My job has changed

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I don’t mean my job in particular, I mean programming in general. For those that wonder what programming is, actually, I usually use a cooking recipe metaphor. Programming is like writing a really really detailed recipe. A lot of them, really. Maybe a whole cookbook worth. I’m going to stretch that metaphor beyond the breaking point in this post and say that programming is like writing detailed instructions for a feast and then also preparing it.

AI has changed my job. Let’s say that started about a year ago. And it started out small. “Look me up a recipe to do this or that.” And it did – and it was helpful. Very soon after that it was also doing minor prep work: “dice the onions.” And more often than not it would. For a while I’d have to yell at it and tell it I said diced, not chopped. These are things that amounted to a single line of code that I would have had to look up the details for because the syntax was tricky; not complicated, just tricky. And it would get it right or mostly right and it did it way faster than I could look it up and type it in. For reference, software of any size is 10’s of thousands of lines of code. Large programs are millions.

After a few months it got better and it became clear that starting with a plan could get you a pretty good result a lot of the time. “Write me a recipe for making a cake.” And it did. “No – I mean a black forest cake.” Updated. “Yes, but I want the frosting to be cream cheese based with some chocolate curls on top.” Updated. “No, you idiot, not plain cream cheese – chocolate icing with a cream cheese base.” Updated. “Great – now execute.” And the AI would then generate a pretty solid bunch of code and do a pretty good job integrating and smoothing the edges.

That was a month or two ago. Now it’s “Make a plan to do a 5 course meal with a German theme.” “No – a little fancier – think less beer and more liquor.” “Great. Do it.” AI generates the code. It does the integration. It writes the tests. On a good day it even cleans up some of the adjacent code. When it’s done it points out areas that it was not sure about or decisions it made that it thinks I might not like and maybe it should change. And maybe it’s not as nice as if I did it – it used pre-made bread crumbs instead of starting from scratch. Do the folks eating care? Probably not. A lot of programmers probably lean more into the Gordon Ramsay persona when talking about code. Mostly it’s more than good enough for the user.

As a programmer, I no longer write the recipe. I don’t chop the onions. I don’t fry the wiener schnitzel. A while ago (months) my boss asked me what I thought of all this. I told him I don’t mind because I’d been tech lead before and I didn’t mind doing that. And that’s still mostly how it is. Or at least somewhat how it is.

Here’s the thing: the only difference between you and me is that I know how to order a meal and I have a kitchen. That is to say that I have a development environment on my computer and I know how to tell AI what I want out of a program. The other thing is that about a year ago I would not trust an AI to dice an onion. A year.

Probably back in the aughts my father asked me if I thought it would be possible in our lifetime to ask a computer to write a program and have it just do it. I thought about it and told him not in his, but maybe in mine. Maybe.

Here we are. If you know what you’re doing you can tell AI to write software for you and it will do it.

We learned something!

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Ellyn and I went to my 40th high school reunion this past weekend – having already gone to hers. I don’t remember much about high school. In my senior year I was taking Calculus at the local community college and doing work experience – so I had 4 classes on campus (instead of 6)? I lived 7 miles from school because back in the 60’s there was a bus that ran a route that had been discontinued but never updated. Nearly everyone else in the neighborhood went to the school that was just 2 miles away instead. I didn’t go to a single ball game. I didn’t go to a single dance. As opposed to junior high (in Germany). In 9th grade I went to every dance and did ski Saturdays. I have more facebook friends (for what that’s worth) with folks I went to junior high with than high school. My graduating class was about 600 people – give or take a hundred. Jr. High was 2-300? spread K-12 (actually K-13 because some British schools had 13 grades back then).

But I decided that number 40 was it. So Ellyn and I headed down to L.A. to spend the weekend. We checked in to our hotel Friday afternoon and I looked online to see what was going on locally. It turns out that Jay Leno was doing his thing at a club 30 minutes away (which is nearby in LA terms). I bought us a pair of tickets for less than twice the cost of a movie and we got to see Jay Leno doing his thing at a club in Burbank. There were 30 folks in the audience? Certainly fewer than 40. Totally weird to see someone that famous in a place that small and be able to get tickets 90 minutes before the show. LA is weird. We had a great time!

