Mark Tomczak @mtomczak@qoto.org

The #KSP2 tutorial video on achieving orbit is called "Missing the Ground" and I am already in love. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DgZsrA-xQ

I think time has shown that resolving namespace conflicts by remapping local names (#Python or #TypeScript style) is a better solution than resolving namespace conflicts by requiring names to be globally unique in the universe of possible names (#Java style). This is a subset of the larger problem "Solutions that require global knowledge are doomed."

There are some downsides. Increases the complexity of finding all uses with a simple text search... But simple text search is the wrong tool to use for comprehending code anyway.

Relative to other kinds of software I use, databases I picture as steam engines, or reactors... The seemingly-constant tuning, indexing, manual analysis and (in the case of PostgreSQL) "vacuuming" remind me of the picture of the engineer crawling endlessly over their machines, turning that knob, tweaking that setting, clearing up that spill when there's time.

It's easy to see how it becomes a full-time job just to maintain these machines.

Tired: "AI is coming for artists."

Wired: "AI is coming for data analysts."

https://www.patterns.app/blog/2023/01/18/crunchbot-sql-analyst-gpt/

They say everyone experiences two deaths.

The first is when your body dies.

The second is when someone reads your browser history.

I'm not sure people understand how much #StackOverflow revolutionized software development.

There were entire *languages* that were unapproachable in the Olde Tymes because you'd get a compiler error like "tycon mismatch" and trying to Google what that meant would come up empty (and yes, you'd read the documentation---if you had it---and it *still* wouldn't explain it in language you could understand without sharing the mental model of the language designer).

StackOverflow had a massive broadening and flattening effect on software dev, and most of the complaints that it changes programming into more of a game of lookup and less of a game of learning the depths of the tools are complaining about the *virtues* of the service in an ecosystem where by the time you've attained deep knowledge of your toolset, the industry has moved on to another toolset or your problem domain has changed.

C++ ain't my favorite language, but by George it has the `[[nodiscard]]` function decorator and I have used *so many* other languages that should either have that decorator or should have semantics that don't require that decorator... Instead, the average case for languages I use is "If you call a function and ignore its return value completely, sucks to suck."

In Go, in particular, the easiest way to introduce bugs to your code is to call a function that returns an error and then just ignore the return value.

Digging in, fork and knife in hand, to an entire universe of problem-modeling I have never needed to deeply consider that has had decades of research put upon it in the form of #postgis .

I'm glad, a little less than halfway into my career by the standard retirement schedule, that there are problems I haven't touched at all. Keeps me young.

My favorite part of crimew's extraction of the no-fly list is that the list was extracted from test data. Because they were using live data as test data for a unit test.

Jesus, people. This is basic stuff. *Never* put real user data in your test pool. You *synthesize* that shit.

Criticize George Santos all you want, but I, for one, am glad we finally have *someone* in Congress who understands first-hand the dangers and wastefulness of an Agni Kai and can finally take steps to ban that barbaric ritual.

#frc

The meta this year is encouraging swerve drive, but it's a lot to ask of young teams to put eight motors on a robot.

Let me introduce you to synchro-drive (https://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/courses/cs54-2001s/synchro.html). In its simplest configuration, two motors drive all the wheels on the robot: one turns them all synchronously and one spins them all synchronously. This is done using belts and your favorite flavor of right-angle gear chain.

It does have the one unusual property that while the drive train can drive in arbitrary directions, it can't turn the chassis. So for FIRST Robotics, one would have to couple it with a solution for swiveling whatever end-effector your robot has to finish the job. And slippage on the turn chain would be killer because there's no way mid-match to turn the wheels independently of each other. But if you can tolerate the challenge of keeping tension on your belts or chains, this can be way fewer motors than swerve.

Video of a synchro in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nurCA5Q4_hw

"""
Now family, I know you're worried about me and my time in the hospital. But fear not, for there is a god watching over me in my hour of need.

And that god is Crom, who wants me dead.

So I go now to battle for my right to draw one more breath in this ragged existence, to spite him who looks upon us with gloomy judgment.

Grieve not my fate, o kin! For I shall wrest my right to live from his dark grasp! And should I fail? Hah! Then I shall at last meet him face-to-face, and my fists will drag answers from his silent mouth!
"""

On tuning playable character design to get from the abstract concept to the fun of action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EpgjR-k3fE

"So I've got this act. I get a bunch of artists together, they make art. They publish it online in a ubiquitous communications platform that makes it trivial to see and copy their art, but the law says you can't **copy** it without some limitations so they figure they're fine.

So then a bunch a' eggheads, they come in, wave their dicks around, they build a machine that makes new art based on art someone made that gets fed into it. Then **they put that machine in front of the public.** The public puts all the artists outta work creating just the filthiest things imaginable, like they tell the machine to draw "George W. Bush fucking a bomb as the bomb is falling on Iraq, only Iraq is Saddam Hussein with a huge vagina." Just terrifying stuff. And now everyone hates the pictures and hates the eggheads and the artists hate the eggheads and the pictures and themselves and most of all, **everyone hates art.**"

"Well that's a hell of an act. So what do you call it?"

https://labs.openai.com/s/adcpxMnv9UfjVaI4SPEsjYPV?fbclid=IwAR0geEv0HFv_pU5UPLBtaPKsN_NFeKFv9rNJQo8hrkK-9Q5uIEy6WH3oTJI