Hilary Gridley's AI Steering Wheel
The AI Steering Wheel transforms vague instructions like "simpler" or "ambitious" into specific, actionable commands that LLMs actually understand.
Quoting Ethan Mollick: Managing Agents is Really a Management Problem
Managing AI agents requires the same skills as managing people or products, that's why product managers excel at getting results from LLMs.
Quoting Jason Gorman: The Future of Software Development is Software Developers
Have you ever asked an LLM to do the same task in different languages and gotten wildly different results?
Quoting Bryan Newbold: Why Leaving X Makes Sense
Bryan Newbold's quote captures why leaving X matters—network effects work both ways, and institutions moving to Bluesky could trigger the tipping point.
Quoting Johann Rehberger: The Normalization of Deviance in AI
Discover how the normalization of deviance threatens AI systems (or why companies gradually accept risky shortcuts)
Quoting The Resonant Computing Manifesto
Quoting Elena Verna: My beef with AI credit pricing
Elena Verna critiques AI credit pricing models and urges product teams to rethink how they charge for AI-powered features.
Quoting Geoffrey Litt: Code Like a Surgeon
Geoffrey Litt compares effective coding with AI support to a surgeon working with a skilled team, staying hands-on with the core.
On Vibe Coding Cleanup as a Service
Reflecting on the business of cleaning up AI-generated code and why vibe-to-production services are becoming lucrative.
Quoting Michael Bassili: I Miss Using Em Dashes
Michael Bassili laments losing em dashes to safety filters and how AI tooling reshapes writing habits for bloggers.
Quoting Bruce Schneier: We Are Still Unable to Secure LLMs
Bruce Schneier argues we still lack defenses against malicious LLM inputs and outlines why current security approaches fall short.
Quoting Anu Atluru: Doomprompting Is the New Doomscrolling
Highlighting Anu Atluru's take on doomprompting—how short, lazy prompts make us passive creators and duller conversationalists.
What is Slopsquatting?
Explaining slopsquatting—the tactic of registering fake packages that LLMs hallucinate, priming supply-chain attacks.
Quoting Orta Therox: Programming’s ‘Introduction to Photography’ Moment
Orta Therox frames AI-assisted coding as programming's photography moment, where new tools reshape craft rather than replace it.
Quoting Vincent Schmalbach: My LLMs Have Personalities
Vincent Schmalbach personifies his LLMs like quirky interns, comparing ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok personalities.
Quoting Simon Willison: Identify, solve, verify
Simon Willison's identify–solve–verify mantra on why humans remain essential to guide, debug, and validate LLM-generated work.
Quoting John Rush: Building a Personal AI Factory
John Rush shares how he builds a personal AI factory with Claude Code, MCP, and agents, mirroring my own coding workflow.
Quoting Simon Willison: The lethal trifecta for AI agents
Simon Willison outlines the lethal trifecta for AI agents—private data, untrusted content, and external communication risks.
Quoting Devansh: Fine-Tuning LLMs is a Huge Waste of Time
Devansh argues fine-tuning LLMs is destructive overwriting. Use RAG, adapters, or prompt engineering instead.
Quoting Sean Goedecke: Debugging, emotional resilience, and mental models
Sean Goedecke on why debugging is emotionally challenging—it breaks our comforting illusions of control and understanding.
Watching o3 guess a photo’s location is kinda scary
OpenAI's o3 model can identify photo locations—a powerful but dystopian capability that raises serious privacy concerns.
Quoting Drew Breunig on Domain Experts & Developers
Drew Breunig on how AI is flipping the script: coding is becoming commodified while domain expertise becomes the real differentiator.
How secure is MCP, really?
Exploring the security risks of MCP and why it may not be production-ready. Key vulnerabilities include shell access and secret exposure.
Matt Webb, Interview for People and Blogs:
Matt Webb on why blogging is a political act: owning your words free from algorithmic control and platform values.
The future belongs to idea guys who can just do things
How LLMs are empowering idea people to build and prototype without traditional coding skills—the future of rapid iteration.
The Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic
Anthropic's new economic index tracks how LLMs impact the economy and labor market, providing data for evidence-based AI regulation.
