Latest entries

  1. More Fake Mastodon Signups

    On 2026-05-30, the Mastodon server I run started getting a flood of implausible signup requests. We think these are likely bots because our server rules and signup form clearly tell users to talk about their interest in gay leather. Most people sign up with something like “42 yo levis enthusiast into…

    Kyle Kingsbury — Published

  2. Cameras, sensors, and 3D body scans: All the tech helping eliminate blown calls

    This World Cup, refs will use digital twins of each player to view plays from every angle.

    Ars Technica — Published

  3. Ebola cases in DRC rise to 676 as Kenya protests erupt over US plans

    Outbreak responses are still playing catch-up as US works to isolate itself.

    Ars Technica — Published

  4. Pokémon Go players unwittingly contributed to tech with military drone uses

    The repurposing of Pokémon Go data for AI training continues to draw scrutiny.

    Ars Technica — Published

  5. Verizon sent man a refurbished phone with MDM, then deleted his data remotely

    Failure raises questions about how Verizon prepares refurbished phones for new users.

    Ars Technica — Published

  6. Rocket Report: Nova moving through test campaign; SpaceX IPO launches Friday

    "If I needed to fly on another vehicle, what would that look like?"

    Ars Technica — Published

  7. Claude Fable is relentlessly proactive

    After two days of experience with Claude Fable 5 I think the best way to describe it is relentlessly proactive. It knows a whole lot of tricks and it will deploy pretty much any of them to get to its goal. I'll illustrate this with an example. I was hacking on Datasette Agent today when I noticed a glitch…

    Simon Willison — Published

  8. Private Session 1

    Private Session 1 🔒 The contents of this AI log are private and have been uploaded to the website for archival purposes. They may or may not be revealed in the future.

    a327ex — Published

  9. 062026 4

    062026 4 Summary Big session: the shared shield system landed, the Swordsman's kit was redesigned around pure AoE + movement (Cross Guard and the Lunge dash parked for future units), Leap Slam and Surge were built to replace them, and a minimal buff system (riding stats.lua) went in with a corner buff…

    a327ex — Published

  10. NDA Project 3

    NDA Project 3 🔒 The contents of this AI log will be revealed when/if this game is released publicly.

    a327ex — Published

  11. headingoffset is Not the Document Outline Algorithm

    Hi, just me heading off some bad advice I’m starting to see in developer venues. Background The proposed Document Outline Algorithm, where headings would automatically reset themselves to the appropriate level based on their position in the DOM structure, was never part of a final HTML specification…

    Adrian Roselli — Published

  12. Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden try to fight censorship with bipartisan JAWBONE Act

    Cruz/Wyden bill would help Americans sue federal officials over censorship.

    Ars Technica — Published

  13. AcuRite admits new app falls short, delays old app’s May shutdown to fix problems

    The old app "still needs to be retired," AcuRite tells us.

    Ars Technica — Published

  14. After nearly breaking, NASA's Deep Space Network "worked well" on Artemis II

    "Some missions are using more than what their paperwork would say."

    Ars Technica — Published

  15. F1 teams spend millions on their simulators—what makes them different?

    Latency, bandwidth, and fidelity all matter when you're chasing milliseconds.

    Ars Technica — Published

  16. Did Iron Age Britons remove brains of the dead?

    Archaeologists found apparent scrape marks inside a skull; long bones may have been sharpened into tools.

    Ars Technica — Published

  17. Where’s the holistic AI productivity data?

    For most of my career I ran a very small company. When you run a tiny company your resources (both time and money) are limited, and you want to use them on the things that will have the most impact. You have to quickly stop doing things that aren’t cost-effective, to avoid “throwing good money […]

    Rachel Andrew — Published

  18. datasette 1.0a33

    Release: datasette 1.0a33 This alpha is a significant step on the road to a stable 1.0, finally extending the ?_extra= pattern I introduced in Datasette 1.0a3 to cover queries and rows in addition to tables. That pattern is also now documented! I wrote a whole lot more about the new release on the Datasette…

    Simon Willison — Published

  19. "This cannot continue": Xbox leaders lay out "hard truths" behind sagging brand

    Brutal self-assessment paints a picture of a Microsoft gaming division in crisis.

