Published
Weekend Reading — Turbo round and round
Silicon Valley perplexed by traffic innovation: the turbo roundabout
Tech Stuff
Inngest Durable functions that stand for job queues, save state, run cron jobs, and all the other plumbing your project might need.
Restate Break up your app into multiple steps and use Restate to track them, retry failed transitions, log everything, and more.
prompt engineer? actually i'm usually a few minutes late
Feedsmith A library for generating and parsing feeds: RSS, Atom, JSON, RDF. It can also handles OPML.
Redirect Web for Safari Safari extension that instantly reroutes any link to your preferred website. For example, I redirect all NYT/WaPo articles to archive.today, use Wikiwand to read through Wikipedia, redirect Google Maps to Apple Maps and Google Search to Kagi, etc. (h/t AppAddict)
A mentor challenged that. He pointed out that debugging AI generated code is a lot like onboarding into a legacy codebase, making sense of decisions you didn't make, finding where things break, and learning to trust (or rewrite) what's already there. That's the kind of work a lot of developers end up doing anyway.
Breeze PDF Edit PDFs in your browser: add text, images, signatures, form fields, merge PDFs, delete pages, etc. 100% free.
LLM pricing calculator It's interesting that one of the first key design decisions when working with LLMs is choosing LLMs based on their capabilities, their response quality, and of course their per-1m-tokens pricing.
About starting programming young...
I wrote my first program when I was 11. I got my first job (C++), 10 years later.
I worked for 2 years as a contractor, by myself, directly for clients, and I thought I was shit-hot.
Then I fell into a nest of real software engineers, working in real teams, and realised I didn't know shit.
There are real limits to what you can learn in your bedroom by yourself, and a very real risk you'll end up believing you're great just because it's working for you.
Can It Run Doom? An Archive of All Known Ports There’s a website dedicated to computer theory’s most pressing question: “but can it run Doom?” And yes, you can run Doom on an air fryer.
Eye for Design
Recraft A new player in town in the game of "let's turn this text into a realistic photo“.
90% of my advice to clients is boils down to three words:
“Don’t overthink this.”
People get into their heads when it comes to tweaking their strategy or tactics. They get caught up thinking that there are a series of three-dimensional chess moves that will fix what’s wrong.
But usually, the fixes are simpler than that: Your positioning is unclear. You're not targeting the right audience. You're doing too many things at once.
Clippy Desktop Assistant Run a variety of LLMs locally with the remarkable user interface of the 1990s.
Peoples
Programming Sucks All programming teams are constructed by and of crazy people.
The Curse of Knowing How, or; Fixing Everything Writing code is a form of therapy and that explains why so many projects run over scope, over time, and don’t really meet customer needs:
I have written entire applications just to avoid thinking about why I was unhappy. Programming gives you instant feedback. You run the thing, and it works. Or it doesn't, and you fix it. Either way, you're doing something.
That kind of agency is addictive. Especially when the rest of life doesn’t offer it. We program because we can, even when we shouldn’t. Because at least it gives us something to rebel against.
The unbearable lightness of big tech Yeah, pretty much:
"Agile" was about having a responsive mindset, not about which process you followed, but it became about which process you followed.
Avoid "motivation hacks." Build systems your team can rely on.
The Motivation Industrial Complex
The corporate world has created an entire industry around employee motivation – an endless stream of hacks, incentives, and psychological tricks to squeeze more effort from teams.
It's mostly garbage.
It feels like every damn thing I do is labeled a journey. I don't buy a drill. I'm on a home improvement journey. I don't see my doctor. I'm on a wellness journey. I don't deposit money into my bank account. I'm on a wealth journey. Make it stop.
What separates good work from great isn't talent but persistence.
The most successful people aren't those who feel motivated all the time; they're the ones who work even when they don't feel like it. Too often, waiting to feel ready means never starting.
Outliers act despite their feelings, not because of them.
Getting things "done" in large tech companies
I've seen many engineers stick around delivering one more tweak or one more refactor - long past the point where their work stopped being perceived as a successful project and started being perceived as wasted time. Better to deliver two more things in that time.
Business Side
Product Purgatory: When they love it but still don't buy When even "free" is too expensive:
In the real world the Magic Wand doesn't exist; even if the price is fair, there are real costs and disruption of implementation and training and integration, and people simply getting used to a new user interface and processes and therefore being unproductive for a while. Product inventors revel in all the value they generate, but don't see the penalties that they incur. The customers, however, see.
Reading "Business" Books Is A Waste Of Time Absolutely. And 100% chance you’ve heard of at least three of these books from magazine articles, podcasts, TikTok “I’m a product manager” videos, etc:
Most popular business books are written for emotional appeal, not intellectual rigor.
