ewhac

Software engineer of a Certain Age, particularly with low-level and embedded systems, and device drivers. Closet extrovert.

(It's pronounced " 'eɪ.wæk ".)

All opinions expressed are solely my own, on my own behalf, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer (currently Verkada).

Home Page: https://ewhac.org/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ewhac
GitHub: https://github.com/ewhac

Last Notes

2026-04-05 05:03:34 UTC

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Thanks to the Anthropic code disclosure, we now know LLMs do exactly the same thing, only much faster.
This is not productivity. This is not engineering. This is, to coin a phrase, "Guessing at scale."

2026-04-05 05:02:36 UTC

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Ever watch a newcomer to programming write code? Too often, they're programming by auto-correct. They type a plausible-sounding function name, look at the fuzzy-find hovertext that pops up, pick something plausible, and see if it works. Rinse, repeat. A valid approach for a beginner, but let us not pretend that, at least at this stage, the coder actually *understands* what they're doing.
They're lab rats, poking the button until treats come out.

2026-04-05 04:50:51 UTC

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@dougmerritt/116349163827428010
Dissent.
The author's thesis makes a fundamental assumption: Code is now cheap.
This assumption is false.
When machine code was supplanted by assembly code, code did not suddenly become cheap. When assembly code gave way to compiled languages (COBOL, FORTRAN, Algol, Pascal, C, etc.), code again did not become cheap.
If we assume LLMs are the next step in programming (and I don't), then we've simply moved another layer out -- another layer of abstraction. But nothing will get cheaper.
#note1747…7zpu

2025-09-10 23:14:31 UTC

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I *think* this is said book:
https://archive.org/details/harlanellisonsci0000elli/mode/2up

2025-09-10 23:11:40 UTC

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It was a short-ish book, detailing his experience writing "City on The Edge of Forever" for Star Trek, including copies of all the draft scripts he submitted.

2025-09-10 23:04:17 UTC

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I am reminded of a quote by Harlan Ellison, a footnote in one of his book, which I recall as follows:
"If you poke at a monkey in a cage with a stick for six days, you have absolutely no right to be surprised when, on the seventh day, he bends apart the bars of the cage, rips your arm out of its socket, and shoves it up your ass to make a schmucksicle out of you."

2025-07-06 00:17:03 UTC

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wrote:
> Vikings would be lowered into the set from above, all annoyingly chanting "SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM [ ... ]
"Um, actually..." The Vikings were already there. It was the modern English patrons who were lowered on to the set. (And then they were floated back out at the end of the sketch.)