Michael Gidron

Software Engineer
Howard University Alumni

Sports Fan: Jaguars, Miami Heat, Miami Dolfin's

Chess, BBQ, and DFS is my hobby

[Pro Football Hall of Fame @ProFootballHOF]

Today the Pro Football Hall of Fame honors Juneteenth, a day to reflect on our history and recognize resilience and equality.

[Ring Magazine @ringmagazine]

Miguel Cotto retired as a legendary four-weight champion 🇵🇷

👑 Middleweight
👑 Junior Middleweight
👑 Welterweight
👑 Junior Welterweight

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

President Obama has a unique way of ROASTING Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, and it drives Trump nuts.

He just did it again, this time in front of every living president.

Watch this. 🔥

[xim (elon ma) @legoIuvr]

literally been saying this

[RipTamar.. @Marc_BallOut]

That front office would be dumb as hell to let Harper go

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

10 years ago has passed, wow! May every soul lost, rest in peace.

[Be A King @BerniceKing]

Eleven years ago today, nine Black worshippers were murdered during Bible study at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston.

Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney. Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance. Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor. Tywanza Sanders. Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson.

We say their names and remember the sacredness of their lives.

This was not only a mass shooting. It was a heinous act of white supremacy carried out in a house of worship. We must tell the truth about that hatred, grieve what it stole, and remain committed to dismantling the violence of racism in every form.

#MotherEmanuel #SayTheirNames

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

Excited for it to come back to the market.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

This is a super exciting release - Claude Fable 5 is the same underlying model as Mythos but with added safeguards. The benchmarks are great and it's SOTA on everything by a margin but I'll add that *qualitatively* also, this is a major-version-bump-deserving step change forward (imo of the same order as Claude 4.5 was in November), peaking especially for long problem-solving sessions on very difficult problems. You can give it a lot more ambitious tasks than what you're used to, the model "gets it" and it will just go, and it's never felt this tempting to stop looking at the code at all (but don't do this in prod!). The model still has quirks that people will run into and the safeguards are configured to be a little too trigger happy for launch, which can hopefully be tuned over time.

I feel a lot of things changing as working software increasingly comes out on a tap. The Jevon's paradox kicks in and I feel my own demand for software growing substantially. You can ask for anything - explainers, visualizers, dashboards, bespoke single-use apps (e.g. a full wandb that is hyper-specific just for your project), you can 10X your test suite, auto-optimize code, run giant research projects with custom HTML for the results, anything! "Free your mind" (Matrix ref). Really looking forward to all the things people build!

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

A few random notes from claude coding quite a bit last few weeks.

Coding workflow. Given the latest lift in LLM coding capability, like many others I rapidly went from about 80% manual+autocomplete coding and 20% agents in November to 80% agent coding and 20% edits+touchups in December. i.e. I really am mostly programming in English now, a bit sheepishly telling the LLM what code to write... in words. It hurts the ego a bit but the power to operate over software in large "code actions" is just too net useful, especially once you adapt to it, configure it, learn to use it, and wrap your head around what it can and cannot do. This is easily the biggest change to my basic coding workflow in ~2 decades of programming and it happened over the course of a few weeks. I'd expect something similar to be happening to well into double digit percent of engineers out there, while the awareness of it in the general population feels well into low single digit percent.

IDEs/agent swarms/fallability. Both the "no need for IDE anymore" hype and the "agent swarm" hype is imo too much for right now. The models definitely still make mistakes and if you have any code you actually care about I would watch them like a hawk, in a nice large IDE on the side. The mistakes have changed a lot - they are not simple syntax errors anymore, they are subtle conceptual errors that a slightly sloppy, hasty junior dev might do. The most common category is that the models make wrong assumptions on your behalf and just run along with them without checking. They also don't manage their confusion, they don't seek clarifications, they don't surface inconsistencies, they don't present tradeoffs, they don't push back when they should, and they are still a little too sycophantic. Things get better in plan mode, but there is some need for a lightweight inline plan mode. They also really like to overcomplicate code and APIs, they bloat abstractions, they don't clean up dead code after themselves, etc. They will implement an inefficient, bloated, brittle construction over 1000 lines of code and it's up to you to be like "umm couldn't you just do this instead?" and they will be like "of course!" and immediately cut it down to 100 lines. They still sometimes change/remove comments and code they don't like or don't sufficiently understand as side effects, even if it is orthogonal to the task at hand. All of this happens despite a few simple attempts to fix it via instructions in CLAUDE . md. Despite all these issues, it is still a net huge improvement and it's very difficult to imagine going back to manual coding. TLDR everyone has their developing flow, my current is a small few CC sessions on the left in ghostty windows/tabs and an IDE on the right for viewing the code + manual edits.

Tenacity. It's so interesting to watch an agent relentlessly work at something. They never get tired, they never get demoralized, they just keep going and trying things where a person would have given up long ago to fight another day. It's a "feel the AGI" moment to watch it struggle with something for a long time just to come out victorious 30 minutes later. You realize that stamina is a core bottleneck to work and that with LLMs in hand it has been dramatically increased.

Speedups. It's not clear how to measure the "speedup" of LLM assistance. Certainly I feel net way faster at what I was going to do, but the main effect is that I do a lot more than I was going to do because 1) I can code up all kinds of things that just wouldn't have been worth coding before and 2) I can approach code that I couldn't work on before because of knowledge/skill issue. So certainly it's speedup, but it's possibly a lot more an expansion.

