Journal Entry For 2026-05-25
- [Forgot to post this last week. I'll just hit publish now, without adding to it further. I have to do a better job of getting these out the door.]
- I find myself looking around for ways to possibly leave the Apple Ecosystem. For some reason, the universe is throwing all kinds of things related to BSD my way (for example). I don't know anything about OpenBSD vs. FreeBSD (vs. other BSDs), but my understanding is that OpenBSD is kind of amazing because it aims to be "secure by default". It's kind of a hobby in itself, because nothing seemingly just works (including a desktop environment). Well, maybe that's not exactly fair, but I don't see myself spending hours on a baroque OS when I have a baby coming real soon. Nonetheless. Thoughts around this topic are percolating.
- Also saw this: https://kdevelop.org/ - it supports php, might have to try it out.
- Although: I actually have liked my use of Sublime Text (and Merge) while noodling around in the very few hours I have for this project: https://tangled.org/finn-matti.bsky.social/from-scratch
- This post resonated with me (probably because I am doing something like this right now): Type Out The Code
- I kind of don't agree with everything in it, though. My problem ist that I start to read articles like this too carefully and soon enough I'm doing a close reading, where every sentence is wrong, missing context, or is an exaggeration.
- Example:
- "Never suggest external tools or alternatives that aren't part of the skills listed above. If a task requires capabilities beyond the available skills, say so." This is the sort of prompt that I would read as functionally inarticulate: it sounds sensible if you don't read closely but when you do you might notice the prompt is actually giving the model two diametrically opposed instructions.
- The author seems to think the general statement "I can't do this" is the same as "I'd need to use this tool" or "I'd need to do it like this, ok?". Which doesn't ring true to me. It's a small difference, but there is a difference here.[1]
- "Never suggest external tools or alternatives that aren't part of the skills listed above. If a task requires capabilities beyond the available skills, say so." This is the sort of prompt that I would read as functionally inarticulate: it sounds sensible if you don't read closely but when you do you might notice the prompt is actually giving the model two diametrically opposed instructions.
- I get their point(s) and most of them are good, but I can't help but notice a lack of... empathy, maybe? People are not just malignantly lazy. Laziness can be super annoying, I get it, but there is probably something else that makes them lazy, right? Maybe they are addicted to their phones or something? Maybe they have a sick kid at home and just try to scrape by? Are there people out there unwilling to engage intellectually with arguments? Absolutely! But can the solution here really be the intellectual equivalent of "smile more" (i.e. "do hard things")? For some of us, who are on the fence, sure, but for those who are lost (which the author seems to imply are lost for good)? Eh. To me the whole thing falls apart the longer I look at it.
- Example:
- I kind of don't agree with everything in it, though. My problem ist that I start to read articles like this too carefully and soon enough I'm doing a close reading, where every sentence is wrong, missing context, or is an exaggeration.
- Speaking of...
- the from-scrach project: For now this is a barely working joke of a static site generator. But what I was thinking: Can I make it so that generation of the html is a little more "just in time"? Like in the way I resize my images just in time once and then they are served from a cache? Couldn't I do that for the whole page as well? Maybe a site visited for the first time could be generated just then and there? And maybe other pages linked from that page, too? That would mean less generation up-front. Anyway: It is pretty interesting to just do this kind of thing, take a small step forward anytime I'm touching the project.
- having time: I will very soon have no time at all, as we are getting closer to the calculated due date. I am excited and terrified in equal parts about becoming a dad. I do look forward to it, though.
- becoming a parent:
- I don't know how we could ever reasonably afford this, but I started looking into getting a bigger car. We have been very happy with our Skoda Fabia for the last 6 years. But we will not be able to fit two grown-ups, a baby, a stroller, and a corgi (and her box) in that car. So I started looking into getting something the size of an Octavia. I'd love an EV (like an Enyak or Elroq), but it may be too expensive as you need some extra equipment for the winters here in Finland (heatpump) and we'd need a bigger battery for longer trips probably (seeing the Finnish side of the family entails a 1200km roadtrip). There is also hybrids, plug-in hybrids or gas powered cars of course. It's surprisingly difficult to find a fitting car for us, our budget and our values. I was kind of expecting "this, but one size bigger and as an EV" to not be super difficult, but here we are...
- I finished reading the German version of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read. Thought it was good. In my few lines of personal reading notes about this I wrote: "Good, but uncompromisingly extroverted: Normal is the one who is social and if you or you kid are not (as much), there is a problem."
Interestingly, the author actually reacted to a comment about this on Lobst.rs. The main point seemed to be that "I can't do this with the skills you provided" is not consistent with the second part of the prompt, since "the model [is supposed] to positively affirm (constructively) the existence of required external tools/alternatives". This might be because English is not my first language, but if there are two possible interpretations and one of them leads to acceptable output, I'd be inclined to follow the inerpretation that allows the output to make sense. ↩︎
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