Heath

Heath

@heathhenley.dev

Señor Application Engineer at a small sonar shop. Writing about things here: https://heathhenley.dev

335 followers1.7K following489 posts

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I feel like the probability of accidentally wearing an article of clothing inside out or backwards rises exponentially after college age

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

There are a lot of valid criticisms of LLMs with what’s going on the world right now and how they’re being sold. That said, I read posts dunking on them with the counting letters as an advertisement that you have not looked into how they work at all.

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I started to study some real (heh) math for funsies… realizing that despite a PhD in engineering and years working in a tech co... I don’t actually know math lol Only very beginning stuff, building the reals from rationals, proving a bunch of stuff taken for granted my whole life, etc But... 🧵

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I guess I never took time to appreciate it before. In typical eng fasion, was only interested to learn what was needed for eng applications / applied research... It's been really cool to see how the structures are starting to fit together and build on each other from just a few properties

Heath reposted

Annie Sexton
@anniesexton.com

For anyone else who feels conflicted about AI and afraid to talk about it: I wrote this for you. Obviously these are just my opinions, but I hope this helps at least one person. annies-brain.offprint.app/a/3ml6zdf5f5...

annies-brain.offprint.appStuck in the middle: Being an engineer & artist in the AI era | Annie Sexton | OffprintI'm an AI skeptic, through and through. But I also voluntarily use AI nearly every day. So naturally, you might be asking: what the heck?
Heath
@heathhenley.dev

one should not feel bad about obtaining pdfs of scientific papers by sketchy means --> that system is broken af one should feel bad about obtaining books by sketchy means though --> shame

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I heard 3blue1brown call activation functions “squishification functions” years ago and since I’ve never been able to stop calling them that in my head

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

using LLMs in software starves one part of me; feeds another - weird feeling I’m objectively more valuable / productive now - the “builder” in me loves this, it’s like a drug almost on the other hand, it’s kind of empty feeling - and something I cared about a lot doesn’t really matter any more

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Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I also think the “run 8 agents all the time” ai br@s are full of it. I still need to basically work on a few things MAX at once to have any confidence in what I’m shipping. Maybe I just can’t let go enough to make the cost of context switching worth paying

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Don’t get me wrong - tech debt pay downs, refactors, and new features that were out of reach are now in play, and that’s all cool as hell… just feels strange and I guess I decided today was the day to rant about it to the void

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

using LLMs in software starves one part of me; feeds another - weird feeling I’m objectively more valuable / productive now - the “builder” in me loves this, it’s like a drug almost on the other hand, it’s kind of empty feeling - and something I cared about a lot doesn’t really matter any more

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Not that I was even good at “writing elegant code”, but the act of trying to, fixing it, figuring out the right abstractions, etc - all kind of gone or less relevant / de-emphasized There are still challenges of course - I guess they are mostly at a higher level now, just feels … idk like emptier

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Just booted up and old desktop - it’s running Ubuntu 14 and chrome 46 😬, got some upgrading to do I guess…

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Just finished a re-read of "Story of Your Life and Others". One of my favorite short story collections ever, last read it probably about a decade ago and despite that, some parts of the stories stuck with me. It was cool to get to read them again given how I've changed and what I'd forgotten.

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

If you're into sci-fi short stories I definitely recommend it - planning to follow it up with a re-read of Exhalation (his more recent collection of stories).

Heath reposted

David Buchanan
@retr0.id

📎 it looks like you're challenging the status quo. have you considered that this will make the status quo very sad? look it's crying now

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

I recently speed up a cursor pagination query in postgres by 100x by switching the where clause from something like: where (a < c or (a = c and b < d)) to where (a, b) < (c, d) Maybe you db people are aware of this but something to keep in mind / check for when profiling and optimizing!

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Ok at the risk of sounding like a crazy person...I feel like the input for day 12 of #AdventOfCode looks suspiciously like a hexdump, and the bytes mostly map to printable chars if you take them as hex values - but I wasn't able make anything of it I think there's an xmas easter egg in there maybe!

Heath
@heathhenley.dev

Big thanks to @was.tl for all the work and creative energy you put into these puzzles!

Heath@heathhenley.dev

I just completed all 12 days of Advent of Code 2025! #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com That's a wrap on aoc 2025 🎄 - I like the shorter format and really enjoyed seeing everyone's solutions in different languages. Until next time...

adventofcode.comAdvent of Code 2025
Heath
@heathhenley.dev

you must think about work and not about how to solve part 2 you must think about work and not about how to solve part 2 you must think about work and not about how to solve part 2 you must think about work and not about how to solve part 2