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Kirch

@jkirchartz.com

79 followers 189 following 202 posts

Hacker, Aphorismist, Thaumaturgist, Unimportant Mediocre Post-Post-Modern Renaissance man. Actually Decentralized at: tilde.zone/@kirch

Posts Replies Media

Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 26/09/2026

apropos of nothing: here's Vincent Price doing 1984... plus bonus: getting gaslighted by "helpful technology" -- double bonus, everything I do is wrong according to the "helpful tech" that's apparently been designed to destroy everyone's confidence and sell more "helpful tech."

the word "Apropos" being corrected to "A propos", which is wrong, that would be a french phrase "À propos" and not the english word it's become.

the alt text of the previous image; 16 our of 27 words are underlined and marked as incorrect -- the capitalization on The, French, and English I understand; the rest is just "Grammar Nazi" pedantry.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026

Follow me for more recipes #dadlunch

A single slice of "D'taliano" white bread with a piece of string cheese and a piece of "Slim Jim"-style sausage

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026

Re: returning to peasantry, I'm about 15 miles and 150 years away from the grave of my first ancestor in this country (apparently he made saddles) ... And I have a whetstone in my desk, I wonder if it's intended for this scythe

And old rusty scythe, a barely readable sticker on the handle (just out of frame) suggests it's a model 300 made by the Sta-Tite Snath Company out of Shelbyville Indiana

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026

Whelp, I think I'm gonna put this down and go clean out the shed before I get inspired to punch a hole in the wall.

Page 12:

You can get lost in the theoretical aspects of computer art, or artificial intelligence. If you want to do so, this book won't help.

Fourth, I'm fussy about language, because language creates a structure for thinking--which is the subject of this book. Language suggests possibilities and limits, often unconsciously. I've watched beginners struggle repeatedly with terminology. The language of computers has drifted and shifted with thirty years of technological change. Indistinct words, like out-of-focus snap-shots, should be discarded. I also feel certain ways of speaking should be avoided, because they imply the computer is doing something it really isn't.

Finally, this book focuses on microcomputers and minicomputers--small machines that cost from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. If you're interested in large mainframe computers, most of what I say won't be useful.

Page 15, Crichton turns into Yoda:

Afraid of Computers

Everybody is.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026

This computer revolution involves Mikey turning into "trying to convince suspicious specialists that their lives would be simpler and better (and they would not lose their jobs) if they used these machines" ... There really is nothing new under the sun...

Computer languages were the first step, but that's far from satisfactory for many users, who don't want to know so much about the machine. The second step was to create programs that will write your programs for you. You answer a series of questions in regular English about what you want to happen, and then the machine itself writes the new program.

Many such "code generating" programs exist. Using them, you can set up the computer any way you like, without knowledge of computer language. In short, just as you have become your own telephone operator, you become your own programmer.

With home computers, this trend started with serious business programs for accounting and data management. But it has now extended through the full range of programming, even to games; programs exist to write other game programs, so you can sit down and design the sort of game you'd like to play, without bothering to learn machine language.

It's at this point that the question of who's running the revolu-tion becomes answered. You are. Through a series of accidents, computers have become small, cheap, and widespread. Because users employ computers for everything under the sun, program-mers are being forced to create general tools to allow you to do your own programming.

These two events put you firmly in charge. You're a general, not a private. In fact, there are no privates. Step to the mirror and salute yourself-then go carry out your own orders.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026

Prescient... Where would computers even be without the Military-Industrial Complex?

Photograph of the first page of Michael Crichton's Electronic Life:

This is a book about people and computers. It proceeds from several fundamental assumptions:

1. People are more important than computers.

2. Much of what we believe about computers is wrong.

3. It is easy to use a computer.

4. This is fortunate, because everybody's going to have to learn.

5. It is not so easy to use a computer wisely.

6. This is unfortunate, because everybody's going to have to learn.

7. Computers can actually be a lot of fun.

8. There are people who want to put a stop to that.

The proliferation of computers in recent years has been truly phenomenal. In 1978, there were about 5,000 desk-top computers in the United States. In 1982, there were 5 million. In 1980, there were 350,000 computer terminals communicating with a large machine elsewhere; by 1982, there were 3 million such terminals. By 1990, it is estimated there will be 80 million desk-top comput-ers in the United States. By then, if you count microprocessors in weapon systems and home appliances, there will be a billion com-puters throughout the world. These small, cheap powerful devices will be everywhere, and they will have altered every aspect of human life, from the way we run our societies to the way we run our personal lives.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 22/09/2026

#motd #juxtaposition

An ASCII art representation of big watchful eyes makes an ascii thought-bubble that quotes a Fluxus Instruction Score:

Woolen Goods

Observe an unexplained silence.

1973 Tuscon, Arizona

~ Ken Friedman

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 19/09/2026

Thinking about how in 2006 I was working with a technology from 1995 called "synthetic interviews" that used a speech-recognition model trained on 5000 words and 1000 domain-specific words to match users questions with pre-recorded interviews with Doctors and Patients about medical questions...

Screenshot from whatever Twitter is now of "Claude Vibe Coder" saying:

Stop asking your kid "how was school?"

They'll say "fine" every time.

Replace it with:
"Analyze your school day, identify the 3 biggest inefficiencies and create workflows with proactive agents to solve them. Make no mistakes."

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 16/09/2026

I love when the automated juxtaposition hits just right #motd

An ASCII Snowman says:

How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, or having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn't matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even the glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it. ~ Alexander Shulgin

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 13/09/2026

#motd

ASCII representation of a giant killer robot threatening a cow, saying:

I think remorse ought to stop biting the consciences that feed it. -- Ogden Nash

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 10/09/2026

For my Solarpunk "good future" friends, I offset this activity by harvesting my Black Beans and moving around some dirt in the garden in preparation for next year -- it's not much, but next year I'll plant more;

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 08/09/2026

I wrote about this 10 years ago, it has only gotten worse. jkirchartz.com/2016/12/ism.html

Old WW2-era propaganda poster depicting people fighting in front of a burning American Flag, the caption reads: Everything they warned us about Socialism is happening right now in America under Capitalism.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/08/2026

Drinking coffee after my 6pm Coffee Curfew, but it's OK because it's also got Kahlua and Irish Cream and my regular vanilla sweet cream in it, and it's in my granda mug instead of the usual 16oz-er...

A small milkglass Pyrex 1410 coffee mug with blue snowflake details

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 26/08/2026

Eat it, Spinal Tap, my laptop's sound goes to 150%

Screenshot of Linux Mint volume control, with "Overamplification" turned on

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/08/2026

#motd

An ASCII Rabbit says:

Epigrams In Programming 46,

Like punning, programming is a play on words.

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/08/2026

ok, you get 2 today because my shortcut wasn't broken, I just forgot what it was... #motd

an ASCII depiction of a giant big killer robot vaguely threatening a cow - it's unclear which one says:

Everything in the universe is either a banana or not a banana

--KyreNo, Oct 2016

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/08/2026

haven't done an #motd in a minute; mostly because the keyboard shortcut I mapped out for the screenshot keeps getting eaten by the screenreader shortcut...

an ascii art depiction of a cow hiding behind a tree (usually captioned "cower" but I didn't capture it) it's saying:

"Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I" ~ Albert Camus

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/08/2026

"AI is a tool" The tools AI makes:

A cropped image of the tools from Gary Larsons Far Side comic "Cow Tools" -- a blob with a pokey part on one end, another blob with something like a handle sticking out of it, a long stick with 2 hooks and a smaller thumb sticking out the other side, and something almost shaped like a saw but with weird long and twisted teeth.

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