iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Clemens Wagner

Andrea Matranga @andreamatranga.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Using AI is a bit like being a spymaster. you need multiple independent sources to see who corroborates whom, keep agents in the dark about what you're really after, occasionally collect evidence in a third independent way...

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind. Mayor of New York: Haha, yes.

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Andrew D Wilson @adw.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

😂😂

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Österreich Einwanderer 🤝 Können nicht kicken

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atomly @atomly.com · 08/06/2026

distributed database: i got rows in different area codes

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Yani @urbanmystique.blacksky.app · 02/06/2026

Whoever put the S in fast food is a marketing genius.

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gabby @fullmoon.id · 16/05/2026

new blog post incoming

Type out the code

Back in the day I read one of Zed Shaw's "Learn X the hard way" courses (I think it was his C++ course) and he began the course with a disclaimer that said something like "do not copy and paste the examples; type them out" because he believed strongly that doing so improved your comprehension of the material.

These days he recommends something even stronger:

> The best way to do this is when you complete an exercise delete what you did and do it again, but try to use your memory. If you get stuck then look at the exercise for clues, but try your best to recreate what you just did from memory. At first you'll be constantly referring to the exercise and the code, but eventually you'll get to where you can do it on your own. This will also improve your ability to remember more code, your ability to summarize how something works, and generally improve your skills faster than if you did it once and moved on.

This is known as the generation effect in cognitive psychology: the active generation of new content improves comprehension compared to passive consumption of the same material. Or as Richard Feynman put it: "What I cannot create, I do not understand".

I'm not a researcher, but I would still like to add my own spin as a lay programmer on why I believe this phenomenon matters for improving programming ability, even in the age of agentic coding. In fact, I think it's even more important now than ever for people to reacquaint themselves with this "ancient wisdom" because otherwise we'll end up with an entire generation of programmers wondering how anyone ever programmed without the help of a coding agent.

In this post I will lay out the case for why you should do the drudgery of occasionally typing out the code, character-by-character, as best as possible from memory. That doesn't mean that you should never use developer tools of any sort to accelerate the coding process, but you also need to occasionally do the boring parts by hand and by memory

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Deciding whether to get private health insurance and private school for the kids

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

I am a PhD financial economist (still feels unreal to say this), who works outside academia and I approve this message.

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Writing is thinking, undefeated

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Grudgie the Wail @grudgie.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

“Two can play at that game” is literally the Drebin quote here when he takes an innocent woman hostage to cluelessly fight the enemy

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Reposted by Clemens Wagner

Chris Ingraham @cingraham.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Current status of the Strait of Hormuz dispute

In Bruges scene where Colin Farrell is pointing a gun at his head and Brendon Gleeson is also pointing a gun at Colin Farrell's head

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I honestly prefer this over continued pumping everything until the big bubble bursts.

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

It's only real fascism if it comes from Lazio/Rome — otherwise it's just sparkling authoritarianism.

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Reposted by Clemens Wagner

Joe Noonan @joenoonan.se · 25/02/2026

I think of these tasks when people are adamantly anti-AI in research. This task before was the academic equivalent of processing grain before the invention of the thresher. Nobody will mourn the loss of this type of work.

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Researchers followed every person on the planet. They found those who went to hospital were more likely to develop serious illness, as well as death.

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

"PhD level intelligence" hahaha... Wait. That actually checks out.

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Reposted by Clemens Wagner

Arin Arcady @rnrkd.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

I'm sorry the guy changing the rules on the fly is named what

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Tyler Burch @tylerjamesburch.com · 01/02/2026

The better LLMs get, the more data scientists are going to find out the truth.

Always has been meme.
“Wait, domain knowledge is the most valuable thing a data scientist can have?”

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Hot take: smartphones got us into this mess, smartphones will get us out of this mess.

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Andrea Montanari @andrea-montanari.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

The risk of AI for education is not students cheating in exams, it is people in general cheating themselves into believing they understand things they don’t.

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Clemens Wagner @clemenswagn.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Hot take: After years of exposing our brains to "extremism machines", we are now pivoting to "statistical mean machines". Doesn't sound too healthy, but could be worse.

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Reposted by Clemens Wagner

Karen Benjamin Guzzo @karenguzzo.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

A recent piece on RFK’s approach to health policy called it “decision-based evidence-making,” and that seems an apt way to describe this whole administration.

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