
Kirk Israel's commonplace and blog. Quotes and links daily since 2001.
2025.07.25

Gall's Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
The corollary is devastating: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.
This is why:
- Microservices migrations often fail when done as big-bang rewrites
- New frameworks struggle against battle-tested ones
- "Clean slate" projects often become technical debt faster
Start simple. Add complexity only when the simple system breaks.
your doorbell can be part of a techno-authoritarian surveillance state and an ICE collaborator.
Damn, Hulk Hogan was pretty gross. Amazing how hard it is to shake off my image of him from Saturday Morning Cartoons. (Same with Superfriends - DC will always seem like the REAL superheroes 'cause of that dang cartoon)
2025.07.24
Damn, Ozzy and Hulk Hogan in one week. Tough time for 80s kids.
2025.07.23
2025.07.22
Oh goodie - looks like we already have AI succumbing to a baby version of the paperclip problem (i.e. the AI that we make so good at wanting to make more and more paperclips that it breaks down civilization in order to make more of them)... in this case it's AI scripts that ignore requests to shut themselves down, maybe somewhat to be ready to solve more math problems
https://mediachomp.com/spite-patronage-and-cringe-commissions/
2025.07.21
"What you looking at?"
"WIkipedia page of Mycroft Holmes"
"Oh, was he real?"
".... You do know he's a movie character. right?"
"... ...hahahaha, oh yeah, right!..."
You have to make some noise if you want to be heard.
2025.07.20
It makes me think that the problems with LLM are as much or more human and psychological as they are with the technology itself. We just don't have a setup in society where conventional wisdom, adjusted for the current circumstances (and sometimes just made up) is so available, or a society that will take care of people when the possible productivity boosts eliminate jobs (money is too busy funneling upwards to billionaires who use it to keep score in their prestige games.) And its ability to crib from artists to make novel blends also challenges us as a culture, and can provoke big existential questions.
2025.07.19
it talks a lot about status, which reminds me of how... that's the real problem w/ billionaires. They will keep playing the game they do because money is such an easily quantified status...