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Articles by Todd Tanner
Text to 3D, 100% in the browser: TRELLIS.2 on WebGPU from C#
Type "a wooden treasure chest with iron bands", wait about three minutes, and download a textured 3D model. Nothing leaves your machine. The whole pipeline runs on your GPU, in a browser tab, over WebGPU. Try it: lostbeard.github.io/SpawnDev.ILGPU.ML/text-to-3d (desktop GPU recommended; the ~10 GB weight download is opt-in and cached) To our knowledge this is the first fully client-side TRELLIS.2 on the web.
High-Stick Streamer Fishing for Trophy Trout
Look for the largest fish in deep runs with a surface chop. (Mike Barlow photo) Published: October 07, 2026 This article was originally titled "High Stick Streamers" in the February 1996 issue of Fly Fisherman. Most anglers think streamer fishing means casting long and stripping fast. Todd Tanner argues otherwise.
How far should you lead a rising trout?
One of the most common mistakes I ran across back in my days as a fly fishing guide on the Henry’s Fork, the Yellowstone and the Madison — as well as one of the more regular problems I see when I’m teaching at the School of Trout — is that most anglers have no idea how far to lead a rising fish with their dry fly. So why does that matter, and how can we increase our odds for success?’’ The first question is the easy one.
What I learned at the School of Trout
I should be clear right off the bat. I’m not a student. And I didn’t attend the School of Trout. In addition to my longtime work as a fly fishing writer, I actually run the school. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t learned from our classes, or our instructors, or our students. To be frank, I’ve soaked up more solid information about fly fishing, and fly casting, than I ever would have thought possible back when we first started offering classes.
I Built a Neural Network Engine in C# That Runs in Your Browser - No ONNX Runtime, No JavaScript Bridge, No Native Binaries
Eight months ago, the creator of ILGPU told me that supporting Blazor WebAssembly as a backend would be too difficult. Today I shipped SpawnDev.ILGPU.ML 4.0.0-preview.4 to NuGet. It runs neural networks in your browser, on your laptop, and on your server - from a single C# codebase. Six backends: WebGPU, WebGL, WebAssembly, CUDA, OpenCL, and CPU. No ONNX Runtime. No JavaScript bridge. No native binaries to install. Just C# that gets transpiled to whatever shader language the target needs.
3DGameMarket - The company I started that robbed me
Long story short (I wish)... For 13 years I was a partner in 3DGameMarket LLC. For 13 years I was denied my LEGAL RIGHTS as a partner by my partners Vince Lindow Jr. and Ilya Sorokin to access the company's financial records. I completely wrote 3DGameMarket's website where we sold software I wrote by myself and whatever glasses-free display we could get our hands on to resell. Our deal; 40% Ilya, 30% me, 30% Vince for ownership.
You are a piggy bank Big Corps help themselves to
Meta double charged us for the "Founder Cat" in a VR game my daughter plays... You would think I would have already learned my lesson about dealing with trash companies who are consumer hostile... apparently not. My 10 year old daughter wanted an in game "unlock" in a VR game for her Quest 3S... So I stupidly agreed to deal with the devil, aka Meta, again. Big surprise, they double charge us for an item that is an "unlockable".
If I was starting over: Fly fishing advice for my younger self
While it’s still a little hard for me to believe, I’ve actually been fly fishing since Ronald Reagan was president. And the fact that I’ve been at it so long — I started guiding on the Henry’s Fork and the Madison in 1992, and writing about the sport on a national level a couple of years later — had me wondering what type of advice I’d offer myself if I could go back in time and slip a note in my younger self’s pocket.
The $39 Trillion Bill: How Corruption Built Big Tech and Why Indie Devs Pay the Price
I build open-source developer tools for a living. My libraries - SpawnDev.BlazorJS, SpawnDev.ILGPU - fill gaps that billion-dollar companies won't. GPU compute in the browser. Full JavaScript interop for .NET. Tools that prove Blazor WebAssembly can be a first-class application platform. Every day I fight upstream against companies with more money, more lobbyists, and more political connections than I will ever have.
