Alex Feinman

Obligate infovore. I write fantasy, sci fi, and software. All posts made with 100% recycled electrons, sustainably crafted by artisanal artisans. He*/him/his. Not straight. Doctor, if you absolutely insist.

Nothing said here should be construed as in any way connected to my daytime employer.

I boost and star freely. Boosts of my stuff are jes' fine. I control follow requests to avoid scrapers and spammers, is not personal.

Tags I follow include:: [#pixelArt](https://wandering.shop/tags/pixelArt ), [#ttrpg](https://wandering.shop/tags/ttrpg ), [#math](https://wandering.shop/tags/math ), [#amWriting](https://wandering.shop/tags/amWriting ), ...
Why did this guy randomly like one of my posts?: Probably saw it through a hashtag or boost.

Public Key

npub1gtm85a6pgvafvzhevfranuv723natef8eyypvcwrz353ctpaqs2qxtprrm

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsy9an6waq5xw5kptuky37e7x09ge74u5nujzqkv8p3g6gu9s7sg9qprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hszxmhwden5te0wfjkccte9ecx7cmtv46xummnw3ezucm0d5ghdeel

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

relay.damus.io

relay.pocketnostr.com

Author Public Key

npub1gtm85a6pgvafvzhevfranuv723natef8eyypvcwrz353ctpaqs2qxtprrm

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-08-13 13:43:39 UTC

- reply

RUMININT: News that spreads after you've had a chance to predigest it a bit.

2026-07-27 16:03:30 UTC

- reply

"Our new reflective Whole Earth Sphere will maximize satellite coverage for the entire globe! Sunlight? Only when we say so, buddy."

2026-07-19 11:15:26 UTC

Pause in your doomscrolling for a moment to reflect that a nation has been able to emerge from a decade-plus of misrule through concerted public effort.
https://apnews.com/article/hungary-president-amendment-term-sulyok-magyar-b720492c8e007468e6a97519f8809394

2026-07-17 20:46:21 UTC

- reply

"I have invented a new AI!"
"Is it grep again, but slower and wrong?"
"No! ...yes."

2026-07-15 01:44:28 UTC

- reply

ditto! It's been angry yellow glare all day here in Boston...

2026-03-20 12:28:48 UTC

We need a new word for an under-appreciated corner of the AI discourse.
It's like "quiet quitting" (aka "acting your wage") except it's offloading your meaningless work on a chat bot because no one, including you, cares about the results, you just need to look busy so your manager looks good for their manager, because you are all flies trapped in the web of unregulated capitalism.
Data center driven chat bots are great for this. It's their killer app.

2026-03-06 02:13:26 UTC

- reply

"How is this not resulting in an immediate referral to The Hague?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act
'The American Service-Members' Protection Act, known as the Hague Invasion Act...gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court"'

2026-02-08 20:08:35 UTC

- reply

Feels adjacent to Kolmogorov complexity. The simplest system that can contain all of math is all of math.

2026-02-04 16:26:38 UTC

- reply

When I hit grad school I started interacting with women who had worked with him. So none of this is surprising to me, and boy do I wish he wasn't lionized the way he appears to be.

2026-01-30 19:16:54 UTC

- reply

Did you actually talk to developers?
Because the ones I know are uneasy because the "code" produced by these tools is as suspect as the other "content". At best it's replacing some rote code construction, but mostly it's expanding my workflow to be a bomb defuser.

2026-01-27 18:50:31 UTC

- reply

I have a similar, different problem any time someone mentions MCP.

2026-01-24 15:23:47 UTC

You learn blender so you can make models for your new game.
I learn blender so I can draw spaceships for my novel.
We are not the same, but let us have fun together...

2026-01-16 13:24:11 UTC

- reply

What does "pro bono" mean here, especially in the context of hiring?

2025-12-22 14:37:49 UTC

- reply

Hi, doctor in computer science here with more than a few decades of machine learning experience.
Tuban, you're full of shit. One does not need to know how to lubricate a fuel-injected piston to know that cars are ruining the environment.

2025-12-02 02:35:38 UTC

If you don't collect personal info, you don't have to safeguard it, disclaim it, nor deal with leaks.
But whatever, it's not like I've been loudly proclaiming this as toxic waste for the last (eep!) 20 years.

2025-12-01 15:49:07 UTC

- reply

Yeah I was annoyed by that too. Think they'll listen to us?

2025-11-26 13:20:05 UTC

- reply

We used to have strong usury laws. Credit card companies got them weakened, under Reagan IIRC.
Every time I see a rate over 10% it is a reminder of how corrupted our capitalism has become.