Saturday we went to a gaming store we spotted as we were driving back Friday night. It was awesome. They sell tea. They sell games. They foster cats. They have a bunch of rooms for gaming. They have some big open gaming areas. They have air conditioning. They have a games library where you can grab a game and sit down and play it – which we did. We had a fun time and ended up buying a game. I wish our little town could support something like that.

Saturday night was the reunion. I was hoping to see 3-4 folks I recognized. I was expecting to see 1-2. I was not disappointed! The person I was most hoping to see was there (Hi, Arleen!). There were a few folks I would have liked to see, and there were a few folks I squinted at and ‘oh, yeah – I think I remember you…’ The food was good, the music was bad (mostly – 80’s music – new wave – I was and still am a head banger), and the venue was quite nice. I feel like that does it for me – I don’t suppose I’ll go to 50 unless someone I want to see again asks.

Sunday we got an “early” start and headed up the coast. We stopped off at Gaviota (the last beach before turning North and inland) and jumped in the water. It was so nice! The beach underwater has a lot of rocks, though (small ones – think foot to head sized) and the surf was short break so it was not good for body surfing. But it was fabulous to just swim out a little and bob in the water. Though it does suffer from the Santa Barbara tar curse. For those not familiar, oil seeps out naturally off the coast and deposits in the sand – so you end up getting blotches of tar on your feet. Trivial to get off with nail polish remover.

While packing up on Sunday, I went to put my ipad mini in Ellyn’s backpack and asked here where to put it. She said “there’s a zipper poket on the back that is shallow – put it in there.” So I look at the backpack and there is a zipper on the back and I unzip it and it is just wide enough to put the ipad in – but nowhere near tall enough. So I whine at Ellyn and she comes over a bit frustrated. She grabs the ipad and starts putting it in the zipper slot at the front of the backpack.
“Wait. You said the back of the backpack.”
“YES! The back of the backpack. Here.”
… “Wait. That’s the front of the backpack.”
“What? No! That’s the back of the backpack.”
We both gape at each other. 33 years we’ve been together. We’ve backpacked in Europe. We’ve been camping any number of times. Ellyn hardly leaves the house without her purse/backpack. Suddenly an infinite number of tiny frustrations when giving backpack directions make a whole lot more sense.
“No! The front of the backpack is the part that rests against your back. It faces the same way as you do when your walking. The back of it is the farthest from your front – it faces the same way your back does!”
“No! (pointing at the backpack laying on the table) The front of the backpack is what is facing you when it is lying on the table! The back is the part farthest from you as your facing it on the table!”

So we learned something. After 33 years we don’t agree on what the front of a backpack is.

Math and Science in the kitchen

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Our microwave gave out a few months ago. More specifically, the internal light flashed and it made THROMB MOAM sounds and a red warning light came on if we try to use it. I figure it’s time.

The new one has 2 sound levels: LOUD and off (as opposed to our toaster oven which has 3: LOUD, reasonable, and off). It turns out that “off” is fine for the microwave. You know it’s done because it’s no longer making noise. And if you were not paying attention then the done beep was never very motivating anyway.

But here’s the weird thing: it rotates counter-clockwise! It doesn’t seem like it’d be a big deal, but my head nearly exploded. The old one: clockwise. It just seemed unnatural. As it turns out (so to speak), it sometimes rotates clockwise and sometimes counter. The notion presented to me was that this was to make sure that the wear on the bearings is even. I find it hard to imagine a cheap kitchen microwave ever outlasting any bearing, ever.

And on the subject of microwave rotation! All microwave plates should rotate at some even integer times 2 RPM. If your mugs don’t have handles, this doesn’t matter. But if you put a mug of tea with a handle in the microwave and zap it for 30 seconds or a minute, you want the handle to be in the same place it was when you put it in – because that’s the grip. Why has no one else thought of this!?

Finally: mold. Ellyn bought me a nice bread box a few years ago. Wood. Some metal in the framing. Maybe a year ago it got a mold spot – I left some bread in there too long. Maybe 1cm on the bottom. Ellyn tried all the things – left it in the sun. Soaps. Bleach. It always came back. I asked the internet and it said that mold is super sensitive to heat. 130 degrees F would kill just about any of it. So I put it in our (very consistent) oven at 170 degrees for about 40 minutes. There’s no glue (that I can spot) in the framing, so I was not too worried about melting. Long story short: the mold has not come back!

