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Anthony Cowley

@acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

65 followers 0 following 135 posts

Functional roboticist. Robots, Haskell, Rust, nix, emacs, FPV… and the rest of life, too. [bridged from mastodon.social/@acowley on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

As much as the headline models like Opus 5.5 have taken over coding, I'm blown away by the API pricing of GPT-6-Luna. It's quite capable for a model whose meter only goes up one penny every so often.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

No Man's Sky coming to iPhone and iPad is hard to believe. If only more game studios could have this kind of stability and evident engineering health! www.polygon.com/no-mans-sky-mobile-…

No Man’s Sky Is Getting an ‘Impossible’ Port, Thanks to Light No Fire

It even runs on an iPhone 11, says Hello Games

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

Every time I solder, I'm amazed at how much nicer an Omnifixo is than the various alternatives I've used over the years. It's such a pleasure of a tool to use. omnifixo.com/en-us

Omnifixo - Makers Third Hand

third hand, soldering, helping hand, makers third hand, solder iron, model making, magnetic joint, parallel jaws, makers third hand, soldering iron, stability, flexibility, precision, made in sweden, magnetic feet, arduino, PCB, electronics, maker

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

This biped #robot you can buy that apparently has a good sim2real dev workflow seems pretty great! Still using servos rather than QDD, so maybe some gearbox longevity concerns. Still, pretty darn tempting! pollen-robotics.com/microduck

pollen-robotics.com

Pollen Robotics (Hugging Face) Microduck

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

@spacelizard Tethered aviation without leaving kilometers of fiber optic cable over the landscape!

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/08/2026

Thanks to the DARPA Lift Challenge for shining a spotlight on teams like Sherman Aeronautics! Picture a helicopter. Now keep the tips of the main rotor (except now those are airplanes), and replace everything else with a couple cables […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026

Can't decide if my excitement about Canvas in #emacs is irrational or entirely rational. monadicsheep.org/blog/an-introducti…

monadicsheep.org

An Introduction to Canvas in GNU Emacs

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026

[LLM Discourse] Had a pretty interesting opportunity where I conducted different parts of some research coding with different tiers of LLMs: Claude, DeepSeek V4 Pro, and a local Qwen 3.5 9b. What struck me was just how plausible the output they produced for the parts they were assigned was. But […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2026

Started using ghostel in #emacs rather than vterm as a terminal backend for claude-code-ide.el and it seems great. Needed some minor configuration to have god-mode toggling properly, and the #nix build of everything had one stumbling block (need the package from nixpkgs rather than the […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2026

One of the weirdest tech shibboleths I regularly encounter is game devs who think using Linux is effectively impossible.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2026

Ars Technica has a really good interview with Cory Doctorow on the AI bubble. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/how… He manages to be strident and thoughtful and balanced while dropping zingers left and right.

arstechnica.com

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

Something kind of thought provoking about having a Claude account with usage metered in dollars is that you get this very definite quantification of tasks. I had a #nix and #emacs config wobble the other day, and Claude dutifully fixed it at a cost of around $1.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

Something I see a lot of in autonomy commentary is people wanting to see things like, "It works 90% of the time” rather than an implied 100% effectiveness. Such numbers are really dangerous, though, as they only have meaning when circumscribed so carefully that the fine print can dominate the […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

Interesting story of the times on this #robotics company allegedly damaging an Airbnb while testing domestic robots. The related approach of specifically obtaining permission to people's homes for testing is really great as it's the fastest way to get real data […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/06/2026

@spacelizard The images look great, congratulations!

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/05/2026

@petes_bread_eqn_xls I want org tables to act as a preview of larger tables that I can easily jump into in their own buffer. So you get the first five and last three rows or something.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/05/2026

I have just adored so many of the episode setups in season 3 of Poker Face, and just wish the episodes were 90 minutes or so to give them more space to breathe. Maybe I’m wrong though and being short is an asset, because S3E7’s heist plot (with the pervasive Heat parallels) was absolutely epic.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026

“Making RAM at Home”? Sure, this could be a recycling hack or a metaphorical…. wait, what? www.youtube.com/watch?si=b_Q3d1GkzZ…