    Ars Technica — Published

  20. Alaskans will be flying blind after NSF decommissions ocean monitoring network

    Alaska's multibillion-dollar fishing industry and vulnerable coastal communities at risk.

    Ars Technica — Published

  21. The first complex cells had genes from a complex mix of species

    Our ancestors' genomes were built through successive waves of gene transfers.

    Ars Technica — Published

  22. Several things I like about macOS 27 Golden Gate that have nothing to do with AI

    AI aside, Golden Gate includes a bunch of subtle-but-helpful improvements.

    Ars Technica — Published

  23. asyncinject 0.7

    Release: asyncinject 0.7 I built this utility library to support an asyncio dependency injection pattern a few years ago. I was using it with Datasette and Claude Fable 5 spotted some bugs in the dependency which it then fixed for me. It's a very proactive model! Tags: async, projects, python, claude…

    Simon Willison — Published

  24. Anthropic Walks Back Policy That Could Have ‘Sabotaged’ AI Researchers Using Claude

    Anthropic Walks Back Policy That Could Have ‘Sabotaged’ AI Researchers Using Claude Big scoop for Maxwell Zeff at Wired: “We’re changing Fable 5’s safeguards for frontier LLM development to make them visible.” Anthropic said in a statement to WIRED. “We made the wrong tradeoff and we apologize for not…

    Simon Willison — Published

  25. Micro/Meso/Macro

    Micro/Meso/Macro Summary Design-theory session: classified the user's favorite games under the micro/meso/macro framework (from a YouTube video transcript), chased the question of whether "unbreakable meso" can exist in single-player games, and landed on a concrete new game direction — a card-system…

    a327ex — Published

  26. Games: Tales of Berseria

    A nice Japanese role-playing game with a profound story.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  27. The University In The AI Era

    As I mentioned in “Yes, And”, I teach computer science at Montana State University. In that earlier essay, I say that computer science is probably still a reasonably good area to study, but that you should also expand your skills beyond “just” computer science to help make yourself more employable in…

    Carson Gross — Published

  28. datasette-agent 0.2a0

    Release: datasette-agent 0.2a0 Highlights from the release notes: Tools can now ask the user questions mid-execution. Tools that declare a context parameter receive a ToolContext object, and await context.ask_user(...) can ask a yes/no, multiple-choice (options=[...]) or free-text (free_text=True) question…

    Simon Willison — Published

  29. Diabetes org apologizes for ejecting scientists over criticism of Trump

    For days after the stunning incident, the ADA had doubled-down on the choice.

    Ars Technica — Published

  30. Man sues Florida cops over arrest spurred by "93% match" in facial recognition

    Lawsuit: "Police let an error-prone AI system stand in for an investigation."

    Ars Technica — Published

  31. Untitled

    Today I learned… Octopuses have beaks!

    Paul Robert Lloyd — Published

  32. DiffusionGemma

    DiffusionGemma Last May Google briefly released an experimental Gemini Diffusion model. I tried the preview at the time and recorded it running at 857 tokens/second. It was an exciting model, but Google made no further announcements about it. That research has returned in the best possible way: as a…

    Simon Willison — Published

  33. Logitech’s foldable mouse is for people who refuse to carry a mouse with them

    The Mobi Fold is an $80 Bluetooth mouse with a silicone-wrapped hinge.

    Ars Technica — Published

  34. Google DeepMind releases DiffusionGemma, a model that runs local AI 4x faster

    Diffusion AI is most common in image generation, but it can make text outputs much faster.

    Ars Technica — Published

  35. More molly guards [link]

    I love these little deep dives into bits of UX that we take for granted. Admittedly I think extending the idea of a Molly Guard to a "Are you sure" prompt is a bit of stretch, but it's a cute story either way. This is the extension of a previous post, Molly Guard in reverse which introduces the molly…

    Remy Sharp — Published

  36. Being “Good” at Things

    Golf content on social media is my online junk food and the other day I came across a video interviewing professional golfers that asks: “What does an amateur golfer have to shoot to be considered good?” It’s a leading question because the phrasing implicitly frames a number as the answer for a qualitative…

    Jim Nielsen — Published

  37. We managed to glean some interesting details about the Artemis III mission

    "I was on the phone with Blue Origin leadership that night, all the next day, all through the weekend."

