James Reid-Smith

Code, eat healthy, lift and have fun

[Thorsten Ball @thorstenball]

https://t.co/PV4OLiTZnu

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@badlogicgames Your /share built in to pi helps too with showing others your work to produce a PR. I link exports to my PRs at Shopify too.

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Kara Swisher says I have a male eating disorder.

She's closer to right than she knows.

There is a decade of my life where I didn't take any pictures of myself because I was overweight, unhealthy, and sad. That version of me ate his feelings and self-destructed. No one called that version sick.

The obsessive measurement didn't create the disorder. It was the treatment for one that already existed. My internal signals were so broken I couldn't trust them. I needed external data to find my way back. I had to rebuild from scratch.

Kara says this is body dysmorphia cosplaying as science. I'd say it's what happens when a person loses the plot so completely that the only way home is through the numbers.

I publish it all. Including the failures, embarrassment, and the erection data, because hiding is what created the disorder.

She can call it a circus, repellent, or eating disorder. You cannot call it hiding.

[Mario Zechner @badlogicgames]

I'm usually not one to write thought pieces without much technical depth. But here we go.

Slow the fuck down.

https://t.co/dcOwPK357F

[Eric S. Raymond @esrtweet]

Is it weird that AI coding assistance is not giving me identity fracture?

A lot of software developers are feeling disoriented and threatened these days. Programming by hand is clearly going the way of the buggy whip and the hand-cranked auger. Which is how we're finding out that a lot of people have their identities bound up in being good at hand-coding and how it feels to do that.

That's not me. It's not me at all. Rather to my surprise, I don't miss coding by hand, not any more than I missed writing assembler when compilers ate the world and made that unnecessary. (That was in a couple years back around 1983, for you youngsters.)

Maybe the fact that I'm not feeling any of this disorientation disqualifies me from having anything to say to people who are. On the other hand...if you can learn to emulate my mental stance and be completely unbothered, maybe that would be a good thing?

So. If you're a programmer, and you're feeling disoriented, try this on for size:

I like being a wizard. I like being able to speak spells, to weave complex patterns of logic that make things happen in the world. Writing code is a way to manifest my will.

Yes, I've piled up a lot of arcane knowledge over the 50 years I've been doing this. But languages of invocation, they come and they go. Been a long time since I've had any use for being able to program in 8086 assembler, and that's okay. I have better spells now, and these days some rather powerful familiars.

What I'm inviting you to do is think of yourself as a wizard. Not as a person who writes code, but as a person who is good at assuming the kind of mental states required to bend reality with the application of spells.

And if that's who you are, does it matter if the spells are painstakingly scribed in runes of power, versus being spoken to an obedient machine spirit?

It's all one; it's all the manifestation of will. Arcane languages come and go, machine spirits appear and then diminish to be replaced by more powerful ones, but you? You are the magic-wielder. Without you, none of it happens.

Same as it ever was. Same is it ever was. And so mote it be.

[tobi lutke @tobi]

I love this video. Everyone should celebrate accomplishments like this.

https://t.co/TxO98IrXb0

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@didyouknowgamin A friend of mine sold me his copy of Final Fantasy Tactics because his mother didn’t approve of the zodiac signs in it. His loss. My gain.

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@bslobodin @goodreads AI can lookup and summarize your good reads research. I just used Grok this morning to find a new book. No ads 😁

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@nicbarkeragain Gross just use an if. Preferably in a more readable language

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@Sim_Mix Giving me goosebumps dude

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

Great episode. As an old Unreal Tournament modder, I loved that he talked about the subtractive level geometry system. Was cool to hear it came out of a 30 hour coding session.

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

Here's the links for my conversation with Tim Sweeney (@timsweeneyepic):

YouTube: https://t.co/1F37uwScag

Spotify: https://t.co/ZMtg5QCvFo

Podcast: https://t.co/7AZXIxZ0sh

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@Jonathan_Blow Just like your game engines, it’s much better to make them yourself 🍪

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@newsystems_ Missing song from the FEZ sound track?

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

The Just Cause starting card is also flexible, you can use it to buff and reposition your units but it also works on enemy units if you need to reposition a weak unit in their front lines. Pairs well with Pyreball!

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

Thrilled Monster Train 2 is here! Shiny Shoe’s triumphant return shines—demo’s Banished faction is a blast, and that valor buff pops off

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

Valor is a great addition! It’s versatile in that it acts like a regen effect if the unit is in the front and it buff’s their attack. Previously you’d have to use a more dedicated unit as a tank and use a separate effect to improve their attack

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@James_BG @cliffski Electric Nuclear planes maybe

[James Reid-Smith @sunblaze]

@lexfridman @edmundmcmillen @Jonathan_Blow is a goldmine of insights on game development and programming. His interviews are exceptional

[Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @Tablesalt13]

An entire article about the cost of butter

not a single mention of the soviet-style supply managed system

not a single mention of milk dumping

not a single mention that you need a $53,000 permit to milk a cow

not a single mention that import are effectively banned

not a single mention that farms in Canada have no incentive to innovate because they have no pressures

no mention that the butter "price decrease" theyre refering to is a FRACTION OF A PERCENTAGE, around a penny per kilo

this is why media needs to go bankrupt