thirty-two

thirty-two

@j.holmes.codes

Developer ∪ Designer, pixel artist, digital-archaeologist of Sierra On-Line games, IBM PCjr developer, EGA enjoyer, typography enthusiast, baker. Probably not who you are looking for. sometimes /^(the)?32bitkid$/ in other places. they/them

836 followers721 following4.2K posts

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I have to admit a certain part of my brain has been really freed by LLMs and current attitudes in the "future of software". Not because I'm using LLMs more in my personal projects, quite the opposite. But in the past I would have been more "perfectionist"

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thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of when I was writing QuickBasic/C/Asm code back in the 1990s, before the internet times. Nobody was ever going to see it or care, but I still had a fun writing it. Because it was fun, for me, to make computers do things, and I think for me, that axiom is still true.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

For instance, last night I wrote a bunch of image blending mode filters from first-principles: multiply, screen, hard-light, overlay. Are they optimized? nope. Will anyone care? use them? Never. Should I use a "well-known" reusable library? who gives a shit! Do they work? was it fun? Hell ya!

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I have to admit a certain part of my brain has been really freed by LLMs and current attitudes in the "future of software". Not because I'm using LLMs more in my personal projects, quite the opposite. But in the past I would have been more "perfectionist"

View full thread
thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

But would have learned anything? not much. "how to talk to an LLM?" or even in the case of the library, "how to format arguments the way they want?" and if the point is just to get things "done", then knock yourself out! But my goal is to learn more, so for me? imma write it/try to understand it.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

so if by some miracle they do, they wont give any shits about it and will just throw it in the LLM-food-processor and say "turn this into goo and then into whatever suits me and put my name on it" And while that might sound really "doomer"-y, its really quite freeing in some way.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I have to admit a certain part of my brain has been really freed by LLMs and current attitudes in the "future of software". Not because I'm using LLMs more in my personal projects, quite the opposite. But in the past I would have been more "perfectionist"

View full thread
thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

But now? I'm like "whatEVER dude"! Like, seriously, who even *cares* about any of that right now, with everything else going on. sure, I'll still make my own stuff to the best of my own personal ability, but I fully accept that nobody will *ever* see the code that I'm putting out.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Would have been "faster" to tell an LLM to write these functions and point it as Photoshop and say "implement these blending modes and write tests to verify their behavior", probably. the same way that using an existing library and just plugging in arguments woulda.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I have to admit a certain part of my brain has been really freed by LLMs and current attitudes in the "future of software". Not because I'm using LLMs more in my personal projects, quite the opposite. But in the past I would have been more "perfectionist"

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Either trying to find OSS community, and contribute to other big, established projects, or thinking about preparing a function or library that I was working on for "other devs" and trying to figure out marketing/DX. Now, I'm like "who gives a shit" and just make stuff that I want

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

In a lot of ways, I recognize now that some of that bike-shedding, but it was an honest *attempt* to be a good steward of the lines of code that I felt were going to be in the community: preventative Broken-Window Theory. My responsibility to the community at-large.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

These really make me want to do some Colonels Bequest woodcut prints.

thirty-two@j.holmes.codes

More small tweaks to the way I approximate phosphor colors. Deriving the "primary" color from samples of gaussian kernel across the data-sheet range, centered at the primary emission wavelength. Added a secondary phosphor glow exactly at the wavelength of the phosphor. I think its pretty close.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I really wish that I had a Time Machine, if only so I could go back to my junior-year English Lit class with Dr Dabrowski and try to pass off the following to her: “Oh, Chris definitely wrote the draft—I gave him a really good prompt—but I did all the revision! Totally all my ideas, tho.”

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com

"AI can draft an essay for you, especially if you give it a high quality prompt." Really? This is what MIT thinks high schoolers should learn? MIT's "Day of AI" dayofai.org provides materials for K-12 teachers and claims to have reached over 5,000,000 students to date. 1/2

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

That feeling when you think the unthinking, unfeeling robo-opression-doggo is supposed to be used on brown people on the other side of the planet, not used in your own back yard, against people that look like you!

