Posts from Feb 2025
Comparing Use of AI vs Learning to Code Has Nothing to Do With Knowledge
LLM code output is faster, yes, but it’s incommensurable with gaining knowledge.
Preview Mass Text Replacements with Emacs 30.1 replace-regexp-as-diff
Performing text replacements on large documents or multiple files is annoying: you get false-positive results all too quickly; stepping through each and every match interactively is cumbersome, too. What about previewing changes as a diff, though?
Ethan Marcotte, the Luxury of Job Choice, and Principles
Resigning from a job associated with the government that is exciting and pays well requires strong principles. The tipping point for Ethan wasn’t what I was expecting, though.
Important Things Are Never Just Done
The paradoxes of activism: Individual action seems pointless, yet individuals is all we are. You alone cannot change the world, but if you don’t try to, it certainly won’t. Defending against very rational and even well-meaning criticism.
Following Matt Massicotte’s example, the real leverage to influence Apple’s political course of action at all is through organized protest, and boycott.
Atkinson Hyperlegible Font Next and Mono
The Atkinson Hyperlegible free font has been updated, and now comes with more weights and a monospace variant!
Guilt-Free for the First Time. Burkeman’s “Meditations for Mortals”
Burkeman’s book “Meditations for Mortals” is 0% new-age and 100% productivity tips. It is just structured in a way that encoes taking it in slowly, and at least a couple of months into it, it changed my life for the better.
Staring In My Face, But I Ain’t Looking: Simplifying RxSwift Subscriptions
The ultimate manifestation of a simplification is replacing N>1 things with 1 thing. If each of these things in turn are non-trivial, you can really feel how much complexity of behavior you cut away.