OpenAI Furious DeepSeek Might Have Stolen All the Data They Stole First
The irony of OpenAI complaining about data theft when it built its company on unauthorized data collection—plus an intro to model distillation.
Your very own Benjamin Gates with ChatGPT
ChatGPT is now surprisingly good at history, noticing details that even experts miss—like having your own Benjamin Gates.
Think of local-first as a hardening function.
Steph Ango on local-first architecture: systems should remain operational even when infrastructure goes down.
Digital sovereignty is more important than ever
Molly White on why digital sovereignty matters: move what you care about to spaces you control, not corporate platforms.
A guide to AI prototyping for product managers
A practical guide to AI prototyping tools for product managers: when to use v0, Bolt, Replit, and Lovable for different use cases.
ChatGPT reveals the system prompt for Tasks
Simon Willison reveals ChatGPT Tasks system prompt by getting the model to output its internal scheduling instructions.
The 2025 AI Engineering Reading List
A curated list of ~50 essential AI engineering papers for 2025, selected for practical relevance to working AI engineers.
Street-fighting RAG: Chain-of-thought prompting
Using chain-of-thought prompting to control LLM responses in constrained game environments and prevent unwanted associations.
Challenging the "LLMs are just next-token predictors" take
Why dismissing LLMs as 'just next-token predictors' misses the emergent intelligence, reasoning, and creativity they develop.
Can LLMs write better code if you keep asking them to “write better code”?
Experiment: can iteratively asking LLMs to 'write better code' actually improve output, or does it lead to over-engineering?
Things we learned about LLMs in 2024
Simon Willison's comprehensive review of key LLM developments, breakthroughs, and lessons learned throughout 2024.
OpenAI’s Board: ‘To Succeed, All We Need Is Unimaginable Sums of Money’
John Gruber compares OpenAI to Netscape: leading product but no durable competitive moat in an increasingly commoditized AI market.
How decentralized is Bluesky really?
A critical analysis of Bluesky's decentralization claims: is it truly decentralized or just a Twitter replacement with credible exit?
Perfect is the Enemy of Good
Breaking free from perfectionism in writing: why publishing shorter, imperfect content is more liberating than endless editing.
To Auto-Save or Not to Auto-Save?
Exploring the generational divide: users who expect auto-save vs. those who still want manual save buttons.
Art Display with Real-Time Image Diffusion
A wall-mounted diffusion mirror using Raspberry Pi 5 and Stable Diffusion to turn reflections into real-time AI-generated paintings.
The web is too big, or scaling down
Scott C. Richmond on the critical question of how technology scales down in an age of monopolies and centralized power.
Net Neutrality is dead, cryptojacking keeps spreading & the Mirai Botnet isn’t what you think
Tech news: FCC kills net neutrality, Mirai botnet was a Minecraft scheme, and cryptocurrency developments.
Parts of the US Internet broke down, a poor guy stole and lost $300m in cryptocurrency by accident
Tech roundup: Level 3 internet outage, DOJ encryption debate, Facebook shadow profiles, and $300M cryptocurrency bug.
WiFi is broken, Big Brother lives in China and robots are coming for Wall Street!
A curated roundup covering WPA2 KRACK vulnerability, China's social credit system, Wall Street automation, and tech security news.
Disqus leaks user data, Equifax still struggles with cybersecurity
Tech security news: Disqus data breach, We Heart It hack, Equifax redirects to malware, and Dow Jones testing mishap.
AIM shuts down after 20 years, Kaspersky Lab might be working with the Kremlin
Weekly tech roundup: AIM shutdown, FEMA deletes Puerto Rico data, UK WhatsApp encryption debate, and Equifax breach details.
Deloitte leaks clients’ secret emails, Uber wants to leave Quebec and the new Firefox Quantum is out
Tech news: Deloitte cyberattack, Equifax state-sponsored hack suspicions, Uber threatens Quebec exit, and Firefox Quantum launch.
Uber loses licence in London, Google buys HTC talents for $1.1B & CCleaner distributes malware million users
Tech news roundup: Uber loses London license, Google acquires HTC talent, CCleaner malware attack, and more tech industry updates.
