Andrew Helwer

Freelance software engineer focused on formal methods & distributed systems, with an intensive side-interest in quantum computing. TLA⁺ enthusiast!

Uses: :pine64: :steamdeck: :arch: :sway: :rust: :neovim: :firefox:

Born in Canada, living in Atlanta, GA, USA. Main hobbies include submission grappling, birdwatching, and mushroom foraging. Living kidney donor. Vegetarian. Hoping for a 2000 watt society. he/him

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Published at

2024-02-12T04:05:48Z

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Last Notes

2024-01-13 01:50:20

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@npub19zs…5azk one time I wrote a blog post for a company about the outcome of a research project contract I did with them. They sent it to their in-house proofreader and the only thing they did was change every - to a —. The value added was literally incalculable

2023-10-04 21:32:40

Dedicated #bike trails work! #atlanta
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/111/178/880/316/533/817/original/8641adadc3519083.png

2023-09-26 17:31:44

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@npub1hec…u834 it's fun when you start to recognize individual birds! I have names for most of the cardinals around here, mourning doves are a bit more difficult to tell apart though.

2023-09-26 17:27:59

A mockingbird has started frequenting the birdbath! Sometimes I can even hear it singing on our street. #birds
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/111/132/619/210/729/241/original/d533cbc6b3bb0a89.jpeg

2023-09-18 15:53:53

Finally finished the main story of #RDR2. Overall very good but long enough to feel more like a curse than a game (there's also an epilogue I haven't played yet). Controls bad. Better-realized characters than any other game I've played. Beautiful tragic story of redemption somewhat undercut by you shooting 150 people in the head every other mission.

2023-09-01 01:54:08

Are unskippable ads/previews still a thing on blu-ray disks?

2023-08-31 03:15:14

I think 20 hours in is enough to call it on Red Dead Redemption 2. It isn't going to get any better or less dull, frustrating, etc. This game has one of the worst control schemes of anything I've played. At least it's pretty. #rdr2

2023-08-30 15:41:51

I know a lot of you nerds are reading this on a rig with at least two computer monitors so here's a life-changing rec: make sure one of the monitors is centered pointing directly at you so you can read it without twisting your neck, and turn the others to portrait mode.

2023-08-27 16:06:56

It's hot enough here in Atlanta that AC has kind of stopped working effectively, even overnight. Only have to survive here for one more summer. Rolling the dice on a wet bulb event happening in a city with a questionable power grid.

2023-08-25 23:27:09

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@npub1wn3…j4ad twitter used to have a bot where when someone posted something particularly idiotic you could see what countries were represented among the flag-emoji-names who liked it, often very revealing!

2023-08-24 16:02:47

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okay I guess I had to go localectl set-x11-keymap us altgr-intl instead of using set-keymap. which succeeded but doesn't seem like I can type accents using altgr key in any of my programs? Is this an x11 vs wayland thing

2023-08-22 20:17:52

appreciating property values
affordable housing

2023-08-14 03:52:36

why is everything an alkaline water now. how did that term enter the public consciousness enough to drive sales, was it from association with people talking about alkaloids? the brand alka seltzer? I guess it's just a nice word. Alkaline.

2023-08-05 23:33:58

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@npub1zs5…mwjw yeah places like Denmark have a hybrid public/private housing system which covers the rental side. not centralized either, each neighborhood governs itself for the public housing. my coworker lived in one, they were nice.

2023-08-05 23:22:15

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@npub1zs5…mwjw I like to pitch people the idea that it should be illegal for people to own more than two housing units and almost everybody agrees with the proposal

2023-08-05 21:58:17

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@npub1wna…ewh8 I would also be interested in knowing the breakdown in other countries (here in the US even relatively historically literate people I know think the US was the main contributor) but of course you can't go back in time to conduct polls sadly

2023-08-05 19:19:52

I'm a strong free thinker who is immune to propagandaaaaaaaa (10,000 books, films, and games about cross-channel warfare later):
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/110/838/615/574/552/516/original/55422caaaa2db39a.jpg

2023-08-05 18:40:38

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@npub1zs5…mwjw on the other hand the fact that MPs can force the PM to resign (opening the path to power for themselves) makes for so much politicking and backstabbing that it more or less works out

2023-08-05 15:08:49

time for an annual re-reading of The Enigma of Amigara Fault. maybe I should actually read some of Juji Ito's other stuff.

2023-08-05 13:23:26

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@npub1zs5…mwjw ideological camouflage

2023-08-05 04:05:28

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@npub1zs5…mwjw I'm only floating this hypothesis! I'd say my understanding of monads has been hovering at 30% for a bit now. They might be one of those things you just get used to instead of experiencing a blinding flash of insight. Also haven't yet learned about monad transformers (adding effects to pre-existing monads).

2023-08-05 02:31:31

real talk, are #monads just a way of sending you to mathematical hell & back before you're allowed to write ordinary series-of-statements imperative programs in a #functionalprogramming language

2023-08-05 01:30:59

probably an observation already made by others but the "how hard could it be to replicate, just follow the instructions in the paper" crowd for the floating rock probably don't cook many meals for themselves eh

2023-08-04 18:03:08

Book I'm reading talks about the deep biosphere, life existing kilometers beneath the bottom of the ocean on Earth. Reassuring, really. Even if we manage to kill every living thing on the surface and in the oceans, there is a reservoir of biological life that will recolonize & re-establish biodiversity on Earth in a few hundred million years - an eyeblink. Maybe even develop intelligence. This can happen perhaps twice more before the sun renders the planet uninhabitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_biosphere

2023-08-04 16:18:13

maybe it's my latent dadhood speaking but I do get a kick out of those boomer-humor bumper stickers that are like "born to fish, forced to work"

2023-08-04 16:01:39

Would have been interesting working in engineering in like the 60s where I assume everyone you worked with knew 10 different ways to solve a PDE and used that knowledge regularly

2023-08-04 15:06:14

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@npub1zgk…x8cn always good to have a USB-C breakout board and UART dongle with some bread cables to connect them

2023-07-31 04:30:06

barbie is confirmed lit and gotta admit there is a character who skewers me personally (husband who hangs out at home half-assedly learning his wife's family's language)

2023-05-07 12:34:04

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@npub14le…gfws I’ve never heard population control phrased in terms of being for the animal’s own good. For things like deer these population booms are also driven by us removing their primary predator (wolves) for our own comfort. We also value individual human lives in addition to collective human lives, while (rightly or wrongly) individual deer lives are not valued, despite their species’ existence itself being valued.