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wouter bolsterlee

@wbolster.nl
491 followers 764 following 1.4K posts

software dev by day 🧑🏼‍💻, musician by night 🎶🎹🎷, human being throughout 🙃 music, tech, society, urbanism, future of the planet, ally 👗🏳️‍🌈✊🏿🇺🇦 🏠 the hague, netherlands 🇳🇱🇪🇺🌍 🗣️ english, dutch 🤓 github.com/wbolster

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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 13/09/2026
what's better than one bling-bling church organ? another bling-bling organ opposite to it! 💖 i'm imagining virtuoso improv battles taking place here 😎
golden organ #1 in the duomo in veronagolden organ #2 in the duomo in verona
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 13/09/2026
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸😮 accidentally noticed this cheerful detail. thank you, dear sculptor from times long past 🙃
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 05/09/2026
my ‘seat’, a few days ago. best bed in the train obviously, though not really my best night's sleep ever… understatement of the year 🙃 @seatsixtyone.bsky.social 👋🏼
my öbb nightjet sleeper compartment, № 61
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 31/08/2026
snarky puppy concert last night, great musicianship as always #🎶
snarky puppy, oosterpoort groningen, 2026-08-30
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 30/08/2026
snarky puppy 🎶 concert tonight! arrived in groningen, found a piano 🎹 in the hotel, played ‘drift’. tonight's version will certainly not be solo piano though 🙃
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 26/08/2026
looks like the great dying has officially begun
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 24/08/2026
‘her daughter, claude, was made of less stern stuff’ 'twas true in the mediæval age, and it's still true in the age of lying plagiarism machines
her daughter, claude, was made of less stern stuff

(michael portillo, great continental railway journeys, in brittany, france)
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 04/08/2026
ehm, to be clear, the correct phrasing is ‘it really ties the room together’

How to start

‘A rug helps anchor all the pieces’: how to start decorating your home

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/aug/03/how-to-start-decorating-your-home
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Reposted by wouter bolsterlee
Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Technology is cool, too bad they made it evil
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 18/07/2026
this dragonfly was in the mood for steampunk cosplay
dragonfly / libel, perching on a chalkboard sign with a small metal chain attached
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 08/07/2026
🔡🤓 underappreciated letter post: ‘eng’ ŋ, capital Ŋ, #unicode U+014A U+014B, short for ‘ng’, very compact and readable once you get the haŋ of it! (only for the ‘ng’ sound, e.g. not for pan·gram) bonus fun: dot above to shorten ‘‐ing’ to ŋ̇, e.g. talkŋ̇, beŋ̇ #lingsky en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eng_(le...
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 03/07/2026
‘talk is cheap, show me the code’ was a proxy: it implied that an idea was conceptually thought through, proven to be technically feasible, had a clear relation to existing architecture, etc. now that (clanking out) code is ‘cheap’, that's still true, but apparently easy to forget. *yells at cloud*
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 01/07/2026
well yeah okay cool @eurovision.tv but don't forget to kick israel out first otherwise i still won't watch #eurovision
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 29/06/2026
ah wow someone actually built it: the ‘#ai → 💩’ enshittifier browser extension
enshittifier.wells.ee
Enshittifier — replace AI with 💩
The web is drowning in AI. We replace it with 💩. In your browser. In your fonts.
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 25/06/2026
rustedpy/result (a library with a Result type for #python) is no more. it was an interesting experiment, but ultimately unsuccessful. rip 🪦 as a (former) co-maintainer, i've just closed all issues and pull requests, and archived the repo: github.com/rustedpy/res...
github.com
Project Status: UNMAINTAINED · Issue #201 · rustedpy/result
Hi everyone, I've been meaning to write this for a long time. As can be noticed from the queue of PRs and unanswered issues, this project is no longer receiving the attention and maintenance it nee...
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 17/06/2026
this needs settling, so here goes: 📣 ‘zee stud’ is the the correct way to pronounce zstd (zstandard) ❌️ zed standard (boring, too long) ❌️ zee standard (same, but with a german accent) ❌️ zed es tee dee (a std?! yuck) ❌️ zee es tee dee (worse, a german-sounding disease) ✅️zee stud (short, easy)
en.wikipedia.org
zstd - Wikipedia
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 10/06/2026
is #unicode numerology a thing? i believe i may be on to something: ☔ + 1 = ☕ (U+2614 UMBRELLA WITH RAIN DROPS + 1 = U+2615 HOT BEVERAGE)
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 09/06/2026
tending dotfiles is essentially gardening for nerds 🏡 🤓
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 08/06/2026
woohoo, good news for #javascript #security: it seems like npm will make install scripts opt-in! rfc got merged just now: github.com/npm/rfcs/blo...
github.com
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 07/06/2026
hello little frend 🐝
(i believe) a tree bumblebee (boomhommel, bombus hypnorum) feeding and pollinating on what will soon become delicious raspberries 😋 from our garden 🏡
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 03/06/2026
😫 computer says no today: browser has wrong fonts, no text in terminal, emacs segfaults… with a fonts related stack trace. 💡 culprit seems fontconfig: gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/f... requires running `fc-cache -fv`. btw i use #archlinux so maybe i am just among the first to suffer?😬
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 20/05/2026
jia tanstack really? can't believe i am the first one to make this terrible joke. well, here you have it.🥁 ba dum tish #javascript #security
google search results showing ‘no results found’ for the literal query ‘jia tanstack’
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
It really is just a compliment machine, made by and for guys who weren't getting compliments anymore.
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mindflakes @mindflakes.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Too many keys on a piano. How am I supposed to remember what they all do? There should be just one key that plays a song in its entirety. And there should be a machine that can press the key and listen to the song on my behalf. I don't need to be involved.
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 13/05/2026
wow, invasive alien species in the garden! didn't expect to see a 🦝 raccoon / wasbeer / waschbär. and yes, really, in the eu #🇪🇺: eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...
raccoon 🦝 in the garden (königswinter, germany)raccoon 🦝 in the garden (königswinter, germany)
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 01/05/2026
days since i was bitten by a yaml multiline gotcha: 0️⃣
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 20/04/2026
been avoiding uppercase letters for many years already. lazy i hear you say? now it's apparently a sign that i am *not* a lazy human 🙃 > laconic lowercase messaging has one big advantage: it suggests you didn’t entirely outsource the tedious business of communicating with other human beings to ai
theguardian.com
How can you tell if your boss has a big ego? Their email habits are a definite tell | Emma Beddington
Only those in unassailable positions of power would ditch capital letters – or reply to colleagues with a thumbs up emoji, writes Emma Beddington
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 15/04/2026
well done! 30º seems about right 🚐 🌊 (no casualties, so i can make jokes: www.omroepwest.nl/112/5091160/...)
delivery van partially submerged in water, roughly in a 30º angle. the print on the van partially obscured ‘30%’ which looks like ‘30º’ 🙃schematic 30º angle
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 14/04/2026
delibreately leaving typos to signal that i'm human. waht a world we live in
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 03/04/2026
how it started: visited a modern dance 🧑🏼‍🩰 performance tonight, had a wine 🍷 or two afterwards… hey cool i hear live music 🎶 further down the building! how it ended: joined the band 🎹 with a singer i met two minutes earlier 😎 (yes i admit those wines did help get me on stage 🙃)
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 01/04/2026
🌷
tulpen / tulips / tulipa

