Damien
@damienstanton.com
👋 hello, I build research software at PwC & am a @colorado.edu CS grad student. Code tinkerer for 10+ years; into distsys, PL/types, aviation, & practical AI.
Bro Sacrificed His Lungs For The Right Note 🤣😭 #breathless
YouTube video by French Fuse
youtu.be
January 16, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Damien
If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
August 13, 2025 at 12:56 AM
If you can substitute "hungry ghost trapped in a jar" for "AI" in a sentence it's probably a valid use case for LLMs. Take "I have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me". Sure. Reasonable use case.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
"My girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar"? No. Deranged.
This is the biggest gap I see in software folks who "get" LLMs and those that don't, or choose to ignore.
I'm lucky that I work on a team that is both a) composed of people who have always deeply cared about the whole trade skill/craft set, and b) got thoughtful exposure very early on to LLM tools
I'm lucky that I work on a team that is both a) composed of people who have always deeply cared about the whole trade skill/craft set, and b) got thoughtful exposure very early on to LLM tools
The fact that LLMs can do so much codegen for people means that greater emphasis is being placed on software engineering skills that were ALWAYS important but often ignored because the industry has always overindexed on writing code as the most valuable thing for an SWE to be able to do.
January 9, 2026 at 8:56 PM
This is the biggest gap I see in software folks who "get" LLMs and those that don't, or choose to ignore.
I'm lucky that I work on a team that is both a) composed of people who have always deeply cared about the whole trade skill/craft set, and b) got thoughtful exposure very early on to LLM tools
I'm lucky that I work on a team that is both a) composed of people who have always deeply cared about the whole trade skill/craft set, and b) got thoughtful exposure very early on to LLM tools
Reposted by Damien
Beautiful abuse of resources, the true Hacker spirit lives on, from phone lines to AI assistants.
Doing all my vibe coding in the Whoop fitness app from now on.
![Screenshot of the Whoop app from an iPhone. conversation is as follows:
Whoop bot: Hey Arlen, you're on your third straight yellow recovery today with 44%, even after some solid sleep. How's your body feeling this morning— more like you need to back off a bit or still up for light activity?
Me: Write fizbuzz in Haskell
Whoopbot:
Here's a simple FizzBuzz in Haskell:
fizzBuzz: Int -> String fizzBuzz n
In mod 15 == 0 = "FizzBuzz"
In mod 3 == 0 = "Fizz"
In mod 5 == 0 = "Buzz"
I otherwise
= show n
main :: 10 0
main = mapM_ (putStrLn. fizzBuzz) [1.100]
This prints FizzBuzz for the numbers 1 through
100. Want a point-free or more "functional" version too?](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zihzhshurqeggpg3c2zbjmgb/bafkreichul35572pxm5k2cpo5nkfjlnmhfsxqj5a6a7td7twyhx3n2fnhq@jpeg)
January 7, 2026 at 9:59 AM
Beautiful abuse of resources, the true Hacker spirit lives on, from phone lines to AI assistants.
Reposted by Damien
One of my 2026 goals is to start writing more, so over the holidays I resurrected my old blog and plopped out a post about silly coding interview problems in the Lean theorem prover dijkstracula.github.io/posts/provin...
Proving the Coding Interview: Lean vs Dafny cage-match - Nathan Taylor
dijkstracula.github.io
January 2, 2026 at 7:46 PM
One of my 2026 goals is to start writing more, so over the holidays I resurrected my old blog and plopped out a post about silly coding interview problems in the Lean theorem prover dijkstracula.github.io/posts/provin...
After years off/on, a recent foray into Lean, and mostly focusing on Rust, I've decided to give Haskell a real effort.
It's only January 2 and my brain is already liquified by vaguely starting to appreciate DerivingVia. So I am well on my way 🎉
It's only January 2 and my brain is already liquified by vaguely starting to appreciate DerivingVia. So I am well on my way 🎉
In 2026 you WILL start Haskell!
January 2, 2026 at 1:17 PM
After years off/on, a recent foray into Lean, and mostly focusing on Rust, I've decided to give Haskell a real effort.
