I installed a dimmer switch for the living room light today. It only took 5 min, but lifting up that faceplate and peering into the junction box felt like opening a portal to the afterlife. My connection to this world hung on by a copper wire, 120V separating a cozy evening from the Great Fire of 2024.
There's no type checking, no syntax highlighting, just my predecessor's loose reading of the National Electrical Code and my heart as the debugger. It's been two centuries since the first electric light, and I've spent every minute of that terrified. This is why I'm a software guy.
I actually have one :) Besides, it's easy enough to turn off the circuit at the breaker (turn light switch on, go to breaker, turn each breaker off until light goes off). Wiring up the new switch is straightforward enough too.
But what's really terrifying is having to then walk back to the breaker box and flip the breaker back on. I can never tell if it's going to "just work" or blow up the neighborhood.
I've worked with electricity more than the average person already, between growing up in a place and time that had frequent grid outages, having to replace household fuses instead before breakers were common, engineering classes in school, and working in solar. But I'm still never comfortable with electricity. I've been shocked by improper wiring in a swimming pool locker room, fried motherboards from accidentally shorting them to the case, melted laptops from missing drivers, etc.
In my mind, every wire is a fuze to an atomic weapon aimed at me personally, just waiting for the right moment to strike. Some people are afraid of heights... or public speaking... me, I'm terrified of circuits. They're like a bunch of snakes imbued with the power of lightning, where one bite could melt you from the inside out. Ugh. I'll stick to Javascript, thank you very much.
Converting more of these five acres we're on to a combination of native meadow and more-diverse forest (not just Douglas-fir), and increasing the variety of habitat by leaving some felled trees, brush piles, and digging out an ephemeral pond or two. Ideally we get it so no part of the yard needs to be mowed, and the greenery around the house can be managed by hand (for fire break and preventing water damage). The hope that some of these trees could live another five to eight hundred years is part of my motivation.
https://github.com/mlc-ai/web-llm
basically bringing the power of llms to web browsers via WebGPU. i think it’s useful because it’s better for privacy as nothing leaves your browser.
having that said i dont see how this is feasible yet on a widespread public scale given how computational intensive this is.
Building a custom wall mount for my downhill bike. It requires some extra engineering and planning, the space is tight since there is already one bike on the hallway. It is also important to estimate the forces involved, so that there is sufficient safety margin.
There's no type checking, no syntax highlighting, just my predecessor's loose reading of the National Electrical Code and my heart as the debugger. It's been two centuries since the first electric light, and I've spent every minute of that terrified. This is why I'm a software guy.