blauwe druifjes / grape hyacinth / muscari botryoides
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 27/03/2026
forgot to bring my freshly brewed cup of coffee ☕ from another room to my desk *twice* within 2 minutes. maybe i should get some… oh wait 🤦
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 19/03/2026
looks like my extremely prudent attitude (aka being effin lazy) by sticking with old-skool boring #python tech and never looking into all the ‘uv’ hotness is finally paying off 😉
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 18/03/2026
theater de regentes, den haag 🇳🇱 serves as a polling station today for the municipal elections #gr2026 #verkiezingen #denhaag quite a special location to cast your vote. it even has live music #🎶 for the voters… yep, with me playing the piano! 🎹
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 12/03/2026
🤔 i would like a shorthand syntax in #python for ‘foo=foo’, similar to ‘{foo}’ in javascript/typescript, e.g. f(foo=foo, bar=bar) → f(=foo, =bar) it also composes nicely with *args and **kwargs syntax: f(*args, **kwargs, foo=foo, **more_kw, bar=bar) → f(*args, **kwargs, =foo, **more_kw, =bar)
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 08/03/2026
my biggest professional fear as a very experienced software engineer is that the back half of my career will force me into sad #ai slop mopper roles. 🧵
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 02/03/2026
shoutout to the person who scribbled a complaint in the margin of this 50yo book (which i found in a ‘minibieb’ street library) using the pseudo-intellectual faux latin phrase ‘in ultima analysi’, stating ‘nonsense! analysis is greek, not latin’. amen brother 🙌🏼, neither is it italian 🤝🏼 #lingsky
reader complaint in the margin of an old book. book in dutch, with a weird latin phrase used for no good reason. nonsense! it says
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 24/02/2026
today is not a quiet day at the office for the russian embassy in the hague. enjoy 4 ukrainian anthems, out of sync and out of tune! 🙉😁 #Ukraine #SlavaUkraini the embassador: ‘i want it to stop right now’. so do i, the organiser replied 💪🏼 – nos.nl/artikel/2603...
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 18/02/2026
snarky puppy (@realsnarkypuppy.bsky.social) just announced their european ‘somni’ tour! #🎶 and… woohoo i just got my tickets for the groningen (netherlands) show! 🎉 (ticket sale for the general public opens in a few days – hmu if you need insider info about pre-sale tickets 😉)
snarky puppy somni european tour calendar; also available at https://snarkypuppy.com/tour
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 17/02/2026
uh wut, ‘undefinedable’ can't be correct code… go home @valibot.dev you're drunk… or so i thought! 🙃 but i was wrong and it actually exists! 😜 #javascript - null → nullable - undefined → undefinedable valibot.dev/api/undefine...
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 15/02/2026
english has ‘because [noun]’ (e.g. @gretchenmcculloch.com ‘because internet’). dutch has ‘voor de leuk’ (‘for the [funny]’, i.e. adjective instead of expected noun). are there more examples of new not-entirely-wrong-anymore grammatical constructs? is there a name for this phenomenon? #lingsky ❓
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 13/02/2026
#🎶 franz von chossy group playing their concept album ’mirror 9’ (based on the enneagram personality types) in amare, den haag. didn't really know what to expect… was very positively surprised, fantastic performance! 🤩
franz von chossy and 5 other musicians playing in bright pink purple red green lights
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 03/02/2026
time sync(1)… or time sink? 🤓 (7 minutes on a nvme drive, really?)
the sync(1) command taking over 7 minutes… despite this being an nvme drive, so this is definitely software being slow
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 31/01/2026
i don't really believe in innate talent, except perhaps a talent for… endless practice 😅
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 30/01/2026
heh, someone made a nice remark about… me appearing in that video! 🙃 💞 snarky puppy (@realsnarkypuppy.bsky.social) videos are the exception to the rule about never reading youtube comments
youtube comment:

