How to Earn a Billion Dollars
June 2026 (This is based on a talk I gave at the Oxford Union.) Since this is apparently the future prime ministers’ club, I’m going to tell you about something it would be good if more politicians understood: I’m going to tell you how people become billionaires. I hope this will be useful to you […]
Don’t trust large context windows
I recently watched a video that put a name on something I’d been feeling. The author splits an LLM’s context window into two zones. There’s the smart zone, where the model is sharp, and the dumb zone, where attention drops off and the model starts forgetting what you told it five minutes ago. The cutoff […]
Consciousness likely not unique to earthlings, paper says
Does consciousness depend on flesh and blood? The answer is almost certainly no, according to Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In a new working paper, Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober, a former UCR graduate student who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon, assert that […]
Tribblix: The retro Illumos distribution
Tribblix : the retro illumos distribution Tribblix is an open source operating system created by Peter Tribble. Based on illumos, it blends a retro style with modern components. NEWS: June 12th 2026: Milestone 40 available. (updates). See the X86 Release Notes. NEWS: April 21st 2026. SPARC m34 ISO available for download, in addition to the […]
Phoenix LiveView 1.2 Released
LiveView 1.2.0 is available now! To update from LiveView 1.1 to 1.2, simply update the version requirement in your mix.exs file and re-fetch your dependencies: {:phoenix_live_view, ”~> 1.2.0”} Colocated CSS In LiveView 1.1, we introduced Colocated Hooks and Colocated JavaScript, allowing you to write hooks directly inside any HEEx template. LiveView 1.2 builds on the […]
Pac-Man, but You’re the Ghost
I always felt a little bad for the ghosts in Pac-Man. They patrol the maze, they corner the guy, and then he eats a glowing pellet and suddenly they’re the ones running for their lives. So I built a small game where you finally get to play the other side. Pac-Man has its own AI, […]
Software Architecture Guide
Graphical User Interfaces provide a rich interaction between the user and a software system. Such richness is complex to manage, so it’s important to contain that complexity with a thoughtful architecture. The Forms and Controls pattern works well for systems with a simple flow, but as it breaks down under the weight of greater complexity, […]
Free SQL→ER diagram tool, runs in the browser, nothing uploaded
SQL to ER Diagram — Free Online ERD Generator from SQL (no signup)
The Redistribution of Housing Wealth Caused by Rent Control [pdf]
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Building a serial and VGA ”everything console”
Some of our recent (and some upcoming) projects are oriented to systems with serial consoles, but it’s been getting pretty old dragging around old CRT terminals or tying up Mac laptops with a serial port. I’d like something that’s self-contained, a little more portable and a bit less heavy. I’m sure there’s any number of […]