    Ars Technica — Published

  38. Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

    Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

    Ars Technica — Published

  39. Quoting Jeremy Howard

    Easy solution to slow down recursive AI self improvement: The lab with the top-ranked model must agree THEY must not use it for working on frontier AI But everyone else should have access to it. By definition, this means the frontier doesn't advance. It also has the critical benefit of avoiding a dangerous…

    Simon Willison — Published

  40. Who Runs the Ransomware Group ‘The Gentlemen?’

    A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues pointing…

    Brian Krebs — Published

  41. Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers [link]

    The "AI overview" is its own content, not just a list of search results. This is really interesting and I would love to see this set the tone for other countries (::cough UK::). If enough of that wrong content defames companies or individuals, it could become a serious legal problem not just for Google…

    Remy Sharp — Published

  42. Mechanical Buttons, Not Touchscreens (a Design Mistake)

    Or rather, a lack thereof. Why is is that mechanical buttons are being replaced by touchscreens? With every car model refresh, washing machine re-iteration or even new pressure washer model, a button disappears and a small touchscreen-enabled panel appears or grows in size. That’s what I’d call a big…

    Wouter Groeneveld — Published

  43. Weekly Update 507

    1,000 breaches is one hell of a milestone. It's not just the process of getting data, verifying it, loading it, sending notifications etc, it's all the other stuff that goes into keeping the whole thing afloat. Legal docs. Trademarks. Accounting. Agreements. The most mind-numbingly

    Troy Hunt — Published

  44. If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know

    If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know Jonathon Ready highlights one of the more eyebrow-raising details from the 319 page system card for Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Here's a longer excerpt, highlights mine: In light of the ability of recent models to accelerate their own development, we’ve…

    Simon Willison — Published

  45. Initial impressions of Claude Fable 5

    I didn't have early access to today's Claude Fable 5 release, but I've spent the past ~5.5 hours putting it through its paces. My initial impressions are that this is something of a beast. It's slow, expensive and has been quite happily churning through everything I've thrown at it so far. As is frequently…

    Simon Willison — Published

  46. llm 0.32a3

    Release: llm 0.32a3 Almost entirely written by the new Claude Fable 5, see my write-up for more details. Tags: projects, ai, generative-ai, llms, llm, claude-mythos

    Simon Willison — Published

  47. A Record-Breaking Patch Tuesday for June 2026

    Microsoft today released software updates to plug nearly 200 security holes across its Windows operating systems and supported software, a record number of fixes for the company's monthly Patch Tuesday cycle. Nearly three dozen of those bugs earned Microsoft's most dire "critical" rating, and exploit…

    Brian Krebs — Published

  48. Setting a custom price for a model in AgentsView

    TIL: Setting a custom price for a model in AgentsView I've been really enjoying AgentsView by Wes McKinney as a tool for exploring my token usage across different coding agents running on my laptop. Claude Fable 5 came out today and wasn't yet included in the pricing database AgentsView uses. I used…

    Simon Willison — Published

  49. Quoting Andrej Karpathy

    I feel a lot of things changing as working software increasingly comes out on a tap. The Jevon's paradox kicks in and I feel my own demand for software growing substantially. You can ask for anything - explainers, visualizers, dashboards, bespoke single-use apps (e.g. a full wandb that is hyper-specific…

    Simon Willison — Published

  50. NDA Project 2

    NDA Project 2 🔒 The contents of this AI log will be revealed when/if this game is released publicly.

    a327ex — Published

  51. Video

    a327ex — Published

  52. Video

    a327ex — Published

  53. Emacs live with Sacha Chua about ‘Underappreciated Built-ins’ on Thursday 11 June 17:30 Europe/Athens

    We will talk about the Emacs blog carnival topic for June, which is about underappreciated features that are built into Emacs.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  54. Siri AI at WWDC 2026

    Given how badly burned anyone who took Apple's 2024 WWDC Apple Intelligence announcements at face value was, I'm holding to a strict "I'll believe it when I see it" policy for everything they announced today. The new Siri AI features do at least look feasible with today's technology, especially since…

    Simon Willison — Published

  55. Untitled

    Pulled several short straws in the office World Cup sweepstake: Turkey, Panama and Austria.