Jess Fink🍉🌈@jessfink.bsky.social

Like I'm with the employees here right, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're objecting, but what did they think the horrible robot dog was going to be used for, replacing real dogs? Serving you drinks at a party?? Replacing break dancers at the Olympics?

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

More small tweaks to the way I approximate phosphor colors. Deriving the "primary" color from samples of gaussian kernel across the data-sheet range, centered at the primary emission wavelength. Added a secondary phosphor glow exactly at the wavelength of the phosphor. I think its pretty close.

thirty-two@j.holmes.codes

Reworked the CRT phosphor gen to use the wave-length emission range from the data-sheets to get a little more "accurate" projection into sRGB space. Here are simplified P1, P3, P4 phosphors, three classic phosphors for CRTs. Want to implement a phosphor glow for secondary wavelengths at some point.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I think the secondary glow brings a lot to the P3 amber phosphors right now, but I think they are pretty good for a pretty basic approximation.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

The thing I have a really hard time reconciling right now about the whole tech world, at least from the places that talk a lot about being all-in on AI is that they all say "Oh, we just write the specs and tests and then verify it does what we want! its so efficent"

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thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

this is especially poignant for me in the retro/decomp scene right now, I don't see people publishing big detailed specs about how shit works, or deep-dive postmortems of what you learned from the code you decompiled. or what *I* can learn from the work you did from the decomp.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

it would be like decompiling quake and not discovering the fast-inverse-square-root, and just replacing it with a modern SIMD instruction and being like "Mission Accomplished! It compiles!" It's like... uhhh... okay... but... also... uhhhhhhh..

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

The thing I have a really hard time reconciling right now about the whole tech world, at least from the places that talk a lot about being all-in on AI is that they all say "Oh, we just write the specs and tests and then verify it does what we want! its so efficent"

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

as somebody who's been doing this for the past 10–15 years, did... y'all just become amazing at writing tests and specs? because i've been reading the stuff y'all have been coming up with for a while now... and it hasn't been great. and now the "specs" are buried inside of a massive prompt

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I know it won’t happen, because of the political affiliations of MLB players and owners; but whoever wins the World Series has a pristine opportunity to turn down a White House visit request with a positively nasty seven-word reply: “We have a Cheesecake Factory at home.”

thirty-two reposted

gorilla.bas
@brassicgamer.bsky.social

Was inspired enough by my experience playing Syndicate to make the time to write a sort of review/retrospective on my blog. brassicgamer.blogspot.com/2026/10/game...

brassicgamer.blogspot.comGame Retrospective: SyndicateDictionaries are great for finding out what words mean, but there's some crucial information they don't include: the vibe of a word. I don't...
gorilla.bas@brassicgamer.bsky.social

Completed Syndicate. Unlike every other RTS game I've played, this got more enjoyable as I played it.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I think games are weird, inheriting a lot from comics and maybe 80/90s "nerd" culture, where the characters/IP somehow become more important the authors and writers. Like, I just cannot imagine anybody wanting a new "Beatles" album that includes zero members of the original Beatles.

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thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

but then again, maybe i'm just old, because the Beatles thing, thats the main selling point for every AI generated music platform that exists right now: Have you ever wanted to hear the Beatles perform a opera, but where Ringo throws down some mad-freestyle-ryhmes in the middle about Mr Beast?!

thirty-two reposted

Eniko Fox
@enikofox.com

we've created a no AI notice to reassure people seeing our trailers and games with hand drawn lettering and a relaxing cute fox, and it's also up on itch in multiple formats* for anyone to use: eniko.itch.io/cute-fox-no-... *with/without fox, transparent/opaque, in 4k, 2160p, 1440p, 1080p, and 720p

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I think games are weird, inheriting a lot from comics and maybe 80/90s "nerd" culture, where the characters/IP somehow become more important the authors and writers. Like, I just cannot imagine anybody wanting a new "Beatles" album that includes zero members of the original Beatles.

