Jack Rusher

Intro. I’m a multifaceted weirdo, so in three parts: ① Homeschooled child prodigy, early/pre-web Internet’er, contributed to software used by ~2/3 of the world. Worked at multiple labs, including Bell/AT&T. Many successful startups. Currently building tools to move forward science and computation.

Really feeling this advice from Norvig today: "Whenever you develop a complex data structure, develop a corresponding consistency checker."

"In general, people do not want to pay writers any money at all. As a writer, you get used to it. But for software people, being perpetually devalued is pretty novel." — @ftrain.com aboard.com/the-web-is-m...

② It seems to me someone should explain the something similar to humanity in a broader context. You do not exist in the earthly environment. Rather, you are a part of it — and inseparable from it. Its destruction is your destruction, and no space colonization fantasy will save you.

Documenting a @folkcomputer.bsky.social program that's delighted me the last few weeks: + started with @joshuahhh.com asking about programs that can probe the pixels directly from the camera + led to these “marbles runs” + recently @itseieio.bsky.social made a version with nice gravity simulation

“The French courts have fundamentally misunderstood the working of the internet and the role of the domain name system”

The share of the German population with a migrant background is ~30%. 20% to 22% of the total labor force in Germany is foreign-born. Who do AfD voters think will work to support all these boomers and their fat pensions after we are kicked out of the country? 🤨 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigra...

dragging out a helper, hoisting dependencies along with it

Everyone’s seen the Sketchpad demo. Few understand how it actually works. I reimplemented Sketchpad from scratch, and I’m making short videos that recreate Sutherland’s demos and explain how they work. The first 8 are up — from drawing a line to the famous rivet. Link below 👇

A great talk by Henry Kautz from six years ago on AI in a broader sense than the current LLM hype. It makes a nice corrective for many frequently repeated opinions in this space: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cQI...

Every woman that I know in tech has similar stories. I do, my partner does, my friends, and so on. Anecdotally, that it's so pervasive is often cited as a main reason for leaving the industry

Shot, chaser.

“I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe.” #BuckminsterFuller

🤦🏻‍♂️ your refrigerators should not be connected to the internet 🤦🏻‍♂️ www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

I think I'll always love this form of CAD. Code (#clojure of course) the assembly parts using fairly simple primitives and boolean ops. Have an export at the bottom and just re-run the file when you change things. See a live update of the model as you work!

I got Lovelace's Notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine from Buddy Bindery by @alexanderobenauer.com and it's BEAUTIFUL

cool job alert. internal tools and automation in Rust and TypeScript, fully remote, lots of autonomy, $275k

raytracer test (and some alternative geometry)

“Executives would listen politely to his presentation, and go on with the same problematic practices.” Jay Forrester https://www.strategy-business.com/media/file/sb40_05308.pdf

We are now officially looking for sponsors for HeartConf'27! Thanks to our sponsors we can create a truly amazing event. With the new venue we also have much more space to let our sponsors shine! Check it out and spread the word! 2027.heartconf.eu/sponsor #heartconf #heartconf2027

I have an edition from this run. It’s a truly gorgeous artifact!

Valid: “[Muriel] Cooper was both fascinated by and inevitably frustrated by computers. She never learned to program, always felt the machines were too slow, or too clunky, or even downright hostile to their users.” -Reinfurt

At U Tübingen, we need 5s to introduce students to programming fundamentals.

"What if the cost of machines that think is people who don't?" — George Dyson

#OnThisDay in 1861, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend, "But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything." 📜🧪

Every AI CEO sounds like this.

Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.

render test with some alternative geometry

Man there's no way to crash your reputation so quickly as an engineering org as publishing obviously AI-written articles.

Brilliant mathematician Emmy Noether was initially barred from teaching at University of Göttingen because she was a woman. She taught for 4 years as a "guest lecturer" under David Hilbert's name. Hilbert, exasperated at the stupidity of the rule: "Gentlemen, this is not a bathing establishment."

@samaaron.bsky.social saw this and thought of you 😊

In this paper, we develop a formal semantics for the Skia graphics engine(which powers Google Chrome). We use these semantics to prove correct optimizations for Skia. Our optimizer gets average speedups of around 12% over Chrome across the top 100 most-visited websites.

“A good proof is one that makes us wiser.” #YuriManin

Noticed that my talk with @mkvlr.bsky.social and @unkai.bsky.social is up on youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFMo... Grateful for the time I got to spend with them 2 years ago, working on Live Programming experimentation in Clojure and Clerk.

I'm spending a couple of weeks in Boston for work, and at every meal I find myself imagining a book about the American diet titled Overfed and Undernourished.

i have decided to set a challenge for myself: one of the dungeon or building interior generators in this should be basically out of the box cellular automata (it's fine to postprocess to a limited extent). one candidate rule: [[0,1,0,0,0], [0,0,2,0,0], [2,1,2,0,0], [1,2,2,1,0], [1,1,1,2,2]]

The takeaway: the next leap in AI will not come from just scaling next-token prediction, but from systems that are agentic, self-referential, and temporally grounded. What do you think is the most important missing ingredient in today's AI systems? Link: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3...

“Variables abstract over values, functions abstract over behavior, macros abstract over syntax.” #JoeMarshall

Here's just one example of how a simple async program produces four different outcomes depending on which languages you use.

New data released today by Copernicus shows western Europe has just experienced its hottest summer on record, averaging 2.5°C above normal, with parts of France recording summer temperatures up to 4.5°C above average. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

structured editing unplugged

“Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them.” #VannevarBush, 1945

It just occurred to me that I made my first blog-like thing on the Internet (a .plan accessible via finger) in September 1986 — 40 years ago! We had way too much optimism about the disintermediated future, but I miss that optimism now, & those positive visions for equality and individual empowerment

For all the effort I make to quiet the “just build that yourself!” voice in my head, the rent seekers and nazis are making it nearly impossible these days. Let's see, what else do we depend on… Notion? No way that ends well, right?

@blackskyweb.xyz is building an interconnected suite of products reshaping how people connect, participate, organize, and transact online. We’re looking for a Head of Design to lead and shape how our products and brands look, feel, and work. please circulate widely. blackskyweb.xyz/about/jobs/h...