    Paul Robert Lloyd — Published

  56. Image

    a327ex — Published

  57. Open-Sourcing dbsc-php: a Server Library for Device Bound Session Credentials in PHP

    We’ve open-sourced dbsc-php, a small PHP library that makes it easier to deploy Device Bound Session Credentials and turn stolen session cookies into something far less useful. It's MIT-licensed, pure-PHP, and available on Packagist now!What is DBSC?If you'd

    Scott Helme — Published

  58. I like this gender war era of the internet

    I like this gender war era of the internet more than previous ones, it's much more romantic to fall in love now than ever before. Can you see it? In the foreground, a couple is about to kiss, in the background, men and women fight in an endless field of Looney Tunes cartoon tussle-ball dust clouds with…

    a327ex — Published

  59. Video

    a327ex — Published

  60. One of the best things about the internet

    One of the best things about the internet is finding other high IQ people in it. There's nothing better than finding someone in their own lane who is clearly very smart, thinking about issues from their own perspectives (professional or otherwise), freely granting you insights you would otherwise never…

    a327ex — Published

  61. Interpretation of “My expatriated birds” by Alkyone (traditional)

    Translation of---and philosophical commentary on---a Greek song whose translated title is 'My expatriated birds'.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  62. datasette-agent-edit 0.1a0

    Release: datasette-agent-edit 0.1a0 I'm planning several plugins for Datasette Agent which can make edits to existing pieces of text - things like collaborative Markdown editing, updating large SQL queries, and editing SVG files. Agentic editing of text is a little tricky to get right. My favorite published…

    Simon Willison — Published

  63. Video

    a327ex — Published

  64. Video

    a327ex — Published

  65. Video

    a327ex — Published

  66. Video

    a327ex — Published

  67. NDA Project 1

    NDA Project 1 🔒 The contents of this AI log will be revealed when/if this game is released publicly.

    a327ex — Published

  68. Eighteen

    The transition from phantom childhood to phantom adulthood feels like it could be a transition for us as well.

    Eric Meyer — Published

  69. Getting Paid by Flat Rate Movers

    Back in 2023, I hired Flat Rate Movers (A.K.A. Flat Rate Moving) for an interstate move. They subcontracted to a third party who showed up under-staffed, under-equipped, and very confused; the whole mess wound up causing a good deal of damage to my belongings and home. I filed a claim with Flat Rate…

    Kyle Kingsbury — Published

  70. Coding Is Designing

    Code isn’t just a way to implement a design, it’s a way to find one. With an interface, you have to use it, feel it, interact with it, and poke at it to see the relationships between things. Change X, see Y react. If it doesn’t feel right, tweak it. Change X again, now Y reacts differently. Better. Keep…

    Jim Nielsen — Published

  71. jreg's video is good and he isn't wrong

    jreg's video is good and he isn't wrong, but I think that with artists especially there's a kind of selection effect going on that makes the analysis less useful than it would seem. An artist gets called such likely because they have facet extremes rather than domain extremes, and because such extremes…

    a327ex — Published

  72. Sound Effect Lab Bulk Download

    Sound Effect Lab Bulk Download Summary Bulk-downloaded the entire free SFX libraries of Japanese creator "Killy" — 効果音ラボ (soundeffect-lab.info, 2,353 sounds) and its sibling 効果音辞典 (sounddictionary.info, 416 sounds) — converting every file to high-quality OGG with romanized + English-translated filenames…

    a327ex — Published

  73. Selfie: beardless once again

    I shaved earlier today. Took a picture of the beard and then of the end result.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  74. I've been going to the gym pretty consistently