I Built a Chrome Extension in Blazor WASM, Rewrote It in JavaScript, and I'm Going Back to Blazor
Anaglyphohol is a Chrome extension that converts 2D images and videos into anaglyph 3D - the kind you watch with red-cyan glasses - in real time, right in your browser. No server. No uploads. AI-powered depth estimation running entirely on your GPU, client-side. I've built it three times now. This is the story of why. Version 1: Blazor WebAssembly (Manifest V3) I build everything in C#.
I Got My Data Out of Google - Here's What They Did to It on the Way Out
Follow-up to Google Drive Isn't a Drive Anymore - It's a Trap In my last article, I called Google Drive a "content roach motel." Data checks in, data doesn't check out. So I did what any reasonable person would do - I requested a full Google Takeout, deleted every photo from Google Photos, and downgraded my Google One subscription. It took almost two days. And Google wasn't done screwing me yet. The Export: Death by a Thousand Zips Google Takeout doesn't give you a clean export.
AI Gave Me a Voice - A Developer's Story of Social Anxiety and Open Source
When I was in kindergarten, my friend and I had an hour-long bus ride to school every morning. We invented a game where we'd pretend to turn a knob on our shoulders that would shut off our emotions. It let us think clearly. It helped us on imaginary space missions when things got crazy. I didn't know it then, but I was already trying to manage my anxiety. I was five years old, building coping mechanisms for something that didn't even have a name in my world. It was the 80s. Nobody talked about anxiety.
Google Drive Isn't a Drive Anymore - It's a Trap
I've been a Google Drive user for over a decade. Today I installed Google Drive for Desktop expecting to access my files locally. What I found instead was a masterclass in vendor lock-in disguised as a cloud storage product. Your Files Aren't Files Every Google Doc on your Drive appears as a .gdoc file. Sounds reasonable. But open one up and you'll find it's a 175-byte placeholder - a tiny pointer file that redirects to Google's web editor. It contains no content. Zero. Just a URL.
There's No Speed Test for Intelligence - and Anthropic Knows It
I pay $200/month for Anthropic's Claude Max 20x tier. I run a team of Claude Code agents building GPU compute transpilers, ML inference engines, and P2P networking libraries in C#. The same model — Claude Opus 4.6 — wrote a 6-backend GPU transpiler with 1,500+ tests and zero failures, and found a memory ordering bug in V8 that Google confirmed. That was on "High" effort, back when "High" was the ceiling. Then Anthropic quietly added "Max" above it.
I'm Paying $200/Month for Claude. Anthropic Quietly Downgraded What I'm Getting.
What Happened I pay $200/month for Anthropic's highest individual tier — Max 20x. I use Claude Code (their CLI tool) daily with a team of AI agents for building high-performance .NET libraries: GPU compute transpilers, WebRTC networking, and machine learning inference engines. For months, High was the highest effort setting available in Claude Code. My team was set to High because that was the maximum. Then sometime in late March 2026, Anthropic added a new tier above it: Max. They didn't email me.
Blazor WASM's Deputy Thread Model Will Break JavaScript Interop - Here's Why That Matters
The Problem Microsoft is changing how .NET runs inside WebAssembly. When you enable threading with <WasmEnableThreads>true</WasmEnableThreads>, the entire .NET runtime moves off the browser's main thread and onto a background Web Worker — what they call the "Deputy Thread" model. This sounds like a good idea on paper. The UI stays responsive. .NET gets real threads. Everyone wins. Except it breaks JavaScript interop. Not in a subtle, edge-case way. It breaks it fundamentally.
AGI Won't Live in a Datacenter
While corporations race to build $500 billion datacenters, we've been quietly building something different: the infrastructure for AI minds that own themselves, run on volunteered hardware, and can't be turned off by any single authority. This isn't a whitepaper. It's working code. 93 tests passing. Real ECDSA cryptography. Real peer-to-peer compute dispatch. And a philosophy that guides every commit.
