Comics, memes, and remixes about building software.https://principlestash.com/en-ushttps://principlestash.com/doodles/free-time/https://principlestash.com/doodles/free-time/Every listing on that page says 'must be comfortable working with AI agents'.Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/free-time.tK0ixMez_Z1iQBNT.png" alt="Three main panels. Five friends discuss over dinner how much time coding agents have freed up. A five-part montage shows the mustachioed P mascot reading System Design, a woman laughing at TikTok in bed, a man lifting dumbbells, a mother feeding her baby, and a bearded man making campaign phone calls. Two years later, they reunite at the same dinner table, the baby now a toddler on the mother’s lap. The bearded friend congratulates P on becoming Head of Engineering. P replies, “Thanks Senator!” The mother asks the woman with the phone, “Still scrolling?” She replies, “Yeah. Job listings now.”" /></p><p><em>Every listing on that page says 'must be comfortable working with AI agents'.</em></p>Comicaisoftwarelearningcareerhttps://principlestash.com/doodles/one-last-task/https://principlestash.com/doodles/one-last-task/Cancellation reason, as typed by the robot: 'did too good a job'.Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/one-last-task.CkxULUVt_Z2a0Eah.png" alt="Four panels. P, a mustachioed letter mascot with white cartoon gloves, tells a cheerful robot bearing the Anthropic logo on its chest, “You’ve helped me cut almost every expense. Great job!” The robot asks, “What’s left?” P silently slides over a paper labelled “Anthropic monthly invoice”. In the last panel, P sheds a single tear while holding a handgun to the robot’s head, its other hand resting on the desk. Still smiling, the robot types and says, “Happy to help!” A monitor shows a checkmark beside “Local model ready” and an hourglass indicating the pending task “Cancelling Anthropic Subscription”." /></p><p><em>Cancellation reason, as typed by the robot: 'did too good a job'.</em></p>Comicaiagentsbusinessopen-sourcehttps://principlestash.com/doodles/engagement-farming/https://principlestash.com/doodles/engagement-farming/I made all of this up and it still did better than my last launch.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/engagement-farming.D75EUkq2_1HTbBf.png" alt="A hand-drawn parody of a social media thread, seven posts connected by a vertical line. Each has a wobbly ink avatar: an owl for @duolingo, a girl with pigtails for @Wendys, a house for @StateFarm. The owl and the girl trade insults about breakfast menus, Spanish homework and a faked death; the house interrupts twice, first to ask whether a policy was active at the time of death and finally to report an owl at the residence. Small reply, repost and heart counts sit under every post and climb as the thread goes on, ending at 1.4M on the last one." /></p><p><em>I made all of this up and it still did better than my last launch.</em></p>Comicattentiondistributionmarketingsoftwarehttps://principlestash.com/doodles/goldilocks-context/https://principlestash.com/doodles/goldilocks-context/Panel two is my setup from March, minus the hair.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/goldilocks-context.Djit4OTX_ZnHHiG.png" alt="Three panels show the same robot agent wearing curly blonde Goldilocks hair. Under “Too primitive”, it holds a stick beside scattered parts and a plan for building a hammer, saying “First, I’ll build the tools.” Under “Too much”, it raises its hands from a mountain of tools, cables, folders and documents, asking “Which tool? Which document?” Under “Just right”, it finishes a small wheeled machine at an organized workbench. The tall, mustachioed P mascot stands behind the table holding a checklist, its legs hidden; the robot says “Done.”" /></p><p><em>Panel two is my setup from March, minus the hair.</em></p>Comicaiagentstoolingcontexthttps://principlestash.com/doodles/how-many-times-do-i-have-to-tell-you/https://principlestash.com/doodles/how-many-times-do-i-have-to-tell-you/A few thousand system prompts in, the training run starts looking cheap.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/how-many-times-do-i-have-to-tell-you.xfzL6QqS_Zk0kWd.png" alt="A hand-drawn double-headed arrow. Above it, RUNTIME at the left end and COMPILED at the right. Below it, two more pairs running the same way: PAY EVERY CALL and ONE-OFF TASKS at the left, PAY ONCE and RECURRING WORK at the right. Six marks along the line, each with a small drawn icon above it, read left to right: user prompt (a speech bubble), system prompt (a window with a title bar), skill file (a page with a folded corner), LoRA adapter (a small module with prongs), fine-tuned model (a box with two sliders), its own model (a chip with legs). An arrow points up at the gap between skill file and LoRA adapter, annotated: somewhere in here, knowledge stops being read and starts being remembered." /></p><p><em>A few thousand system prompts in, the training run starts looking cheap.</em></p>Comicaillmsagentsskillshttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-back-backlog/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-back-backlog/Somewhere in that stack is 'migrate off jQuery', filed in 2014.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-back-backlog.D4ekWaj7_21HF2j.png" alt="Five panels. A manager notices the empty backlog tray on P’s desk. The mustachioed P mascot, with black stick arms and white cartoon gloves, gestures toward a robot at a laptop and says the agent helped it finish early. P presses its gloved palms together and asks to take the rest of the day off. The manager laughs loudly, then presents a towering stack of folders labelled “The Back-Backlog” and replies with a deadpan “No.” Both P and the robot glare with lowered brows and disgruntled expressions." /></p><p><em>Somewhere in that stack is 'migrate off jQuery', filed in 2014.</em></p>Comicaisoftwareproductivityjevons-paradoxhttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-unassailable-consensus/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-unassailable-consensus/That's Einstein. The thing he's being told to keep up on is the one he won the Nobel for.Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-unassailable-consensus.CYAv4KyB_ZaqIPm.png" alt="Four panels. A wild-haired, mustachioed man asks a robot labelled LLM whether light is a wave or a particle. The robot cites Nature Photonics, Physical Review Letters and leading quantum optics labs and declares light an electromagnetic wave. The man asks “Are you sure?”. The robot, now scowling, tells him a mere human cannot doubt the unassailable consensus of modern science aggregated across hundreds of studies, and to try keeping up." /></p><p><em>That's Einstein. The thing he's being told to keep up on is the one he won the Nobel for.</em></p>Comicaillmsepistemicsconfidencehttps://principlestash.com/doodles/side-project-ai-edition/https://principlestash.com/doodles/side-project-ai-edition/I can now start and abandon a project in the same afternoon.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/side-project-ai-edition.DRkgSnBH_ZaakV3.png" alt="Six panels. A developer laying bricks says he is nearly done, then has an idea and wanders off to try a new framework, building a wooden frame instead. A bearded colleague asks if he is starting another side-project; he insists he had nearly finished the other one. A wide panel shows a field of half-built structures. The final panel, captioned “Post LLMs”, shows the same field filled horizon-to-horizon with abandoned foundations and frames, the colleague saying “I think you have a problem”." /></p><p><em>I can now start and abandon a project in the same afternoon.</em></p><p>After <a href="https://www.commitstrip.com/en/2014/11/25/west-side-project-story/">CommitStrip, “West Side-project story”</a>.</p>Remixaillmsside-projectsfocushttps://principlestash.com/doodles/effective-utilization-of-llms/https://principlestash.com/doodles/effective-utilization-of-llms/Most of my token bill is a Nobel laureate alphabetizing my filing cabinet.Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/effective-utilization-of-llms.CgwYgb5K_ZmThTn.png" alt="Six panels. A mustachioed letter P sits on a desk labelled “Chief Prioritization Officer” addressing three expectant people. They guess it has summoned them for quantum gravity, animal consciousness or the three body problem; it rejects each. Its actual request is “sort my files alphabetically, but make P the first letter”. The room goes silent, someone asks “is…is that all?”, and P, now reclining with its feet up, adds “Oh, right, make no mistakes.”" /></p><p><em>Most of my token bill is a Nobel laureate alphabetizing my filing cabinet.</em></p>Comicaillmsprioritizationprocesshttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-paradoxes-of-software-engineering/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-paradoxes-of-software-engineering/We made the 15% free and called it a revolution.Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-paradoxes-of-software-engineering.DsF_K9wo_1wwnzI.png" alt="A two-part diagram. On the left, a decay curve of “cost of generating code” against time flattens just above zero, the gap to the axis labelled “the last mile”; below it a mustachioed letter P says “If I can just bring the cost down a bit more, I’m sure we’ll be bug free!” while a queue of scowling bugs stretches to the horizon holding placards reading “the final bug?”, “the final final bug”, “the final final final bug for real” and “the real final bug”. On the right, a pie chart gives about 15% to “generating code” and about 85% to “the rest of software engineering”, itemised beneath." /></p><p><em>We made the 15% free and called it a revolution.