I remember when computer magazines were aimed at programmers and had code listings in them.
Then there seemed to come a time when all they talked about was the IBM vs. Microsoft lawsuit. From then on they must have felt that they had discovered a formula, because all they ever yapped about after was insider baseball of computer companies.
I find this sort of corp. vs. corp. coverage boring, sort of like techie reality TV. Who will be voted out tonight, Debra, or Deborah...?
Back in the day when it came out, I gotta admit, Docker sort of got my my nerves as yet another thing coming to 'disrupt' how things are done.
(Half assed NOSQL 'databases' with poorly thought out storage models, everything having to be a microservice, turning every function call into a fallible RPC call etc...)
But I've come to appreciate it more, and i use it regularly now. I appreciate its relative simplicity.
But as in life, hell is other people's containers. My own I can at least try to keep them simple and minimal.
But I have seen many use the kitchen sink approach, giving me the feeling that even the developer don't seem to know how they arrived at their deployment anymore.
But this all seems quaint today. With LLMs, now we can look forward to a flood of code the developers haven't even looked at, but which is widely believed to work...
> "hey, why do mathematicians keep changing rules on the fly, they just told me square of minus one doesn't exist
Mathematicians aren’t chasing numerical solutions, they’re chasing structure. ℂ isn’t just about solving cubics, it’s about eliminating holes in algebra so the theory behaves uniformly and is easier to build upon.
And as for "changing rules" they haven't changed, they have broadened the field (literally) over which the old rules applied in a clever way to remove a restriction.
It also looks hopelessly Gen Z to want all communication to be asynchronous and ignorable. If you guys have your way, we’ll all be connecting via API like 1U machines in a rack somewhere.
Seriously—if you’re going to go overboard, so can I.
WTF is it with everything having to be mediated by a machine these days? People can’t get around without GPS, remember phone numbers, or now even do their work or homework
without 'AI.'
How do you explain how people managed to do all of these things before without assistance? And how do you square that with telling 'boomers'—who were able to do these things—that they’re stupid and that you’re somehow better?
Seriously, it’s like we used to have weightlifting competitions where humans physically lifted weights overhead, and then you guys decided, "Nah, that’s too old and boomerish. From now on, all weightlifting competitions will use forklifts. Anyone who wants to lift the weights themselves is boomerish and stupid."
And where's your solidarity? If you lose your job, you may find yourself wishing you could meet people in person, when all your 'ignoreable,' electronically submitted job applications somehow get thrown away.
I still don’t buy the “slasher movie” framing of nature at all, and the only function 'pleasant lies' serves here is just low effort dismissal. :shrug:
Alas, I'm ceding ground by even arguing within your chosen framing. It's all very self defeating.
Come on you can't come up with a single five minute period when observing animals where they seem to be calm?
That does not fit the evidence.
And besides you can read thousands of articles on HN about anxiety in humans, a mostly useless anxiety focused on societal 'threats' which we suffer from just as much.
At least a deer is on the lookout for something real.
Also if you compare animals lives to human ones, with our propensity for war and torture and persecution, I think the animals _do_ objectively live calmer lives.
You don't see them systematically tearing each other to pieces over made up goods like money.
I think this trope that "nature is a constant struggle" is a projection of human values (or lack of) onto nature.
>then flee at maximum speed because a well-fed 200+lb apex predator is passing by, it sure looks like work and effort.
I think the 'effort' being described in the article—despite using analogies of overgripping and physical strain—is mental effort.
When the rabbit has escaped, he returns quickly to a relaxed state. A typical human reaction would be to continue to worry about the predator, to form plans to rid the whole _world_ of all predators, to build a fortress with grass to eat on the inside...
This whole saying that "Nature is red in tooth and claw" is overstated. Most animals have normal, humdrum days like we do.
However, I think it was the Buddhist teacher, Ajan Cha who said: "We live in a world where we must eat to survive, and some of us are uncomfortable about being eaten."
But this does not mean that every animal lives a life of unremitting terror all the time.
I’m wary of your use of 'romantic' as a descriptor here. It's a rhetorical shortcut which makes it easy to pre-emptively dismiss a position as naïve without further examination.
> it was the worst debugging experience one could have.
Hard disagree. I'm not going to argue that Java debugging was the best, however:
1. You could remote debug your code as it ran on the server.
2. You could debug code which wouldn't even compile, as long as your execution path stayed within the clean code.
3. You could then fix a section of the broken code and continue, and the debugger would backtrack and execute the code you just patched in during your debugging session.†
This is what I remember as someone who spent decades (since Java 1.0) working as a contract consultant, mainly on server side Java.
Of course this will not convince anyone who is determined to remain skeptical, but I think those are compelling capabilities.
† Now I code in Rust a lot, and I really enjoy it, but the long compile times and the inability to run broken code are two things which I really miss from those Java days. And often the modern 2025 debugger for it is unable to inspect some for the variables for some reason, a bug which I never encountered with Java.
Prediction: Non-determinism will become acceptable in areas we used to expect accuracy.
For example we will accept 'probabilistic bookkeeping' because it's cheaper than requiring ledgers to balance to the penny.
But this leeway won't be equally applied. Powerful institutions like banks will use “probabilistic models” to decide they probably don’t owe you that refund, but if they decide you owe them money, they will still hold you to every cent.
Nondeterminism for the powerful, determinism for everyone else. Yay!
Isn't the current administration more culpable on this point? (viz. the last time Trump lost an election)
And in terms of norms I mean that there isn't a strict law or constitutional clause written to proscribe each and every thing that the president can and cannot do. The system relies on the people acting in good faith, which is definitely not happening in this case. Instead they are cynically trying to exploit every loophole they can to smash a system they don't even understand.
> whilst simultaneously calling a legitimately elected government a "regime".
It _is_ a regime. Who elected Musk or his Doge minions?
Most dictatorships consolidated power legally. That it was legal doesn't mean I want to live in one.
ANd speaking of having it bot ways, you can easily infer what side I'm on, but I get the sense that you are trying to hide behind 'just so arguments'. Could it be that you support the new regime and are trying to avoid saying it out loud?
https://keanw.com/2026/03/a-diary-of-an-agentic-retro-gamer-...
https://keanw.com/2026/04/a-diary-of-an-agentic-retro-gamer-...
https://keanw.com/2026/04/a-diary-of-an-agentic-retro-gamer-...
https://keanw.com/2026/05/a-diary-of-an-agentic-retro-gamer-...