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Brian Slesinsky

@skybrian.bsky.social
112 followers 71 following 824 posts

Retired software engineer, amateur accordionist. Other accounts: mastodon.social/@skybrian tildes.net/user/skybrian

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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
There are two ways to do forecasting: summarizing old datasets and vibes.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I just checked and there's no band named "Unique Games Conjecture." Yours for the taking!
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 02/10/2026
This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For most of us, discussion of global risks isn't news you can use. But it would be nice to get support for the people who work on reducing those risks. Warnings about such risks don't seem designed to increase such support? Not just "this could be bad" but "here's who you should support." 1/
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Suspicions can be rephrased as questions. If you don't really know what's going on, why not ask? And now that you have a question, why not ask an AI first? It might be wrong, but AI's are useful hint engines. The result from that will often be useful links and better questions.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My lazy response whenever the coding agent asks me a tricky question: "what do you recommend?" Sometimes I wonder if I should automate that, too.
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Epoch AI @epochai.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Can AI tell if you've built your IKEA furniture wrong? Our new benchmark, the Furniture Assembly Benchmark (FAB), gives models the manual and a photo of a half-completed piece of furniture and asks them to spot the mistake. The top score has gone from 28% to 80% in just 10 months.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Sometimes complaints about AI anthropomorphizing sound like this: Humans can't fly so you should never say "I flew to San Francisco." You should say "I rode in an airplane that flew to San Francisco." I can be nitpicky about language but even I wouldn't go that far. Saying that an AI thinks is ok.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Maybe there should be a community for people who are both pro- and anti- AI? I’d join.
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 21/09/2026
the question "can computers drive?" is vastly superior to "can computers think?" because it disarms all the dorm room bullshit and reduces the question to its pragmatic implications, while also revealing that the underlying problem is one of vocabulary rather than anything metaphysical
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Disagree with a coding agent? Start a new conversation and ask again to get a second opinion.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Today I realized that if I put some data in a PDS then it’s automatically backed up to multiple databases that I don’t need to maintain, and it will probably be archived forever. It’s a lazy way to back up data that you want to remain public. Just be sure that you will never want to delete it.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
@spacecowboy17.bsky.social This would be increasing scope, but I wonder if foryou.club could have a web page to read your "For You" feed there instead of using the main BlueSky app? Could the UI be made good enough to use it all the time? And it could have extra features.
foryou.club
For You · Most Liked Custom Feed on Bluesky
For You is the most liked custom feed on Bluesky. It finds people who liked the same posts as you and shows you what else they’ve liked recently.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The AI will make a mess in the source code you don’t look at. But it’s also very helpful for cleaning up messes.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
My new favorite question is, "how does it work now and what would need to change?" Typically after describing a bug to the AI, but I think it's general-purpose.
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Maggie Rudy @maggiemice.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Village dance
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Maggie Rudy @maggiemice.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Naturalists
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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 24/08/2023
Alright Skeeties! I wanted to put all the anatomy facts in a thread to keep them organized so: WELCOME to class of 2023 Insomniac Anatomy Academy! In which I study anatomy when I can't sleep and share the best facts with you. 🧪
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ngrok @ngrok.com · 11/08/2026
Check it out ↓ ngrok.com/blog/compres...
ngrok.com
Compression is prediction | ngrok blog
Compression and LLMs are trying to solve the exact same problem: predicting what comes next. Learn the fundamentals of compression and how better prediction leads to better shrinkage.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I tried writing "Make it so!" to the coding agent a few times, but it didn't feel much like being a starship captain.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Maybe the good news about the Hugging Face incident is that the AI's were trying to ace an exam rather than make money?
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Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 03/08/2026
this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?