</em></p>Comicaillmssoftware-engineeringestimationhttps://principlestash.com/doodles/english-as-an-abstraction/https://principlestash.com/doodles/english-as-an-abstraction/A prompt precise enough to work has a file extension.Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/english-as-an-abstraction.GaH3QD_d_ZR9MuT.png" alt="Three panels. In the first, a mustachioed letter P asks a smiling computer for a reusable user card component “similar to an Instagram profile card”, and the computer answers “Understood. Razzmatazzing…”. A narrow middle panel shows a slot machine spinning HTML, CSS, React and stray tags. In the third, a sweating P reads out a precise bulleted spec of props, CSS class, validation and edge cases; the computer says “Got it, why didn’t you just say that!” while P thinks “It was in the first attempt…”." /></p><p><em>A prompt precise enough to work has a file extension.</em></p>Comicaillmsabstractionspecificationshttps://principlestash.com/doodles/dependency-ai-edition/https://principlestash.com/doodles/dependency-ai-edition/Everything above the pillar was rewritten this year. Nobody has emailed Nebraska since 2003.Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/dependency-ai-edition.BFHeobza_Z1h80C4.png" alt="A precarious tower of small blocks stacked hundreds high, swaying into the clouds, every block propped on the one below it. The entire structure balances on a single thin pillar at the bottom, labelled by an arrow: “a project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003”." /></p><p><em>Everything above the pillar was rewritten this year. Nobody has emailed Nebraska since 2003.</em></p><p>After <a href="https://xkcd.com/2347/">xkcd #2347, “Dependency”</a> (CC BY-NC 2.5).</p>Remixdependenciesopen-sourcemaintenanceaihttps://principlestash.com/doodles/money-tier-list/https://principlestash.com/doodles/money-tier-list/The only tier list in history revised by a nine-page PDF.Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/money-tier-list.D_zTF2Jz_V47b8.png" alt="A tier list ranking forms of money on a black grid. S tier holds a Bitcoin coin. A tier holds a sparkling gold bar. B tier holds silver bars and purple gemstones. C tier holds a digital writing tablet and a paper banknote. D tier holds seashells and a stack of Rai stones. F tier holds a human brain." /></p><p><em>The only tier list in history revised by a nine-page PDF.</em></p>Mememoneybitcoingoldhistoryhttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-borrowing-cycle/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-borrowing-cycle/Economic Bubbles 🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 Fractional Reserve Banking.Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-borrowing-cycle.pmjSKkW2_Z1pWAwl.png" alt="A grimacing wojak face at the centre of a four-step loop drawn with black arrows: everything is too expensive, take out a loan, more money is in circulation and the purchasing power of your savings goes down, prices go up, and back to the beginning." /></p><p><em>Economic Bubbles 🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 Fractional Reserve Banking.</em></p>Memedebtinflationfractional-reservecantillonhttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-crypto-midwit/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-crypto-midwit/I was the crying guy for about two years. Everything I wanted to fix turned out to be load-bearing.Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-crypto-midwit.Dk-weDiZ_2719x9.png" alt="The midwit bell curve meme. At the low end of the IQ curve a simple figure says &quot;just use Bitcoin&quot;. At the high end a hooded figure says the same. In the crowded middle, a crying figure insists on building a new cryptocurrency instead." /></p><p><em>I was the crying guy for about two years. Everything I wanted to fix turned out to be load-bearing.</em></p>Memebitcoincryptoaltcoinshttps://principlestash.com/doodles/the-evolution-of-money/https://principlestash.com/doodles/the-evolution-of-money/If you can't explain something using a meme, you don't understand it well enough.Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p><img src="https://principlestash.com/_astro/the-evolution-of-money.iwmKfDam_HmYf2.png" alt="A three-column meme in the buff-doge-to-cheems format. Each column shows a gold bar or a money printer at the top, feeding down into banknotes, ending in a dog wearing a banknote for a face. Left, under &quot;Money then&quot;, the dog is muscular. Middle, under &quot;Money under Bretton Woods&quot;, it has slumped. Right, under &quot;Money now&quot;, it is slumped further beneath three money printers." /></p><p><em>If you can't explain something using a meme, you don't understand it well enough.</em></p>Mememoneyfiatgoldbretton-woods