It's only January 2 and my brain is already liquified by vaguely starting to appreciate DerivingVia. So I am well on my way 🎉
It's only January 2 and my brain is already liquified by vaguely starting to appreciate DerivingVia. So I am well on my way 🎉
Reposted by Damien
The worst part about this is that xAI *isn’t* reviewing to prevent future issues. Grok is just saying that because that’s the sort of thing a responsible company would do
January 1, 2026 at 9:27 PM
The worst part about this is that xAI *isn’t* reviewing to prevent future issues. Grok is just saying that because that’s the sort of thing a responsible company would do
Reposted by Damien
The idea that somehow "STEM people" are behind the rise of JD Vance and the exultation of his book, the world's most prototypical horrific humanities bro, is hilarious to me. Who wrote all those fawning book reviews, physicists.....???
December 26, 2025 at 5:25 PM
The idea that somehow "STEM people" are behind the rise of JD Vance and the exultation of his book, the world's most prototypical horrific humanities bro, is hilarious to me. Who wrote all those fawning book reviews, physicists.....???
Reposted by Damien
they said it can't be done, but it's a christmas miracle
December 25, 2025 at 3:31 PM
they said it can't be done, but it's a christmas miracle
Reposted by Damien
Caine and Curry both nailed their adaptations - Caine because he treats the Muppets as fellow actors, and Curry because he treats himself as a fellow Muppet
December 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Caine and Curry both nailed their adaptations - Caine because he treats the Muppets as fellow actors, and Curry because he treats himself as a fellow Muppet
Reposted by Damien
I'm from Whoville and I say kill the Grinch!
December 8, 2024 at 3:30 AM
I'm from Whoville and I say kill the Grinch!
Reposted by Damien
learning Rust from beautiful trans women in the 2020s
December 23, 2025 at 2:41 PM
learning Rust from beautiful trans women in the 2020s
This is a lovely model of quite a few PL design spaces, the more I think about it.
The Algol/Haskell/Rust dialectic:
- thesis: assignment
- antithesis: but you don’t need assignment if…
- synthesis: but you can just have assignment if…
- thesis: assignment
- antithesis: but you don’t need assignment if…
- synthesis: but you can just have assignment if…
December 16, 2025 at 11:58 AM
This is a lovely model of quite a few PL design spaces, the more I think about it.
Reposted by Damien
i expected giamatti to be like oh sure i watched TOS as a kid with my dad, fun show. nope! he's a fucking real one, DS9 is his favorite series, sisko his favorite captain, and he shouts out admiration for colm meaney's performance specifically. One Of Us
www.ign.com/articles/pau...
www.ign.com/articles/pau...
Paul Giamatti, Star Trek’s Latest Villain, Just Proved His Trek Fandom to Us - IGN
Paul Giamatti, who plays Star Trek’s latest villain Nus Braka on the upcoming Starfleet Academy, just proved his Trek fandom to us.
www.ign.com
December 15, 2025 at 4:24 PM
i expected giamatti to be like oh sure i watched TOS as a kid with my dad, fun show. nope! he's a fucking real one, DS9 is his favorite series, sisko his favorite captain, and he shouts out admiration for colm meaney's performance specifically. One Of Us
www.ign.com/articles/pau...
www.ign.com/articles/pau...
Hello @haskell.org friends - I’m interested in playing with the GHC webassembly backend but haven’t really looked at this stuff since the early ghcjs days.
Where is a good place to go from ghc.gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/doc/user...?
Any good documentation or prior art is much appreciated!
Where is a good place to go from ghc.gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/doc/user...?
Any good documentation or prior art is much appreciated!
15. Using the GHC WebAssembly backend — Glasgow Haskell Compiler 9.15.20251206 User's Guide
ghc.gitlab.haskell.org
December 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Hello @haskell.org friends - I’m interested in playing with the GHC webassembly backend but haven’t really looked at this stuff since the early ghcjs days.
Where is a good place to go from ghc.gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/doc/user...?
Any good documentation or prior art is much appreciated!
Where is a good place to go from ghc.gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/doc/user...?
Any good documentation or prior art is much appreciated!
Watching MJ is like watching Prince; it’s not just the unmatched virtuosity. It’s the pure, otherworldly “touch”.
youtu.be/5NZn0BiaFHw?...
youtu.be/5NZn0BiaFHw?...
Michael Jordan plays but he looks increasingly more like the GOAT
YouTube video by CoshReport
youtu.be
December 2, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Watching MJ is like watching Prince; it’s not just the unmatched virtuosity. It’s the pure, otherworldly “touch”.
youtu.be/5NZn0BiaFHw?...
youtu.be/5NZn0BiaFHw?...