They turn simplified stories into generic advice, convert rare successes into universal strategies, and replace complex market dynamics with motivational slogans.
These books succeed not because they are accurate, but because they are easy to read and make readers feel good.
Competitor Comparison Every competitor comparison ever.
Machine Intelligence
asgeirtj/system_prompts_leaks This is pretty interesting:
- Shows you how large a prompt can get — this one prompt is 1,110 lines or 24K tokens long.
- Want to see what can go in the prompt? This covers a lot of ground in a single file (your prompt should probably be simpler and smaller).
- The classic
syntax that Claude likes so much. - Still think LLMs are just "next token statistical predictor"? Read these textual directions for a better sense of what LLMs can understand.
Week 19, 2025 - Memory and Skill All that AI avoidance is not going to age well:
Nobody was writing programs on paper by 1995. Using sophisticated IDEs and Stack Overflow was prevalent during the 2010s. Plenty of software development teams do LLM-assisted coding now.
Why are we testing if candidates memorized something by heart when the work we ask them to do is about the skillful use of the latest tools available?
Time saved by AI offset by new work created, study suggests
The study revealed that AI chatbots actually created new job tasks for 8.4 percent of workers, including some who did not use the tools themselves, offsetting potential time savings. For example, many teachers now spend time detecting whether students use ChatGPT for homework, while other workers review AI output quality or attempt to craft effective prompts.
Dan Dean 🤔
The management class is used to experiencing the world through the artifacts of work.
LLMs produce the artifacts of work without humans producing the associated institutional value and advancement of that work.
The LLM sleight of hand operates in the gap between management inputs and work outputs, making it possible (and likely) for managers to see low value artifacts as proof of work, and see work as waste.
AI is getting “creepy good” at geo-guessing
After hearing about ChatGPT o3 ability at geo-guessing we decided to run some tests and the tested AIs didn't fail to amaze us
FYI: Most AI spending driven by FOMO, not ROI, CEOs tell IBM, LOL
Much of this adoption, IBM finds, is being driven by FOMO. Nobody wants to get left behind on the off chance this whole AI thing actually lives up to the hype. And this appears to have driven nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents to adopt technology before they've figured whether it'll actually benefit the organization.
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
It's not just the students: Multiple AI platforms now offer tools to leave AI-generated feedback on students' essays. Which raises the possibility that AIs are now evaluating AI-generated papers, reducing the entire academic exercise to a conversation between two robots — or maybe even just one.
What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT? Another reminder that LLMs are not the ecological disaster some people make them to be:
Electricity use in the United States is about three times higher than in the UK, so ChatGPT prompts are an even smaller piece of the pie. Ten searches per day would come to 0.09% of per capita electricity generation, while 100 searches would be 0.9%.
Unless you're an extreme power user, asking AI questions every day is still a rounding error on your total electricity footprint.
We're 2.5 years into this gold rush, and I still haven't seen any gold. I've seen people selling picks & shovels. I've seen "gold experts" selling maps to the gold. I've seen CEOs announce they're going "gold-first". I've seen people selling land where they claim there's gold. But no actual gold.
AI of dead Arizona road rage victim addresses killer in court Black Mirror much… 😕
Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021.
Three-and-a-half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of.
Pelkey's appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement.
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
What's likely happening with those experiencing ecstatic visions through ChatGPT and other models, he speculates, "is that people with existing tendencies toward experiencing various psychological issues," including what might be recognized as grandiose delusions in clinical sense, "now have an always-on, human-level conversational partner with whom to co-experience their delusions.”
Insecurity
How California sent residents’ personal health data to LinkedIn 🚨
As visitors filled out forms on the website, trackers on the same pages told LinkedIn their answers to questions about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications. The trackers also monitored whether the visitors said they were transgender or possible victims of domestic abuse.
If you access corporate email on a personal device that can be unlocked with FaceID, you must change your face at least once every sixty days.
You may not reuse any of your most recent 12 faces.
Please contact the technical support desk if you have forgotten your face and need help resetting it.
Slop Farmer Boasts About How He Uses AI to Flood Social Media With Garbage to Trick Older Women
Cunningham explains that his preferred groups to target are devoted fandoms and the elderly. The former is easily excited, he posits, while the latter probably won't understand that what they're clicking on is synthetic at all.
Third Party Cookies Must Be Removed From the W3C:
Third-party (AKA cross-site) cookies are harmful to the web, and must be removed from the web platform. This finding explains why they must be removed, and examines the challenges in removing them. We highlight some use cases that depend on third-party cookies and offer some examples of designed-for-purpose technologies that can replace them. Specification authors are expected to ensure they do not undermine the benefits of removing third-party cookies when proposing new web platform technologies.
