Matthew Prast
@mprast.bsky.social
Writing the Nerve Blog - long-form essays on tech, culture, and the craft of programming. Check it out at https://the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/!
I've sometimes heard people say "oh you can't trust AI to get things right the first time, you have to ask it to correct itself" and that seems circular?? Like why would I trust it to get it right the second time if it can't do it right the first time
November 14, 2025 at 11:40 PM
I've sometimes heard people say "oh you can't trust AI to get things right the first time, you have to ask it to correct itself" and that seems circular?? Like why would I trust it to get it right the second time if it can't do it right the first time
I write a piece about things I've learned about programming and life by way of distance running: the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/learning-fro...
Learning from running
In 2005, Steve Jobs told the graduating class of Stanford a now-famous story about connecting the dots - a story about the calligraphy courses he took in his college years, which later influenced the ...
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io
November 12, 2025 at 9:11 PM
I write a piece about things I've learned about programming and life by way of distance running: the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/learning-fro...
Unfortunately I learned today that you can now bet on what words will be said during a press conference and I think that is the compulsive gambler's version of drinking Listerine 👎
October 31, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Unfortunately I learned today that you can now bet on what words will be said during a press conference and I think that is the compulsive gambler's version of drinking Listerine 👎
there's something so je ne sais quoi about the phrase "he was the Engimatic Fashion Lizard", I can't get it out of my head
I'm unreasonably upset at this flattening of Garak into Fashion Lizard,he was the Enigmatic Fashion Lizard and this cannot be erased
October 25, 2025 at 8:46 AM
there's something so je ne sais quoi about the phrase "he was the Engimatic Fashion Lizard", I can't get it out of my head
I'm using tailscale to connect to a nextjs dev server on a different machine. Something that's obvious but that I never thought about is that hot reloading works over the remote connection, so I can edit stuff on one machine and it instantly changes on the other. I think that's VERY cool
October 25, 2025 at 5:03 AM
I'm using tailscale to connect to a nextjs dev server on a different machine. Something that's obvious but that I never thought about is that hot reloading works over the remote connection, so I can edit stuff on one machine and it instantly changes on the other. I think that's VERY cool
ALL I'm saying is: go through your article once, find every instance of "This isn't <x>, it's <y>", and just change it to something else. Every time I see that phrase I know you literally copy/pasted the output
October 23, 2025 at 10:10 PM
ALL I'm saying is: go through your article once, find every instance of "This isn't <x>, it's <y>", and just change it to something else. Every time I see that phrase I know you literally copy/pasted the output
I blatantly overused GraphQL at my startup and it's actually turning out great: the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/ion-graphql-...
Ion: GraphQL on the backend (and everywhere else)
At Nerve, whenever I fetch any data from anywhere, I use a GraphQL-style query to do it.
Hear me out! Hear me out. I can feel your rage through the screen, but I've been using this approach on a subs...
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io
October 20, 2025 at 7:52 PM
I blatantly overused GraphQL at my startup and it's actually turning out great: the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/ion-graphql-...
At Nerve we believe that developer infrastructure is very important and we try very hard to get it right. We recently wrote up a deep dive explaining the techniques we used to try and build a CI pipeline that excels along several different dimensions:
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/quick-stable...
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/quick-stable...
Quick, stable, self-contained: how we think about CI at Nerve
Right after college I spent two years at Microsoft, working on an internal pipeline that handled real-time telemetry data for Hotmail, OneDrive (SkyDrive back then), and some other major services. All...
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io
May 8, 2025 at 7:47 AM
At Nerve we believe that developer infrastructure is very important and we try very hard to get it right. We recently wrote up a deep dive explaining the techniques we used to try and build a CI pipeline that excels along several different dimensions:
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/quick-stable...
the-nerve-blog.ghost.io/quick-stable...
this might be my all-time favorite post
they should invent complex systems that never fail
April 30, 2025 at 7:25 AM
this might be my all-time favorite post
two days ago I wanted pizza but I had to work so now it's time for Friday Revenge Pizza
March 22, 2025 at 2:11 AM
two days ago I wanted pizza but I had to work so now it's time for Friday Revenge Pizza
this is an application of LLMs I'm personally very excited about medium.com/airbnb-engin...
Accelerating Large-Scale Test Migration with LLMs
How Airbnb migrated nearly 3.5K Enzyme test files to React Testing Library in just 6 weeks using automation and LLMs
medium.com
March 21, 2025 at 1:20 AM
this is an application of LLMs I'm personally very excited about medium.com/airbnb-engin...
respectfully:
1) the overton window has been distorted by some truly extreme marketing re: AI's capabilities and future. views typically labeled as "anti-AI" range from "it's completely worthless" all the way to "LLMs will probably not be a suitable replacement for humans in every single case" /1
1) the overton window has been distorted by some truly extreme marketing re: AI's capabilities and future. views typically labeled as "anti-AI" range from "it's completely worthless" all the way to "LLMs will probably not be a suitable replacement for humans in every single case" /1
in addition to the substantive points Ethan raises, the fact that much of bluesky is actively hostile to AI means the ML/AI community isn't likely to ever move here, which means they keep passively basking in the lunacy of the other place, which is good for nobody (well, almost nobody)
This trend seems to be growing here.
False comfort that AI doesn’t work or that it isn’t getting better is pervasive on Blue Sky. As a result, people who could add important points of view to current discussions on the meaning & use of AI instead try to believe they don’t have to think about it.
