- Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?) Anthropic
Fascinating set of insights into how far an AI agent can go, and how it breaks down. The other thing I find refreshingly honest, is the tone of the company who make the thing, openly saying "we have no idea why it did this". That bedrock fact underlies all LLM development, and any "AI" company who claims to truly, properly, understand their product is lying.
Tag: business
Bookmarks for April 12, 2025
- Internet 3.0 and the Beginning of (Tech) History – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
This is a solid bit of writing from a few years back that explains a lot about the stages of growth of the internet and how we've arrived at the current moment. I think that four years later, his conclusion that we're headed back to a more open and decentralised internet is optimistic – but thinking about Bluesky, and the idea that independent writing plaforms (or, as we used to call them, blogs) are having a resurgence in response to everything, maybe not totaly unfounded.
- LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything • The Register
Fascinating new exploit wrinkle, and a very strong argument for not using LLMs to generate entire applications – it'll literally decide to try and pull in dependencies that don't exist, and if the app runner doesn't notice, then a bad actor can simply occupy that space with whatever they're like, and completely co-opt the AI-generated app.
Bookmarks for June 22, 2018
- KS Lessons Full List – Chronological – Stonemaier Games
A list of lessons in running a kickstarter (or similar project). One to come back to.
Bookmarks for February 15, 2016
- Time Inc. acquires Myspace – Business Insider
Wait, is it still 10 years ago?
Bookmarks for January 20, 2016
- How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain
I knew that Mickey was a huge part of the reason for ongoing copyright extensions. What I didn't know was that Disney have no real *need* to push for them, since they've got him so heavily trademarked. They own him as long as they want to.
- What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?
This is saddening. Even among the famous works, there's a lot here that it would be a huge public good to have copyright-free, and I don't think anyone could argue that the original creators (or in most cases, their estates) haven't been fairly compenstated for these work.
Bookmarks for December 26, 2015
- App Directory | Slack
Slack app integrations. May be useful later.
- Official BBC instructions for knitting Doctor Who's scarf
How to knit the 4th Doctor's scarf.
- The sad economics of being famous on the internet | Fusion
Interesting and saddening breakdown of the economics of internet fame.
Bookmarks for February 19, 2015
- Filtered for SAAS (17 Feb., 2015, at Interconnected)
Lot of job-relevant stuff to dig into here.
Bookmarks for November 25, 2014
- Pomplamoose 2014 Tour Profits — Medium
I'm always fascinated when indie artists in any medium release a breakdown of their financials.
Bookmarks for June 13, 2014
- All Our Patent Are Belong To You | Blog | Tesla Motors
Tesla have open-sourced their patents, in a bid to get the car industry to play catch-up. Their language is a bit fuzzy, but assuming they're for real, this is brilliant news.
- The Qwerkywriter – Typewriter Inspired Mechanical Keyboard by Qwerkytoys, INC — Kickstarter
If you loved me, you would buy me one of these.
Bookmarks for May 27, 2014
- Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil? – Charlie's Diary
Here's a good primer on why Amazon are likely to be long-term bad for creators. As well as being short term bad for anyone who works for them…