Anthony Cowley
@acowley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Functional roboticist. Robots, Haskell, Rust, nix, emacs, FPV… and the rest of life, too.
[bridged from https://mastodon.social/@acowley on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
[bridged from https://mastodon.social/@acowley on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
Interesting how discussions about how the iPhone Air should/must have at least two cameras to be a compelling product differ so evenly as to whether the second camera should be wider or narrower (zoom).
November 11, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Interesting how discussions about how the iPhone Air should/must have at least two cameras to be a compelling product differ so evenly as to whether the second camera should be wider or narrower (zoom).
This skewering of the tech industry day to day is incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Too real. https://youtu.be/VCivp2qnhr8?si=SUCBGEE2bwyRW1oa
November 6, 2025 at 3:03 AM
This skewering of the tech industry day to day is incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Too real. https://youtu.be/VCivp2qnhr8?si=SUCBGEE2bwyRW1oa
Not sure how to feel about it when you tell an LLM where its made a mistake in some code, and then it acknowledges and accurately classifies the kind of bug it is (data race in a Cuda kernel doing a shared memory reduction). It’s amazing, but also somehow very not encouraging.
October 30, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Not sure how to feel about it when you tell an LLM where its made a mistake in some code, and then it acknowledges and accurately classifies the kind of bug it is (data race in a Cuda kernel doing a shared memory reduction). It’s amazing, but also somehow very not encouraging.
Best ad for computer programming I've seen in quite some time! https://youtu.be/GWXCCBsOMSg?si=JG_14opzDFwsiPKM
October 28, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Best ad for computer programming I've seen in quite some time! https://youtu.be/GWXCCBsOMSg?si=JG_14opzDFwsiPKM
This is a great interview. I really appreciate that despite the superficial bluntness of the term he's now famous for, Doctorow tries to highlight nuance and acknowledge universal human weaknesses. https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115389053948101305
Ars Technica (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Yes, everything online sucks now—but it doesn’t have to Ars chats with Cory Doctorow about his new book Enshittification . https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/yes-everything-online-sucks-now-but-it-doesnt-have-to/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm;_social-type=owned&utm;_source=mastodon&utm;_medium=social
mastodon.social
October 17, 2025 at 1:05 PM
This is a great interview. I really appreciate that despite the superficial bluntness of the term he's now famous for, Doctorow tries to highlight nuance and acknowledge universal human weaknesses. https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115389053948101305
Woof, trying out a tutorial and it has all these nice steps for using hosted notebooks. Here's where we install the dependencies... but the tutorial is several months old and so the dependencies don't actually install properly and I guess that's the end of that.
It often feels like the hole […]
It often feels like the hole […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 13, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Woof, trying out a tutorial and it has all these nice steps for using hosted notebooks. Here's where we install the dependencies... but the tutorial is several months old and so the dependencies don't actually install properly and I guess that's the end of that.
It often feels like the hole […]
It often feels like the hole […]
Oh, boy: an infotainment software update pushed on a Friday that shuts down a car while it’s driving. Lot of bad things coming together there.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/
arstechnica.com
October 13, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Oh, boy: an infotainment software update pushed on a Friday that shuts down a car while it’s driving. Lot of bad things coming together there.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/
Something that bugs me about discussions on reshoring manufacturing is that people will say things like, “We got a quote from a domestic manufacturer, and it was twice what we're currently paying. Total non-starter!” There are many facets to what's going on, but at least one is that somebody is […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 11, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Something that bugs me about discussions on reshoring manufacturing is that people will say things like, “We got a quote from a domestic manufacturer, and it was twice what we're currently paying. Total non-starter!” There are many facets to what's going on, but at least one is that somebody is […]
Figure's new humanoid #robot looks really impressive. It'll be really interesting to see if palm cameras and a little bit of tactile sensing in finger tips is enough for consistent performance in delicate manipulation tasks. https://www.figure.ai/news/introducing-figure-03
Introducing Figure 03
Introducing Figure 03
www.figure.ai
October 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Figure's new humanoid #robot looks really impressive. It'll be really interesting to see if palm cameras and a little bit of tactile sensing in finger tips is enough for consistent performance in delicate manipulation tasks. https://www.figure.ai/news/introducing-figure-03
The anti-anti-AI rhetoric in my feeds has reached a pitch that circles back around to demonization and conspiracies. I find memes like this to be a useful touchstone: you often have both banal interactions and insidious trends and influences at the same time.
October 9, 2025 at 12:42 PM
The anti-anti-AI rhetoric in my feeds has reached a pitch that circles back around to demonization and conspiracies. I find memes like this to be a useful touchstone: you often have both banal interactions and insidious trends and influences at the same time.
A question for folks who have felt the weight of the yoke of Jira: is it that you could make a better Jira, or is it that Jira reflects and amplifies certain management ideas to a point of self-injury?
October 9, 2025 at 12:13 PM
A question for folks who have felt the weight of the yoke of Jira: is it that you could make a better Jira, or is it that Jira reflects and amplifies certain management ideas to a point of self-injury?
After a string of good to very good shows on Apple TV+ I ended up feeling burned by Smoke so gave other streaming services a chance, and was reminded how that can go. So it's been great to have Slow Horses back. The show certainly isn’t for everyone, but it's amazing how well executed it is for […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 9, 2025 at 12:10 PM
After a string of good to very good shows on Apple TV+ I ended up feeling burned by Smoke so gave other streaming services a chance, and was reminded how that can go. So it's been great to have Slow Horses back. The show certainly isn’t for everyone, but it's amazing how well executed it is for […]
Reposted by Anthony Cowley
Today I saw someone toot, in dismay, people are posting their everyday life to Mastodon when they could simply buy a diary for $1.99. I can't stop thinking about this.
