@bradellis Have you ever, like, just looked at the back of your hand? Like *really* looked. Galaxies are like cells man.

@lapcatsoftware Being unobstructed in how I learned to program computers is exactly right. I was so fortunate to be able to have access and things were so “primitive” that I could just do anything.

I recall an Apple ][+ game on a disk my Dad had bought. It had a launcher app. One of the items in the text GUI(!) menu read:
D) Detail
It did not. It read:
D) Delete
But I was dumb and it was my favorite game so I wanted more Detail. I was terrified to tell my Dad I’d said “Yes, Detail the Program”

@lapcatsoftware Totally. That’s probably grist for another piece. Thanks for writing.

@lapcatsoftware I think maybe “computers” aren’t the future. That’s a framing we’ve grown up with. Things that have computers in them are the future. But “computers” as we know them? I don’t know.

What I do know, and agree with you wholeheartedly about, is that there’s a joy, thrill, and enlightenment to learning how this stuff works.

You don’t learn how to cook without fucking up a bunch of meals, cutting yourself while chopping veggies, and burning yourself a few times.

@lapcatsoftware Heh. Totally.

I think we come at these things from different angles at times. Often I favor the approach of rights-based microkernels. You’re given ports (in Mach terms) and they’re tightly scoped. So you’d not get a “file system”. You get a port view into the FS that was limited to one directory. (For example)

This is a robust and secure approach for many systems.

But “computer” as a thing we love? It precludes the thrill of exploration, danger, and learning we enjoyed.

The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/

I appreciate this essay by @lapcatsoftware in which he lays out his philosophical framing of what he believes the value of “computers” to be and where he fears we’re headed.

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/3/5.html

@kcase (Rexx! Loving this story)

In early 1985, Henry Nussbacher sent a letter to all Bitnet contacts calling for admins to hunt down and destroy every chat server because a dozen users actively chatting could bring file transfers to a halt—file transfers being the primary purpose of the network.

Jeff Kell realized that the problem wasn't chatting itself, but redundant traffic from independent connections. So he built the first Relay chat system. I got involved in August, setting up the 10th relay server and contributing code.

@TSindelar You think Dan can skank?

@dankeen @rdrhyne I get that. Maybe one day. Here’s a fun top level summary of it.

https://infosec.exchange/@chillybot/116208352951958708

@schwa @Migueldeicaza Thanks for this. I’d been on the road so had missed it.

I recall you facing a similar issue a year or so ago. I doubt you’re doing something dumb. The SwiftUI instrument has seemed cool to me but I’ve not had to use it in anger. If I recall last time it was something weird like all items in a closed pop-up being reevaluated?

People probably won’t want to hear this but I think it’s pretty impressive it’s as fast as it is given that sort of rapid state invalidation.

Mark Carney:
https://apple.news/AmrVWI9KgRJ2aLNb7q2AMaw

@dankeen @rdrhyne It’s a pretty weak start but grows into something all its own. Worth it but I won’t push anymore than I’m sure you’ve heard over the years.

@rdrhyne Happy you finally got there!

struct of arrays in Swift ✨

https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0519-borrow-inout-types.md

Can't get over how crazy this chart is. Never seen a better illustration of one of the core differences between Canadian and American culture. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-country-survey-americans-especially-likely-to-view-fellow-citizens-as-morally-bad/

@schwa @Migueldeicaza Out of curiosity what’s the state duplication for? To denounce changes and even out the work load?

Last week, while debugging a SwiftUI performance issue, I was running instruments and found that my profiles were plagued with noise.

Godot while idling was using so much CPU time that it was skipping entire frames while rendering.

I set out to fix those, 0.5% here, 0.5 there, and the Godot Editor (and Xogot) no longer skip frames.

People had been complaining that Godot would burn your battery in an hour if you left it idling, it no longer does.

Details:

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/116845

@antonyjohnston “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” is even more appropriate in our current age of taking no time at all to write.