mvcalder

I’ll share a story. I wanted to make dxf files for some decorative metal gussets I needed for a project. I find CAD programs unintuitive and tried to use Claude as a tutor. That was a fail, it seemed to assume I was more knowledgeable than I am. So then I tried to describe what I wanted and have it emit python to draw it. Again a fail, it didn’t interpret my descriptions accurately and lacked aesthetic sense. Then I had Claude implement a simple DSL that captured my sense of the geometry and form I was trying to express. I ended up wth a very bespoke Logo like language that did exactly what I wanted. I believe there’s a larger lesson there in AI interaction.

This passage from Trading Bases by Joe Peta chokes me up everytime.

> There's an expression on Wall Street, often attributed to Warren Buffett, which goes, "They don't ring a bell at the top." There's tremendous wisdom in that adage, because while in retrospect it's easy to pinpoint the day that the market (or even a specific stock) reached an all-time high that looks unlikely to ever be attained again in the foreseeable future, at the moment it happened it was impossible to recognize. That's because, unlike market bottoms, which usually have a crescendo feeling to them accompanied by investor panic, a market top generally passes without fanfare, indistinguishable from the series of tops that preceded it.

> You know when else they don't ring a bell? For parents, they don't ring a bell the last time you read Goodnight Moon. They don't do it the last time you watch Sleeping Beauty and they don't do it the last time you help your daughter put on the same article of clothing she's wanted to wear every day as a toddler. Instead, a couple years after the fact, you find the book on a shelf, the DVD in a box, and the tights with the pink ballerinas on them in the back of a drawer. You can't for the life of you remember the last time you read the book, danced to "Once Upon a Dream" with your daughter on your feet, or helped put those tights on. But you do know that now she reads to herself at bedtime, she dances, alone, to Taylor Swift, and the tights—well, the tights wouldn't even make it over her knees.

Wait, my job is not cushy. I think hard all day long, I endure levels of frustration that would cripple most, and I do it because I have no choice, I must build the thing I see or be tormented by its possibility. Cushy? Right.

I really enjoyed the article and want to both praise and encourage the author.

You get it. It’s about value. Keep you eye on that north star and you won’t go wrong.

Whose value? How do I value? Can I reconcile disparite value? Yep, those are the right questions.

For me, I read this and want to give a shout out to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but that’s just me.

I enjoyed the read, thank you.

It’s not “freedom of speech I agree with”, no one needs protection to speak agreeably.

My Massachusetts home has both radiant floor heating (water pipes in floor) and baseboard water pipe heating (separate part of the house). My son’s New York home has radiators driven by hot water. I can’t recall a home where heating was vented air and not circulating hot water in North East USA.

Nope, all human all the time.

And there’s only one photon, vibrating like mad, singularly unable to contemplate its own magnificence.

It was an odd sight at that hour of the day. I wanted pictures as something to talk about with friends. I really wish I had been astute enough to take video.