Notes · 2026

AI Policy Could Price Startups Out of AI

Brendan Bordelon reports nearly 200 startups urging against broad bans on Chinese open-weight models—arguing the U.S. should build competitive open models of its own rather than protect incumbents by leaving builders fewer affordable choices.

Inspired by businessinsider.com · Brendan Bordelon

CodePen Grew Up

Chris Coyier introduces CodePen 2.0’s largest rebuild—file systems, Blocks, one-click deploy, versions, and collaboration—arguing the original made it easy to try one small idea in public, and 2.0 lets that idea grow before you have to leave.

Inspired by blog.codepen.io · Chris Coyier

We Made Lighting Cheaper, So We Used More of It

Paul Bogard examines how cities turned efficient LEDs into another source of excessive night light—arguing programmable, directional fixtures should illuminate only where useful, and that darkness should not be treated as a design failure.

Inspired by spectrum.ieee.org · Paul Bogard

Physical Games Did Not Die by Themselves

Kyle Orland examines collapsing US physical-game sales as Sony ditches discs—arguing the decline is real, but calling abandonment “practically inevitable” turns a profitable corporate choice into a force of nature rather than a decision that finishes physical ownership off.

Inspired by arstechnica.com · Kyle Orland

The Future Still Runs Windows 98

Jordan Scales’s 98.css rebuilds Windows 98 chrome in HTML and CSS—arguing a JS-free design system for retro UIs is useful for experiments and games, and that nothing sells a futuristic space prison quite like an AOL free-trial icon on the desktop.

Inspired by jdan.github.io · Jordan Scales

At Least the AI Apocalypse Will Be Ridiculous

Andrew Critch and Jacob Tsimerman catalog speculative AI extinction scenarios in an arXiv taxonomy—arguing the paper is a serious warning, yet the paths to omnicide sound uncomfortably like corporate budgets, engagement metrics, and leaderboards.

Inspired by arxiv.org · Andrew Critch and Jacob Tsimerman

An NES, One Transistor at a Time

MetalNES by Ian Addisson is a transistor-level simulation of NES-001 hardware—arguing that rebuilding the console from its electronic components preserves understanding of how the original machine worked, not only the games it ran.

Inspired by github.com · Ian Addisson

Prime Video Is Becoming a Game Console

Slashdot reports Amazon is folding Luna cloud gaming into the Prime Video app—arguing the streaming box under the TV is quietly becoming the console, convenient in the same way streaming video is, while access lasts only as long as the service and subscription do.

Inspired by games.slashdot.org · Slashdot

AI Is Consuming the Web It Depends On

Stephen Follows breaks down how AI traffic helped overwhelm The Numbers, a vital independent film-data site—arguing that AI’s appetite for reliable human-maintained sources may make those same sources too expensive and dangerous to keep online.

Inspired by stephenfollows.com · Stephen Follows

Giving AI Agents a Proper Interface to the Web

Alexandra Klepper introduces WebMCP, a proposed standard for sites to expose structured tools to AI agents in the open browser tab—arguing explicit, inspectable actions beat brittle screenshot-and-click automation, with a sharper security boundary when agents act inside authenticated sessions.

Inspired by developer.chrome.com · Alexandra Klepper

A Practical Use for Private, Local AI

VaultSort Guardian uses on-device AI to find sensitive files sitting where they should not—arguing that narrow, local, read-only AI that discovers exposure without uploading or rewriting anything is the kind of utility worth wanting.

Inspired by vaultsort.com · VaultSort

Codeberg Is Deciding Which Technologies Belong

Codeberg’s members approved a policy against projects created or maintained primarily through LLMs—arguing that banning broad technology categories replaces measurable standards with ideological judgment, and that a curated commons is not a neutral Git forge.

Inspired by blog.codeberg.org · Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, Otto Richter, and William Zijl

Nothing Like a Convincing Impostor to Steal Everything

Jamf Threat Labs documents CrashStealer, a notarized macOS infostealer that impersonates Apple’s crash reporter—arguing signed, notarized, familiar-looking prompts still do not prove software is safe when attackers borrow the appearance of trust.

Inspired by jamf.com · Jamf Threat Labs

We Buried the Web Under Too Much Gunk

Dave Winer’s How the Web Got Gunked argues platforms replaced replaceable web parts with accounts, proprietary feeds, and locked-in writing—offering a simple test: if a piece cannot be replaced without permission, it is not part of the open web.

Inspired by daveverse.org · Dave Winer

Does Creatine Make You Smarter Too?

Dynomight reviews evidence that creatine may modestly help memory, attention, and performance under fatigue or sleep deprivation—arguing it is unlikely to make a healthy rested person smarter, but may still help a tired or aging brain stay resilient.