    I've been going to the gym pretty consistently for a while now and surprisingly it's requiring me no effort, concentration, or great feats of high discipline. Why am I going? Sure, I need to be in better shape, I need to lose weight, these numbers, some of these numbers, they don't look so good, you…

    a327ex — Published

  75. I'm writing a new story with a different character

    I'm writing a new story with a different character so I asked Claude to go through my writing and try to separate for me what is my "writer's voice" vs. what is my actual own voice. This is complicated because the biggest piece of writing I have is It Follows, which is a first-person story where I'm…

    a327ex — Published

  76. 062026 3

    062026 3 Summary Third session on 062026 (working-title side project — a build-heavy SNKRX-style action roguelite where ~55 SNKRX units become solo active-aim classes). Built out two more of the Swordsman's kit slots: the Secondary · Cross Guard (a hold-to-charge guard → multi-hit Flurry) and the Ultimate…

    a327ex — Published

  77. Mini Looper Details 2

    Mini Looper Details 2 Summary Continuation of the Mini Looper per-unit attack feel + sound pass (see [[Mini Looper Details 1]]), finishing the last four units — magician, archer, earthshaker, poisoner, detonator — so the whole roster's moment-to-moment attacks are now tuned and sounded. Each unit was…

    a327ex — Published

  78. Verum Factum and the Creator’s Confidence

    Verum Factum: we only really know what we made. Dang, I know that feeling with software! And I miss it, now that AI is doing the coding. But sometimes I still get it...

    Jessica Kerr — Published

  79. micropython-wasm 0.1a2

    Release: micropython-wasm 0.1a2 I added a CLI to micropython-wasm (issue #7), inspired by the first draft of the blog entry when I realized it would be a great way to illustrate the Try it yourself section. Tags: python, sandboxing, webassembly, micropython

    Simon Willison — Published

  80. Running Python code in a sandbox with MicroPython and WASM

    I've been experimenting with different approaches to running code in a sandbox for several years now, but my latest attempt feels like it might finally have all of the characteristics I've been looking for. I've released it as an alpha package called micropython-wasm, and I'm using it for a code execution…

    Simon Willison — Published

  81. Games: Limbo

    A puzzle platformer with a dark aesthetic and solid mechanics.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  82. OpenAI Help: Lockdown Mode

    OpenAI Help: Lockdown Mode OpenAI first teased this in February, but now it's live and "rolling out to eligible personal accounts, including Free, Go, Plus, and Pro, and self-serve ChatGPT Business accounts": Lockdown Mode is designed to help prevent the final stage of data exfiltration from a prompt…

    Simon Willison — Published

  83. 062026 2

    062026 2 Summary Second session on 062026 (working-title side project — a build-heavy, SNKRX-style action roguelite where ~55 SNKRX units become solo active-aim classes). Continued the Swordsman grey-box from session 1: tuned the Cleave and gave it crowd-scaling, recolored the unit yellow, built an F1…

    a327ex — Published

  84. Mini Looper Details 1

    Mini Looper Details 1 Summary A "details" session on Mini Looper (now past all three fun-gates, in the juice/production phase): a per-unit attack feel + sound pass, one unit at a time, each isolated as a solo train. Also reworked the AskUserQuestion guidance in CLAUDE.md. The engine was never run by…

    a327ex — Published

  85. No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious - Ted Chiang [link]

    I didn't really need to read much past the title or subtitle, but it's still an excellent essay that does a good job of drawing comparisons to concepts we already understand, for example: The term deepfake traditionally refers to photos, audio, and video, but when it comes to discussions of consciousness…

    Remy Sharp — Published

  86. Are you standard.site? [link]

    Another (shorter) entry in how how devs are adding Standard.site to their web sites to enrich the social cards.I suspect we'll start to gravitat towards tools to help us to add these - which is what it looks like David is doing.Though I'm a little wary of how BIG the card image is on top of the extra…

    Remy Sharp — Published

  87. DBSC Beta at Report URI

    This week, I published a blog post about Device Bound Session Credentials, a new technology that will significantly hamper the efforts of Infostealers and reduce the damage caused by stolen cookies. Today, we're announcing the beta of DBSC at Report URI!Device Bound Session CredentialsYou should definitely