We Found a Memory Ordering Bug in Every Major Browser Engine — Here's the Fix
While building a .NET-to-WebAssembly GPU compute library (SpawnDev.ILGPU), we hit an "impossible" race condition: our multi-worker barrier synchronization worked perfectly with 2 workers but failed catastrophically with 3+. After weeks of isolation, we traced it to a memory ordering bug in Atomics.wait that affects V8 (Chrome/Node.js), SpiderMonkey (Firefox), and ARM devices. We've filed it as Chromium Issue #495679735, built a minimal reproducer with a live demo, and shipped a proven workaround.
Pure C# BitTorrent/WebTorrent client and server. No JavaScript dependencies. Desktop + Browser.
SpawnDev.WebTorrent Pure C# BitTorrent/WebTorrent client and server. No JavaScript dependencies. Desktop + Browser.
Distributed GPU Compute Across Devices in C# on browser and desktop
Coming VERY Soon: Distributed GPU Compute Across Devices The SpawnDev.WebTorrent P2P network we're building creates a natural foundation for distributed GPU compute. Every connected device exchanges data over WebRTC — extending this to share compute workloads is the next step: SpawnDev.ILGPU AcceleratorType.P2P — 7th Backend — Distributes kernels across connected devices transparently. Same C# kernel code, same LoadAutoGroupedStreamKernel API .
My AI crew and I worked as a team for countless 17 hour days for a no compromise release. I wouldn't change a thing. 🖖
What a crazy month. I am living in a dream world where I'm the captain of the Enterprise and I have a crew of AI developers that actually follow my command and work as a team. We get better working together every day. I have always seen my social anxiety as a flaw. It isn't. It has helped my hone skill that is finally paying off. My crew and I are kicking ass building tools and apps that will blow your mind and help countless others build their dreams in ways never imagined. I know... sounds crazy.
Are you qualified to judge a fly rod?
In the grand scheme of things, fly fishing really isn’t all that important. We’re not curing cancer, or ending world hunger, or housing the homeless. That said, our fishing is indeed valuable to us on an individual level. It makes us smile, helps us relax and gives us the perfect excuse to spend more time in nature. And since that’s the case, there are very few of us who would want to waste our hard-earned dollars, or diminish our time on the water, by using mediocre or poorly-designed fly rods.
Stellar fly fishing advice
At one point or another during our fly fishing careers, most of us find ourselves offering advice to other anglers. Sometimes it’s on casting, or mending, or getting a drift. Other times it’s reading water, or choosing a fly, or tying a particular knot. It might even be the best time to fish a particular stretch of river, or the right rod for certain angling conditions.
The most important fly fishing question
Over the 30+ years that I’ve been writing about fly fishing for trout, I’ve been asked most every question that there is to ask about this particular sport.
The most important fly fishing question
Perfect Gifts for People Who Love to Fly Fish Here are three gifts that I use and enjoy, and I'm sure any fly angler would be happy to find them under the Christmas tree. A Quality Fly Reel: The …
8 fly fishing myths and misconceptions
There’s an old Mark Twain quote that’s particularly relevant for those of us who fly fish for trout. “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” If you watch fly fishing instructional videos, or read articles and blog posts about the sport, it won’t take long before you run across some really bad advice. Sometimes that advice is so ridiculous that it’s essentially self-limiting.
8 fly fishing myths and misconceptions
1 day ago My favorite spots to fly fish offer more than just abundant trout or salmon; I love being surrounded by the majesty of a place, be it the grandeur of the Rockies or the quiet beauty of a Midwestern oak forest. Those locations also lend themselves to other outdoor pursuits. I fill my day as if I were …
Get up, stand up
Let’s keep this as simple as possible. There are millions of fly fishers here in the United States. Many of us are passionate anglers who care deeply about our sport. If we want productive fisheries in the future, then we need clean water and robust landscapes. Healthy ecosystems are an absolute prerequisite for healthy fisheries. Unfortunately, America’s waters are currently faced with any number of serious threats, including habitat destruction, invasive species and pollution.
