Neal Stephenson has a track record that is not to be ignored. His thoughts on AI are thoughtful: https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz
I was always curious what passkeys are. Turns out they are a kind of protocol around public key cryptography. Now that I understand them I want to use them more. The most interesting thing is how the protocol ensures a passkey couldn’t be used by another site because the keys are tied to specific domains.
Repairability
A very fun video on a second hand tool store in Japan. I appreciate the interest in repairability. I own a lot of second hand tools I’ve purchased off craigslist. One of my most-used is my ShopSmith, made in the 80s and still going strong.
What is Fair?
Currently AI tech companies would like to pretend that their use of copyrighted works is ethical and considered ‘fair use’. I find this to be laughable, and so does the head of the US Copyright Office. That is, the former head, as they were promptly fired after releasing their report.
I like to use a thought experiment to show the duplicity around this ‘fair use’. Currently the code quality of AI is quite poor. Let’s assume that this quality goes up, to the point that it could create an entire program from scratch. Let’s say that this AI was trained on Windows, and then allowed you to compile and create your own version of Windows, but without all the crap that makes it terrible. I’m sure they would shout from the rooftops that you are stealing Windows and create a clause in the license saying you’re in breach of contract.
Plucky Puffins
The new version of Ubuntu is out, 25.04 Plucky Puffin. Its technically been out for a while, but they just turned on the upgrade path from 24.10 after a botched earlier rollout. There are a number of new features, but the improvements to battery life are the most noticeable on my old Microsoft Surface Laptop.
Brutalism
A loooong time ago I lived in London, and it has a lot of truly amazing architecture. One of the more enigmatic areas is the Barbican. I always wondered about it, and apparently you can take a tour and learn more.
Urbanism
This cargo bike design is so fun and interesting. Since the site is in french, here is some additional info in english.
The idea that Uber would essentially create a bus route is the most American, capitalist solution to public transport I’ve seen in a while. I’m begrudgingly sad that this could be a good thing, perhaps out of pure desperation, as any rope looks good when you’re drowning in a sea of car dependency, regardless of who’s holding it.
Stupidism
Like Daylight Stupidity Time, can we stop doing this? https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/max-changes-name-hbo-max-1236397399
The Swiss stupidly want to retain private data, but at least Proton is smart enough to push back.
The Texas Senate, not the House as of this writing, has passed a bill requiring solar plants to buy backup power, largely from coal or gas plants.. In other words, they are requiring solar plants to provide power at night. The right-wing shills over at the Public Policy Foundation call it a ‘reliability requirement’.