Anirudh Oppiliappan
@anirudh.fi
2.2K followers 192 following 1.8K posts
Co-founder/CEO of @tangled.org. Bangalorean in Helsinki. Effective altruism, AI, distributed systems, etc. More at anirudh.fi Please email me; I don't look at message requests.
![29 jul, 2026
The strain in your brain
Do you feel it?
[image of a brain]
Do you remember the feeling? You’re reading something: something new and complex. And you’re really trying—pushing through that strain in your brain. Do you feel that anymore?
It’s a strange thing. As a programmer, it was that feeling that signalled to me that I was learning something new. When the strain dissipated, I came out the other side afresh with new knowledge.
Writing code pre-AI gave me that feeling. Reading the docs, or oftentimes the source code of another project led to that tension. Finally figuring out how to wire everything right and make it work was cathartic. It was never really about writing the code anyway—reading and forming that mental model was the hard part.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hwevmowznbiukdf6uk5dwrrq/bafkreid2t46nvnivjy76wl5bmfnuirwd563yrofnrkcvlftlfuaw4pwary)
![On Tue, 14 Jul 2026 at 19:01, Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@linux.dev> wrote:
>
> I think it makes the point of sashiko - helping maintainers - unachievable. If the point to not use
> LLMs in general, let’s discuss this, not how to make each use case more complex.
>
> It seems like [1] expresses a very anti-LLM position in general
Yes.
And no, that's not the position of the Linux kernel.
I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area
where I'm willing to absolutely put my foot down as the top-level
maintainer.
Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues
with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it.
Or just walk away.
AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it's clearly a useful one.
It may not have been that "clearly" even just a year ago, but it's no
longer in question today.
There are other questions around AI (like what the economy of it will
actually look like in the end), but "is it useful" is no longer one of
those questions. Anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually used
it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hwevmowznbiukdf6uk5dwrrq/bafkreibt64z2rxpqpizpdccdlosm32hova76rj7uvkxb34mperkdz5bn4y)
