The itch

I’m really itching to build something new again. Not a new widget or open source project, but a new service. Something that makes peoples’ lives better. I love startups. And the ideas are brewing.

Think twice before exercising your stock options

I recently wrote a short aside about stock options: But in general, for regular employees, I think options are rarely worth it. They typically require an up-front investment that many employees simply can’t make, so it’s a bit of a fake benefit to begin with, and their

Monetizing ShareOpenly

I was asked if I’m planning to monetize ShareOpenly. Short answer: I have no plans to do so. This is a personal project. If it’s wildly successful and the infrastructure costs skyrocket, I may look for donations or sponsorship of some kind in order to cover those costs.

Some ShareOpenly updates

It’s been a little over a month since I launched ShareOpenly, my simple tool that lets you add a “share to social media” button to your website which is compatible with the fediverse, Bluesky, Threads, and all of today’s crop of social media sites. You might recall that

NotableLinks

An Interview With Jack Dorsey

This interview is as interesting for what it doesn't mention - fediverse, for example - as for what it does. This helps explain why he distanced himself from Bluesky after he'd previously established it and ensured it had funding: "This tool was designed such that it had,

NotableLinks

Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content

Simon Willison has a perfect name for unreviewed content that is shared with  other people: "slop". He goes on: "I’m happy to use LLMs for all sorts of purposes, but I’m not going to use them to produce slop. I attach my name and stake

A letter to Russell T Davies

Here’s what I would say to Russell T Davies if I could: One of my very first television memories is sitting watching Peter Davison’s Doctor (and reruns of Tom Baker’s) on a tiny 12” TV set, my face probably too close to the screen. My imagination ran

Palantir's earnings call rhetoric is terrifying

Mark Nottingham highlighted this alarming quote by CEO Alex Karp from the latest Palantir earnings call: I think the central risk to Palantir and America and the world is a regressive way of thinking that is corrupting and corroding our institutions that calls itself progressive, but actually -- and is called

NotableLinks

Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT

"Users who disagree with having their content scraped by ChatGPT are particularly outraged by Stack Overflow's rapid flip-flop on its policy concerning generative AI. For years, the site had a standing policy that prevented the use of generative AI in writing or rewording any questions or

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Meet AdVon, the AI-Powered Content Monster Infecting the Media Industry

"We found the company's phony authors and their work everywhere from celebrity gossip outlets like Hollywood Life and Us Weekly to venerable newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, the latter of which also told us that it had broken off its relationship with AdVon after finding its

Productivity

Bookending

"Here’s a small trick that worked for me over the dozen years I led remote teams: at the end of your working day, shut down every app on your machine. Yes, all of them. Stash your tabs somewhere if you must, but close them all down." I

NotableLinks

40 years later, a game for the ZX Spectrum will be once again broadcast over FM radio

"There were times when Sinclair ZX Spectrum games were copied over the radio waves across Slovenia. Radio Študent broadcast screeching, beeping and whining, which we recorded on tape and played a game a few hours later." I love this! I never had a ZX Spectrum, but I did