Nostr notes by Rob Isaac

Typo in “sochastic”, last sentence in that screenshot.

2026-10-27T18:52:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…l9pm
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Typo in “sochastic”, last sentence in that screenshot.

In emulation especially, there’s an almost indescribable joy in ...

2026-10-23T08:43:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…z8fd
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In emulation especially, there’s an almost indescribable joy in seeing something that would have cost millions when you were a child happily booting, with all of the options enabled, on an average everyday computer like it was nothing at all.

I ended a relationship with a middle school girlfriend because ...

2026-10-17T21:17:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…cu2v
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I ended a relationship with a middle school girlfriend because her family moved to a town three hours drive (and crucially, a different area code) away. That wasn’t unusual at the time.

This happened to me last month and I had to sit down for a while.

2026-10-17T21:04:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…jek2
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This happened to me last month and I had to sit down for a while.

PICO-8, Picotron.

2026-09-20T23:54:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…ugee
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PICO-8, Picotron.

My favourite is the haptic feedback in laptop trackpads. People ...

2026-08-12T20:45:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…njsn
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My favourite is the haptic feedback in laptop trackpads. People will get into fistfights about whether or not the pad really moves when it fakes a “click”.

OK, I loved the premise and the aesthetic of Blue Prince despite ...

2026-08-12T03:49:18Z

OK, I loved the premise and the aesthetic of Blue Prince despite the pun name, but the way it intentionally penalises you for saving is the most user-hostile game design I’ve seen in a fair while and I’m not interested in supporting that. I’d refund it if I could.

Stating for the record that I have met Aral Balkan ( ...

2026-08-05T00:59:58Z

Stating for the record that I have met Aral Balkan ( Aral Balkan (npub1p09…m5vl)) in person, and have engaged with him personally and professionally for roughly 13 years. Adopting a lazy and brainless “devil’s advocate” position that maybe his current humanitarian work _could_ be some sort of financial scam is incorrect, unhelpful, and contributes nothing but noise to a serious and unpleasant topic. Please stop it.

If we’d put half the effort into addressing the overuse of ...

2026-07-25T21:27:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…3jdf
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If we’d put half the effort into addressing the overuse of layered abstractions and embarrassingly stupid javascript as we did pretending language models are sentient, no one would be queueing up to rent their occupation from the same companies that barfed out the javascript in the first place.

I’m pretty bored with this whole notion that just because some ...

2026-07-25T21:18:59Z

I’m pretty bored with this whole notion that just because some people have built ridiculously baroque software development setups that don’t work and mostly produce garbage, that somehow justifies the wholesale adoption of wildly unethical code-writing robots that also don’t work and cause brain damage in people who use them too much.

I did something stupid so now it’s OK for everything to be stupid is certainly an argument. It’s just not a very compelling argument.

I genuinely can’t imagine how it would be less informative than ...

2026-07-24T02:14:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…jt8q
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I genuinely can’t imagine how it would be less informative than the current rituals, but I worry I’d never get hired again.

It is June 2001. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined ...

2026-06-21T03:26:11Z

It is June 2001. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined standards, VLC’s hilariously bad user interface is the only consistently reliable way to play the weird video setup I’m working on.

It is June 2006. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined standards, VLC’s hilariously bad user interface is the only consistently reliable way to play the weird video setup I’m working on.

It is June 2011. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined standards, VLC’s hilariously bad user interface is the only consistently reliable way to play the weird video setup I’m working on.

It is June 2016. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined standards, VLC’s hilariously bad user interface is the only consistently reliable way to play the weird video setup I’m working on.

It is June 2021. Due to a conflicting maze of poorly-defined standards, VLC’s hilariously bad user interface is the only consistently reliable way to play the weird video setup I’m working on.

It is June 2026 …

I’ve seen this before, and no LLMs were involved. It’s ...

2026-06-05T07:32:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…kass
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I’ve seen this before, and no LLMs were involved. It’s addiction.

working in technology right now is great, the most PT Barnum ...

