// Personal website of Chris Smith

Image of Chris, distorted with scan lines and a hologram effect
Name:
Chris Smith
Class:
Programmer
Type:
Human
HP:
929
✪✪ Yak Shave After attacking, add 1d6 side project tokens to this card.
✪✪✪ Side project Multiply all damage by number of side project tokens.
01/001

Chameth.com

Hello :)

Hello! I'm Chris, a software developer from the UK. That's me over in the picture. My $dayjob generally involves Android app development, but I also have an excessive collection of side projects. Outside of
programming
, I enjoy
video games
,
reading
, puzzle hunts, DIY,
board games
,
films
, escape rooms, and tinkering with electronics.

This website houses my blog and some other random bits and bobs. There's a full site map if you want a quick overview of what's here. Here are my latest blog posts:

The Ethics of LLMs

I’ve written about LLMs a few times recently, carefully dodging the issue of ethics each time. I didn’t want to bog down the other posts with it, and I wanted some time to think over the issues. Now I’ve had time to think, it’s time to remove my head from the sand. There are a lot of different angles to consider, and a lot of it is more nuanced than is often presented. It’s not all doom and gloom, and it’s also not the most amazing thing since sliced bread. Who would have thought?

Lead image for If all you have is a hammer…

If all you have is a hammer…

I presume everyone is familiar with the idiom “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. If not, well, there it is. It’s generally used pejoratively about being single-minded, but I think it also gives a glimpse into something more interesting: mental and perceptual sets.

Lead image for An app can be a ready meal

An app can be a ready meal

Three years ago I read “an app can be a home-cooked meal” by Robin Sloan. It’s a great article about how Robin cooked up an app for his family to replace a commercial one that died. It’s been stuck in my head ever since. It’s only recently that I’ve actually done anything like Robin described, though. Part of the reason was my brain got too hung up on the family aspect: in my head, a home-cooked meal is one where your family or friends all gather around to eat it with you (in much the same way as Robin’s app is used in the article). It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that you can apply all the same arguments to an app built just for you. And it doesn’t even have to be difficult. In fact, it can be more like a ready meal than a family dinner.