Dice Tower West 2025

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I went to Dice Tower West again this year. Hung out with friends, played a bunch of games, and generally had a great time. The following is a list of games I had not played before. Most of them are new – with a few exceptions.


Moon Colony Bloodbath is a parallel semi-solitaire deck builder. It’s a quick game and easy to teach. The premise is pretty funny. I’d play it again, but I would not reach for it. I prefer my games a little interactive.

Fromage is a kind of worker placement game. You’re building a cheese empire! It’s a fairly quick game and not complicated. Not super compelling.

Seas of Strife is a trick taking card game. I’m not much of a card counter, but I had a good time with it. It’s quick enough to play. I’d go again.

Harmonies is a competitive card drafter/board building game. The interaction is the face up card drawing for placement, but as is often the case with games like this, I like my games to be more interactive.

Marvel United is a cooperative boss battler. Each player is a character with some special abilit[ies] they can bring to bear. A lot of the game is figuring out what you can do and what you can do to help other players do the best they can. I like this kind of game and would totally play again.

Leviathan Wilds is a game where you’re climbing a giant stone animal to heal its wounds. This is a coop game where each player has their own deck and some cards they play can help others. It amounts to a strategy game. I’d play again!

The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game This is a cooperative trick taking game. There are 18 ‘chapters’ to the game – mirroring the chapters of the book. You play various characters who must/not take various cards/tricks. I liked this enough that I bought a copy.

The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth is a two player competitive card drafter. It has a clever score keeping piece for one aspect. It’s a fair 2 player game based on the 7 wonders model. I’d play it again, but I generally avoid 2 player games.

SETI is a eurogame. I was going to say hard core, but I guess it’s really not that complicated. Boy howdy was it long, though. Way longer than the fun to be had. I won’t play this game again unless I’m with 2 other people who only want to play it. 4 players is too long a game to contemplate.

Décorum I played at a demo table. 4 players are roommates who are trying to decorate their house. Each has a set of artistic conditions (this color/style/item in which rooms, etc). The game is won when all players are happy with the layout. The catch is you can’t say what you want – you can just say how each thing placed makes you feel. I hate that lamp! That paint color in that room is fine with me. etc. I’d play it again.

The Gang is a coop Texas Hold’em game. After each card you vie for which position you think you are in terms of hand ranking. You win the round if you all get the right rank at the end of the 7 cards.

Cross Clues is like a cross between codewords and apples to apples. I just played it once and would totally play it again. I may pick up a copy – maybe to give away.

Bomb Busters is a great cooperative game. If you start by thinking of hanabi you’re on the right track – but you can see your own pieces and there are a bunch of scenarios that add twists to the rules. I would buy a copy except this is the exact opposite of Ellyn’s kind of game.

Gun It I played at a demo table. It’s a coop game where the 4 of you are in a getaway car; there are 3 weapons and the steering wheel and an order you each act in. Your goal is to cause the most mahem with the traffic around you. This is totally a single player solo game that four people can play together if none of them is the type to take over. I’d aim away from it.

Honorable mentions – games I had the most fun playing again this year:

Thunder Road: Vendetta This game is a hoot! It must be said that it is even better (a bunch) with the fire expansion “Carnage at Devil’s Run”, but it’s fun on its own. I would own this if the box were not so big.

Cthulhu: Death May Die is a serious coop strategy boss battler. It’s not a short game, but I really enjoy it. It is thematic, nicely written, good art. I was hoping to play some of the new expansion scenarios but did not find any. Played a couple of scenarios and had a great time.

Scout is a fantastic, short, easy to teach card game for 3-5 (best with 4 or 5). There is no reason to not break this out if you have the right number and a little time to fill.

It rained!

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What a funny thing to say. It rained! Back on the 19th it really rained for about 20 minutes. Henry (the cat) was very excited and confused. Zeke (the other cat) hid somewhere and came home after. Everything smelled amazing.