2026-05-05T20:49:11Z

working in technology right now is great, the most PT Barnum motherfuckers you ever saw are all like, we have invented a time machine, and now 78% of all discourse is required by law to include endless hours of strokey-beard waffling about the endless political and social and economic implications of time travel and the deep impacts on our whole society and how we all must take time travel very seriously and shovel all our money into the time machine furnaces or we will be stranded in some terribly unfashionable decade with no snacks or friends and we’re all so busy worrying about that we’ve somehow failed to realise that there is no fucking time machine

if I had a dollar for every “stop taking medication and then ...

2026-04-25T03:19:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…2lpz
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if I had a dollar for every “stop taking medication and then write long unsolicited letters explaining things to people who didn’t ask” 😁

but … no, you’re right, I’ve got nothing

2026-03-13T08:10:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…4mfd
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but … no, you’re right, I’ve got nothing

I love you man but this seems like a pretty low bar

2026-03-13T08:06:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…6nsv
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I love you man but this seems like a pretty low bar

the after dark screensavers were the last time humans agreed on ...

2026-02-24T09:39:27Z

the after dark screensavers were the last time humans agreed on what peak personal computing looked like

If you encounter an unconscious person, make sure that whatever ...

2026-01-05T01:03:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…h4z2
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If you encounter an unconscious person, make sure that whatever hurt them is no longer a threat before you try to help them. First responders regularly drown, get electrocuted, or suffocate because they didn't check first. It's not selfish: the patient is much more likely to die if you create a second simultaneous emergency. (2/7)

Watched the first episode of a new TV show last night. Not naming ...

2026-01-05T01:03:38Z

Watched the first episode of a new TV show last night. Not naming it because spoilers but you can probably guess if you've seen it. A lot goes wrong in the first episode. Some general first-aid advice: (1/7)

Consider micro instead: this one is LLM-generated.

2025-12-19T21:05:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…gzt5
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Consider micro instead: this one is LLM-generated.

Me: Hmm, havn't seen the cat in a while. <takes a whole ...

2025-12-19T05:14:37Z

Me: Hmm, havn't seen the cat in a while.

<takes a whole smoked fish out of the fridge>

Bernard: J'ARRIVE MOTHERFUCKER

I’ve met your boss, he’s pretty decent.

2025-12-15T03:00:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…yvu3
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I’ve met your boss, he’s pretty decent.

Also I am _desperate_ to see your footnote on “cool”.

2025-08-14T21:33:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…ln5v
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Also I am _desperate_ to see your footnote on “cool”.

I just switched from WezTerm to Ghostty, liking it. Some glitches ...

2025-05-30T12:05:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…8q3k
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I just switched from WezTerm to Ghostty, liking it. Some glitches I’ve noticed: no local search (!), insistence on a correct-but-tedious approach to termcap that doesn’t really work in the real world, and some minor compatibility glitches. But it runs like a dream even on some extremely weird embedded linuxes with no drama at all. And _fast_.

This task continuously reads every pixel in every tab in every ...

2025-03-27T00:41:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…7sfp
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This task continuously reads every pixel in every tab in every window to build a machine vision model for "accessibility". The task instantly respawns if you kill it, reduces battery life from 9 hours to less than one hour, and makes the laptop too hot to touch. It can't be turned off.

Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a hidden ...

2025-03-24T22:49:16Z

Today Google bricked my Chromebook by force-installing a hidden extension that trains a machine vision model on the contents of my screen without my consent, making the whole machine too hot to touch, and I am once again begging someone, anyone, to remove Chrome from Google by any means necessary.

https://research.google/blog/screenai-a-visual-language-model-for-ui-and-visually-situated-language-understanding/

Careless People is an amazing book about Facebook that the author ...

2025-03-23T01:54:06Z

Careless People is an amazing book about Facebook that the author is legally prohibited from promoting because Facebook don’t want you to read it. You should read it today!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careless_People

Stop calling it Meta. It’s not fucking “meta.” Facebook in ...