Equifax breach exposes millions of US consumers’ data, China bans cryptocurrencies & bluetooth flaw puts billions at risk
Tech news: Equifax breach exposes 150M accounts, China bans ICOs, Bluetooth security flaw, and Silicon Valley politics study.
HBO keeps getting hacked, cryptocurrencies are not currencies & robots won’t take all our jobs
Tech news: HBO security breaches, voting machine data leaks, prison coding bans, and online radicalization research.
The Daily Stormer sucks, Trumps disbands business councils & China’s headed for AI world domination
Tech news roundup: Charlottesville aftermath, tech companies dropping neo-Nazis, Trump's business councils, and China's AI strategy.
Google’s diversity memo shakes the web, Walt Disney's leaving Netflix & researchers infected a computer with DNA
Weekly roundup: Google diversity memo controversy, white hat hacker arrests, Disney leaving Netflix, and DNA-based malware.
China censors Apple and Amazon, cryptocurrencies are the new gold & Hyperloop is the future of public transportation
Tech news: WannaCry hero arrested, Uber CEO search, SoundCloud collapse, Reddit funding, and cryptocurrency developments.
Sweden leaks massive data, Amazon misleads consumers & the Library of Congress opens its catalogs
Tech news: Sweden's massive data breach, Amazon Prime Day pricing issues, and Library of Congress opening its catalogs.
$31M+ stolen in cryptocurrencies, new blockchain challenges & Japan sent a drone to space!
Weekly tech roundup: Bitcoin civil war, $31M Ethereum hack, Canada's AI growth, and Android security threats.
Internet fights for Net Neutrality, bacteria can store animated gifs & AI is at war with journalists
Tech finds: historic net neutrality day of action, Google's automated news project, and bacteria storing animated GIFs.
Fake news is scarier than ever, blockchain struggles with scaling & online privacy still an issue
Weekly finds: AI-generated fake videos, Facebook tracking, scientific paper piracy, and massive Medicare data breach.
Petya breaks computers, EU fines Google €2.42B
Tech news: Petya ransomware outbreak, EU fines Google €2.42B for search manipulation, and emerging mobile technologies.
Amazon buys Whole Foods, Uber’s CEO resigns and the NSA goes open source
Tech news: Amazon acquires Whole Foods, Uber CEO resigns, NSA contributes to open source, and net neutrality's impact on IoT.
Internet Trends 2017 are out, hacking power grids is possible & the blockchain keeps growing
Weekly tech roundup: Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017, power grid vulnerabilities, and blockchain enterprise adoption.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #12
Curated finds: crypto tokens, AI replacing humans, Russian election hacking, and Google's ad blocker strategy.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #11
Tech roundup: Elon Musk quits White House councils, Wikipedia HTTPS censorship fight, and US intelligence data breaches.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #10
Weekly finds: Bitcoin scarcity, AI political influence, criminal justice data transparency, and privacy commodification.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #9
Tech newsletter: WannaCry ransomware, FCC net neutrality vote, Google's AI-first strategy, and NSA exploit leaks.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #8
Curated finds: AI diversity, data as the new oil, Google's future, and data visualization trends.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #7
Tech roundup: Turkey blocks Wikipedia, FBI encryption debate, NSA surveillance changes, and AI developments.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #6
Weekly finds: Wikitribune launch, Facebook Instant Articles, Google ad-blocking, and tech diversity issues.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #5
Tech newsletter: USAFacts data project, phishing attacks, PGP key security, and AI accessibility trends.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #4
Tech finds: Mastodon disruption, Instagram Stories growth, Google fact-checking, and net neutrality in India.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #3
Weekly tech roundup: YouTube monetization changes, Tim Berners-Lee Turing Award, deep learning, and React resources.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #2
Tech newsletter: ISP privacy rollback, Russian hacker investigation, fake news trust, and startup ecosystem rankings.
The Aspiring Nerd — Issue #1
Curated tech finds: net neutrality, ISP privacy rules, website security, chatbots, and web development resources.