https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/27/deepseek-nvidia/#atom-everything

“Jeffrey Emanuel capturing the current state of the AI/LLM industry”

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/reading-thiels-op-ed

I think Ganz is going to the root of what is happening with the oligarchs: “a technological singularity is coming and the elect must work to accelerate it. The state must organize itself like an enterprise for this work to be completed. Progress, which is hampered by democracy, must have an authoritarian state to continue unabated.”

Fascism for the cause of immortality.

“Who do you think you are? God?”

Thiel would think, “not yet, but ask again in 3 years”

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/mob-rule

The Party of Trump.

https://jabberwocking.com/colombia-tells-trump-to-fuck-off/

An excellent example for Americans. Trump may bring Columbia and Mexico closer together.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/420474/is-there-a-way-to-create-a-shortcut-in-finder-to-an-apple-note

It’s an under-appreciated answer on this page.

Get share link, open in browser, save to desktop as .webloc file. Opens note in Safari. Now you can integrate your Notes note with other documents in a finder folder. (PS. Got answer from AI then tracked down on web.)

https://jabberwocking.com/elons-big-task-is-interoperability/

Kevin is wrong. There is big potential here. A small Obama era SV cohort did well with login.gov even during Trump 1.

The huge problem is removing a truckload of well intended but wrong regulation. That requires Congress.

https://musgrave.substack.com/p/the-green-dawn-scenario

“Trump believes Greenland is important to U.S. national security.
He’s pursued this policy for years.
Republicans are not pushing back on this.”

The EU needs to be ready. Maybe China will offer Denmark military protection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/opinion/australians-california-fires.html

Solid.

https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/dear-civil-servant

Doesn’t dissemble, early advice is look for other work.

https://timkellogg.me/blog/2025/01/25/r1

Energy costs falling fast now.

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/26/chatgpt-operator-system-prompt/#atom-everything

A proto-agent AI. Any resemblance to the “3 laws” is coincidental. Also, don’t complete CAPCHAs — even though you could totally do that faster than any squish.

https://wikenigma.org.uk/

Ex: why did pre-avian dinosaurs have feathers?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/hitler-germany-constitution-authoritarianism/681233/

Hitler had serious political skills. Great rundown of how to destroy a constitutional republic.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-24-2025

Get off the floor you cowards.

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/24/anthropics-new-citations-api/#atom-everything

A step beyond what Perplexity does now, but i hope they will use it.

I loved this explanation. Willison notes RAG responses are a mix of model knowledge and reference knowledge.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/welcome-to-vichy-america

There are several causes of American collapse. Two big ones started at our greatest peak in the mid-90s.

Alongside those is a kind of nihilistic boredom.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/how-to-drink-from-a-firehose

Finally, good comms advice.

https://jabberwocking.com/weve-finally-learned-why-paul-krugman-quit-the-times/

They wanted both sideism

https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/ice_raids_are_an_escalation_of_a_de_facto_cold_civil_war

Gruber is correct. Share this understanding.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/opinion/trump-mckinley-populism.html

I’m a bit stunned. Is this really written by David Brooks?

“they thought they could solve the disruptions of industrialization if only they could find the evil conspirators who were responsible for every ill. Their diagnoses were simple-minded, their rhetoric over the top; their proposals, Hofstadter noted, wandered “over the border between reality and impossibility.””

https://bsky.app/profile/johngordon.bsky.social/post/3lginrszk722g

To keep your old price without CoPilot you have to “cancel” — which just shows the options. For our family plan it is $100 and no CoPilot.

Since most AIs are $20/m a cost of $30 a year is a bargain for a family — but CoPilot does not appear particularly useful so far.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/insider/covering-an-mpox-outbreak-in-congo-mile-after-mile-of-muck.html

Congo is another world entirely.

https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/repairing-broken-america-where-trump.html

Corruption, Eugenics, Mediciine, SCOTUS, Religion, Bitcoin reserve, cruelty to the cognitively disabled.

https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/the-jan-21-2025-federal-opm-informer.html

“Nobody will be able to say they did not know.”

https://eclecticlight.co/2025/01/23/create-and-use-virtual-machines-on-apple-silicon-macs/

“they should be stored in their own volume that doesn’t have snapshots made of it, as well as being excluded from normal backups.”