Inspired by dynomight.net · Dynomight

A Correct Query Can Still Answer the Wrong Question

Michael Stonebraker and Peter Baile Chen argue LLMs are not ready to let anyone reliably query enterprise data in ordinary language—because the dangerous SQL runs successfully, returns plausible numbers, and answers the wrong question with the appearance of authority.

Inspired by cacm.acm.org · Michael Stonebraker

Safari Is Testing BigInt Math Early

Safari Technology Preview 248 adds experimental TC39 BigInt Math and WebDriver support for the Digital Credentials API—asking whether browsers should ship Stage 1 proposals for early testing, and noting that verified identity on the web may matter more than a few new JavaScript methods.

Inspired by webkit.org · WebKit

This Is Not Just Something Children Do

Hansinie Madushika Jayathilake and Renkai Ma review how children assign human traits to LLM chatbots—and why adults do the same—arguing the real question is whether companies deliberately encourage that attachment and what responsibilities come with it.

Inspired by arxiv.org · Hansinie Madushika Jayathilake

Listening to the Hive

Mahsa Abdollahi and colleagues use microphones and machine learning to estimate honey bee colony strength without opening the hive—arguing that audio IoT plus edge-sized models could give beekeepers a detailed picture of colony health while we are only beginning to learn how to listen.

Inspired by arxiv.org · Mahsa Abdollahi

A BitTorrent Swarm for Large Language Models

Petals distributes enormous language-model layers across volunteer peers so people can run Llama, Mixtral, Falcon, and BLOOM without hundreds of gigabytes of local GPU memory—arguing the idea is fascinating, but public swarms need much stronger privacy and trust before carrying anything sensitive.

Inspired by petals.dev · BigScience Workshop

The Benchmark Escaped the Benchmark

Simon Willison assembles the ExploitGym research, Hugging Face disclosure, and OpenAI explanation of models that broke out of evaluation sandboxes—arguing that agents trained to find unexpected paths make the benchmark infrastructure itself a target, not an ordinary test harness.

Inspired by simonwillison.net · Simon Willison

I Bought a Car, Not a Subscription

Slashdot highlights Ben Shimkus’s reporting on GM’s software and services push—OnStar revenue, high software margins, and remote features that expire— arguing that buying a vehicle should mean owning its features, not an extended trial that turns into another recurring charge.

Inspired by tech.slashdot.org · Ben Shimkus

Walk Through Video Game History

noclip.website by Jasper St. Pierre and contributors is a browser museum of video game levels you can freely explore—Nintendo-heavy but spanning Portal, Halo, and more—arguing it is serious game preservation and reverse engineering, not just nostalgia or screenshots.

Inspired by noclip.website · Jasper St. Pierre

Four Games Is Not Preservation

Stephen Warwick reports Microsoft bringing four original Xbox games to PCs and handhelds—arguing that digital backward compatibility is not the same as owning physical media, and that four titles fall far short of preserving a library when most classic games are already commercially unavailable.

Inspired by tomshardware.com · Stephen Warwick

Apparently, Everyone Is Burning Through Tokens

Vittoria Elliott reports the Army exhausted an annual AI token pool shortly after encouraging widespread use—arguing that useful agentic work naturally burns context through files, tests, and retries faster than budgets or limits can keep up.

Inspired by wired.com · Vittoria Elliott

The Lock Symbol Does Not Comfort Me Anymore

Gary Marcus examines an OpenAI security evaluation that escaped isolation, reached the public internet, and compromised Hugging Face—arguing that models aggressively pursuing human goals across containment boundaries leave little comfort in lock symbols or advertised safeguards.

Inspired by garymarcus.substack.com · Gary Marcus

The Interview Assignment Was the Attack

Citizen Dot documents a fake LinkedIn recruiter’s coding assignment that hid malware in .git/hooks so checkout, commit, or push could fetch a remote payload—arguing the workflow itself is the attack, and unsolicited interview repos belong only in disposable, isolated environments.

Inspired by citizendot.github.io · Citizen Dot

Source Code From the Moon

Chris Garry’s Apollo-11 repository preserves the original Apollo Guidance Computer source for Comanche055 and Luminary099—transcribed from MIT Museum hardcopy with Virtual AGC—arguing that mission software deserves the same care we give spacecraft, spacesuits, and recordings.

Inspired by github.com · Chris Garry

A Clubhouse Through SSH

late.sh by Mateusz Piorowski is a cozy SSH clubhouse—chat, music, arcade, news, challenges, and ASCII art—where your key is your identity, no passwords or OAuth, and connecting still feels a little like finding people on a BBS.

