gvrooyen.com - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

What a cruel thing to say to a nation, though - "nobody has ever heard of you". Who is "anybody" then; only people in your own self-centered circle? That's not unlike saying Columbus "discovered" America (to the utter surprise of the people who already lived there)

submitted 18 hours ago • 0 comments

I still have to visit! We've traveled close by, but I've never been into beautiful Lesotho. My parents honeymooned there, braving spectacular Sani Pass. My studies were sponsored by the engineering firm that built the dams in the Highlands - water is their biggest export www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

Love it that one of my very favourite scenes from Ferris Beuller's Day Off is relevant again today 😂

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

So far, probably my best attempt at articulating how my mindset around LLMs has shifted: Treat them as pipes — you pass stuff in, you get stuff out — instead of oracles out of which you pull answers.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Well, according to the instructions on my shaving foam can I should spit into the palm of my hand and then tip a cigarette into it. After applying the paste to my cheeks I can shave. Not sure where the shaving foam factors into this

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

hey no big if not but do u know what the third book is called

submitted 5 days ago • 75 comments

I'm thinking of starting a new routine where I spend some time each weekend to reflect on the past week – focusing on what I have achieved instead of immediately worrying about the next week's backlog. I'll take a moment to write that down, and then mail it to [email protected] #productivity

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Sponsorship is my sole source of income! If you want to support Gleam and myself please consider sponsoring 🙏 github.com/sponsors/lpil

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Well they did control the 6th-largest navy in the world in 1989, right?

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

When I was a young lecturer and finally got my own office, a fun rite of passage was to make one's own name sign. I was issued a plexiglass rectangle and went down to "fynmeganika" where there was an oily old engraving machine like the one in the video, Gorton stencil and all! 1/2

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

I've played every edition of #Civ since 1, but I didn't last 12 minutes into my 1st game of Civilization VII before I asked for a refund. Not my aesthetic, and not nearly polished enough for the price. I'll stick with V – the last good one IMHO (although for me the series peaked at IV)

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 27 days ago • 3 comments

NOT NOW, MELVILLE. READ THE ROOM.

submitted 29 days ago • 53 comments

Since Gleam v1 my role has shifted from coding to leadership, and Jak has been the one keeping Gleam improving at such a rapid rate- entirely without pay. He now has GitHub Sponsors! If you want Gleam to continue growing and improving please do sponsor his incredible work! 💜

submitted 62 days ago • 0 comments

Oh man, how did ABSA make their login flow even worse by making that random-letters-of-second-password thing not monospaced? It completely breaks my visual memory now

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

One of my chores at work is reviewing low-risk contracts like NDAs for signature. We're pretty clear about what we find acceptable (reciprocity, reasonable term, etc.) but it takes a good bit of time to work through each contract. The risk is that you just "skim it" to check that it's okay. 1/3

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Gave the neighbours a heads-up that there's a visitor on the block. The snake handler rescued it from their compost heap just now 🐍

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

It's charming to live on the urban edge until there's a fucking huge cape cobra outside your study door

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

My periodic reposting of my favorite comment in the history of Jane Street. A brief recapitulation of the history of timekeeping.

submitted 31 days ago • 2 comments

How will AI change programming? Wrote down some of the thoughts I've been toying with these last few weeks. Read them here: registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/how-might-...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Meh, had a "caveat emptor" moment this week when my pretty expensive bone-conducting headphones just up and died. I had bought it from Takealot (pretty reputable), but didn't notice that it was fulfilled by a 3rd party that offered no warranty (also not an authorized distributor of the device). 1/2

submitted 36 days ago • 1 comment

In 2014 Dutch scientists left a hamster wheel outside, to see if wild animals would use it like their domesticated counterparts. The answer: hell yes! 734 visits from wild mice - plus rats, shrews, slugs ("running" being subjective here) & even frogs and snails. The apparent reason: fun. Just fun.

submitted 37 days ago • 82 comments

Coincidentally been re-reading LoTR too, and the manipulation of Saruman and Denethor reads differently than for my younger self. This is an excellent piece. Also just realized that Denethor's despair on seeing the black sails (unbeknownst to him, the return of the king) is a nod to Theseus' return

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Shopping at China Mall in Johannesburg www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2L4DoaD/

submitted 40 days ago • 3 comments

Wrote about what made LLMs click for me. registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/judging-code

submitted 42 days ago • 2 comments

A lovely day spent tutoring at wethinkcode.co.za here in Johannesburg! A talented cohort of 400 South African-grown programmers! #donate

submitted 44 days ago • 4 comments

Instead of a pure #retrospective, I've been writing a quite personal "year transition #blog post" every year for a few years now. The latest one has just been published! cpbotha.net/2025/01/19/t... #running #health #diet #obsidian #emacs #mindfulness #aging

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

In the new Register Spill, @thorstenball.com mentions a delightful list of "Prog Langs That Blew My Mind". The author clearly grew up in the same era as me – he traces what he learnt from Basic & Pascal to OCaml, Erlang and Rust. 8 of those 12 PLs are on my own list! yoric.github.io/post/program...

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

Still the greatest, weirdest tribute to David Lynch. Play it; it only takes 10 minutes or so 🪳 rhinostew.itch.io/david-lynch-...

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Tomorrow I'll go back to posting horror-themed memes but I've had this saved in my phone for almost a month now, and it makes me laugh every single time I see it Happy Thursday, everyone 🤘🏼

submitted 49 days ago • 7 comments

Me in highschool: Woah! This place has a pingpong table in their office! Me as an adult: Oh no. This place has a pingpong table in their office.

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

If the last thing you tried was ChatGPT in 2023, I highly, highly, highly recommend you spend one or two days building a new project with the newer models — Claude 3.5, GPT4o, o1, ... World now is very different than 1 year ago and very different than just 6 months ago.

submitted 49 days ago • 9 comments

The most important thing to learn is to think for yourself. The second most important thing is that just because an idea is yours, that doesn't make it not stupid.

submitted 49 days ago • 9 comments

Uncanceled Units xkcd.com/3038

submitted 49 days ago • 185 comments