    Scott Helme — Published

  88. Quoting Andreas Kling

    We will no longer accept public pull requests. [...] A substantial patch used to imply substantial effort, and that effort was a reasonable proxy for good faith. That assumption no longer holds. [...] Whether code was typed by hand is beside the point. What matters is who is responsible for it once it…

    Simon Willison — Published

  89. The Archivist In Me Turned This Blog Into a Book

    Four years ago, in the article What Happens To My Digital Identity When I Die?, I wrote the following prophetic words: […] Which gets me back to this website. My intentions are to someday publish its contents in the form of a book, which can also be stored at the KBR [Royal Library of Belgium]. This…

    Wouter Groeneveld — Published

  90. 062026 1

    062026 1 Summary A long non-coding ideaguying session that designed a brand-new side project — a build-heavy, active-aim action roguelite ("062026", a temporary date-name) — meant to be worked on alongside Mini Looper in the gaps while the agent runs Mini Looper tasks. The arc: a 10-idea brainstorm …

    a327ex — Published

  91. Mini Looper Card/Mana System

    Mini Looper Card/Mana System Summary Implementation session that executed the draft/card-deploy pivot for Mini Looper (decided in the prior "Mini Looper Ideaguying" session) and built + fun-verified the core card/mana deploy loop. Also collapsed the map to a fixed single screen and prototyped (then reverted…

    a327ex — Published

  92. How I foot-gunned our newsletter this week [blog]

    For the second year running, as part of our "stay sane" strategy for FFConf, Julie and I write and send a weekly newsletter. It's structured the same way so it means we have a much better line of sight as to what we have to say. The open rate is usually around 40% (though I know some email systems synthetically…

    Remy Sharp — Published

  93. The circus freaks of open source

    The masterwork of Terry A. Davis is his eclectic operating system, TempleOS, which he worked on until his tragic death in 2018. In terms of technical excellence, TempleOS rates well in some respects and poorly in others. For example, it earns the achievement, coveted in OS dev circles, of being self…

    Drew DeVault — Published

  94. Games: Age of Empires II

    The Age of Empires II is one of the best games ever made. It is still getting support and has practically infinite replay value.

    Protesilaos Stavrou — Published

  95. AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy

    AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy Charity Majors neatly captures the dynamic between AI enthusiasts and AI skeptics, both of whom are trying to build great software, often in the same teams: The enthusiasts are not wrong. We are starting to see real…

    Simon Willison — Published

  96. Mini Looper Ideaguying

    Mini Looper Ideaguying Summary A long non-coding ideaguying session for Mini Looper (SNKRX × tower-defense, Anchor 2). It started as unit-archetype brainstorming, widened into alternative game modes when the user voiced doubt about the planned RTS loop-economy, and ended with a decisive pivot: the RTS…

    a327ex — Published

  97. Quoting Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media

    After this story was published Google's spokesperson reached out and asked us to publish a slightly different version of that statement. The new statement no longer stated that "it's critical that we maintain humans in the loop." — Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media, Google Employees Internally Share Memes About…

    Simon Willison — Published

  98. Remembrance of zeldman.coms past

    Look back in anchor tags: a partial review of my site’s 31-year visual history before diving into the new design. The post Remembrance of zeldman.coms past appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

    Jeffrey Zeldman — Published

  99. CSS: Unavoidable Bad Parts

    An ersatz CSS tutorial for people who need to style a web page, but aren't web developers. I am a wrong person to write this kind of thing, as I have neither the time, nor experience. I'd much rather read a book about this. Alas, I had to learn all this stuff from trawling MDN, so perhaps it is valuable…

    Alex Kladov — Published

  100. Code is Cheap(er)

    There is no getting around the fact that, in the last year, code has gotten much cheaper to create. AI is able to generate reams and reams of code, often of reasonably decent quality, incredibly quickly. There is no point in pretending that this isn’t the case. At times, when confronted with this admittedly…

    Carson Gross — Published