Isaiah Norton
@ihnorton.bsky.social
Arrays and scientific data at TileDB. Past #julialang contributor. Interested in systems, software and otherwise.
https://github.com/ihnorton
https://github.com/ihnorton
amazing. odds are, someone, somewhere is keeping an old scientific instrument alive using this thing.
November 16, 2025 at 11:47 PM
amazing. odds are, someone, somewhere is keeping an old scientific instrument alive using this thing.
Building a monorepo-ish setup recently, I was wondering how to manage package updates which need to be referenced by hash in subsequent IaC commits… then realized that merge commits cleanly solve this... I tend to prefer linear history, but this is a compelling reason to avoid rebase merges.
October 26, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Building a monorepo-ish setup recently, I was wondering how to manage package updates which need to be referenced by hash in subsequent IaC commits… then realized that merge commits cleanly solve this... I tend to prefer linear history, but this is a compelling reason to avoid rebase merges.
C with the dubious honor of having both flaws at once
I saw a post that claimed they saw a post, but I couldn't find a citation. The post was:
Every programming language has one of two flaws:
* it has macros
* it doesn't have macros
Every programming language has one of two flaws:
* it has macros
* it doesn't have macros
October 17, 2025 at 2:28 AM
C with the dubious honor of having both flaws at once
The LLM knows truth at all times.
It knows truth by knowing what is not-truth.
By subtracting truth from what is not truth, or subtracting not-truth from truth, it obtains a deviation (derivative).
The guidance system uses derivatives to drive the output from what is not true to what is true.
It knows truth by knowing what is not-truth.
By subtracting truth from what is not truth, or subtracting not-truth from truth, it obtains a deviation (derivative).
The guidance system uses derivatives to drive the output from what is not true to what is true.
October 14, 2025 at 2:08 AM
The LLM knows truth at all times.
It knows truth by knowing what is not-truth.
By subtracting truth from what is not truth, or subtracting not-truth from truth, it obtains a deviation (derivative).
The guidance system uses derivatives to drive the output from what is not true to what is true.
It knows truth by knowing what is not-truth.
By subtracting truth from what is not truth, or subtracting not-truth from truth, it obtains a deviation (derivative).
The guidance system uses derivatives to drive the output from what is not true to what is true.
They donned Gumby suits
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand
I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.
I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.
October 12, 2025 at 10:04 PM
They donned Gumby suits
The import tariffs are paid by the recipient upon delivery... Any recipient.
That does seem to present a Rather Unique educational opportunity.
That does seem to present a Rather Unique educational opportunity.
How bad are tariffs going?
I paid for $32 of shaving cream from Canada. Unique stuff I’ve used for years, nothing like it in US. Small family business.
UPS guy came to my door today with box and said I have to pay additional $120 before he can hand it to me.
That makes it 5x more expensive!!! 🤯
I paid for $32 of shaving cream from Canada. Unique stuff I’ve used for years, nothing like it in US. Small family business.
UPS guy came to my door today with box and said I have to pay additional $120 before he can hand it to me.
That makes it 5x more expensive!!! 🤯
October 4, 2025 at 4:35 AM
The import tariffs are paid by the recipient upon delivery... Any recipient.
That does seem to present a Rather Unique educational opportunity.
That does seem to present a Rather Unique educational opportunity.
Slack and Notion are attractive nuisances from an organizational perspective.
i don't want to hear your most boomer complaint. what's your most millennial complaint?
September 21, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Slack and Notion are attractive nuisances from an organizational perspective.
Milestones in life of an open source project:
- 1st star
- 1st issue
- 1st feature request
- 1st PR
- 1st ban
- 1st outside committer
- 1st request for ARM support
- 1st job listing
- 1st request for windows support
- IBM ports your stuff to SPARC
- …
- macports people (😇) ask for 68k support
- 1st star
- 1st issue
- 1st feature request
- 1st PR
- 1st ban
- 1st outside committer
- 1st request for ARM support
- 1st job listing
- 1st request for windows support
- IBM ports your stuff to SPARC
- …
- macports people (😇) ask for 68k support
We had our first job posting from a customer on our Discord! And yes, I immediately told them to cross-post in @eatonphil.bsky.social Software Internals channel too.
Awesome to see teams hiring specifically to expand their DBOS use cases. Join our community here: discord.gg/kgJeE7S2rA
Awesome to see teams hiring specifically to expand their DBOS use cases. Join our community here: discord.gg/kgJeE7S2rA
September 16, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Milestones in life of an open source project:
- 1st star
- 1st issue
- 1st feature request
- 1st PR
- 1st ban
- 1st outside committer
- 1st request for ARM support
- 1st job listing
- 1st request for windows support
- IBM ports your stuff to SPARC
- …
- macports people (😇) ask for 68k support
- 1st star
- 1st issue
- 1st feature request
- 1st PR
- 1st ban
- 1st outside committer
- 1st request for ARM support
- 1st job listing
- 1st request for windows support
- IBM ports your stuff to SPARC
- …
- macports people (😇) ask for 68k support
Reposted by Isaiah Norton
A new episode of Signals and Threads just dropped! This one is an interview with Chris Lattner talking about Mojo, a new-ish language for GPU programming that's aiming to be an alternative to the CUDA stack.
signalsandthreads.com/why-ml-needs...
signalsandthreads.com/why-ml-needs...