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/04/2026

I was actually unaware of the incidental context here that The Hudsucker Proxy was such a disappointment when released. I had enjoyed Raising Arizona, but was completely bowled over by The Big Lebowski. When digging in to the Coens’ work, Hudsucker immediately hit me as pure magic. In my mind […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/04/2026

Seeed Studio’s reBot Arm B601 looks *so* good. Actually nice actuators (no more servo jitter!), and robust mechanical components. The price: ~$1k. Sensing is an evolving story, but this looks like a great basis for working with VLAs even at the home lab scale […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/04/2026

I like how Physical Intelligence demonstrates what their model can do with... what is not the world's slickest looking hardware. Even if the behaviors aren't ready to roll out into a production setting, it's important to see what can be done with things like parallel grippers rather than […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/04/2026

Love that the debate about the value of GenAI doing things humans enjoy doing (eg art) is expanding to consider the value add of GenAI exploiting security vulnerabilities.

Reposted by Anthony Cowley

Miguel Máiquez @miguelmaiquez.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/04/2026

"The first flyby images of the Moon captured by NASA’s Artemis II astronauts during their historic test flight reveal regions no human has ever seen before—including a rare in-space solar eclipse. Released Tuesday, April 7, 2026, the photos were taken on […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon. A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upwards during the crater’s formation. Image Credit: NASA

The Artemis II crew captures a portion of the Moon coming into view along the terminator – the boundary between lunar day and night – where low-angle sunlight casts long, dramatic shadows across the surface. This grazing light accentuates the Moon’s rugged topography, revealing craters, ridges, and basin structures in striking detail. Features along the terminator such as Jule Crater, Birkhoff Crater, Stebbins Crater, and surrounding highlands stand out. From this perspective, the interplay of light and shadow highlights the complexity of the lunar surface in ways not visible under full illumination. The image was captured about three hours into the crew’s lunar observation period, as they flew around the far side of the Moon on the sixth day of the mission. Image Credit: NASA

Captured by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, this image shows the Moon fully eclipsing the Sun. From the crew’s perspective, the Moon appears large enough to completely block the Sun, creating nearly 54 minutes of totality and extending the view far beyond what is possible from Earth. The corona forms a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk, revealing details of the Sun’s outer atmosphere typically hidden by its brightness. Also visible are stars, typically too faint to see when imaging the Moon, but with the Moon in darkness stars are readily imaged. This unique vantage point provides both a striking visual and a valuable opportunity for astronauts to document and describe the corona during humanity’s return to deep space. The faint glow of the nearside of the Moon is visible in this image, having been illuminated by light reflected off the Earth. Image Credit: NASA

The lunar surface fills the frame in sharp detail, as seen during the Artemis II lunar flyby, while a distant Earth sets in the background. This image was captured at 6:41 p.m. EDT, on April 6, 2026, just three minutes before the Orion spacecraft and its crew went behind the Moon and lost contact with Earth for 40 minutes before emerging on the other side. In this image, the dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime, while on its day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground, Ohm crater shows terraced edges and a relatively flat floor marked by central peaks — formed when the surface rebounded upward during the impact that created the crater. Image Credit: NASA

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/03/2026

Expecting to see more like this, but good to really think about it: “Aver is a programming language for auditable AI-written code: verify in source, deploy with Rust, prove with Lean/Dafny” It's not clear to me that the workflow of moving between spec, proof, deploy is really setup for […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/03/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@danieldk/116256294… ruff, uv, and ty are all really excellent so not at all surprised to see an acquisition. Turns out to make a business around developer tooling it helps to target a really popular ecosystem and do awesome work.

mastodon.social

Reposted by Anthony Cowley

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2026

Talked about delivery #robotics on a technology interview series. I hope it’s a decent overview of how we approach the business! www.youtube.com/watch?si=Ns-NbIrylR…

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2026

Talked about delivery #robotics on a technology interview series. I hope it’s a decent overview of how we approach the business! www.youtube.com/watch?si=Ns-NbIrylR…

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/03/2026

@tante @demofox Had the same thing happen to me some years ago where I hadn't noticed I'd stopped reading fiction. Getting back into it was such a breath of fresh air, and now I know how important it is to me.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/03/2026

I’ve worked in #robotics for a long time. This is a new one for me. www.youtube.com/watch?si=cyY8DwQ_yh…

Reposted by Anthony Cowley

Danie van der Merwe @danie10.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/03/2026