Leverage. LLMs are exceptionally good at looping until they meet specific goals and this is where most of the "feel the AGI" magic is to be found. Don't tell it what to do, give it success criteria and watch it go. Get it to write tests first and then pass them. Put it in the loop with a browser MCP. Write the naive algorithm that is very likely correct first, then ask it to optimize it while preserving correctness. Change your approach from imperative to declarative to get the agents looping longer and gain leverage.

Fun. I didn't anticipate that with agents programming feels *more* fun because a lot of the fill in the blanks drudgery is removed and what remains is the creative part. I also feel less blocked/stuck (which is not fun) and I experience a lot more courage because there's almost always a way to work hand in hand with it to make some positive progress. I have seen the opposite sentiment from other people too; LLM coding will split up engineers based on those who primarily liked coding and those who primarily liked building.

Atrophy. I've already noticed that I am slowly starting to atrophy my ability to write code manually. Generation (writing code) and discrimination (reading code) are different capabilities in the brain. Largely due to all the little mostly syntactic details involved in programming, you can review code just fine even if you struggle to write it.

Slopacolypse. I am bracing for 2026 as the year of the slopacolypse across all of github, substack, arxiv, X/instagram, and generally all digital media. We're also going to see a lot more AI hype productivity theater (is that even possible?), on the side of actual, real improvements.

Questions. A few of the questions on my mind:
- What happens to the "10X engineer" - the ratio of productivity between the mean and the max engineer? It's quite possible that this grows *a lot*.
- Armed with LLMs, do generalists increasingly outperform specialists? LLMs are a lot better at fill in the blanks (the micro) than grand strategy (the macro).
- What does LLM coding feel like in the future? Is it like playing StarCraft? Playing Factorio? Playing music?
- How much of society is bottlenecked by digital knowledge work?

TLDR Where does this leave us? LLM agent capabilities (Claude & Codex especially) have crossed some kind of threshold of coherence around December 2025 and caused a phase shift in software engineering and closely related. The intelligence part suddenly feels quite a bit ahead of all the rest of it - integrations (tools, knowledge), the necessity for new organizational workflows, processes, diffusion more generally. 2026 is going to be a high energy year as the industry metabolizes the new capability.

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

Amazing. I am so glad humans don't live this long.

[TMZ @TMZ]

Jonathan the Tortoise breaks Guinness World Record for oldest land animal at 194 years old 🐢🏅

🎥: Guinness World Records

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

I like that for him!!

[TMZ Sports @TMZ_Sports]

👀 Knicks' Jose Alvarado weighs in on the potential White House visit after NBA finals win.

[Tawanda Nyahuye👨‍💻 @towernter]

PHP Developers in 2026

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

@wjxt4 3 years! must not have been a first time offense for her.

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

😂

Years ago when I was a full time c/c++ dev, you get so good at pointers, pointers to pointers, references, etc. you don't even think about it anymore.

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

IP trained skills went out the window with this officer!

[Giggling Ganon @GigglingGanon]

Bully cop gets his feelings hurt by a man with an open container takes things to the point that he got removed from duty pending investigation.

​Just after midnight on March 12, 2026, ​a Daytona Beach police officer, identified as Joel Llinas, approached 27-year-old tourist David Anderson, who was carrying a bottle of alcohol in public. Officer Llinas gave Anderson the option to either pour out the beverage or face a city open container violation. Anderson handed the bottle over to the officer.

​According to police reports, a physical struggle began when Anderson allegedly threw the bottle's cap at the officer immediately after handing over the bottle. Officer Llinas immediately took Anderson to the ground to place him under arrest, where he was subsequently handcuffed.

​The tension peaked after Anderson was moved to the front of the patrol car. Anderson verbally taunted the officer, stating, "I almost took you out, didn't I?"

​The situation quickly intensified as the officer took Anderson back to the ground. While bystander crowds gathered, footage captured a struggle on the pavement where the officer used unnecessary actions on Anderson while he was already restrained.

​The fallout from the incident was immediate:

​Anderson was initially charged with an open container violation and felony battery on a law enforcement officer. However, the State Attorney's Office officially dropped the felony battery charge, noting that the nature of the arrest itself was sufficient.

​Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young publicly addressed the footage, calling it "concerning" and stating it did not align with departmental standards. Officer Llinas was removed from patrol duties and placed on administrative leave pending a formal internal affairs use-of-force review.

​Two wrongs don't make a right. If the bottle cap was indeed throw at the officer, then take him into custody with only the level of force need to place in custody. Everything else beyond that was excessive.

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

Maybe I overthink things, but I don't like the Claude Cowork user interface. I feel like it's not idiot proof.
@claudeai

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

@atrupar If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the money from frozen Iranian assets? Emotionial decision making never wins!

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

I gotta check this sport out.

[Typical African @Joe__Bassey]

Traditional wrestling, known as Laamb, is one of Senegal's most popular sports. Major wrestling matches can fill stadiums and attract millions of viewers across the country.

Top wrestlers enjoy celebrity status and earn some of the biggest sponsorship deals in Senegal 🇸🇳. The sport blends athletic competition with music, dance and centuries-old cultural traditions.

For many Senegalese, Laamb is more than a sport; it is a symbol of national identity.

[NBA Memes @NBAMemes]

Jose Alvarado yearbook quote from 2013:

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

@TMZ Wow, and you can tell that restroom was probably empty. I have twin daughters, and it's not an easy decision to make, when it comes to the bathroom. Especially when they are young and have to go on the spot.

[Michael Gidron @mbgidron]

@ScottUpham @TMZ All son's huh!! He has no idea what it's like to have daughters. What a nut job, giving that young father a hard time.