We all know what rain is. We all experience it. But this means something different to me than it does to most people in the world. The last time it rained here was .. in May? We didn’t have rain in June, anyway. So it’s been at least 4 months since the last time it rained here. What’s more, there is no telling when it’ll rain again. Typical would be the end of October. It could not rain again until January (unlikely). Quite possible it won’t rain again for another month or two. Which makes it kind of a big deal.

I happened to have lunch with my mother the next day. When I mentioned the rain, she pshawed. “You call that rain?” I’ve lived within 200 miles of my mother for most of my life – so our experiences of weather are pretty similar. Now she lives about 3 miles from me, so you would think that if it rained on me then it rained on her. But I happen to live between two little mountains, and it is quite possible that it really rained much harder here than there. Or maybe she just didn’t poke her head outside for those 20 minutes. I’m guessing the former.

My recent experience of rain is different than my neighbors’. I happened to have travelled to a place it rained back in June (my sister in Washington). We saw snow up close during that trip as well.

All of which serves to remind to me: we all experience this life differently. It rained! For me that was exciting. And a big part of that is because I happen to live where I do. If I lived somewhere else it would not be a big deal. So partly that’s who I am and partly it’s my current environment. And it’s just rain.

There’s a lot more personal experiences we do and do not share, and a lot more difference in our environments – past and present. I should keep an open mind and try to be empathetic.

Skynet

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I was asked when I started using github copilot – their “AI” tool for helping write code. Here is the note I remember writing when I first turned it on:

Kurt Feb 21st, 2023 at 8:41 AM
This morning I needed to set the default value of an existing column. Instead of looking it up [on api dock] I wrote a comment and copilot filled in the line. It got it right except <plural variable name> instead of our <singular variable name>.  That’s pretty useful.

For context, that would have taken me 5 minutes to look up and sort out all the options and all that stuff.

DTW 2024

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I went to Dice Tower West again this year – with Ellyn! Hung out with friends. Played a whole bunch of games. Had fun! Game highlights include Scout (card game we bought last year) and Fury Road.

Games!

Marrakech

I’m not sure how to describe this game. A lot of the experience is the giant board and felt rugs that you lay down on the giant “board”. I’d play the first retry just to figure out if there is a valid strategy to do better.

The Vale of Eternity

Kind of a card combo game – a little like Dominion, but with a deck you’re going through instead of a known set of cards to draw from. I worry that replays will make a big difference in how well you can build your power set and that will be a giant advantage against new players. I’d play it again.

Forest Shuffle

Another card combo game. It’s cute – you place tree cards and then associate various animals (mostly) with those trees. It has an interesting mechanic for the animal cards – they are all split in half either horizontally or vertically (with different animals on each half) so you only use one half of it. I’d like to see that mechanic in another game. I’d play it again if others wanted to.

Wyrmspan

If you’ve played Wingspan then you’ve just about played Wyrmspam. It’s about the same game with a couple of tweaks. And without the birds. Folks that like Wingspan for the birds don’t care for Wyrmspan. Folks that like Wingspans mechanics maybe like Wyrmspan. I didn’t care for Wingspan and don’t care for this one. I would avoid this game.

Robot Quest Arena

This is RoboRally for 8 year olds. It was not horrible. I’d play this with 8 year olds. I would totally play RoboRally.

Robinson Crusoe

Co-op survival game (which is kind of my bag). It was complicated, took too long, was hard to read the type on the cards. We lost at the very end but realized after the fact that we had a few abilities/cards that would have let us win. It was just too much of a pain to keep track of. Won’t be playing that again.

Deus

Card-combo with a splash of Settlers of Catan. This is another card combo where it seems like knowing the contents of the deck would be a huge advantage. It didn’t help that we started playing with the contents of one of the expansions – but we didn’t know that – and we didn’t have the rules for the expansions. Either way, I would avoid this game.

Vendetta Thunder Road

This was a con highlight! A bit like car wars light. It has some obvious mechanical flaws – you can gang up on folks, so it’s subject to the popularity contest. That said, if you heard a bunch of folks hooting and hollering and having a great time at the con, they were playing this game. I hear there is an expansion that adds more silliness and no real complexity. If the box were not big, I would buy this game. I would jump at playin again.

