r.stricklin

r.stricklin

@yardape.bsky.social

just a guy made of dots and lines

35 followers27 following257 posts

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

facefirst into “c’s get degrees” is no longer just abstract advice. genuinely concerned that a c might be optimistic. realistically I could spend >40 hrs/wk on this class and still be struggling, and… I cannot spend even 20 hrs/wk on it. doesn’t feel great.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

too funny to spot "shortest job tenure stories" as a trending topic on bluesky, immediately wonder, "oh, did katie zacharia get fired already?", and then find out… yes. yes, she did.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

stood in front of the freezer at 2 AM wearing only pants and ate blackberry ice cream straight from the pint. that’s where my life is at, right now. the ice cream was delicious, though

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

What is going on with Dario Amodei? That guy doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt. Anderson Cooper's face during that interview speaks for all of us, I think.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

these tech industry bozos writing effusive praise for Meta Muse are the same NPC jabronis who follow Google Maps directions into lakes.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Spotted: boxed copy of Magee AUTOMENU for MS-DOS on eBay. This was my first "real hacking" experience in the 80s. Inherited a copy on a secondhand Turbo XT clone with no doc and reverse engineered the menu definition file format. Was more bottleshaking than actual hacking, but still. I was maybe 9.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Let's not speak of the time I was punished with a sentence-writing assignment, let several deadlines pass until the punishment had multiplied to something like 400,000 sentences, and used AppleWorks on a school computer to copy-paste my way to completion.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

tiny, yet unequivocal win: hummingbird at the hardy fuchsia by the driveway as I left the house. tiny, yet unequivocal win #2: spelling fuchsia correctly the first time

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Inevitable mailing list flamewar over use of AI. My perspective, since it's off topic to the list itself, is... congratulations on your results, but if you're looking for recognition, I think you'll be disappointed to find it comes in proportion to the amount of effort you put in: essentially zero.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Time spent pleading with the AI to do what you want is not anything I personally credit, as far as effort goes. Pixar's rule for storytelling #1: we admire a character more for his trying than for his succeeding.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Also this idea that "I never could have finished this project without assistance from such-and-such AI." Well... maybe. Also, now you're no better prepared than you were before, for your next project. IMO part of what makes a project worthwhile is the growth I might experience along the way.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

University administration helped themselves to my phone number when I re-enrolled, so they could send me text messages about campus safety issues. It's been a non-stop horrorshow: stabbings, assault, robbery, fire, homicide... but last night something new: "Rabid bat found on U Way NE near 41st".

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

was on the phone with an old friend, trying to put my finger on why things feel so crazy, so cannibalistically self-consuming, so unserious, so much like there is no mission for anything anymore except to take as much as one can grab

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

I wondered if it's because we have some collective sense that the music is about to stop, proverbially speaking at other times we might have responded by trying to collectively re-wind the spring the sense now seems to be that the spring has been re-wound so much it's broke and this is finally it

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

getting reeeeeal sick of front end devs writing "slick" web page UIs that load elements asynchronously, so that I click something, the page rearranges itself under my click, and lo! something I didn't want is now clicked. a modal dialog, an ad... knock it off already. go home and review yourselves.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Digitalis makes me feel uneasy, ever since I was very small and somebody told me it was poisonous. But as a patch of wildflowers, purple and white, in the highway median… it sure looks cool.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

If I'd known before I joined the community theater pit orchestra in high school for a production of "Gypsy" that I would be powerless to keep the music from getting stuck in my head, even after 30+ years, would I still have done it? Probably. But, what a curse.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Something that's been puzzling me: US cents weren't withdrawn, or demonetized. They just stopped making new ones. Basically overnight, retailers put up signs about "the shortage" and struggled to make exact change. But at that time, there were something like 200bn of them in circulation. How?

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

Trying not to Vaguebook. Here is a true story, made into a serviceable aphorism. Mumbleth birthday the other day. Leaving friend's condo with leftover cake... fumbled it in the stairwell. Dropped it down two flights. The box held, but the cake... as they say, its vibes had been very harshed.

r.stricklin
@yardape.bsky.social

It’s so far removed from any part of my self image that I’m still startled, 30 years on, to remove the last pairs of clean socks from their drawer and reveal my high school varsity letter (Music, Academics). Still, there is a tiny part of me that regrets never having put it on a jacket.