Gracie Abrams just dropped a new album last week, Daughter From Hell. It’s really good. So of course Gracie is everywhere all at once.

But one interview caught me off guard.

Her producer said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever make a good song again.” And Gracie’s nodding along saying “It’s over.”

She’s 26. Wtf. She’s already worried her best is behind her. That she’s peaked.

But then I realize Look At My Life, a song on this album, sings:

How long have I got. In the hot light till the shine rusts? But oh well, look at my life

In a CBS interview asking about this, Gracie says:

There’s always the next girl, there’s always the next shiny object, there’s always the next great show. My hope is longevity, not like white-hot moment, you know?

Interesting. I mean, I’m 48. You can forgive me for worrying about stuff like this. But a 26 year old?

But here’s the thing. This isn’t a...

Let me short-circuit the flames. He wasn’t using AI, but my attempts at trying to rid myself of AI slop in my feed reader flagged him as the worst offender.

Is he? No. It just points out how hard this is.

So just yesterday, I posted a neat article to Hacker News. It was from Kagi Small Web which I’ve been using in my feed reader a ton because hell yeah I want to support the small blogs out there like the one here. I’m sick of all the usual garbage. And here’s an article that has some interesting bits I’ve never heard before, considering I’ve been in the YC circle since late 2005. Like Airbnb almost went corporate housing to make ends meet!?

Immediately the submission jumped to the top of Hacker News. Lots of upvotes coming in. But then I started seeing “slop”, “AI;DR”, and then someone pointed out the author’s x handle doesn’t even exist.

Crap. I got fooled. This article is...

Single people can be as productive as whole teams.

People are freaking out. There’s so much angst about how their jobs are changing with AI. I get it. It does feel like the things you used to do aren’t as valuable anymore. There’s new things to learn. And the new things keep changing fast. Every day there’s a new tool, or a tool you got used to last week that doesn’t exist anymore or got swallowed into some other company’s features.

And there’s a lot of concern about employment in general, if all of a sudden a whole team can be squashed into one person with an AI.

The funny thing about that quote up top? More on that in a minute.

I remember my first job at Accenture, 20+ years ago.

Work was crazy. The CEO had just quit to join a billion dollar unicorn. And I remember all the learning I had to do to keep up. I’d go to Borders to buy book after book on Java and Linux. There were 15...

AlliHat now can talk to ChatGPT and Gemini.

Still needs to use an API token you provide it. Or use the local Apple model which does a great job for small tasks like summarization of an article.

Photo by Tim McErston

Some asshole made an illegal right turn onto Lake Shore Drive in Chicago yesterday.

There was a line of traffic cones specifically to prevent this. He ran right over them and dragged one cone into the middle of a southbound lane of cars waiting to exit.

Now the lane was stuck.

Some folks just honked. Because they couldn’t imagine why they weren’t moving. So honking was their solution.

The more interesting folks were the ones who saw the problem and decided the solution was to merge back into the flow of Lake Shore Drive traffic. Which is going something like 60 mph. Yes, it’s posted 40. No one goes 40.

So these people were narrowly avoiding an accident because no one wanted to get out of their car and move the friggin cone.

Why?

You could chalk it up to laziness. But I think there’s something deeper going on. Most tweens say it out loud.

“I’d rather die...

I have a bad habit. Pasta. Not that kind. Copypasta. 🤪

Whenever I’m reading something online (an article, a GitHub issue, a dense doc), I end up copying chunks of text, opening a new tab, pasting it into Claude, and asking my question. Then I go back to the original tab. Then I need something else about this article or website. Go back again to Claude. On and on.

It’s a terrible way to work. But I kept doing it anyway because the alternative didn’t exist. Yes, there’s an extension for Chrome. But us Safari users? Nada.

So I built it.

It’s called AlliHat. It’s a Safari extension that puts Claude right in a sidebar next to whatever page you’re on.

Open it, and it already sees what you’re reading. Ask it anything: summarize this, explain that, what sources is this blocked article talking about. Without leaving the page. No copypasta.

Even writing this, it was handy to pop open...

I know a lot of folks are worried about their jobs and AI. Another worry folks have is that AI is making them dumber. The things that felt good before: solving puzzling work problems, thinking hard about a project, etc. have vaporized when Claude can do it for you.

It’s easy to fall into this trap. But here’s the thing, this isn’t an unknown place.

So these researchers (Adcock, et al.) wanted to see how your brain reacts to different sized rewards tied to what you’re supposed to learn. They had people do a memory task where scenes were worth either high money ($5) or low money ($0.10) if remembered the next day.

And here’s the thing, this turned out exactly like you think it turns out. The folks in the high money group significantly remembered more 24 hours later. Under an fMRI machine, they could even see the parts of the brain acting stronger before the participants saw what...

Have you given up on your New Year’s resolutions yet?

It’s January. The gym is packed. It’s impossible to even get to a locker through a sea of people in the locker room. Someone was lamenting on Facebook that our gym was too crowded. They were reassured: just give it a couple weeks. The New Year’s resolution crowd will be gone. They’ll give up.

Every morning my daughter and I pull a page from The Worst Case Scenario™ calendar. Yesterday’s was: what to do if the subway power goes out. Tip 1: cover up your belongings.

I get it. It’s dark. You’re blind. It’s a weakness.

But it also reminds me of a movie many of us watch every December: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

There’s the classic scene where Clark Griswold is trying for the umpteenth time to get his outside Christmas lights to turn on. Little does he realize, because he’s an idiot, that the lights are controlled by...

My project was just cancelled. Deprioritized. The stuff I’ve been excited about and working on, right into the trash. How would you feel about that?

Photo by Steve Johnson

My daughter was struggling with some homework last night. There was a concept that was brand new to her and she wasn’t getting it on the first pass. I wanted to show her she could easily write down a couple tests to check if her thinking was right or wrong.

I reached for her notebook. That was her science notebook.

Ok, math notebook then. That was waiting for a grade at school.

Scrap paper? Nothing.

When we finally found something I could use, I realized: The math isn’t what’s tripping her up.

I’d like to get a pair of boots this winter. I have some ginormous, waterproof monsters, but those are a bit awkward as everyday shoes. Yeah I’m comfy in a snow drift, but I’ve also had my car stuck in Forward with a...