George Sikalias

I build things. Enterprise platforms, data pipelines, and motorsport intelligence algorithms. In my spare time I wrench on my Toyotas and drive them on track.

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@mattpocockuk The grill family of skills is what helps me maintain the cognitive debt in manageable amounts. Even the sequence of yes/yes/yes answers helps with that. But eager to try the new version to see how it behaves.

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

Καλά τα λέει ο θείος Κλώντ

[Prompter @PromptLLM]

Crazy take from Claude

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@MarioSoler19Z Totally deserved win in the most competitive edition of Le Mans!

And also let's not forget that other firms have some of their wins under low/no real competition.

[24 Hours of Le Mans @24hoursoflemans]

WOW! @ToyotaRacingWEC win the day! It's been 4 years since their last triumph at Le Mans!

#LeMans24 #FeelLeMans #WEC

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

Νίκη στο πιο ανταγωνιστικό Le Mans όλων των εποχών!

[TOYOTA RACING WEC @ToyotaRacingWEC]

🏆 Victory in a truly epic Le Mans! These 24 hours had everything – thrilling competition, heart-stopping overtakes and an incredible climax 🥳

Our TR010 HYBRIDs overcame it all to earn our sixth @24hoursoflemans win 🙌

#TOYOTARACING #TR010HYBRID #LeMans24 #WEC @FIAWEC

[Wise @trikcode]

VibeCoding is becoming the biggest illusion in software engineering.

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

Μόνο καφέ δεν ψένει (μάλλον).

[Claude @claudeai]

Introducing Claude Fable 5: a Mythos-class model that we’ve made safe for general use.

Its capabilities exceed those of any model we’ve ever made generally available.

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@mattpocockuk /goal being the claude code default skill?

I have settled to this (based on your skills, very slightly modified)

Session 1:
/grill-with-docs
/to-prd <name>
/to-md-issues <name> (issues as md files)
S2:
/implemente-feature <name>
S3:
/review-feature <name>

Works really nicely

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@ert_sports Ρε σεις, βάλτε ένα Claude να σας γράψει την ανακοίνωση, πιο γρήγορα θα έκανε και πιο πιστικές παπάτζες θα έλεγε😄.

[Addy Osmani @addyosmani]

"Cognitive surrender is when you stop thinking altogether and blindly accept the answer the AI gives you"

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@mattpocockuk Not sure how "when you feel like you and the agent are on the same page" will be decided or how it will work in practice. I think grill-me works nicely by keeping the human in the loop for each decision. It also helps them get familiar with the "unknown" parts of the codebase.

[Sir Meemsalot @Meme0rable]

@haider1 How people without coding experience ship production code with Claude

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@mattpocockuk /grill-me I want to improve the grill-me skill :)

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@mattpocockuk Been using a custom-inline "write a continuation doc of the current conversation" to start a fresh session.
Will definitely try this skill!

[Maria Denaxa @mdenaxa]

📌Βλέποντας αυτή τη θεσμική εκτροπή κυβερνητικού εκπροσώπου να απειλεί με μηνύσεις δημοσιογράφο επειδή υποβάλλει ερωτήσεις, επιβεβαιώνεται ότι ζούμε σε μια κατ’ επίφαση δημοκρατία, που σε τίποτα δεν έχει να ζηλέψει από καθεστώτα τα οποία οι κυβερνώντες δείχνουν με το δάχτυλο, γιατί δήθεν τα φοβούνται, αλλά αντιγράφουν τις πρακτικές τους πιστά.

🔴Επιβεβαιώνεται επίσης πως τίποτα δεν πρόκειται να σώσει αυτή την έρημη χώρα και τους ομήρους πολίτες της από μια κάστα που θεωρεί πως όλα της επιτρέπονται. Κι αυτό γιατί κανείς δεν μιλάει.

🔴 Από την ευνουχισμένη καλοβολεμένη αντιπολίτευση μέχρι την ανύπαρκτη ψευτοδιανόηση, που νιώθει σπουδαία και πιστεύει πως κάτι κάνει επειδή βλέπει τη μούρη της σε ιλουστρασιόν έκδοση κάθε φορά που βγαίνει σε ένα τηλεοπτικό παράθυρο ή τρώει τυροπιτάκια με την ελίτ, με την οποία ενίοτε τυχαία φωτογραφίζεται.

🔴 Καλά, για την ΕΣΗΕΑ δεν το συζητάμε. Έχει αποδείξει με ποιανού το μέρος είναι!

[George Sikalias @sikrip]

@hamptonism Already happening, but “writing the code” has always been just one part of software engineering, not the whole job.

[Maria Denaxa @mdenaxa]

📌 Που έχουν κρυφτεί οι καλοπληρωμένοι fact checkers και ομάδες Αλήθειας ; Γιατί κατάπιαν τη γλώσσα τους; Με την υπόθεση Επσταιν βλέπουμε πολύ καλά ποιοι ΔΕΝ είναι συνωμοσιολόγοι και ψεκ και ποιοι είναι εκείνοι που εμποδίζουν την πρόσβαση στις πραγματικές ειδήσεις και πληροφορίες!