2025-09-11 15:36:48 UTC

Being "surprised" at ruling-class hypocrisy is, at this point, ridiculous.
It's so ridiculous that I'm considering calling it a derailing tactic, meant to quell action by enraging people who would otherwise take useful actions.
Work together! Of course they are lying. We all know they are lying and have double standards. Moving on...

2025-09-09 13:06:33 UTC

A future where "Fork you!" is a mortal insult, meaning to non-consensually clone someone locally for untoward purposes.
#amWriting

2025-08-26 12:16:25 UTC

- reply

As with the current situation, crime was overhyped in the name of policing. Very frustrating.
To your main point: I do remember how jarring it was to have tac-garbed people with automatic rifles standing guard (over what?!) in, e.g. Penn Station after 9/11.
At the time, my dad said, "They're trying to get us used to it." (The term "Overton Window" hadn't entered public discourse yet.)
He was right, of course.

2025-08-26 12:07:22 UTC

- reply

Did you live in NYC during the "Guardian Angels" period? I would see them occasionally, back when, and that was before/around high profile events like Bernie Getz and the LIRR shooting.
It was a fascinating social experiment, with (IMHO) no "right" side, and I'd love to hear your take.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Angels

2025-08-19 22:05:49 UTC

- reply

something something "pure functions are to realistic programming as libertarianism is to a functional society"

2025-08-08 12:51:09 UTC

The existence of "hard-boiled detective" implies the existence of "detective over easy", "scrambled detective", and many others. In this TED talk I will...
#amWriting

2025-07-19 10:58:49 UTC

When you see "increased efficiency", translate that to "increased fragility and parasitic load".
When you read about "redundancy", what they really mean is "resiliency".
The real world is bursty, uneven, inconsistent, error-prone, heterogeneous. It is not amenable to assembly lines. Efficiency predicated on eliminating those forms of waste cannot survive common system shocks.
And we're in a period of enormous system shock.
#society #governance #softwareDev

2025-06-25 13:42:49 UTC

- reply

wow, this is some Tokyo Rose/Seoul City Sue psyop bullshit.

2025-03-03 13:04:02 UTC

#ScribesAndMakers 3 Mar:Are you more productive during long stretches of free time, or when you have to squeeze creativity into your busy life?
Who gets long stretches of free time in our capitalist hellscape?
I fight tooth and nail for the energy and time to write in the margins of the day and the lacunae of my week.

2024-12-22 12:51:26 UTC

- reply

Ah!! All becomes clear. My apologies; we are surrounded by fakery these days.

2024-12-22 11:55:22 UTC

- reply

Except those aren't the two ways. I am so confused. Are you an LLM-powered bot that can't do math?
(1729 is one more than 1728, which with 729 and 1000 are four easy to remember cubes...)

2024-09-20 15:16:59 UTC

Bike dividers that don't physically block cars and trucks are just municipal "thoughts and prayers".

2024-09-13 11:45:36 UTC

"Union workers voted to strike, inconveniencing customers" no, you useless mouthpiece publications.
"Company leadership stubbornly refuses to pay appropriate wages or address deep quality issues, favoring short-term profits and golden parachutes."
#fixTheHeadlines

2024-09-06 17:31:07 UTC

I don't remember which one of you coined "AI;DR"[1] but I stole it immediately to good effect.
If you couldn't be bothered to write it, why should I bother reading it?
[1] AI-generated nonsense; didn't read, by analogy with tl;dr: too long; didn't read.

2024-08-31 13:45:21 UTC

#writersCoffeeClub 31 Aug: What would you pick if you were forced to write in a genre outside of your specialty?
Each book seems to come out in a different genre anyway. Duplicate's hard SF; We Were Gods is more of a thriller with SFesque elements; Mr. Maybe and Dr. Don't is pure YA fantasy. Roughskin Magic has SF setting, yes, but it's a romance. The Dream Makers...dunno. Psychological romance?
So next I guess I have to go dinosaurs. Or cowboys. Cowboy dinosaurs.

2024-08-17 12:09:23 UTC

- reply

https://stockroom.wandering.shop/media_attachments/files/112/977/284/886/686/481/original/54bd804129b86e38.jpeg

2024-08-10 10:56:52 UTC

These #AI prompts reportedly found in iOS betas are wild examples of wishful and/or magical thinking on the part of engineers forced to include bullshit engines in their products.
"Do not hallucinate" lol.
People keep mistaking LLMs for a slightly dumb but well-meaning stage actor who just needs to be clearly and explicitly told what to do. Yeah, no.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/08/06/apples-hidden-ai-prompts-discovered-in-macos-beta/

2024-08-02 11:55:59 UTC

- reply

scissors! And a thousand other things.
Related essay here: https://afeinman.medium.com/how-being-a-lefty-taught-me-what-i-dont-know-about-racism-70ab6fae0c34