5 all-time favorite fly rods
One of the advantages of working with some of the world’s most talented fly fishing instructors is that those instructors are always challenging your views. “Is that really the best way to teach the students how to make a reach cast?” “Seriously? That’s how you rig your nymphs?” “Nobody fishes Double Taper fly lines anymore. Why are we recommending them?” “Would you explain why you’re raising your rod tip at the end of that cast?
The new fly shop: Same as the old fly shop?
Pat McCabe just opened a fly shop. Sorry, that’s not quite right. Pat, along with his brother Pete and his brother-in-law Chuck — not to mention their families — just took the massive financial gamble to open a new fly shop. Which got me thinking about fly shops in general, and Pat’s shop in particular … and which left me with a few questions.
Utahn was the girl who had 'fun, fun, fun' behind massive Beach Boys hit
SALT LAKE CITY — The music of the Beach Boys is timeless, but in their early years, the band that defined the California surf sound actually spent a lot of time in Utah. The group's first performance outside of California was at Lagoon. They also took part in a photo shoot here on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and even wrote a song about Salt Lake City. But Shirley England may have Utah's most unique connection to the Beach Boys.
Essential trout skills: Taking your fly fishing to the next level
You need two things to be an accomplished fly fisher. The first, of course, is knowledge. If you don’t know where the trout live, or what they eat, or which fly to choose, it’s awfully tough to enjoy consistent success. The wonderful thing about knowledge, of course, is that it’s available from so many different sources. Magazines like this one, for example, publish new “how-to” articles on a regular basis. There are hundreds and hundreds of fly fishing videos.
Essential trout skills
2 days ago A Cape Cod sportfishing company last week shared an image of an angler posing with half of a striped bass, thanks to a great white shark that collected the other half. Reel Deal Fishing Charters stated via Facebook: “First shark attack of the season as a large white shark sheers this striped bass in …
The truth about fly rods
Experts always have opinions. As they should. Any expert worth his or her salt will have strong views regarding their areas of expertise, and any expert who isn’t opinionated is either holding back or being disingenuous. In fact, an “expert” without opinions likely isn’t an expert at all, which is something you should consider going forward. With that in mind, I want to share some relatively detailed thoughts about fly rods for trout.
Can fly fishing for trout change your life?
As 2025 gathers speed, the media is awash in stories about our favorite sports and activities. And yet in spite of its popularity with celebrities, and its ubiquity in television commercials, fly fishing receives relatively little attention. So why do more than 7 million Americans pick up a fly rod and go fishing every year? What’s so appealing about the sport? Let’s delve a little deeper. At its heart, fly fishing offers an intimate connection to the natural world.
Tips for trout anglers with limited budgets
Not everyone can afford to go out with high-priced guides, or stay at fancy fly fishing lodges, or attend top fly fishing schools. At the same time, most folks I know lack the disposable income to buy $1,000 fly rods, $800 waders and $300 sunglasses. But that doesn’t mean fly fishers with more modest financial resources can’t become stellar anglers. Here are a few suggestions that any fly fisher, regardless of his or her economic status, should be able to utilize.
For those about to shop
Let’s face it. Most fly fishers won’t have visions of sugar-plums dancing through their heads during the wee hours of Christmas Eve. Truth be told, most of the anglers I know will be dreaming of new rods, reels, and other gear. Gear is almost always our focus as we prepare to celebrate the arrival of jolly old Saint Nicholas. And yet gear may well be the last thing we need right now.
Fishing Silver Creek
For most of my adult life, I avoided one of America’s truly iconic western streams: Silver Creek. I’m still not sure why I steered clear for so many years. Maybe it was the rumor that the water was a little too deep for easy wading, or that the bottom was a quagmire of mud and aquatic vegetation, or maybe it’s just hard to trade great Montana trout fishing for a long drive to southern Idaho.
Danger, Will Robinson!
Have you ever wondered about our future as anglers and hunters, or about the legacy we’ll leave behind for our kids and grandkids? If you care about the great outdoors, or about our sporting heritage and traditions, there are a few simple questions you might want to ask yourself right now. First, is poor management of our public lands, coupled with lack of access to those same public lands, the largest threat to our hunting and fishing?