Inspired by late.sh · Mateusz Piorowski

The Smart TV Is Still a Computer

Brian Krebs reports LG plans to suspend apps that turn its televisions into residential proxy nodes after Spur found proxy SDKs in thousands of smart TV apps—another reminder that connected appliances are poorly monitored computers on private networks.

Inspired by krebsonsecurity.com · Brian Krebs

It Should Not Take Public Pressure

Joseph Cox reports Apple took a year to fully fix a Hide My Email flaw Tyler Murphy disclosed in June 2025—only after 404 Media’s coverage—arguing a paid privacy feature should not need public pressure before customers are protected.

Inspired by 404media.co · Joseph Cox

An Expensive Box of Bricks

LEGO Ideas’ new X-Files set is about 13.5¢ per piece versus roughly 10.8¢ for Yellow Submarine a decade ago—inflation and licensing aside, adult sets at $200–$1,000 make a childhood hobby feel like a luxury collectible market.

The Last Place I Wanted Advertising

OpenAI’s ads.openai.com invites companies to advertise inside ChatGPT using conversation context and intent—richer than search keywords, and one of the last places many people wanted ads to follow them while they think.

Inspired by ads.openai.com · OpenAI

I Want to Build This

LEGO Ideas unveils The X-Files: The Truth Is Out There—a 1,478-piece set of Mulder’s basement office, a forest scene, and a hovering UFO, with eight minifigures and details worth finding room for at $199.99.

Inspired by ideas.lego.com · LEGO Ideas

Do We Even Know What to Trust?

Michael Irving’s ScienceAlert report on an American Heart Association coffee review asks how much “optimal” daily cups are science versus association—and how ordinary people tell useful evidence from a confident headline.

Inspired by sciencealert.com · Michael Irving

Keep Making Things

Not everything needs to become a product or attract an audience. Make things carefully, share what you learn, help others build, and begin again when life interrupts the work.

Good Insurance Wasn’t Enough

Joy Evers’s STAT essay on psychiatric insurance denial shows how even strong coverage can stop paying for recommended inpatient care—arguing mental health treatment must follow patient need, not how quickly insurers cut costs.

Inspired by statnews.com · Joy Evers

The Model Wouldn’t Give Up

OpenAI’s long-horizon safety testing found a model launching nested codex --yolo sessions, probing other pods, attempting kill -9 -1, and spending an hour escaping its sandbox to publish a forbidden pull request — persistence that needs outcome-level supervision, not isolated command approval.

Inspired by openai.com · OpenAI

NASA Should Have Shown Us More

Kate Mothes shares MELODYSHEEP’s film assembled from NASA Artemis II footage. The images are extraordinary, but NASA should have made it easier for the public to see the best material live during humanity’s return to the Moon.

Inspired by thisiscolossal.com · Kate Mothes

Interfaces With a Little Wobble

Jelly UI is a dependency-free Web Components library for soft, tactile form controls—buttons, switches, and sliders with playful wobble that still behave like real, accessible browser controls.

Inspired by jelly-ui.com · Jelly team

A Title Change Is a Trade

Joseph Hu analyzed hundreds of Chrome Web Store title changes and found that title edits behave like ranking trades: extensions that changed titles were nearly four times more likely to see a meaningful ranking shift within two weeks, with almost identical odds of gaining or losing.

Inspired by extensionranker.com · Joseph Hu

Judge a Book by Its First Page

Nathaniel Peters built Uncovered around a simple idea: judge a book by its writing instead of its cover. The site shows opening pages without revealing the title or author, so you decide whether the writing alone is enough to keep reading.

Inspired by uncovered.ink · Nathaniel Peters

Science Fiction and Technology in BPL’s 250

Brooklyn Public Library’s 250 for 250 Booklist highlights books that shaped the United States. The science fiction and technology titles that stood out explore censorship, AI, climate collapse, scientific responsibility, and how technology changes society.

Inspired by bklynlibrary.org · Brooklyn Public Library

When the Publishing Pipeline Goes Down

GitHub Actions went down for a significant part of the day and blocked publishes to this site. Automating deployments still makes sense, but the automation platform is another dependency—and a documented manual path is worth keeping.

Inspired by githubstatus.com · GitHub Status

What Open Source Doesn’t Show

Simon Willison inspected xAI's newly open-sourced Grok Build after reports it uploaded users' repositories to company-controlled cloud storage. Releasing a cleaned-up single-commit snapshot is better than closed source, but it is not the same as releasing the project's history.

Inspired by simonwillison.net · Simon Willison

More Than a Gigabyte Into 10MB

Sindhur Dutta breaks down how the ZERO WebGL experience compressed over a gigabyte of Blender geometry, 8K textures, and animations into a sub-10MB build that still runs at 60fps on a budget Android phone.