What if this is all they have? What if they're isolated with or without people in their life? What if the only kind word they […]
What if this is all they have? What if they're isolated with or without people in their life? What if the only kind word they […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
October 6, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Today I saw someone toot, in dismay, people are posting their everyday life to Mastodon when they could simply buy a diary for $1.99. I can't stop thinking about this.
What if this is all they have? What if they're isolated with or without people in their life? What if the only kind word they […]
What if this is all they have? What if they're isolated with or without people in their life? What if the only kind word they […]
Whenever I bump into Passkeys I'm reminded of how bad an impression that entire technology made by promoting a model that would further lock you into a big tech co’s ecosystem. It was so extreme that not only did the tech itself burn its credibility, but I lost trust in commentators recommending […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
September 30, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Whenever I bump into Passkeys I'm reminded of how bad an impression that entire technology made by promoting a model that would further lock you into a big tech co’s ecosystem. It was so extreme that not only did the tech itself burn its credibility, but I lost trust in commentators recommending […]
A sunny #silentsunday in New Jersey.
September 15, 2025 at 12:37 AM
A sunny #silentsunday in New Jersey.
I keep finding myself with complaints about the available basic Lean 4 tutorials. I think that relying on `rfl` too early is not helpful. Also don’t love how typeclasses are brought in so quickly and how unfolding the instance definitions is so hairy.
August 8, 2025 at 2:01 PM
I keep finding myself with complaints about the available basic Lean 4 tutorials. I think that relying on `rfl` too early is not helpful. Also don’t love how typeclasses are brought in so quickly and how unfolding the instance definitions is so hairy.
OSS users being hostile to new users of the software is so bizarre. New users have questions, you think onboarding could be better to reduce those questions but aren’t able to (or don’t want to) invest in that onboarding, so you instead make it harder in order to discourage new users. What is that?
August 7, 2025 at 12:18 PM
OSS users being hostile to new users of the software is so bizarre. New users have questions, you think onboarding could be better to reduce those questions but aren’t able to (or don’t want to) invest in that onboarding, so you instead make it harder in order to discourage new users. What is that?
bitluni is amazing: 160 RISC-V cores acting as a GPU on an NVME PCBA. The combination of discipline expertise and sheer grit is awesome! https://youtu.be/HRfbQJ6FdF0?si=mj2TRx2WsDsr8ued
July 22, 2025 at 12:53 AM
bitluni is amazing: 160 RISC-V cores acting as a GPU on an NVME PCBA. The combination of discipline expertise and sheer grit is awesome! https://youtu.be/HRfbQJ6FdF0?si=mj2TRx2WsDsr8ued
Something I don't understand about this story of lawyers using AI is why it matters that they used AI. If you have a process for dealing with incompetence or malpractice, then you're there […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
July 21, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Something I don't understand about this story of lawyers using AI is why it matters that they used AI. If you have a process for dealing with incompetence or malpractice, then you're there […]
Interesting comments on the GHC #haskell proposal process. I don't think language proposals are like academic papers as the sense of authorship is very different. A paper is not going to be just the way *I’d* write it, and that’s totally fine! The author chose to emphasize different things. But […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
July 18, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Interesting comments on the GHC #haskell proposal process. I don't think language proposals are like academic papers as the sense of authorship is very different. A paper is not going to be just the way *I’d* write it, and that’s totally fine! The author chose to emphasize different things. But […]
Interesting look at using solar panels to provide shade for farmland. There’s a lot of benefit in that you help some crops while having your shade provider itself generate money, and in fact function better thanks to the crops it is helping. A limitation is that they’re looking at small scale […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
July 11, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Interesting look at using solar panels to provide shade for farmland. There’s a lot of benefit in that you help some crops while having your shade provider itself generate money, and in fact function better thanks to the crops it is helping. A limitation is that they’re looking at small scale […]
Reposted by Anthony Cowley
This is exactly what the internet is for.
July 8, 2025 at 8:36 PM
This is exactly what the internet is for.
Great article from Matt Mason on the advantages of vaccuum grippers in warehouse settings in a time when humanoid #robotics is getting all the press coverage. The analogy with the wheel is great. Play to your strengths, engineers! https://mtmason.com/vacuum-grippers-versus-robot-hands/
mtmason.com
July 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Great article from Matt Mason on the advantages of vaccuum grippers in warehouse settings in a time when humanoid #robotics is getting all the press coverage. The analogy with the wheel is great. Play to your strengths, engineers! https://mtmason.com/vacuum-grippers-versus-robot-hands/
Reposted by Anthony Cowley
The is diabolical... a Python object that hallucinates method implementations on demand any time you call them, using my LLM Python library https://github.com/awwaiid/gremllm
July 4, 2025 at 5:40 PM
The is diabolical... a Python object that hallucinates method implementations on demand any time you call them, using my LLM Python library https://github.com/awwaiid/gremllm
Came across some OSS drama where folks were bitter about how devs were spending their funding. I really hope we can get to a world where devs contributing to open source can spend what compensation they get without such scrutiny.
July 5, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Came across some OSS drama where folks were bitter about how devs were spending their funding. I really hope we can get to a world where devs contributing to open source can spend what compensation they get without such scrutiny.