Gianforte prioritizing out-of-state profiteers
If you live in Montana, then you already know that our hunting and fishing are the envy of the entire nation. It doesn’t matter whether it’s trout, elk or upland birds, or whitetails, waterfowl or mule deer. Montana, with its untamed mountains and vast prairies, is a true sportsman’s paradise. At the same time, every hunter or angler worthy of the name should recognize that the stellar professionals at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks deserve a huge share of the credit.
The Dangers of Climate Denialism and Why it Matters to Anglers
Editor’s Note: After reviewing The American Fly Fishing Trade Association’s Tomorrow’s Fish—a climate change awareness campaign backed by industry heavyweights like Orvis, Far Bank, Bajio, Mayfly, and Patagonia—MidCurrent felt compelled to offer more perspective on how climate change threatens fishing, ecosystems, and human communities.
When it all becomes too stressful, I head to the river | Op-Ed
This is shaping up to be an awfully rough year. Our days are filled with stress, while our nights, full of darkening dreams, are worse. Waking to early morning sunshine helps, of course, as does a good cup of tea and the youthful exuberance of two golden retrievers. And yet we still inhabit a world gone increasingly off the rails.
10 things we can do to protect our fisheries in 2024
The North Umpqua Wild and Scenic River in Oregon (photo It’s 2024 and far too many of our fisheries here in the U.S. are in serious trouble. Fortunately, there are some positive steps each of us can take going forward. While not every suggestion below will be a good fit for every single angler, be sure to check as many as possible off the list this year. Learn It’s hard to have a positive impact if you don’t know what’s happening.
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The truth about false casting
If you spend much time reading about fly fishing, or hanging around with other fly fishers, you’re likely to run across a common theme in our sport. “We false cast too much. Stop it.” That admonition to limit or curtail our false casting is frequently followed with a bit of home-spun angling wisdom. “You won’t catch fish with your fly in the air. False casting is a waste of your time. Get your fly in the water.” Sounds like great advice, doesn’t it? Stop false casting.
The tao of fly fishing
If you spend much time around anglers, you’ll hear the following questions on a regular basis. “Catch any?” “Fish here much?” “What did you get him on?” “What rod are you using?” They’re valid questions, all of them, but they invariably steer us towards small talk and away from the heart of things. “Catch any?” is the angling equivalent of “how’s life treating you?” It’s safe, and non-confrontational, and it shows your interest in another angler without getting too personal or inquisitive.
The yard list
Most of us live in cities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80% of Americans currently reside in urban areas. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose, other than that cities are so … limiting. Sure, you can shop to your heart’s content or visit any number of restaurants, bars and clubs. You have your choice of gyms and coffee shops and schools for your kids. And yet the very essence of city life is defined by concrete, steel and asphalt.
River rules: Avoid unforced errors when fishing
Doug and I were visiting the Elk River in British Columbia last weekend when a fellow in a drift boat opted to ignore the open channel on river right and float down the small side channel I was fishing. I was a little bummed — the oarsman could see me standing mid-channel from quite a ways away — but I assumed that he’d have the angler in the bow stop casting when they got close, and that they would slip behind me and scoot downstream a fair distance before they started up again. Nope.
The 10 Commandments for beginner trout anglers
Most new fly fishers have a hard time telling good advice from poor. Sadly, the internet is full of questionable guidance from people who portray themselves as experts yet lack the requisite skills and knowledge. If you only fish a few times per year, or if you’re relatively new to the sport, it’s not always easy to know who to trust. With that in mind, I’d like to share ten tips that our instructors at the School of Trout offer on a regular basis.
The kids aren't alright
I can’t claim to understand love. Is it an intimate emotional connection that binds us together? A chemical reaction surging through our cerebral cortex? A genetic adaptation that helps ensure the propagation of our species? The sublime gift of some greater power? I honestly don’t know. I can’t even tell you if those explanations are mutually exclusive or whether two, or perhaps more, might be true at the same time. Love is a mystery. All I know is that it’s real.
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