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Today I learned that Google Gemini can understand ASCII maps like in nethacks or other roguelikes: Route to the Stairs
From your current position [@], follow these steps:
1.
Move East (Right): Move one room over to a cleared room [#].
2.
Move South (Down): Move one room down to another cleared room [#].
3.
Move South (Down) again: This will take you directly to the room containing the stairs [>].

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Aujourd'hui un frappe une piñata en forme de voiture de police, et demain on frappe quoi ? C'est dégoûtant, en fait. huffingtonpost.fr/france/artic…

Cette pinata « anti-flics » dans une école d’art de Mulhouse suscite l’indignation de Laurent Nuñez

« Il ne faut pas laisser passer cette idéologie anti flics », s’est ému le ministre de l’Intérieur après ces faits qui se sont déroulés lors d’une fête étudiante.
Vincent Gibert (Le HuffPost)

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I've been thinking a lot about my AI coding and why I don't particularly enjoy it. I miss the feeling of "flow" from coding by hand; with agentic coding it's more like you're fielding a bunch of Slack messages at once – it can be exhausting.

The analogy I keep coming back to is videogame minmaxxing. If you hyper-optimize a game you can "win" but it might be less fun.

in reply to Matt Campbell

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Matt Campbell

BTW, like you, I've concluded that I don't actually find the ethical/environmental/etc. arguments against genAI that persuasive. I *wanted* them to be persuasive, so I could fully align with what I thought was the right tribe (yes, I admit it).

So now I have conversations with an LLM with no shame. But I still haven't seriously tried agentic coding yet. Not sure I want to, but I figure the pressure to do so will keep increasing.

in reply to Matt Campbell

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Nolan Lawson

@matt Yep, that was my journey. I wanted to care because it felt like something worth caring about, and I tend to identify with the kinds of people who care. But I was just never that convinced.

Your mileage will definitely vary depending on the team (tribe? 😆) you hang out with. At my work people are constantly building and sharing little AI tools so it's just way easier to pick up and be productive.

@Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell

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Nolan Lawson

@matt Environments where people are *mandated* to do it are totally counterproductive IMO. At Salesforce part of the reason I held out was exactly that – I was stubborn and tired of being proselytized all the time.

At my current gig we are not mandated at all, and I still have colleagues barely using these tools. Your experience with juniors matches mine, though – they are way more "AI-native."

@Matt Campbell
Unknown parent

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Nolan Lawson

OTOH I've been having fun helping my wife with her side projects. I vibe coded a Stardew Valley SQLite database so she can ask it questions like "what's more profitable: starfruit wine or grape jelly?" This is something I never would have done before because it's just too tedious. For her (a non-coder) it's absolutely revolutionary, especially because Claude can translate her English queries into SQL. (Using the SQLite MCP, it turns out, is way more reliable than having Claude read the wiki.)

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Clare and I went on an impromptu tour of London infrastructure today after unexpectedly ending up at Dishoom Canary Wharf due to a power cut at the Kensington branch.

A ten-minute walk from Canary Wharf took us to the Temple Of Storms (officially the Isle Of Dogs Pumping Station), a grade II* listed building constructed in 1988. While I’m not generally into postmodern architecture, it’s refreshing to see a modern industrial building that isn’t just a metal and concrete box.

A building with grey and brown brick walls supporting a black and white pediment with a huge white fan in the centre. Two thick red brick columns are topped with blue, yellow, and red fins. The building complexly dwarfs its normal-sized door.
in reply to Kate Morley

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Kate Morley

Throughout our walk we could see the London Cable Car. While a cable car might make sense for a mountainous city, it’s a ridiculous means of transport for somewhere as flat as London, and it’s almost entirely used by tourists. So of course we had to give it a go.

Near the highest point the cable car slowed down, and with today’s windy weather it started swaying alarmingly. The views across London were spectacular, but on the approach to the Greenwich peninsula it was very visible how the Millennium Dome had failed to encourage further regeneration of the surrounding former industrial area.

View from a cable car. Another cable car is visible nearby, with more in the distance. A huge white spiral pylon is on the edge of the photo, standing in empty land. Part of the River Thames is visible in one corner.

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Oh no ... We have all this beer (more than 20 varieties), who will help us drink it
... Come join us for awesome music, delicious drinks and cool vibes (aka blinky Lights) during #bytenight2026 bytenight.brussels/
#fosdem ps. We also have loads of soft drinks as well as club mate of course.... Bring your friends and your friends friends

Bytenight

The unofficial FOSDEM afterparty
bytenight.brussels
#fosdem #bytenight2026
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
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