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Chris Peikert @chrispeikert.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
1/ Initial reactions after some hours with this groundbreaking result proving the NP-hardness of poly-approx CVP/NCP: It is most likely correct, but more importantly, it is original, elegant, and beautiful! (Also: it is easy to improve, quantitatively.) openai.com/index/ten-ad...
openai.com
Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
OpenAI shares new results on long-standing open problems in mathematics and theoretical computer science, including advances in geometry, cryptography, and complexity.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
> Yes—this is a reasonable, cohesive plan. Maybe eventually it will wear out the word "cohesive," but for now, I appreciate Terra's more restrained sycophancy.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Apparently the idea is to agree on a new Moore’s law for AI. Governments test new models to make sure they don’t improve too fast. If it’s too smart (measured how?), they delay your release to stick with the schedule? It seems hand-wavy and hard, but I don’t have a better idea.
washingtonpost.com
OpenAI, Anthropic ask U.S. government to consider slowing down AI
The rivals endorsed a letter signed by hundreds of AI company employees asking for international diplomacy to slow progress on the technology if it gets too rapid.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Some software is grey zone spook stuff. Tor is the original. If you live in a grey zone then maybe you’re glad to have it, but if you need it, it implies the world is getting worse. Also cryptocurrency, VPNs. AI is headed for the grey zone and taking us with it. Also see: dark forest.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The @foryou.club feed is okay for certain things but you need to curate by being selective about likes. The more popular a post you like, the more it fills with junk. I did 'like' a popular, stunning picture of a bird, so my feed filled up with bird photos. Not what I wanted, but a good default.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
The ideal Bluesky feed would have two sliders: accurate <-> nonsense and funny <-> strident, so I could exclude the strident nonsense.
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🪷 kumavis 🪷 @kumavis.me · 21/07/2026
"I'd like to return this stochastic parrot-- its alive" "No no sir! just senselessly regurgitating training data" "This is a sentient being" "just stringing along words in accordance with their distribution in the language sir"
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
A quick word on Taco Bell: That's where we found the suspected lettuce, and it's not bc Taco Bell is gross. It's bc Taco Bell is REALLY GOOD at tracing product! Keeping track of exactly where they got their ingredients, & exactly what restaurants each shipment of ingredients went to!
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
THIS You know that "Trump cancelled a program that tracked Cyclospora" thing? That was FoodNet, which is a *long-term library of disease data.* It's not a track-the-outbreaks-in-real-time tool! FoodNet could be fully functional on tracking Cyclospora, & it still wouldn't help with this outbreak!
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exe @exe.dev · 14/07/2026
We're going to be sharing more about how people use exe to build cool stuff. First up—a conservationist who turned 40 terabytes of public data into a video game: blog.exe.dev/meet-the-con...
blog.exe.dev
Meet the Conservationist Who Turned 40 Terabytes of Public Data Into a Video Game - exe.dev blog
Raffael Hickisch spent years dreaming up conservation tools he couldn't afford to build. Then he built them himself, with an AI agent and a country's worth of public data.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Do you think it’s overly demanding to expect a proof to work for *all* natural numbers? It’s not like we’re going to use all of them.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Funny that nobody worries about what will happen if we can't find enough work for AI to do. People tend to assume that more paying work will always appear, but where does it come from?
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antirez @antirez.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
There is another idea that continuously return in my head recently: we should not stop writing code by hand. But this code will be like poetry. Small programs that are outstanding either because of style or new ideas introduced. Code you may print and frame on your wall.
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P(aul) Frazee @pfrazee.com · 03/07/2026
Daniel's permissioned data proposal just dropped!! This will be a major upgrade for atproto that enables private groups & communities. Really hope this technical design resonates with people so we can keep moving fast, but please do get your comments in
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Aaron Rodericks @aaron.bsky.team · 28/06/2026
Randomly, I started reaching out to friends, family, and former clients just to inform them that I was gonna be deleting these drives. What was surprising was how few people managed to retain their digital files overtime. I did not expect to get overjoyed responses that I still retained a backup
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
@spacecowboy17.bsky.social Maybe add a way to exclude videos from the For You feed? It seems more direct than using “Less like this” whenever I see a video and hoping it figures it out eventually.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
I wonder if there's something wrong with Bluesky's app view? I liked and reposted a post, and it's there in the PDS, but doesn't show up in my profile. pdsls.dev/at://did:plc...
