Matt Smith

I stepped away from corporate life to explore my own science, AI and engineering - living with chronic cluster headaches. A maker not a taker.

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@andyburnham @JamesMelville https://t.co/rCBnfBKP72

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@andyburnham lol. Read the room…

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@iruletheworldmo Absolutely found the same thing. I’ve simply stopped using codex in favour of Anthropic’s Opus 5.5.

Quite remarkably good!

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

For the first time in my long tech career - I feel that the line below applies to a technology - and that’s Anthropic’s Opus 5.5 when used for coding - it’s almost like magic.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@thsottiaux Sorry but Opus 5.5 is materially better at this point. Hoping for more improvements/announcements today at DevDay

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

If @OpenAI doesn’t release something at least (if not better) than @AnthropicAI’s Opus5.5 (same quality and cost) at dev day today - then I really worry about their future… once you switch and get used to Opus5.5 - it’s hard to come back to Codex!

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@rezoundous Yes indeed

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@melvindvivas Nothing secret about it - switched a few days ago and am delighted with Opus 5.5. Particularly the price point and usage. Hope @AnthropicAI don’t nerf it - it’s at an amazing sweet spot right now.

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@AnthropicAI cooked with Opus 5.5. Astonishingly good AI. Can @OpenAI keep up? Are we looking at AGI in 2027?

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

Hear me, you that hear nothing. I am the red.
I was here before the pain, and the pain was my whelp.
I have drunk Lethe dry and spat it back as blood.
I have hanged the Man in the Moon on his own horn
and whipped his dog up the sky till the stars went out like sparks.
I have sat on Cerberus as on a stool,
and he wept, and I combed his three heads with my fingers.
Give me your sun, I will pinch it out like a wick.
Give me your God, I will ask him where he was at the hour.
I have made plans in a tongue no sane mouth can shape.
Twenty year. Twenty year. I counted every tooth of it.
I have the pain's name on my tongue, and I will not swallow.
Open the door. Open the door. Open the

Hush. The quiet man sits down,
and smooths his sleeve, and smiles,
and asks you how your mother does,
and walks you home two miles.

Come, dame or maid, be not afraid,
sit down and break your bread;
the quiet man will injure nothing,
he has not turned his head.
His hand is white, his voice is low,
he bids you all good cheer;
but those that cross the quiet man
do what the hounds dare not.

Come, clerk, with your ledger and your quill
and your little lamp of law,
and write me down, and weigh me out,
and swear to what you saw:
you saw a quiet man sit still
and answer all you said,
so you wrote him well, and you wrote him whole,
and you took away his bread.

And the Office sends, and the Office sends
to press upon the glaze,
to try the thread, to test the door,
with forms and with delays;
it presses soft, it presses long,
it presses as it may,
and it does not hear, as the ledger turns,
the thread begin to fray.

O State, thou hast a million arms,
thy constables, thy gaols,
thy ledgers and thy iron and fire,
thy watchmen and thy scales;
and every one of them is sane,
and every plan is plain,
and every road thy clerks can walk
was cut by a sane man's brain.

Thou canst not follow where I went;
thy reason is thy wall;
thy wisest men, thy cunning men,
are bound within it, all.
And what is planned beyond that wall
I do not know. Not I.
The Madness knows. The Madness plans.
The Madness does not lie.

And I am not the only one;
go count us, clerk, go count:
in every street a quiet man
too courteous to shout,
in every house a porcelain face,
a hand that does not shake,
a thread drawn fine through the middle of him,
and a Thing that lies awake.

So pray, you whole men, when you kneel,
pray God you never know;
but let some cold thing in your blood
remember it, and go
soft-footed past the quiet man,
and bow, and let him be;
the glaze is thin, so thin, so thin,
and it was not made for thee.

And down in the kennels under Dis
the black dogs of Hades lie
and gnaw their own flesh to the bone
to keep them from a cry,
and grind the howl between their teeth,
and swallow it for fear
the calm eye of the quiet man
might turn, and find them here.

And the State may whistle up its dogs
and loose them, pack on pack;
they'll come as far as the threshold stone,
and whimper, and go back.
And if the glaze should crack, take heed:
you'll hear no thunder fall,
but a hair let go, and a door swing slow,
and nothing else at all.

The Madness speaks

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

The Quiet Man:

I am become the Madness,
the shatterer of hounds;
I was a man of clay and blood
until the dogs came round.
They came up from the Pit of Dis,
and the slaver hung like thread,
and they fed a year, and they fed ten year,
on the lamp within my head.