World Wonders

Competitive solitaire. Building and road placement on your own board but competing for tile draws. Ellyn really dug it and got a copy. I got thrashed at this the only time I played it. I’ll be playing it again, though I generally like my competitive solitaire to be more competitive.

Everdell Farshore

Card combo and worker placement. Yet another combo game where knowing the deck is a huge advantage. I’d play this again if others really wanted to, but I’d aim away from it. Though the art is super cute.

Empire’s End

Often compared to the game “No Thanks” – anti-auction game where you bid on NOT taking the disasters. The person who takes the disaster then gets all the bids that were made to avoid it as well. I just don’t care for fail games as a rule – where you’re trying not to do the worst.

I have changed my tune

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When I’m in the kitchen doing the dishes or making dinner or whatever, I don’t hum a little tune. Yodoh doh-doh dodee doh… Some other times as well, but mostly while doing kitchen things. It’s not something I think about, it’s just something I do – have done for years and years. Always the same tune. Maybe a little variation in the second or third verse – if I get around to them.

At times I have wondered where it came from. I have no idea if it came from anywhere. I have never made a real effort to figure it out, but it’s not a tune that Ellyn recognizes. It’s the Kurt fussing in the kitchen tune.

Maybe a couple of months ago, I started another tune. Doopee doopee doop-doop-doo doopee doo doopee doo… I didn’t think anything of it; a little surprised. But when fussing in the kitchen the new tune stuck. And I had trouble even remembering the old tune. I have no idea where the new tune came from, but it seems to be my new tune.

After years, maybe decades, I have changed my tune. Not on purpose, but suddenly and seemingly permanently. Which feels weird.

We’ve all heard the expression that someone has changed their tune. Is this where it comes from? Do [some] other people have little tunes in their heads that suddenly change? I’d never given the expression much though, but now I really wonder.

Cruise? No thanks.

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We went on a Viking river cruise (the Daube) the other week. It was .. nice? But I would not do it again. At least not in the foreseeable future.

Covid

Covid is still a thing. Yeah, folks are vaccinated (and it’s a requirement for the cruise – but nobody actually checked). But the cruise experience is still (as a co-worker said) a floating petri dish. You are sitting down, indoors, for 1-3 meals per day at a table with 4-8 strangers being served by the same staff for a week straight. The river cruise is just about 200 passengers (plus staff) – not the thousands you can get on Disney ocean cruises. In addition, you will be riding busses with these folks to and fro. And every single one of them travelled through some number of airports. And not a one of them wore a mask. Covid is almost certainly not going to kill you, but it is still a highly contagious cold that will knock you on your ass for days.

Flexibility

Viking, at least, will tend to screw you if you change passengers (add/remove/swap). It seems like if you want to swap a passenger ahead of the cruise it should be trivial. It ain’t. In addition, cruises tend to be booked many months ahead of time. It makes sense – it’s just a big negative in my book.

Daily lock-in

There are some things you can add up to the last minute – but not many. Most things need at least 24 hours notice; and usually if you drop something (even days ahead) there is no refund. In addition, you’re only at that port for one day – tops. If you pass on something then that’s probably it. The events you’re given access to through the cruise are mostly trivial to find without the cruise. I much prefer to be able to decide when I’m going to do the city bus tour, when I’m going to grab the fancy meal out, when I’m going to do the day trip to the UNESCO site half a day away once I’m at the place. Depending on the weather, energy levels, etc. Yes, if you’re going to Vienna you have to book the concert ahead of time – probably! But most things can be juggled up to the day if you’re doing it yourself.

In short, I like to stay in a place at least 3-4 days. Get a bit of a feel for the place. See the big tourist thing and also some of the really local stuff. Cook some of my own meals with local groceries.

The cruise had this weird grown-up disney or vegas feel. You get on a bus, go somewhere, see a thing, bus back to the ship, dine & drink and off to the next port. I guess if you just want to splash on the surface then that’s fine. Or if you’re sampling for where you really want to go back to and spend time then maybe. But I don’t do trips often enough; I want to find 2-3 places I really want to spend time, line them up, and then spend 3-4 days at each (with probably a day of travel between).