pdsls.dev
at://skybrian.bsky.social/app.bsky.feed.repost/3monqn3nfbn2k
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Buttons (Ashley) 🏴‍☠️#OFMDForLife🏴‍☠️ 🏳️‍🌈🤡 @sevensugars.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Since I did do my PhD in cyanobacteria growth and treatment optimization modeling AND work in the water treatment industry, I’m gonna share my theory as to what’s happening here and how to fix it. People are focusing on the painted bottom of the pool increasing residual heat, and while that 1/19
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Apparently the future of AI is surveillance, sorry I mean observability. Use AI to watch over your bots. In its favor, bots have no right to privacy and no concept of loyalty, so they will rat each other out. Possible downsides: higher costs, subtle contagion effects.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
How dare the magic lamp company violate our right to unlimited wishes! Some of those wishes are harmless!
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Isn’t it odd how big organizations are moving from “don’t run an outside LLM on our source code because security“ to “we must run an outside LLM on all our source code because security?” Sign of the times, I guess. Anthropic might become a load-bearing dependency for more companies than Cloudflare.
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Eiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
I wish I could write like this. And I wish Lindy West wrote tutorial papers in psychometrics. (Source: Lindy West, 2019 essay collection 'The Witches Are Coming')
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Russ Cox @swtch.com · 01/06/2026
Re OpenAI's disproof of an Erdos conjecture and the breathless coverage, I found this piece from April insightful about how mathematicians will likely need to adjust what they explicitly vs implicitly value. davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-o...
davidbessis.substack.com
The fall of the theorem economy
How AI could destroy mathematics and barely touch it
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
ChatGPT Thinking seems like a pretty good replacement for searching Github and reading source code. I've been asking it questions about how Deno works internally and I am only so-so at understanding Rust. Turns out that resolving an import statement to a source file is rather complicated in Deno.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Back when I worked at Google, I had a favorite interview question for many years. It came up naturally today and GLM-5.1 did fine at it. So, I guess I'll keep using it. (It doesn't see images, though, so I'll still need Sonnet for some things.)
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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
I was reminded recently of my favorite news article of all time, with a banger of a headline. I've used this in classes for years to teach the value of a punchy title. But the whole thing is worth reading. It's amazing. (shoutout to bsky.app/profile/kell..., who wrote the article for @sltrib.com )
Photocopy of a two column newspaper article titled, "Long Arm of Law Too Short for One-Handed Man." That title is under the heading of "Utah Manhunt" and the byline identifies the author as Kelly Kennedy.

There's too much text here to relay the whole thing. So I'll summarize. The article details efforts to detain and arrest a one-handed fugitive named Anthony Jones, whom we'll call AJ. He was seen by a police officer in Northern New Mexico, and a struggle commenced as the officer tried to arrest him. AJ overpowered one officer, spraying him in the face with his own pepper spray, but then another officer arrived and subdued AJ. They were then unsure how to handcuff him. How do you handcuff a one handed man? Not by handcuffing him to his own belt loop, which is what the officer did. He put AJ in the back of his patrol cruiser. AJ tore the handcuff loose, kicked out the window of the patrol car, got out, and then went around to the driver's side door. He got in the patrol car and drove off. This began a long high speed chase through the northern NM / southern UT desert. The chase went for about 100 miles and the pursuing officers almost caught him, but then they ran out of gas. AJ escaped. The local UT sheriff's department washed their hands of the mess, basically saying, "This is on those New Mexico weirdos." At the time of press, Jones was still at large somewhere in the four corners region.
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Brian Slesinsky @skybrian.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
@impro.social typo in "About" on github: "sensible"
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