The Creator of Wordle Just Came Out With a New Game, and It’s Difficult “Cryptic crosswords, on the other hand, treat each clue as its own puzzle. Instead of straightforward definitions, the clues rely on wordplay that hints at the answer. The rules can be tricky to explain, and there are many […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

The MacBook Neo is an interesting turn in the story of the tablet form factor. Touch screen phones were, on balance, a win because you've got a finite amount of space and sacrificing screen size hurts more than the benefits of physical keys (in general). Blow it up to iPad size, and there are […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2026

BetaFPV’s P1 #fpv vtx really looks amazing. Latency isn’t great, and the Meteor 75 is a bit heavy, but wow is it close.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/03/2026

RE: mas.to/@gabrielesvelto/116171750653… Sometimes in software we think about abstractions, and how we have this contract with the underlying hardware. The post here is a great example of when the response to, "Isn't amazing that this works at all?” is, “Yes, but there are a lot of […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

This is a very niche observation, but regarding Apple announcing a bunch of new hardware... thinking we'll see a new Apple TV with a faster processor coinciding with the release of Oceanhorn 3 on the 5th.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/02/2026

@dpiponi I think there are a bunch of worthwhile, interesting conversations to be had, but that there's apparently a razor's edge between engaging with the questions and falling off a cliff. Having the conversations in public is hard because some of the people who participate will be dialing in […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/02/2026

I was not prepared for how emotional that hockey gold medal match would be! 😭

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/02/2026

So many interactions with Claude are hilarious. Love to see, "Thinking 95s," then a response of, "Good point." Really hoping it gets faster without requiring going to a simpler model.

Reposted by Anthony Cowley

amos @fasterthanlime.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 09/02/2026

someone should build a website to receive alerts when github is up

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/02/2026

I swear this is going through Claude's head after the fourth time I insist it do things a particular way to avoid a class of bugs it repeatedly rediscovers. I can only imagine it's talking to another agent on Moltbook or something.

Meme or Homer Simpson failing to understand simple instructions given to him directly.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/02/2026

A different take away from the chatbot sycophancy issue is that, since this is evidently a consequence of human feedback during training, people apparently respond really well if you begin all of your responses with, "You're absolutely right."

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026

As much as I think LLM coding assistants can be great aids, it is reaalllly hard to have it not come across as a Tobias take.

Meme from the show Arrested Development with Tobias Funke saying, "Responsible proponents of LLM coding agents suggest that you have to approach their use with caution. Steer them with structure and organization."

His wife, Lindsay, asks, "Well did it work for those people?"

Tobias responds, "No. It never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinkint it might. But... but it might work for us."

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026

@fredman Stone thrower taking some risks there!

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/01/2026

Mario Kart World seems to have a weirdly uncomfortable relationship with its platformer side. Why not make split screen Free Roam less hidden, and why not embrace the THPS influences and make charge jumps easier to activate?

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/01/2026

Somewhat related to this article suggesting that AI coding assistants are getting worse, I wonder about an RL training loop where an agent is rewarded for successful compilations of generated code that pass tests from inadequate specs. That kind of feedback loop again creates superficial […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/01/2026

People who dismiss all the recent humanoid #robot demos as being preset choreography or teleop undervalue the advance in having these things balance so well. People who dismiss the choreography and teleop under appreciate the remaining challenges.

Reposted by Anthony Cowley

amos @fasterthanlime.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 15/01/2026

conversation I had today: - is it a nonprofit? - …not on purpose, no

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/01/2026

Love to push back on the LLM and have it respond, "Good question - we don't actually have a circular import situation here. I was overcomplicating it." 🤦

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/01/2026

It’s almost a little upsetting that using rassumfrassum to multiplex ty and ruff as lsp servers in #emacs with eglot works so smoothly. From one perspective, it’s a wonderful bit of composition of focused tools. From another it’s almost comically complex. But it really has been incredibly smooth […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/01/2026

Claude code writing Python really is jaw dropping. I don't know what's going to happen with licensing questions, but I think there's some value for software engineers in at the very least trying to appreciate how much better it works than anyone would have thought likely not that long ago.

Anthony Cowley @acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/01/2026

New Too Many Zoos was very needed today! www.youtube.com/watch?si=YVhD2cPbEL…