Phase Changes
The defining experience of fascism is “getting yelled at by dumbasses”....
The defining experience of fascism is “getting yelled at by dumbasses”.
Quoting Steve Jobs
Well, the types of computers we have today are tools. They’re responders: you ask a computer to do something and it will do it. The next stage is going to be computers as “agents.” In other words, it will be as if there’s a little person inside that box who starts to anticipate what you want. Rather than help you, it will start to guide you through large amounts of information. It will almost be like you have a little friend inside that box. I think the computer as an agent will start to mature in the late '80s, early '90s.
— Steve Jobs, 1984 interview with Access Magazine (via)
The 2025 Audubon Photography Awards Emphasize Epic and Endangered Migrations. I love...
The 2025 Audubon Photography Awards Emphasize Epic and Endangered Migrations. I love the shot of the acorn woodpecker.
How the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz Survived the Death Camps. “I have...
How the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz Survived the Death Camps. “I have been gripped by a need to understand more not only about the women in the Auschwitz orchestra…but also what hearing music in this inferno meant to the other prisoners.”
Of Oz the Wizard, an Alphabetized Version of The Wizard of Oz
Of Oz the Wizard is the entire Wizard of Oz movie presented in alphabetical order by dialogue. So it starts with all the scenes where Dorothy and the gang say “a”, “aaiee”, “along”, and proceeds through “you’re” and “zipper”. Even the words on each of the title cards are s...
I think "agent" may finally have a widely enough agreed upon definition to be useful jargon now
I've noticed something interesting over the past few weeks: I've started using the term "agent" in conversations where I don't feel the need to then define it, roll my eyes or wrap it in scare quotes.
This is a big piece of personal character development for me!
Moving forwa...
Gina Trapani writes about taking a sabbatical. “Take afternoon naps. Bigger things...
Gina Trapani writes about taking a sabbatical. “Take afternoon naps. Bigger things like foster a box of 6 kittens, do a 10-day silent retreat, quit coffee, start lifting, train for a triathlon, take vacations to explore…”
This sounds like a cool project: Pocket Fiche is a pocket-sized microscope...
This sounds like a cool project: Pocket Fiche is a pocket-sized microscope that comes with a ultra-high resolution, nano-fabricated image. “Think of Pocket Fiche as the Earth bound version of the Voyager golden record.”
Some unusual rocks observed by NASA’s Perseverance rover “could be the clearest...
Some unusual rocks observed by NASA’s Perseverance rover “could be the clearest signs of life ever found” on Mars.
Some KDO Updates: We’ve Got Ourselves a Stew
Hey folks, I know there’s a lot going on these days, but I wanted to update you on a few things I’ve been doing for the site lately. Alright, looking through my Git commits from the last couple of months:
I already told you about the Rolodex. Hoping to provide access to th...
Let’s be clear about what just happened: Jimmy Kimmel, a prominent late-night...
Let’s be clear about what just happened: Jimmy Kimmel, a prominent late-night comedian, was just taken off the airwaves because the Trump administration didn’t like what he had to say — and threatened his employer until they shut him up.
📄 How to create a blurry status bar for PWAs on iOS
When you install a PWA on iOS (and iPadOS) via “Add to Home Screen”, you can make the status bar – i.e. the area at the top around the notch/dynamic island – transparent yet blurry (so that you can still read its infos like the time or battery status).
Man pulls off daring scuba heist of Disney paddleboat restaurant, netting $10K-$20K...
Man pulls off daring scuba heist of Disney paddleboat restaurant, netting $10K-$20K before successfully escaping into the water from whence he came.
🎬 Black Water
Actually not bad at all. Good action, and a terrifying crocodile, surprisingly brutal. Has suspense too. Entertaining little Aussie movie.
🎬 Paris, Texas
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Beautiful! The pictures, the soundtrack, the story, Hunter. The (quite long, but never boring) ending, where they tell their stories and motivations, separated by a one-way window is just great. I did not cry, I swear!
🎧 Slaughter of the Soul – At The Gates
Man, Tompa died. So let’s listen to some At the Gates. Listened to this a lot as a teenager. And it’s still so good. RIP.
Question Mark
Anthropic: A postmortem of three recent issues
Anthropic: A postmortem of three recent issues
Anthropic had a very bad month in terms of model reliability:
Between August and early September, three infrastructure bugs intermittently degraded Claude's response quality. We've now resolved these issues and want to explain ...
ICPC medals for OpenAI and Gemini
In July it was the International Math Olympiad (OpenAI, Gemini), today it's the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Once again, both OpenAI and Gemini competed with models that achieved Gold medal performance.
OpenAI's Mostafa Rohaninejad:
We received the p...