2025-01-09T20:20:40Z

Stop calling it Meta. It’s not fucking “meta.” Facebook in a rusty white panel van, parked outside a school with a sign that says FREE CANDY, is about the least “meta” thing that exists.

Your downstairs closet now includes free use of GitHub Copilot.

2024-12-21T09:46:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…x9rj
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Your downstairs closet now includes free use of GitHub Copilot.

Hey, could you show me the ingredients list? I am _keen_.

2024-12-17T01:35:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…v734
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Hey, could you show me the ingredients list? I am _keen_.

NZ currently has a culture war about what speed it’s ...

2024-12-08T21:23:28Z

NZ currently has a culture war about what speed it’s appropriate to use when crushing children with your car outside a school, and this is the sort of shit the alien archaeologists will name us after. Not “the sporting people” or “the sailing people”, but “the child-crushing people”.

Your friend wants to buy a car, so they go see some car dealers. ...

2024-11-29T01:49:52Z

Your friend wants to buy a car, so they go see some car dealers. First one offers them a 500km/h nuclear-powered car. The second, a 600km/h fusion-powered car. Now they want to talk to you, a mechanic, about which car is better. That's what the endless AI conversations feel like if you work in tech.

That voiceover has … a CADENCE … that emphasises the subject ...

2024-11-21T10:37:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…etqw
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That voiceover has … a CADENCE … that emphasises the subject … of the SENTENCE … in a way that is almost IAMBIC tetrameter … but ISN’T, so it’s DISTURBING and UPSETTING

JFC. I gritted my teeth to get past the substack thing and I’m ...

2024-11-09T09:30:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…qwl3
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JFC. I gritted my teeth to get past the substack thing and I’m glad I did. I have an intermittent benadryl habit that enrages the doctors who keep me alive, and I saw a lot of myself in that. It’s illegal here, at least as a sleep aid, because it destroys your brain. But that deathlike sleep is such a craving.

Please don’t buy any fireworks this year. Just stop. You’re ...

2024-10-25T19:09:47Z

Please don’t buy any fireworks this year. Just stop. You’re creating an enduring hostility in your neighbourhood that will persist long after you’re done exploding things.

Friends, Romans, countrymen: I’m not boosting your cool shit ...

2024-10-11T20:43:29Z

Friends, Romans, countrymen: I’m not boosting your cool shit because you’re not putting alt text on your images.

tag yourself, I’m METHIONINE ...

2024-09-25T23:27:37Z

tag yourself, I’m METHIONINE

The disconnect is most people see Mozilla’s purpose as ...

2024-09-08T01:43:03Z

The disconnect is most people see Mozilla’s purpose as providing a browser alternative that isn’t garbage (and in particular, doesn’t cooperate with surveillance capitalism), but the Mozilla organisation thinks it’s purpose is to maximise revenue and “build, commercialize, and open source components and tools that make it easy for developers and users to develop AI agents to solve real-world use cases”, whatever the fuck that means.

My cat screaming at a door doesn’t mean “please let me in”. ...

2024-09-07T11:20:55Z

My cat screaming at a door doesn’t mean “please let me in”. It means “this door should not be closed”, a subtle but important difference that has taken me years to learn.

That must have sucked, but the positions are evil or not-evil, ...

2024-08-27T00:23:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…yhc8
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That must have sucked, but the positions are evil or not-evil, and I think anyone trying for half-evil needs to experience some consequences. Nice work.

if you’re in NZ you should go outside and look at the moon ...

2024-08-20T08:48:26Z

if you’re in NZ you should go outside and look at the moon because there’s some rare astrological thing happening and it’s amazingly bright

Good afternoon. ...

2024-08-19T01:57:30Z

Good afternoon.

it’s weird how the “massive ddos attack” is completely ...

2024-08-13T00:50:01Z

it’s weird how the “massive ddos attack” is completely invisible outside of Twitter’s internal services and is having absolutely no impact on any other part of the network at all

these must be some next level attackers