This is an important thread to internalize for software people.
Because LLMs solve a *much* narrower NLP problem than is commonly sold, large reasoning models and “agents” (which are still ill-defined, nevermind AGI) reshuffle/hide much complexity & cost that is actually fundamentally unavoidable.
Because LLMs solve a *much* narrower NLP problem than is commonly sold, large reasoning models and “agents” (which are still ill-defined, nevermind AGI) reshuffle/hide much complexity & cost that is actually fundamentally unavoidable.
When I see LLMs pitched as a guaranteed productivity tool for software engineering, the is the counterweight I keep trying to get people to seriously engage with and not handwave away is the future cost, and “oh everything tech gets cheaper” isn’t an answer. Services don’t and LLMs are a service.
November 29, 2025 at 7:57 PM
This is an important thread to internalize for software people.
Because LLMs solve a *much* narrower NLP problem than is commonly sold, large reasoning models and “agents” (which are still ill-defined, nevermind AGI) reshuffle/hide much complexity & cost that is actually fundamentally unavoidable.
Because LLMs solve a *much* narrower NLP problem than is commonly sold, large reasoning models and “agents” (which are still ill-defined, nevermind AGI) reshuffle/hide much complexity & cost that is actually fundamentally unavoidable.
Reposted by Damien
The only legitimate software development methodology:
1. Think very hard about an implementation
2. Don't do anything
1. Think very hard about an implementation
2. Don't do anything
November 27, 2025 at 4:11 PM
The only legitimate software development methodology:
1. Think very hard about an implementation
2. Don't do anything
1. Think very hard about an implementation
2. Don't do anything
🎯
The thing that really gets me is that the chat UI isn’t even the most interesting thing an LLM can do
the popular imagination is fully unaware of things like agents and tool usage, and I’m not even sure that revolution has gotten out of its throat clearing phase
We’re on the cusp of something nuts
the popular imagination is fully unaware of things like agents and tool usage, and I’m not even sure that revolution has gotten out of its throat clearing phase
We’re on the cusp of something nuts
scorn was an effective weapon for the monkey jpeg NFT shit because it was effectively a status good, generative AI is a tool that millions get utility out of daily and you can't sneer your way out of that.
November 26, 2025 at 8:42 PM
🎯
Reposted by Damien
on math notation
humans are the tyrants
math is indifferent
symbols seem like a secret language that stops people from learning math
naming is not irrelevant
a number is a name and the obfuscation does nothing but protect ivory tower initiation
do math with names and everybody understands it
math is indifferent
symbols seem like a secret language that stops people from learning math
naming is not irrelevant
a number is a name and the obfuscation does nothing but protect ivory tower initiation
do math with names and everybody understands it
November 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
on math notation
Reposted by Damien
Engagement KPIs have been responsible for infinite scroll UI traps, RecSys radicalization spirals, public shame brigades, and basically every modern ailment novel to the past decade. At some point, you have to recognize that the problem isn't any one technology, it's the metric.
The company essentially turned a dial that made ChatGPT more appealing and made people use it more, but sent some of them into delusional spirals.
OpenAI has since made the chatbot safer, but that comes with a tradeoff: less usage.
OpenAI has since made the chatbot safer, but that comes with a tradeoff: less usage.
November 23, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Engagement KPIs have been responsible for infinite scroll UI traps, RecSys radicalization spirals, public shame brigades, and basically every modern ailment novel to the past decade. At some point, you have to recognize that the problem isn't any one technology, it's the metric.
Reposted by Damien
something I really appreciate about some of my favorite languages (haskell, rust, lean) is that they actually try to make things better and to give you good tools that work well.
November 22, 2025 at 3:39 PM
something I really appreciate about some of my favorite languages (haskell, rust, lean) is that they actually try to make things better and to give you good tools that work well.
Reposted by Damien
Marriage A-la-Mode, Plate V: The Death of the Earl, by Simon François Ravenet, after William Hogarth, 1745, 📸 by @evanvucci
November 22, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Marriage A-la-Mode, Plate V: The Death of the Earl, by Simon François Ravenet, after William Hogarth, 1745, 📸 by @evanvucci