Everything Else
This Wrapping Paper Turns All Your Presents into Bread Everything is bread
At first glance, these wrapped objects see like freshly bakes loaves straight from the bakery. With toasty brown hues, signature flour dusting, and even hand-scored patterns mimicking artisanal baguettes, this genius wrapping paper turns all your gifts into bread.
Post-nasal drip was a design flaw. Also the reason why humans are banned in 7/8th of the known universe
Early exit polls suggest the new pope did particularly well with male voters aged 45-79.
Natasha Jay "My new working arrangements"
When you start wishing audiobooks came with close captions that is the time to go out and stare at the sky for a bit.
It’s 2025. Why am I still not writing down thoughts I had in the shower that I knew I wanted to remember? 🤦
Most people don't believe me when I tell them we have a wizard's tower in the local woods.
Those who equate kindness with weakness fail to recognize that it takes a great deal more strength to lift up than to punch down.
Few things are more condescending than trying to do something online and being told you have to call, only to have to listen to the automated system tell you that you can manage your account online.
I promise you. I tried. Talking to people is a last resort.
deumi “I do not know where the source is, but I wholly agree with this.”
I just heard someone say, "You didn't make good choices. You had good choices." and I was taken aback. I mean, what a good way to talk about privilege.
I have just arrived back in Japan, bringing home the 1:20 scale model of the JAXA Hayabusa2 spacecraft that has been on display at the London Science Museum.
Five customs officials examined the model.
There was nothing amiss with the paperwork. They just wanted to see the model 😂
Kentucky boy uses mother's phone to order 70K Dum-Dum suckers I hope your Amazon experience is more restrained:
A Kentucky woman was in a sticky mess when she found stacks of boxes containing lollipops on her doorstep. The surprise delivery was ordered by her young son while he played on her phone. Media reports say Holly LaFavers tried stopping her son’s Amazon order for about 70,000 Dum-Dum suckers before the treats arrived but it was too late. Amazon had delivered 22 cases to her home. The surprise got worse after a check of her bank account. She owed about $4,000 for the order. Her efforts to get a refund took some time but she got her money back.
‘It’s out of control’: the fight against US ‘tip-creep’ So out of control we now have vending machines asking you for tip:
I’m just not going to be guilt-tripped by those outfacing POS systems any more. My rule will be, just coffee shops and restaurants and bars from now on,” or places with a personalised service like a massage or haircut.
You should know that these "city rankings" are always a load of nonsense and should never be taken seriously.
They're usually put together in an afternoon by a marketing department, in this case, it's a marketing piece for a home loans website.
The goal is to get clicks, not to be accurate. In fact, the less accurate you are, the more likely you are to get clicks, so getting the intern to put it together in Excel based off of an arbitrary "scoring system" is a benefit.
How M.L.M. world works on Instagram and TikTok
At the end, the viewer still doesn't know what they're being sold, what it costs, or what they're actually being offered--which is almost always because primarily how they make money is on the act of sharing The Lifestyle itself, and getting you to share it, and on and on.
TIL that antifascist historian George Rawick, during a period of low cash flow, decided to stop paying his phone bill reasoning that the #FBI could not stand to lose the opportunity to tap his calls and that they would make sure his service would continue.
His service continued after he stopped paying.
The Rise of the 'Crunchy Teen' Wellness Influencer 🤦
Ava Noe, a teenager based in the Boston area, has amassed more than 25,000 Instagram followers while criticizing ultra-processed foods and promoting colostrum supplements, mouth tape and beef tallow. Her posts have suggested that iodized salt is "toxic" and described fluoride as "poison.”
The Price of Remission If you were born in the US, you probably don’t know what a Thalidomide child is, but it was quite the travesty in Europe in the late 50’s and early 60’s. It turns out Thalidomide can cure some cancers by blocking the body’s ability to supply them blood, and so in 1998 the FDA approved it for that use. Celgene bought the patent, and originally solid it for $7.50 a pillbox, but it was lucrative and so the price kept rising, and now it stands at $19,660 for a pillbox that costs 25 cents to produce. Welcome to US healthcare pricing.
Why some creators are returning to traditional jobs and side hustles as brand deals slow The travesty of having to create real content so you can bookend it with lucrative sponsored content:
Even when it is your full-time job, you need to be able to bookend sponsored content with a lot of content that is not sponsored and create a lot of value for your community.
Why the Chinese Government Taught AI to Lie
I hope that companies in less-repressive countries will continue to invest in open-weights models so that we have a choice, but with no obvious way of making money with that approach, I worry that Chinese models will soon become the only game in town.
My son comes downstairs with all his medieval garb on and asks if I can take a photo of him with a bow/arrow, for a physics assignment: take a photo of something with kinetic and potential energy, extra points for an action shot. 10 mins later we're high-fiving our nerd success.
