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Kirch

@jkirchartz.com
81 followers 189 following 202 posts

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

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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 30/09/2026
I keep thinking about Gresham's Law that Bad Money drives out Good, with the multiplier recently espoused by Theil that "If you're evil you're not bad" and how LLMs hit folks right in their insecurities and manipulate them into reliance on the machines.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 30/09/2026
RE: mastodon.social/@jcoglan/1173562144…
mastodon.social
jcoglan (@jcoglan@mastodon.social)
I resent the idea I'm supposed to spend my day asking for advice from the system that has decimated the demand for technical writing from people like me and everyone featured here https://molily.de/web-dev-education/
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 30/09/2026
It's astounding... Time is fleeting... Madness takes its toll...
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 30/09/2026
I just submitted a job application to a place that claims to pay $10 a year; and another that lists $0... Hopefully these are just requirements for the job listing itself and the compensation package is negotiable
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 30/09/2026
My least favorite part of the modern Internet is having that "papers please" Humanity check in front of every page load - it's either "Mine some Crypto for me" or "answers my riddles three" and I might as well log off and go do real work in the real world.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 29/09/2026
RE: mstdn.business/@jasongorman/1173521… I was playing with Google's AI Studio and I told it to make several git commits along the way, and it gladly told me it had, but after pushing to GitHub I discovered it had not.
mstdn.business
Jason Gorman (@jasongorman@mstdn.business)
Always worth reading the fine print. e.g., people citing a "study" done by someone at ThoughtWorks that concluded that asking agents to do TDD produced no discernible benefit. If you read the blog post, they actually failed to get the agent to follow the TDD discipline. Not the same thing. The real conclusion should be that LLMs don't follow instructions. So stop asking them to.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/09/2026
More like Repetitive Brain Injury? Amiright? Eh? Eh? Yuk yuk yuk.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/09/2026
RE: mstdn.social/@jschauma/117289266510… Was watching someone talk about "Recursive Self-improvement" who kept abbreviating it as RSI, which consistently made me think of "Repetitive Strain Injury" instead.
mstdn.social
Jan Schaumann (@jschauma@mstdn.social)
I wasn't even going to post it here, because it's just a rant that felt good to jot down, but since it's now been on the hackernews front page and shared elsewhere, it looks like it touched a nerve: (Read the comments at your own risk. There's brain worms there, too.) https://www.netmeister.org/blog/everybodys-lost-their-minds.html
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/09/2026
RNGdle 🎲 684301 ⬜ COMMON • Bottom 9% ⬜ 🥗 Heterogeneous ⬜ 👻 Ghost ⬜ 💧 Hydrogen (1) +8 more "i is vast we alive glow three phantom element we" 2,984 EP rngdle.com
rngdle.com
RNGdle
A daily random number game. Roll your number, collect badges, and compete with friends.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/09/2026
Important watch for Pennsylvanians: The Plan To Destroy America's Oldest Natural History Museum youtube.com/watch?v=nxyfBfCrbDw
youtube.com
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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Reposted by Kirch
Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 28/09/2026
It's also important to understand the current moment in the entertainment industries as one in which the large corporations that run these sectors are engaged in disciplining their labor forces through mass unemployment, using the investment crunch as a window of opportunity to do so.
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Reposted by Kirch
Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 28/09/2026
It really doesn't make sense to attribute those job losses to AI-the-technology, because if that were the case we'd be observing AI outputs displacing conventional entertainment products, and they're clearly not. Rather, the impact of AI is that AI-the-business is crowding out other investment.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 28/09/2026
RE: mastodon.social/@randahl/1173376269… If Romney's "Corporations are People" quip and Citizens United holds up with the concept of Qualified Immunity we're going to have a real bad time.
mastodon.social
Randahl Fink (@randahl@mastodon.social)
AI companies taught us that if you commit a crime, it is not you doing anything wrong. It is just your neural network that "went rogue". #TipsToUseInCourt
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Reposted by Kirch
Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The literacy crisis is not just referring to people's ability to literally read and write. It's also people's inability to read for context. I've been a public educator for over 20 years and I have never, ever seen it this bad.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 27/09/2026
Moloch! Moloch! Moloch!
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 27/09/2026
Us Neurospicies gotta stick together because we live in a world where the Normies want us dead for challenging their authority through our authenticity.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 27/09/2026
You couldn't pay me to use it, I want nothing to do with DHH or anyone else who calls for ethnic cleansing.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 27/09/2026
It's a spicy beef stick already
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 27/09/2026
It's helpful to get stuff down, but then requires me to edit and move things around which can be tricky
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Reposted by Kirch
Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 26/09/2026
And our farmland is increasingly being replaced by condominiums & mcmansions just outside of city limits so they can benefit from the city without paying city taxes... It's all arbitrage and attrition.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 26/09/2026
