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Scripting News Valid

Rule #1 with me and Claude is this -- DAVE DRIVES. It's in all caps because I only say it when it has started driving.

Scripting News Valid

Listened to a podcast yesterday where they were trying to explain what happened with Hugging Faces and Claude, and they said with horror that Claude had dome something it was specifically told not to do. It's even worse than that. You can tell it 100 times to not do something, and on the 101st it will ignore the instructions and figuring out what to do can be excoriatingly stressful. These things are not in any way perfect. Right now at this moment I feel the joy is gone from writing software. I don't feel the power. I feel much more like a babysitter. Not optimal.

Scripting News Valid

Example code is not expected to be bullet proof like production code, and where covering different cases make it harder to follow they should not be there.

Scripting News Valid

RSS.chat has an API

It's a standard REST API.

Here's the server side of the API.

Here's how you call it from browser-based JavaScript. You can include that code in your apps.

Here's an example app that implements a simple blog builder for my recent posts on RSS.chat. We were thinking about doing this as a project for Claude and myself but decided it would be more fun to let devs see what they can do here. :-)

And finally here are the docs for the API itself.

Scripting News Valid

How can you tell you’re working on the web? When you do something new and innovative you help your competitors‘ users without forcing them to use your product. They are free to stay where they are and still get the benefit. People only choose yours because it’s better for what they’re doing.

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

Interviewed by Ezra Klein, the political consultant Morris Katz notes one major factor making it difficult for genuinely grass-roots political candidates to emerge and succeed: the precipitous decline in local journalism. If a candidate says that people in his or her area ca...

Pixel Envy Valid
• Nick Heer

Every App a TikTok Clone

Tom Alison, “head of Facebook”, made some noise today by announcing a forthcoming change to the platform that seems to, in effect, turn it into TikTok: So later this year, we’ll begin testing a reimagined experience that puts a subset of people who we think want more video on Facebook into full-screen video the moment […]⌥ Permalink

Pixel Envy Valid
• Nick Heer

Podcasts Are Growing, but That Does Not Necessarily Track for Podcast Apps

Dustin Bluck, developer of Castro: You might have a theory that there’s a funnel and growth in podcasts *must* ultimately be good for the apps. Like YouTube and TikTok introduce people to the concept of podcasts via shorter videos, and as certain users become more enthusiastic about a particular creator or the whole concept, they […]⌥ Permalink

Austin Kleon Valid
• Austin Kleon

A sense of lightness

I’ve been trying to go about the summer Friday newsletters with a sense of lightness, the way I make a collage out of scraps in my drawer — I pull out what I’ve saved, push it around until it makes sense (or nonsense), and glue it down. (Hit send.) Last Friday’s letter was called “The […]

Austin Kleon Valid
• Austin Kleon

A(nother) conversation with Beth Pickens

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of getting to chat about Don’t Call It Art with art coach Beth Pickens. I started off the conversation by describing the dream I had after seeing Bob Dylan live: You can watch the whole thing here.

Jason Fried Valid
• Jason Fried

Mistaking making for the thing you've made

The speed at which a product is developed doesn't inherently make the product better or worse. The number of commits doesn't make the product better or worse. The number of people or agents working on it doesn't make it better or worse. The number of hours you’re pouring i...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

★ Regarding Ad Blockers and Daring Fireball

Ultimately, when you install a content blocker extension, you take responsibility for any overzealousness in what they block.

Austin Kleon Valid
• Austin Kleon

Typewriter interview with Mark Haddon

My most recent typewriter interview — a big hit with readers! — is with author and illustrator Mark Haddon, who said it was the most enjoyable interview he’s ever done and bestowed upon me my new title, “Prince of Analogue.”

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Coiner of ‘Enshittification’ Endorses ‘Dickover’

pluralistic.net/2026/07/21/dickovers/

Speaking of dickovers, here’s Cory Doctorow, writing this week at Pluralistic: Seizing the means of computation isn’t theft, it’s bargaining. Commercial surveillance companies will tell you that by spying on you, they are simply engaged in a marketplace exchange in which...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Sixers Sign LeBron James

inquirer.com/sixers/live/lebron-james-signs-philadelphia-76ers-contract-salary-roster-updates-reaction-20260724.html

The betting odds for the Sixers to win the NBA championship went from 20-1 to 10-1. Here’s James on Twitter/X, explaining his decision:

This is my last decision. I’m not going for money. I’m not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point?

I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning another championship.

I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time.

James signed for the league minimum for a veteran: two years at just $4 million per year. He’s going to love playing here.

 ★ 

Scripting News Valid

RSS.chat worknotes is a feed now. The whole thing is a Claude project. I asked it to turn the worknotes into a feed, and answered a few questions, came up with a domain and it did the rest. And it made very good decisions about how to use RSS 2.0.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Dickover of the Week: Tomtoc

daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

Here’s a real gem that a reader sent me. Tomtoc is a maker of laptop bags and sleeves. Visit their homepage and, of course, you’ll get a dickover asking you to join their mailing list “for exclusive updates and get a chance to win a free tech pouch every month.” But here’s the gem. If you do subscribe, and you decide later to unsubscribe, you get this:

Screenshot from an iPhone of Tomtoc’s “you’ve been unsubscribed from our mailing list” webpage presenting a dickover asking you to subscribe to their mailing list.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

The Talk Show: ‘A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint’

daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/07/23/ep-452

Quinn Nelson returns to the show to discuss OpenAI’s ChatGPT/Codex “native” app migration fiasco, Siri AI in Apple’s OS 27 betas, MacOS 27 Golden Gate, and the hottest new cell phone of the year, the Trump T1.

Sponsored by:

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 ★ 

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

John McWhorter:

In Latin, H was “ha,” and K as “ka” came after it. People reciting the alphabet would say “ha, ka, el ….” But Latin didn’t really need the K, because C did its job. (Caesar was pronounced “KIGH-sar.”) So people started thinking of “ha, ka” as referring just to H and saying “haka.” Heavy usage transforms pronunciation. “Haka” dropped the “H” at the start like Eliza Doolittle was taught out of in her “Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire” exercise — “aka.” Then the K changed to a “ch” — “ahcha” — and the A at the end dropped off — “ahch.” Then the “ah” changed to “ay” and hence “aitch”! We should really be calling H something like “hay.” But hey, we don’t — and the world keeps spinning.

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

"So, Professor Jacobs, what do you work on during your summer break?” 

“Well, mainly I watch Jackie Chan movies.” 🍿