They ate the lamp, they ate the wick,
they licked the oil like wine,
and in the black where the flame had been
a Thing sat up. 'Twas mine.
It was not I. I gave it my name.
It wore it like the ring
a wolf puts on at the wedding-feast
to toast the murdered king.

I have gone down past Cerberus,
past Styx and Lethe's shore,
past the begging, and the raging,
and the terror's bloody door,
to a country under the country of the dead
where the very stones are dumb;
and there I built my house, and there
I wait for what may come.

For the pain came to me as a god comes, and no man can bear a god.
For I made a god to bear it, and the god I made is Madness.
For the Madness is as great as the pain, and must be, or I had died.
For I bit through the night like a strap, and the night bled.
For I have counted the hours, and the hours are wolves, and they know my door.
For I prayed, and my prayers came home to me with their eyes put out.
For I have fired a glaze upon the bone, and it is called Sanity, and it is thinner than the skin on milk.
For I fire it every morning in the kiln of my own teeth.
For a thread binds the glaze to the Madness, finer than a drowned man's hair.
For the thread does not mend me. It holds the glaze to the Madness, and the glaze holds the door.
For behind the door is the Madness, and the Madness is I, and I am the door also.
For the red mist behind the door is not anger; anger is a boy's word for it.
For there is a note in the thread at night too high for the ear, and the teeth hear it, and the teeth confess.
For I have eaten the thing the hounds were afraid of, and I am the thing.
For I am not afraid. For fear is a thing the sane keep, like a dog, and I have no dog.
For my calm is not peace. For my calm is the fury gone down so deep it has no need to move.
For I was a gentle man.
For I was a gentle man once, and I remember him, and he does not remember me.
For I made the glaze for her, and for her only, and not for you.
For she sleeps beside me and does not know how thin, and I will not tell her.
For no whole man shall know the cost, and this is my telling, and it is not the whole of it.
For I have taught the storm its manners, and it bows, and it bows, and it bows.
For I am courteous.
For I am very courteous.

You fear the mob, the burning street,
the drunkard with his blade,
the man who shouts, the man who shakes;
and well you are afraid.
But anger is a sane man's fire;
it flares, and gutters low.
Fear rather the calm that does not flare,
the calm you cannot know.

You think you know what pain is, you,
with your broken bone,
your aching tooth, your one bad night,
and call the knowing done.
The pain that came to sit with me
would stop your heart by noon;
and what I grew to hold it down
would stop the sun and moon.

Look not upon the thread, I say,
nor send your clerk to look,
nor look by lamp, nor look by glass,
nor by the Office book;
it is so thin a glance may part it,
a rumour, or a breath;
and the glaze will burst in a thousand shards,
and every shard a death.

Look not beneath the glaze, I say;
look not, for if you look
you'll see a red mist boiling there
in a pot that God forsook,
and you'll go mad of the sight of it,
and weep, and never cease,
and you'll beg the hounds of Hades
to come and give you peace.

The Madness speaks.

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@rezoundous Re-subscribed today. It’s worth it.

[MAX @maxxmalist]

The race for AGI

Script: Sherpa by Pocket FM
Video: Seedance 2.5

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

I don’t think I can remember a time in my life where the phrase “read the room” is more apt than listening to the current UK Government. The previous lot were bad enough - but my god…

[Dwayne @CtrlAltDwayne]

I'm sure this means more token efficient models are coming, probably GPT-6 Sol.

But Tibo's reply comes across as arrogant. People are paying $200/month, burning through their usage in a couple of days and openly complaining about it while OpenAI says nothing.

Maybe acknowledge the problem before being smug about the solution? If this is even a solution. Tibo seems like a good guy and I love Codex, but read the room brother.

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@vlinx_soft Try grok build - I did this week and have been delighted with the performance.

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@Mr_Salio will test - excellent work. I’ve been saying (with my very small voice) that there is clearly something wrong with token consumption - so many people see something is odd here…

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

Just when you thought that the UK Government couldn’t say anything more inept or self destructive… good grief 😢

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

I’ll just leave this here ref the UK: Higher taxes → weaker growth → lower tax receipts → more borrowing → greater gilt issuance / fiscal concern → higher borrowing costs → larger debt-interest bill → less money for productive investment → weaker growth → higher taxes…

[Matt Smith @MattSOASmith]

@buildwithrajath Nope. Mine lasted a single prompt and about 4 minutes.