A useful reference.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/blame-mcconnell

Infamy.

https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon

Trump’s barnacle.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/musk-trump-inauguration-salute/681390/

Article is about Musk the awkward nazi, but the Bannon quote raised my brow.

“anyone has to understand Musk’s motives is a damning video, his past words and actions, and plenty of circumstantial evidence about his beliefs.”

https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/boss-tweed-attacked-the-nytimes-exactly-the-way-trump-might-0c5096bbca37

Tweed tried to do to the NYT what Bezos did to WaPo

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/of-for-and-by-the-billionaires

Americans threw America away. I hope they miss it.

https://gizmodo.com/big-tech-mafia-spotted-in-church-with-trump-as-new-era-of-oligarchy-begins-2000552550

King and barons before the pope vibe.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-lies-of-the-powerful-are-still

Probably untrue, sadly. But do it anyway just to spite them.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-generative-ai-the-power-and-the-glory/

This is the reference Willison and others reference. He’s a power person, not an AI person, but Perplexity made him an AI convert.

https://gizmodo.com/this-anesthesia-gas-could-be-the-next-big-alzheimers-treatment-2000551153

“appeared to activate a protective response from the brain’s …microglia … helped their brain fend off the damaging changes associated with Alzheimer’s”

There was prior research in brain injury. Gas is used in anesthesia so human trials are relatively easy.

https://www.twincities.com/2025/01/19/real-world-economics-steelmaking-faces-clash-of-new-tech-obsolete-values/

Tech change may again disrupt.

This would make a great micro history subject. RSS bypasses firewall.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-pathetic-billionaires-club

A sane and balanced person stops at 100 million. Or far less than that. Those who press on are weird or broken or both.

https://tech.kateva.org/2025/01/creating-macos-spotlight-indexed.html

Use Outlook.com, select a list, click ellipsis, choose print, save as PDF.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/modi-nationalism-demagoguery-limitations/681094/

Beyond Modi’s famed bigotry and authoritarianism focuses at his educational and economic failures and power of the wealthy.

The fact that Modi essentially lost an election should give Americans hope as our Modi takes power.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-pettis-paradigm-and-the-second

One of Noah’s better pieces on China’s latest export super-surge. I like the humility — the world is too complex for our models. Tariffs are the only answer anyone has, but they will hurt the US consumer.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2025

I think there is a case that never before have Americans votes so stupidly. (The civil war, by comparison, had some logic to it.)

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/01/17/what-im-expecting-from-the-new-administration/

Remember those who voted for Trump and those who grovel before him. So you can quietly spit when they pass. Until we die.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/we-need-policy-implementers-not-policy

“actual RFP and bidding process are regulated by the Federal Acquisition Regulations, a document spanning hundreds of pages of detailed requirements that mandate things like seeking bids from female- and minority-owned businesses and the like.” (Also veteran owned, which means lots of scams)

https://jabberwocking.com/stop-panicking-people/

The legit CDC fail was airflow. Not what people mostly remember.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/health/cancer-younger-women.html

HPV vaccine and GLP1 should help.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/perdue-jbs-slaughterhouses-child-labor.html

Ok, $8 million. But that is $17 for them. Hilariously inadequate fine.

https://fallows.substack.com/p/the-speech-joe-biden-is-likely-to

I don’t listen to speeches so i appreciate Fallows summary

https://www.quantamagazine.org/heat-destroys-all-order-except-for-in-this-one-special-case-20250116/

In theory, but it is good QFT. Physicists will try to test.

https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-incoming-clubber-lang-administration

“Republicans in immigrant-heavy states have been suggesting he’ll prioritize or only focus on the worst criminals”

“tariffs … cost a typical US household in the middle of the income distribution more than $2,600 a year.”

https://gizmodo.com/why-does-chatgpts-algorithm-think-in-chinese-2000550311

“certain languages might offer tokenization efficiencies or easier mappings for specific problem types”

Somebody is going to train an AI to develop an optimal representation and computation language.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/15400543?visit_id=638725492563981009-404877346&p=gemini_update_business&rd=1#zippy=%2Chow-does-this-transition-affect-nonprofit-organizations

At some point it might make sense for a family to pay for Google Workspace. I think my legacy Google Apps won’t get Gemini Advanced sadly.