This post is unavailable.
thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I've definitely met comic book fans who will buy every issue of a franchise—because they love the "character"—but complain about its ups-and-downs the in storytelling, but cannot for the life of them ever name a single writer that worked on the runs that they enjoy or hate.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Downloaded From…… 🏔️ Sierra BBS Including Dynamix Support! 24 Hour Hint Service Available!! (209) 683-4463 Parameters: N/8/1 v.32 v.42 MNP5 300/1200/2400/9600 baud Coarsegold, CA. 93614 * Toll Free Sales 1-800-326-6654 *

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Reworked the CRT phosphor gen to use the wave-length emission range from the data-sheets to get a little more "accurate" projection into sRGB space. Here are simplified P1, P3, P4 phosphors, three classic phosphors for CRTs. Want to implement a phosphor glow for secondary wavelengths at some point.

thirty-two@j.holmes.codes

Did I need to make my Hercules mono driver need to implement wavelength to XYZ-color to sRGB mappings for wavelength emissions of well-documented phosphors in old monochrome CRTs? nope.. Did I do it anyway? yea... I kinda did.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Damn Shout out to a short, but great, appearance in one of my favorite Columbo episodes of all time.

Jesse Thorn@jessethorn.bsky.social

My pal Danielle Koenig shared that her father Walter Koenig passed away last night at age 90. A performer whose kindness and warmth shone through the screen. He will be well remembered.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Just thinking about the parent who asks ChatGPT to describe their kid and it fires back with some hard hitting truths: Your daughter is apathetic, derivative and a blatant misotherist. Shame. A real shame.

David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social

cool, cool

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Did I need to make my Hercules mono driver need to implement wavelength to XYZ-color to sRGB mappings for wavelength emissions of well-documented phosphors in old monochrome CRTs? nope.. Did I do it anyway? yea... I kinda did.

thirty-two@j.holmes.codes

It was obviously something they were passionate about doing, for a very limited market, even at the time. Even the iconic PIC.028, your first introduction to Misty Acres is lovingly crafted for monochrome and not a straight-up "easy" mapping of EGA 16 color to black and white.

thirty-two reposted

Freya Holmér
@freya.bsky.social

normally I wouldn't clarify that no children were kicked in the face in the making of my projects but in a society normalizing kicking children in the face ig I'll label too

Eniko Fox@enikofox.com

tbh if you're someone making videos on YT especially making videos about things you made using coding on YT it might be worthwhile to lead with a "made by humans, no generative AI was used in the creation of this video/game/whatever" splash screen

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I love it when I see an account labeled “AI Hater” non-ironically post or repost obviously AI generated pixels with a caption reading “👇 this 💯“ Lord have mercy on our souls.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

[me experiencing the last decade of right-wing/gamergate review brigading in online spaces, including steam game reviews, of fashvestiation bros scouring for any possible indication of “DEI”, queer representation, and “females” generally in video games]:

Edd Coates | Game UI Database@eddcoates.bsky.social

Arguably, there’s nothing more political than the erasure of artists, composers and writers from this world, just so people like Tim can get even richer. Billionaires HATE art because it gives ordinary people a voice. That terrifies them.

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

I thought the distinction was less a question if one can or cannot learn to masquarade well enough to become indistinguishable, and it was more a question of “do you crave eye-contact because it makes you feel human” or “do you muscle through eye contact, because you know it’s expected of you”

ellie lockhart (she/they)@eleanor.lockhart.contact

autistic people can in fact learn social skills, including eye contact, small talk, and polite hedging/subtext doing activities like speech and theater is how I learned this. it's harder if you start when you're older but it absolutely is possible and it is not a thing autistic people "can't do."

thirty-two
@j.holmes.codes

Had some mushrooms and tomatoes in the kitchen that were thinking about going bad, so I roasted the tomatoes and minced up the mushrooms and started an all-day veggie bolognese. Spaghetti bolognese with roasted garlic bread

thirty-two reposted

Caræsten 🇵🇸
@cara.city

it is actually genuinely so annoying that every time I have a mildly popular post about vintage technology, some man jumps into my @ replies to “well, ACTUALLY” me