Fascination Street #11

Writing for the week of April 14, 2025

Does anyone remember Max Headroom? I remember watching the sci-fi show as a kid. Yes, I know I am dating myself. Ignore how old the show is and how old I am. So, why am I bringing up a dated sci-fi show? Because it’s what I want as an AI. Is anyone working on this? I don’t want an AI to generate my code. One, because I like to write code, and two, because the code being generated is not of high quality, at least at the moment. I want a virtual pair. He or she can even be a smart ass like the character on the show. Maybe that would help all of us not take it so seriously.

Maybe it’s just the geeks that are really paying attention to this because of the supposed loss of jobs. But I have to wonder if we’re just approaching it wrong right now. The idea is that an AI will replace an actual programmer because it will generate the code. Seems misleading on a lot of levels.

I attended a round table discussion yesterday, and the general consensus is that AI, in its current form, is basically an inexperienced intern with a photographic memory. Any business willing to bet its bottom line on an intern with a good memory over a senior engineer? Probably not when put in those terms. However, the consensus was AI can be a better autocomplete, which is helpful for experienced programmers who know how to solve problems. Maybe progress can be realized. But I don’t want just a better autocomplete. LSPs already do that.

Which brings us back to Max Headroom. How cool would it be to have a virtual avatar watching like a pair and catching not just typos but suggesting better patterns and structures? Maybe I just described a modern version of Clippy. Damnit!

Anywho, that is my current thoughts on AI. I’m not for or against. I’m just waiting for the version I envision. One that interests me, like the show did when I was a kid. I assume someone is already working on a virtual avatar that delivers the results of a LLM in spoken word rather than text output. If you know of a project like this, let me know!

▧ ▧ ▧

Links

• https://kerrick.blog/articles/2025/ship-software-that-does-nothing/ - I support this notion 100%. I think establishing a CD pipeline first is a great thing to do. I do this on all of my personal projects. One of the first git commits is the GitHub Actions workflow to deploy.
• https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/04/funding-expires-for-key-cyber-vulnerability-database/ - new CVE Foundation created to save the CVE DB. Shortly after, funding was restored. I’ve done a lot of work with CVEs and CVSS. We would have needed a replacement if funding would have been lost in this government chaos.

▧ ▧ ▧

Music

• Lard - remember when Al Jourgensen and Jello Biafra formed a punk/industrial band. I’ve been revisiting it this week. It holds up.
• Only Crime - Pursuance - Russ from Good Riddance and Bill from Descendents. More melodic hardcore from some of the greats.

▧ ▧ ▧

A couple of promotions each week. First, use my invite link to try Warp as your terminal. It’s fast and has some great features. I’m not affiliated with them at all, just really like it. Also, check out my project–Schemabook, especially if you work in an organization that wants to get organized around defining data through contracts and collaboration. Lastly, I’m writing a book about learning Rust if you are familiar with Ruby. Stay tuned. As always, you can connect with me more at https://mikekrisher.com.