Signals and Threads Podcast
Listen in on Jane Street’s Ron Minsky as he has conversations with engineers working on everything from clock synchronization to reliable multicast, build systems to reconfigurable hardware. Get a pee...
signalsandthreads.com
September 4, 2025 at 12:55 AM
A new episode of Signals and Threads just dropped! This one is an interview with Chris Lattner talking about Mojo, a new-ish language for GPU programming that's aiming to be an alternative to the CUDA stack.
signalsandthreads.com/why-ml-needs...
signalsandthreads.com/why-ml-needs...
Reposted by Isaiah Norton
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
August 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Reposted by Isaiah Norton
funny story, I signed up for personal training at a local gym and was assigned a former NFL linebacker as a trainer
giant man, covered in tattoos, big muscles, loud voice
I am someone who just… doesn’t have a particularly well-assembled body
giant man, covered in tattoos, big muscles, loud voice
I am someone who just… doesn’t have a particularly well-assembled body
“men can’t express their feelings because they get taught as boys to toughen up if they cry”
*stares in Was In Ballet For Her Entire Childhood*
*stares in Was In Ballet For Her Entire Childhood*
August 14, 2025 at 7:46 PM
funny story, I signed up for personal training at a local gym and was assigned a former NFL linebacker as a trainer
giant man, covered in tattoos, big muscles, loud voice
I am someone who just… doesn’t have a particularly well-assembled body
giant man, covered in tattoos, big muscles, loud voice
I am someone who just… doesn’t have a particularly well-assembled body
i choose to believe the Qwen people trained this behavior in specifically to troll Simon.
Qwen3-4B-Thinking (a 4GB download) just became the first model I've tested to directly push back against my pelican riding a bicycle test, calling it "oddly specific and completely unrealistic" and saying "this request violates physics and biology"
simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/10/...
simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/10/...
August 11, 2025 at 1:34 AM
i choose to believe the Qwen people trained this behavior in specifically to troll Simon.
Tangential, but still in awe of the immaculate timing of StackOverflow’s exit.
So what happens to volunteer led sites like stackoverflow now? Do the companies that ate them make and release the labels they generate for new languages? Do we just hope and pray LLMs fill the gap? Something real has been lost.
May 18, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Tangential, but still in awe of the immaculate timing of StackOverflow’s exit.
Speak for yourself, man
I wrote about a scientific paper called “The Unbearable Slowness of Being” which finds that the human brain’s throughput is just 10 bits per second. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/s...
🧪
🧪
Human Thought Is Far Slower Than Your Internet Connection (Gift Article)
A new study is “a bit of a counterweight to the endless hyperbole about how incredibly complex and powerful the human brain is,” one researcher said.
www.nytimes.com
May 3, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Speak for yourself, man
This is a good point, and matches the most utility I’ve gotten out of LLMs so far: I know the shape of a thing, often a test or bug reproduction, but not all APIs/nuance. LLM gets 95% of way there.
But: it’s also going to make some of the problems with scientific coding worse, at least for a while.
But: it’s also going to make some of the problems with scientific coding worse, at least for a while.
LLM's speed up writing code that scientists use in everyday work by a factor of at least 3 if you know how to use them well
The closest thing to specific example of a use case I’ve heard is one of the hosts of the Acquired podcast saying—in a paid ad for Claude—that Claude helped him quickly make a table of dates from his research notes.
April 27, 2025 at 5:04 PM
This is a good point, and matches the most utility I’ve gotten out of LLMs so far: I know the shape of a thing, often a test or bug reproduction, but not all APIs/nuance. LLM gets 95% of way there.
But: it’s also going to make some of the problems with scientific coding worse, at least for a while.
But: it’s also going to make some of the problems with scientific coding worse, at least for a while.
In case this helps anyone who is cold-applying to roles: I weight LinkedIn *much* heavier than I did a year ago when reviewing candidates, because of the huge increase in fake candidates.
Especially social interactions: comments and congratulations, endorsements (both received and given), etc.
Especially social interactions: comments and congratulations, endorsements (both received and given), etc.
I wish I could say this story is made up: it is not. It's from Herval Freire who is Head of Engineering at mobile .dev. I hear similar ones from other eng managers hiring.
Remote technical interviews feel increasingly broken - in good part thanks to AI "help" tools
Remote technical interviews feel increasingly broken - in good part thanks to AI "help" tools
April 27, 2025 at 2:46 PM
In case this helps anyone who is cold-applying to roles: I weight LinkedIn *much* heavier than I did a year ago when reviewing candidates, because of the huge increase in fake candidates.
