look at this: This is a triangulation of a set of random points, such that all the points are connected to one another, all of the faces are triangles, and the edges include the convex hul...
pvh
@pvh.ca

"I added +1 to spawnRate -- the issue was that my waffle was too high" (we're working on a little art project and even the bug reports are great)

pvh
@pvh.ca

Ink & Switch is hosting another Social in London on Nov. 11th at the Alan Turing Institute. I'll share some early scientific work in Patchwork, & Marcel will give a peek at the Playbook programmable ink system. Also, lightning talks about "surprises in software". RSVP here: luma.com/71g0lhgo

luma.comInk & Switch London: Building new tools for Science · LumaInk & Switch's mission is to help computers become better tools for thought. We believe that the promise of computers as "intelligence amplifiers" or "bicycles…
pvh
@pvh.ca

At last! We've missed you, @martin.kleppmann.com.

Martin Kleppmann@martin.kleppmann.com

At long last, @chris.blue and I have submitted the final manuscript of Designing Data-Intensive Applications, second edition, to the publisher. There is always more that could be improved but at some point we just have to call it done. Now it goes into production; probably shipping in ~4 months.