[Mustafa @oprydai]

strong men creates C language.
C creates goodtimes.
goodtimes creates python, python creates ai, ai creates vibe coding, vibe coding creates weak men, weak men creates bad times, bad times creates strong men

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Hello, this is Yanis Varoufakis with a piece of news that would have been hilarious if it weren’t so scary. This morning, two policemen appeared on my doorstep to serve a summons ordering me to the police headquarters to be interrogated by the Greek DEA, our drug busting police department. Not as a witness, expert or not, but as the accused. Accused of what?

Shortly after New Year’s, I appeared on a podcast organised by young people to answer their questions on everything that concerns Gen Z today: social media, the meaning of life, their job prospects, what I call technofeudalism etc. At some point, they asked me if I had ever used drugs. Determined not to do a Bill Clinton (remember the laughable “I didn’t inhale”?), I said I had. Apart from pot, I told them, I had one experience of taking ecstasy in Sydney 36 years ago. It was pleasant, I danced for 16 hours effortlessly but then, I added, it gave me a migraine for a week – and so I never used again. That was my introduction to making the point that, however pleasant drug taking may seem, there is a price to pay. And that the ultimate price is dependence, addiction – “the end of liberty”, I said emphatically.

Do you see where this is going? Yes, the Greek police have opened an investigation of me under the charge of... aiding and abetting the narco-mafia. [Do me a favour folks: Please don’t tell Trump, OK?]

Seriously now, at a time of war, genocide, stupendous exploitation and so on, my little trouble with the inane Greek police is neither here nor there. But it is important. Here, in Europe, many people still live under the illusion that we have liberty, rationality and freedom. We don’t. Dark forces are at work, pushing us into a postmodern version of the Dark Ages.

So, beware, people! They are out to take away the last remnants of autonomy and freedom we have left. Resistance is, literally, existence.

[Daniel Lemire @lemire]

I started programming decades ago when I was 12 years old. At first, it was just a game to me. Over time, as I acquired more skills, it became part of my identity. While others played basketball or the violin, I wrote code.

It is so deeply ingrained in my identity that when I once stopped programming regularly, I became depressed. Shamefully, it took me years to realize that I need to program weekly to stay happy.

Today, the best AI models can write C++ code better than most computer science professors. They are certainly better programmers than my teenage self, who learned without access to the internet.
Why play the violin when anyone can find a recording of a great violinist with little effort?

This is not a new problem for human beings. What happened to bowmen when the musket became standard military issue?

Do you keep showing up on the battlefield with your bow? A bow has advantages over a musket—and bows continued to improve even after the musket’s invention. Yet the writing was on the wall: the future of the battlefield did not belong to the bow.

I could also recount the story of portrait painters who struggled with the rise of photography.

Programmers are not alone in facing a transformation of their craft. Graphic designers, lawyers, writers, and nearly everyone in the laptop class are impacted. Some do not mind, because their craft was always primarily about achieving professional success. Others are more troubled.

Let us be fair. For the last 30 years, the West pursued globalist policies that continually moved industrial jobs elsewhere, leaving many young men without much-needed opportunities. We told them not to worry—their economic losses were more than offset by government checks.

And this gets to the core of the issue. Getting the job done is only part of what we care about. Perhaps more importantly, we want meaningful lives, which often come through skill development and its fruitful application. Money alone is not enough—it never was. We also crave status, recognition, and a sense of empowerment.

As I look at software programming today, I can accomplish in five hours what would once have taken me three days. Sometimes I can do in 15 minutes what used to take three hours. Other times—especially when tackling something difficult that plays to my strengths—I do like Luke Skywalker: I turn off the targeting computer and code without AI for the best results.

At the same time, I see many people (including some of my students) trapped in an illusion of competence. They prompt an AI and generate low-quality code—not because the models are bad, but because a tool is only as good as the person wielding it.

What is coming? I cannot predict the future with certainty, but the following seems possible:

1. We may end up with the equivalent of a laptop-class rust belt. People who used to write reports and PowerPoint decks for a living could become obsolete. Teachers might find students turning to AI instead, reducing them to little more than relatively useless bureaucrats. IT specialists might see their entire purpose wiped out by a new AI model. They may still earn a decent living, but their social status could crater—just as it did for factory workers in the West from 1980 to today. What goes around comes around.

2. During the globalization era, the financial industry boomed in the West, and to this day some of the most prestigious and highly paid jobs are in finance. A similar phenomenon is likely unfolding in this AI era. Many of those benefiting will have a background in programming. The people who can build in a month what once took a year will be able to automate tasks that previously weren’t worth automating.

What about the sense of purpose and competence? Speaking for myself, it is not gone. If anything, I feel I can leverage my hard-earned skills even more effectively than before. More importantly: I am still having a lot of fun programming.