Nic Watson

Arranges bits into aesthetically pleasing sequences.

Currently a senior staff security engineer at Google working on GenAI security. Views are my own.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@jan_murray The term of art is "medical procedural". Folks like watching the same stuff.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@ImagiBooks @lemire Check DRAM prices lately. 512 GiB DDR5 is like $15k now. That's without the rest of the computer.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@AshleySchapitl Yet SFHs are up 15% YoY... The reason is obvious: I have a condo and I'm looking for a SFH.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@fesshole Yep, just ask a teacher of the deaf. Like a regular symphony in class.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@eva41124573 @PaiWayfarer @Aella_Girl As much as I side with the common reality folks, philosopher Alvin Plantinga makes a compelling argument that certain beliefs are basic, like causation, or in his case, God existing. It is impossible to achieve perfect consensus with others that don't have common basic beliefs.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

My Gemini morning review informed me of a crash reported on one of my projects. On a plane, on my phone, had Claude Code investigate. Arch specific. I don't have one. No problem, GitHub Actions does. Upstream bug? glibc bug?! Newp. I'm holding it wrong. PR is ready before I land.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@antilopepe @nazzobetweeting Complete silliness.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@JustinDiamondHQ If you want a SFH with a 30 min commute to downtown DC, it will cost $1.5mm for a fixer upper.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@kevsaucebro Now this is the type of science fiction I can get behind.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@bcherny Auto mode is for wimps. --allow-dangerously-skip-permissions and "Bypass permissions on" mode is where it's at.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@scottastevenson I've seen a lot of AirBNBs for sale recently. "Ridden hard and put away wet" is the typical condition.

Still, it isn't that expensive to update. $40k later and they'd be good as new.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@SR_eth @shushkidude @realEstateTrent All of the above for where I am in DC.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@idobadtakes Yep. Here it is $1.6mm for a fixer-upper SFH. Just as I get accustomed to perhaps I could afford it, the prices go up. At the same time, new condos are dropping in value.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@GaryMarcus Most coding tasks don't require significantly reliability or accuracy. LLMs do fine here. That leaves the interesting challenges for the meat-based programmers.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@Heavenly_Race_ This is of course complete bullshit. I have an IQ of over 160 (multiple tests) and nearly everyone I interact with is 2-4 standard deviations below. It is not a problem at all. If you have high IQ, you're probably smart enough to internally model other minds decently.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@AJManaseer @Pcrawjr Most (all?) US county executives can't borrow unilaterally. It requires a referendum. Indeed most referendums I've seen personally are bond initiatives.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@sandboata @GingerGibson @BarredinDC It absolutely did (if you count Georgetown); you just have to go back 150 years.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@jakozloski You act like dating apps don't influence behavior. Apps are now the most common way people date. Apps largely caused the societal shift here.

[Nic Watson @jnwatson]

@jiratickets Double funny because I always thought Sam Altman looks like Glenn Howerton.