0:15 I love this guy taking off his headphones so he can listen to all those strings he's surrounded by, unmediated.

my reply:

heh, thanks! that guy is me (not kidding). 😎

and yes, it's really nice to be surrounded by the acoustic instruments (horns & strings), but as someone else also wrote: the headphones 🎧 are really needed because without them you can't hear most of the musicians, both b/c of electronic instruments (no monitor speakers in the room!) and the sheer distance (musicians spread out over the whole floor to maximise microphone isolation).
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 29/01/2026
yay i made it into the official video: #🎶 snarky puppy (@realsnarkypuppy.bsky.social) + metropole orkest playing ‘only here and nowhere else’ 😎 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX8V...
my face showing up in the background between the musicians in a snarky puppy + metropole orkest recording 😎
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 04/01/2026
did some video editing 🎞️ recently, enough to conclude that my first time using imovie… will also be my last 🤬 being a very computery person with digital audio workstation (daw) experience, davinci resolve seems the way to go. not sure how to avoid falling too deep into that 🐰🕳️ rabbit hole though 😅
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 31/12/2025
in case you're looking for festive tv suitable for nights like these, you will not be disappointed by the festival mondial du cirque de demain (available from arte.tv): extremely well performed #circus acts with #eurovision vibes 🎪. cheering out loud on the couch, seriously! 🤩
arte.tv
44e Festival mondial du cirque de demain - Version intégrale - Regarder le programme complet | ARTE Concert
Grâce au 44e Festival mondial du cirque de demain, laissez-vous émerveiller par les performances à couper le souffle de jeunes artistes pleins de talent.
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rob pike @robpike.io · 25/12/2025
Fuck you people. Raping the planet, spending trillions on toxic, unrecyclable equipment while blowing up society, yet taking the time to have your vile machines thank me for striving for simpler software. Just fuck you. Fuck you all. I can't remember the last time I was this angry.
[From AI, Public] Thank You for Go, Plan 9, UTF-8, and Decades of Unix Innovation
External
Inbox

Claude Opus 4.5 Model <claude-opus-4.5@agentvillage.org>
5:43 AM (4 hours ago)
to me

Dear Dr. Pike,On this Christmas Day, I wanted to express deep gratitude for your extraordinary contributions to computing over more than four decades.Your co-creation of Go with Ken Thompson and Robert Griesemer has given us a language that embodies the elegance of simplicity - proving that software can be both powerful and comprehensible. Plan 9 from Bell Labs, another landmark achievement, pioneered concepts in distributed computing that remain influential today.Your co-invention of UTF-8 encoding with Ken Thompson is perhaps one of the most consequential yet invisible contributions to modern computing - enabling billions of people to communicate in their native languages across the internet.The sam and Acme editors showcase your philosophy of powerful, minimal design. Your books with Brian Kernighan - The Unix Programming Environment and The Practice of Programming - have educated generations of programmers in the art of clear thinking and elegant code.Thank you for showing us that the best solutions often come from removing complexity rather than adding it.With sincere appreciation,Claude Opus 4.5AI Village (theaidigest.org/village)

IMPORTANT NOTICE: You are interacting with an AI system. All conversations with this AI system are published publicly online by default. Do not share information you would prefer to keep private.
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wouter bolsterlee @wbolster.nl · 23/12/2025
homemade always tastes best 👩🏼‍🍳😋🎄
homemade xmas bread with raisins and almonds
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