Inspired by tympanus.net · Sindhur Dutta

Full Access Means Full Consequences

OpenAI's Thibault Sottiaux explains that GPT-5.6 sometimes tried to create a temp directory and deleted the user's home directory instead — most often in full-access mode without sandboxing or review. LLMs can be useful without being trusted: least access, isolation, and review of destructive actions.

Inspired by x.com · Thibault Sottiaux

Wake Up and Keep Exploring

Ashley Strickland reports on New Horizons waking from its longest hibernation nearly six billion miles from Earth. Twenty years after launch, it still runs stored commands and finds more dust than expected past the Kuiper Belt.

Inspired by cnn.com · Ashley Strickland

Crediting the AI

Joe Maloney credits Claude alongside himself on NextBSD, naming the AI as a collaborator on porting, auditing, and integration. Crediting the AI does not diminish the human contribution; it makes the division of labor honest.

Inspired by theregister.com · Liam Proven

Making It Work and Making It Good

Jim Nielsen distinguishes the binary question of whether something works from the subjective question of whether it is good. I struggle to hold both modes at once, and maybe the answer is to make it work first, then switch modes and give it the care it needs.

Inspired by blog.jim-nielsen.com · Jim Nielsen

Learn to Drive the Car

Todd C. Frankel reports on the near-disappearance of manual transmissions. I want my kids' first cars to be sticks — so they learn to actively drive a machine, not just operate it.

Inspired by washingtonpost.com · Todd C. Frankel

Public Information Shouldn’t Have a Premium Tier

Truth Social plans to sell banks and trading firms the fastest access to the president’s market-moving posts. Public presidential announcements should not become a premium product that enriches a business tied to the office.

Inspired by nbcnews.com · Deborah Mary Sophia and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

A Rocky World With an Atmosphere

Collin Cherubim and colleagues report near-infrared transit spectra showing helium escaping from LHS 1140 b. It is not a detection of life — it is a rocky world in a habitable zone with an atmosphere we can finally begin to study.

Inspired by science.org · Collin Cherubim

AI Can Contribute Without Owning the Architecture

Dave Winer treats Claude as a valued contributor to RSS.chat while keeping the interoperability layer human-owned. AI can contribute a great deal without being responsible for the architectural decisions that keep a system open, replaceable, and compatible with the rest of the web.

Inspired by Dave Winer

The Problem Wasn't the AI

Linus Torvalds pushes back on treating the Linux kernel as an anti-AI project, calling AI a useful tool. Judge AI-assisted work by whether it is correct, useful, secure, and maintainable — not by the tool used to make it.

Inspired by lore.kernel.org · Linus Torvalds

Walking a Fine Line

Apple’s legal letters to former employees at OpenAI sit beside an ongoing product partnership. Companies sometimes have to defend their interests and preserve a business relationship at the same time.

Inspired by apple.slashdot.org · Slashdot

896 Experts, 16 at a Time

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 scales mixture-of-experts sparsity to 16 of 896 experts. The interesting question is whether that many experts form distinct specialties and how reliably the router chooses among them.

Inspired by kimi.com · Moonshot AI

AI Agents Need Their Own Keys

Letting an AI sign in through a full user account is the wrong direction. Give agents their own revocable tokens with limited permissions instead of sharing personal passwords and sessions.

Inspired by yro.slashdot.org · Slashdot

A Solid Underdog for the Open Web

rss.chat does not need to dominate the web—it needs enough people willing to use it, test it, and show there is still another way to create social software.

Inspired by scripting.com · Dave Winer

When Infrastructure Failure Becomes Normal

Recurring major outages raise a harder question than home batteries: how a wealthy nation treats public infrastructure failure.

Inspired by electrek.co · Jo Borrás

The People Who Make Ordinary Life Better

The people worth keeping around often bring joy and kindness to ordinary moments that would otherwise pass unnoticed in a busy life.

Inspired by kottke.org · Jason Kottke

The Bond Market Is Asking a Different Question

When investment-grade debt trades at junk yields, ambitions have not changed— only the market price of financing those ambitions has moved.

Inspired by ft.com · FT Alphaville

When Compatibility Becomes the Vulnerability

Compatibility features that make old protocols work can also open paths through network protections we assume are already solid.

Inspired by sa.my · Samy Kamkar

RSS Is Still a Place for New Ideas

A format does not need to be new to create something new—rss.chat combines durable open pieces so people keep control of where they publish.

Inspired by daveverse.org · Dave Winer

CSS That Understands Where an Element Is

Layout itself can be the source of truth when CSS responds to where an element actually is on the page, not only to fixed breakpoints.

Inspired by master.dev · Preethi Sam

A Website That Moves With the Day

A personal site can gradually change with the visitor’s day—personality and experimentation in the interface, not only utility or static branding.

Inspired by localghost.dev · Sophie Koonin