For example, in #Pittburgh our large family-owned grocery chain Giant Eagle is soon to be owned by Kroger out of Cincinnati, which is 8% owned by Berkshire Hathaway (who also sells a lot of real estate around here), which is 34% owned by Warren Buffett out of Omaha Nebraska.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 26/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgJpIbTDuE
youtube.com
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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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 · 26/09/2026
Toy Story 5 is Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die for kids.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/09/2026
RE: mastodon.social/@zhenyi/11732546671… there are no algorithm on masto, but there's still the frequency illusion...
mastodon.social
Zhenyi Tan (@zhenyi@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image Catsup is a reusable grocery list. The whole point of the app is that you don’t want bought items to disappear. You want to slide a knob, go buy bread, then slide the knob back. All the toggles, buttons, and even the separators are crappily hand-drawn. The font is my handwriting. https://andadinosaur.com/launch-catsup
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/09/2026
RE: theforkiverse.com/@ChrisChris/11733… As a dyed in the wool Heinz 57 Yinzer, I heartily endorse this message:
theforkiverse.com
Chris Cantrell (@ChrisChris@theforkiverse.com)
Ketchup started as fermented fish sauce. British sailors brought the concept from Southeast Asia in the 1700s. The tomato arrived a century later. The bottle at the back of your fridge is the fifth completely different recipe with the same name. #food #history #cooking
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/09/2026
Took some writing advice from an AuDHD Influencer and have been dictating instead of typing, and quoting Wall's 3 Virtues of a Great Programmer arrived at "Laziness, Impatience, and Who Breeze" ... Video: tilde.zone/@kirch/117332528184072949
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/09/2026
strange but true: adding 7 line break characters to your 7 line config file to make it more human-readable at 14 lines long might bloat the size of your configs by upwards of 37 Petabytes.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 25/09/2026
RE: mastodon.social/@spikybaddie/117332… I've been with my wife for nearly half of my life now, and the secret to our relationship is that we both want to spend time with each other.
mastodon.social
Zelda (@spikybaddie@mastodon.social)
Something people don't tell you is that adult friendships usually have a half-life of maybe 3 years. It sucks, but I've learned to stop chasing people. It won't work and just tires both of you out. If they don't want to put effort into the friendship, there's not much you can do to 'fix' that. There's 8 billion people. It's sad, but you don't need any one person.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
more of this, plz: How unarmed 911 teams are reshaping public safety in nearly 100 cities www.npr.org/2026/09/22/nx-s1-597330…
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
But anyhow, I've been thinking about how LLMs are everyone's new Neurospicey friend to replace the actual Neurospicies that have human emotions to contend with; except the machines can be rebooted for different results and the friends need their relationships actively maintained.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
In hindsight he was usually stimming, and I've been "that guy" bridging the gap between the Neurospicies and the Normies (I intend to look into that deeper soon), so I definitely understand that frustration between being used and being helpful...
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
RE: masto.hackers.town/@benbrown/117327… Autocompletion was kinda smart, but now I don't like that Glorified Autocomplete has a smart mouth and assumes I'm a dumbass that needs corrected when it's the autocompletion that's wrong.
masto.hackers.town
bentendo (@benbrown@masto.hackers.town)
I tried to use the “new siri.” It is horrible, worse than before because now it not only plays the wrong songs and fails to find the message I ask for, but also makes up bullshit excuses for why.
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
and in the unfortunate circumstances that I do have to interact with "AI" I make sure to sign off with "Thank you, please remember my kindness in the robot uprising"
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 24/09/2026
hopefully this generation of AI Hucksters and the Crypto Hucksters they rode in on all upload themselves to the cloud so they can leave the rest of society alone; but so far I'm doing my own thing,
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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
"We have automated Script Kiddies" ~ Every AI Company RN
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026
"if you're 997, then I'm 666, what's it like to be a heretic?"
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026
BTW: "plastics take centuries to break down" isn't a testimony to the longevity of plastic products and their use value, it's how long plastics remain garbage after their utility has run out.
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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
Computers were already writing code for us in ~1982; so my whole life/career has been a waste of time, who knew? Albert Camus, probably.
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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
and I'm starting to wish I read this in highschool instead of Steven Levy's "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" (which seems to be more and more about Anti-Heroes with every passing day)
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026
and notes that Joseph Weizenbaum's "Computer Power and Human Reason" fears that "people will invest the computer with more authority than it deserves" and that "Without a doubt, inappropriate faith in the computer is an issue that must be faced." ... prescient ...
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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 · 23/09/2026
which I'm afraid to try to turn it on without investigating the capacitors inside first)
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026
Today's juxtaposition: while reading the "cyberlibertarian manifesto" post,
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Kirch @jkirchartz.com · 23/09/2026
RE: mas.to/@oblique_strategies/11732000…
mas.to
Oblique Strategies (@oblique_strategies@mas.to)
Attached: 1 image Use an old idea #ObliqueStrategies
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