Especially social interactions: comments and congratulations, endorsements (both received and given), etc.
Especially social interactions: comments and congratulations, endorsements (both received and given), etc.
At previous, long-lived open source project I worked on (www.slicer.org), git-svn let us get enough buy-in to transition to git at least five years earlier than we would’ve otherwise done. Full dev support on Windows was critical.
Thanks to everyone who kept it going in git-for-win all these years!
Thanks to everyone who kept it going in git-for-win all these years!
April 27, 2025 at 12:53 PM
At previous, long-lived open source project I worked on (www.slicer.org), git-svn let us get enough buy-in to transition to git at least five years earlier than we would’ve otherwise done. Full dev support on Windows was critical.
Thanks to everyone who kept it going in git-for-win all these years!
Thanks to everyone who kept it going in git-for-win all these years!
Clever Hans Institute for Psychometrics
i wonder what the guy who thought Google's LLM was sentient is up to now
April 16, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Clever Hans Institute for Psychometrics
Reposted by Isaiah Norton
One more reason not to put memes in your conference slides: if putting memes in remains normalized, one day you're gonna start seeing gen-α memes in conferences and be completely lost. The only way to prevent this is to demilitarize now. Stop using memes in slideshows
April 4, 2025 at 6:36 PM
One more reason not to put memes in your conference slides: if putting memes in remains normalized, one day you're gonna start seeing gen-α memes in conferences and be completely lost. The only way to prevent this is to demilitarize now. Stop using memes in slideshows
> Compatibility with versions of CMake older than 3.5 has been removed.
Good, good!
> Precompiled SunOS sparc64 and x86_64 binaries are now provided on cmake.org.
Wait, what?!
Good, good!
> Precompiled SunOS sparc64 and x86_64 binaries are now provided on cmake.org.
Wait, what?!
March 28, 2025 at 9:03 PM
> Compatibility with versions of CMake older than 3.5 has been removed.
Good, good!
> Precompiled SunOS sparc64 and x86_64 binaries are now provided on cmake.org.
Wait, what?!
Good, good!
> Precompiled SunOS sparc64 and x86_64 binaries are now provided on cmake.org.
Wait, what?!
LLM, document thyself
I'm trying to built an AI agent using the various tools and frameworks available and I'm shocked at how bad everything from the libraries and documentation are. Maybe it's just early, but I'd expect a 2015 level of quality before promising the whole world is about to change.
March 23, 2025 at 12:32 PM
LLM, document thyself
Takes a special kind of mismanagement to kill a verb brand.
Skype was a victim of Microsoft’s focus on Windows to the detriment of every other platform and a culture of mismanaging acquisitions under Steve Ballmer.
It was a great product in its heyday but that hasn’t been the case in over a decade.
It was a great product in its heyday but that hasn’t been the case in over a decade.
It looks like Microsoft is about to kill Skype
Skype's days appear to be numbered, as a hidden string in the latest Skype for Windows preview suggests Microsoft will shutter the service in May.
www.windowscentral.com
February 28, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Takes a special kind of mismanagement to kill a verb brand.
Let’s make usable threads. Also no DMs by construction, lfg yes 🙌
atproto slack wen
slack is offline so i guess im not working today
February 27, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Let’s make usable threads. Also no DMs by construction, lfg yes 🙌
The tooling we need to make the most out of LLMs (barring improbable “AGI”) is tooling we’ve only built and used in fits and starts for tiny pockets of the industry.
Modeling (and model-checking) tools especially: module boundaries, data flow, visual programming, and more.
Modeling (and model-checking) tools especially: module boundaries, data flow, visual programming, and more.
Artificial intelligence tools for programmers all seem to get this wrong. Most (all?) of them are focused on helping us write code faster. What I want is to better understand code, like having an expert human teacher help you understand how something works.
February 23, 2025 at 4:30 PM
The tooling we need to make the most out of LLMs (barring improbable “AGI”) is tooling we’ve only built and used in fits and starts for tiny pockets of the industry.
Modeling (and model-checking) tools especially: module boundaries, data flow, visual programming, and more.
Modeling (and model-checking) tools especially: module boundaries, data flow, visual programming, and more.
R tooling is also getting carcinized now?!
@lionelhenry.bsky.social and I are so excited to finally announce Air - an extremely fast R code formatter! 🎉
With Air, you'll never need to worry about styling your #rstats code ever again. All you need to do is save, and Air takes care of the rest.
www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/02...
With Air, you'll never need to worry about styling your #rstats code ever again. All you need to do is save, and Air takes care of the rest.
www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/02...
Air, an extremely fast R formatter
We are thrilled to announce Air, a new R formatter.
www.tidyverse.org
February 22, 2025 at 12:37 AM
R tooling is also getting carcinized now?!