"Hypocrisy is taking pride in Unix shell scripts kept since the 1990's while scoffing at banks running Cobol." --Carl Svensson (datagubbe.se)

I've noticed that some of the companies that insisted on return to work because of the benefit of employees interacting with each other are the ones now doing layoffs because of AI.

📷 Jacobin JVM project just crossed over 5,000 commits! We're closing in on an alpha release this year. And testing? Well, our testing code base is 161% the size of our production code, with more than 2,500 tests...and many more to come. More here: binstock.blogspot.com/2026/0…...

The Jacobin JVM project just reached the 3.5 year milestone. So, like we do every six months, we just posted an update: what we've done, what we'll do next. Also numbers, like our test code is 2.07x the size of our production code. binstock.blogspot.com/2025/0…

My latest post on The Trained Observer substack discusses observing and orienting oneself w.r.t. the recent US election. trainedobserver.substack.com…

I'm moving over to Blue Sky. I'll posting both places for a while, but I expect eventually to be there exclusively (along with many from the Java community) platypusguy.bsky.social

I have a Substack on becoming a trained observer, in which I explore how professionals learn to observe accurately (doctors, cartographers, etc.). My latest post is on the "scout mindset," or how to observe free from a preferred narrative. substack.com/home/post/p-150…

I do believe that those three little dots you see when in chat mode with a service representative--the ones that appear briefly and then disappear--are pre-programmed just to keep you waiting while fooling you into thinking something is about to happen.

Makes my thought that we should have a CodeSmellException seem quite reasonable, I say.

What happens when two developers who are passionate about the JVM get time to work together: 240+ commits per month. #java #JVM jacobin.org

Work on the Jacobin JVM is really coming along. @texadactyl and I are now averaging > 150 commits/month. #java #jvm

After trying several AI engines, today I stumbled on @groqInc and was blown away by the speed! Even on coding questions, it spits out the answer almost at the same moment I hit Enter. No visible latency. Not sure how they do it, but dang! it's impressive!

Astrobotic's failure this week of landing on the moon and the problem encountered by the Japanese moon lander mission yesterday underscore how truly extraordinary Apollo 11's success in 1969 really was.

"Your duty is to be, not to be this or that." --Ramana Maharshi. An interesting view and likely right.

I've been invited to speak on personal responsibility in the age of AI. I have many thoughts on this, would love to hear yours. Do tell.

3/ ...package default assertion pertains to this class, the most recent setting for the most specific pertinent package default assertion status is returned; otherwise, if this class is not a system class its class loader's default assertion status is returned; otherwise... etc.