False comfort that AI doesn’t work or that it isn’t getting better is pervasive on Blue Sky. As a result, people who could add important points of view to current discussions on the meaning & use of AI instead try to believe they don’t have to think about it.
March 20, 2025 at 10:02 PM
respectfully:
1) the overton window has been distorted by some truly extreme marketing re: AI's capabilities and future. views typically labeled as "anti-AI" range from "it's completely worthless" all the way to "LLMs will probably not be a suitable replacement for humans in every single case" /1
1) the overton window has been distorted by some truly extreme marketing re: AI's capabilities and future. views typically labeled as "anti-AI" range from "it's completely worthless" all the way to "LLMs will probably not be a suitable replacement for humans in every single case" /1
see these are coooool www.brooksrunning.com/en_us/mens/s...
March 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM
see these are coooool www.brooksrunning.com/en_us/mens/s...
Reposted by Matthew Prast
Excellent post discussing whether "AI progress is slowing down".
www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-prog...
And if you're not subscribed to @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social 's great newsletter, what are you waiting for?
www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-prog...
And if you're not subscribed to @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social 's great newsletter, what are you waiting for?
Is AI progress slowing down?
Making sense of recent technology trends and claims
www.aisnakeoil.com
December 19, 2024 at 11:57 PM
Excellent post discussing whether "AI progress is slowing down".
www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-prog...
And if you're not subscribed to @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social 's great newsletter, what are you waiting for?
www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-prog...
And if you're not subscribed to @randomwalker.bsky.social and @sayash.bsky.social 's great newsletter, what are you waiting for?
Reposted by Matthew Prast
Excited to soft launch recipe.exchange - a clean, simple way to share recipes on the AT Protocol. No ads, no clutter, just recipes. Post, search, share, and like. You own your data. Still more features to come, but would love early feedback from fellow food enthusiasts! recipe.exchange
December 11, 2024 at 10:57 PM
Excited to soft launch recipe.exchange - a clean, simple way to share recipes on the AT Protocol. No ads, no clutter, just recipes. Post, search, share, and like. You own your data. Still more features to come, but would love early feedback from fellow food enthusiasts! recipe.exchange
i guess i can go without tiktok (although i do get a lot of recipes from there, so that's kind of a bummer.) what bothers me more is that this ban is flimsy security theater that will do very little to improve the nation's dismal cybersec position
December 6, 2024 at 10:54 PM
i guess i can go without tiktok (although i do get a lot of recipes from there, so that's kind of a bummer.) what bothers me more is that this ban is flimsy security theater that will do very little to improve the nation's dismal cybersec position
the more I use AI the more I'm convinced the killer app is documentation. it's *ok* at writing code, but honestly I find myself relying on it less and less as the novelty wears off. when I'm using a language or framework I'm unfamiliar with and need someone to consult, it's incredible
December 6, 2024 at 2:30 AM
the more I use AI the more I'm convinced the killer app is documentation. it's *ok* at writing code, but honestly I find myself relying on it less and less as the novelty wears off. when I'm using a language or framework I'm unfamiliar with and need someone to consult, it's incredible
1) people think e*on is a genius,
but
2) he bought twitter and drove it into the ground, which kind of contradicts 1)
but
3) his twitter stakeholders are getting a huge payout anyway from his new AI company which raised a ton of money
because
1) everyone thinks he's a genius
but
2) he bought twitter and drove it into the ground, which kind of contradicts 1)
but
3) his twitter stakeholders are getting a huge payout anyway from his new AI company which raised a ton of money
because
1) everyone thinks he's a genius
December 4, 2024 at 5:11 AM
1) people think e*on is a genius,
but
2) he bought twitter and drove it into the ground, which kind of contradicts 1)
but
3) his twitter stakeholders are getting a huge payout anyway from his new AI company which raised a ton of money
because
1) everyone thinks he's a genius
but
2) he bought twitter and drove it into the ground, which kind of contradicts 1)
but
3) his twitter stakeholders are getting a huge payout anyway from his new AI company which raised a ton of money
because
1) everyone thinks he's a genius
i know this is a joke but i feel like there's a palpable difference between companies that make money by making the customer happy and companies that make money by relentlessly optimizing their margins, and the second kind often charges more
$100/night hotel: hi. we have you for 3 nights. checkout’s whenever. enjoy the 24 hour gym & pool that smell like chlorine & feet, in that order. unlimited breakfast - you can eat costco sausages til you die for all we care
$275/night hotel: OHHH, so his royal highness expects FREE WIFI, does he???
$275/night hotel: OHHH, so his royal highness expects FREE WIFI, does he???
December 1, 2024 at 10:29 PM
i know this is a joke but i feel like there's a palpable difference between companies that make money by making the customer happy and companies that make money by relentlessly optimizing their margins, and the second kind often charges more
the finished gingerbread! this is nigella lawson's recipe www.nigella.com/recipes/fres...
December 1, 2024 at 9:26 PM
the finished gingerbread! this is nigella lawson's recipe www.nigella.com/recipes/fres...
tomorrow I'm gonna try making gingerbread, so today I made my own golden syrup (please excuse my Goblin Handwriting)
November 28, 2024 at 8:01 AM
tomorrow I'm gonna try making gingerbread, so today I made my own golden syrup (please excuse my Goblin Handwriting)
Second Contrarian Opinion: Agile is a good, simple idea that got seminared into spaghetti (maybe this take is actually mainstream, idk)
November 27, 2024 at 8:27 AM
Second Contrarian Opinion: Agile is a good, simple idea that got seminared into spaghetti (maybe this take is actually mainstream, idk)