Last week I opened Edge to test my Internet connection, because that's the only thing I use it for, and noticed something new. Right beneath the address bar was a new bar with a button offering to let the browser launch automatically whenever I start my computer. That was strange. Yes, I open the browser the moment the computer starts, but why would they want to do that for me?

And just now, I opened Chrome, and saw the exact same message but for Chrome:

It looks innocent enough. We all start browsing the web right away when we turn on our computers, so what's the big deal here? Well, the big deal is that everyone wants to be the front page. Defaults matter. While we all want to believe we have agency, the numbers don't lie. Most of us never change the default settings. Just last year, Google paid Apple close to $20 billion just to remain the default search engine on Apple products.

While we're all distracted by the AI race, the one race that actually matters is who remains the front page of the Internet. Microsoft is trying to claim that spot by loading its browser at Windows startup. Now Google is trying to win that space back by doing the same with its own browser.

On my Mac, Anthropic has been very aggressive about trying to load Claude automatically. I suspect every company will be pursuing this aggressively in the near future. The quality of your product is secondary to the exposure it gets. Not even benchmarks matter if you can't be on the user's front page.

Google still holds the front page of the Internet, and that makes up for its AI model not being at the top of the benchmarks.

But don't let them take this space from you. They are all fighting for your attention. I urge you to simply consider pressing the little X button they tuck into the corner. It's your computer, use it the way that suits you best.

This was so casually uttered by LG executives in their sales pitch to advertising companies.

We own the glass.

What they mean is, they own your tv. They own everything on it. You may have paid for the box, but they own the glass. They can run anything they want on it, and you have agreed, in the terms and conditions, that you will inform anyone entering your household that the TV may record them without warning.

TVs come equipped with microphones, wifi radio, and tracking software. That’s enough to monitor everything that’s happening around it.

If you haven't watched the research video essay published by Gamer Nexus, I highly recommend it. I've said it many times before, TVs are cheap because you aren't simply watching them, they are watching you and listening, and reporting back to the mothership. This info is then used to sell you more stuff.

What scares me in all this is that the solution I often tell people may no longer be true. I often tell people, just disconnect your TV from the network and you are all set. Now imagine just for a second. What if they add a cellular radio to the device? One with an esim. Then that is it. You can no longer disconnect your device from the internet. They now own the glass in your house, and have a permanent connection that you cannot disable.

They own the glass. We are merely vessels to their business.

I was debugging an issue and I found a link to my blog!

Interviewing a senior software engineer

Biggest challenge so far in any coding project?

My biggest challenge isn't code per se. It is explaining to someone else what I am trying to do with the code. It is surprisingly hard to convert the thoughts in my head (or the code) into something coherent someone else can understand.

I still believe that. I don't even remember when we had this discussion, but I'm glad Walter has kept it up. And a great reminder of my priorities.

If you weren't coding, what would you be doing?

I'd be a writer. (not a good one, but one nonetheless)

Yep.

The aliens arrived, and their first instinct was to check our networks. They accessed one of our most important websites. A government website. Unfortunately, they were met with a reCAPTCHA.

Are you a robot?

They are not robots. But after fifteen minutes of squinting and trying to select all the fire hydrants and traffic lights, they gave up. Defeated by a checkbox, they returned to the stars.

A couple weeks ago, the CEO of Snap was all over the news in the US because he and his wife made a large donation. The weird part about it was that every news outlet that covered it had an acrobatic title where they didn't specifically say how much they donated, yet insisted on that $550 Million amount.

When you read the article a bit deeper, you can do the math. They donated one hundredth of that amount. So I wondered, why did they inflate the amount in the first place? It looked like a PR stunt.

This past couple weeks, I worked on a video to explain what really happened and how we should take this news.

Enjoy

I think I finally figured it out. That is, the reason why AI written articles suck:

Both the author and I are reading the article for the first time.

When an article is insightful I don't even mind the emdashes or that the stark truth is not X, but Y. A good take can transcend even llmism. But then you have questions, and somehow the author doesn't even know what you are talking about, it's simply because they are discovering the insight at the same time you are.

They were busy, they didn't have time to write. As a consequence, they only dedicated enough time to skim the result before publishing. They don't know what's in it. You can't ask them what they were thinking when they came up with the insight because, well, they didn't think.

The great article sucks because there is nobody behind it.

It's hard to write a whole book. So for now at least, I've turned the prologue of my book into a short video. I hope you enjoy it.

I am a father of twin boys. There is a question I often think about. It often appears as a midlife crisis where I am not sure when I became a man responsible for a family.

It looked so easy for my father. It was as if he was born into it. He was a leader, a strong man, one that an entire community could rely on. When does that kick in for me? When do I become this leader? Or have I already become?

That's what I was thinking when I wrote this short story about my father 10 years ago. I couldn't find a way to describe him, without mentioning clocks. It was fitting since he loved them so much.

I hope you enjoy this "Ode to my Father". Happy Father's day to you all.

PS: please excuse the AI generated images, I'm still trying to find the best way to present it. The text was entirely written by me in 2016-2017.

Well that was weird. I just received an Amber Alert and the link led to a spammy looking website.

Spam?

The link leads to a 3gp file converter which is highly unusual. But the more I look at it, I have the impression it's a mistake. Most likely, they have exceeded the maximum number of characters for the Emergency Service alert.

Here is the message:

AN AMBER ALERT HAS BEEN ACTIVATED BY THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL. DALEZA FREGOSO WAS LAST SEEN ON MAY 24, 2026 AT 0400 HOURS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY. THE SUSPECT VEHICLE IS A WHITE 2019 WHITE LAND ROVER DISCOVERY CA 9DAW715. CLICK ON THE LINK FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. https://bit.ly/A0

It seems like the total character count is 288. I'm not sure if the title should be included but if I add Child abduction (Amber alert) and the double space after, then we have 320 characters. Is this the character limit for emergency services?

When I clicked on it, it took me to the bitly preview page:

And clicking on the continue to destination button, I'm taken here:

Suspicious Link

I was starting to wonder if this was even a real Amber alert, and if somehow this was a spam message that was sent through. But unfortunately, it is a real amber alert, as I was able to find the matching alert on missingkids.com. However, I don't see a way to request a correction.

I understand that bitly was often used to shorten links, but there should be a way for a service like amber alert to test those links before they are sent. At least on my android, once I click on the link, the alert is dismissed never to be seen again. When the link is incorrect, now we have this problem where we can never get the information back. In this case, I was only able to get the link because I received the alert on both my phones.

Also I've learned that Amber alerts have a character limit of 360 characters. So I'm still not sure what went wrong with this one.

Update: 39 minutes later (8:25pm) a second message was sent with a correction.

Corrected Link

Most likely a copy and paste error.

I made a joke online. Based on Internet upvote points, it was pretty funny. OK, I didn't come up with the joke, but it was a perfectly timed reference.

A few days back, Cliff Stoll, of the Klein bottles, submitted a post on hackernews titled:

Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated

First of all, I was surprised that Cliff frequents hackernews. Second, I didn't know that he was supposed to be dead. Yet, he wasn't since he is writing to say that he isn't dead. Apparently, there was a post on facebook that told his story and claimed that he had died in May of 2024. I was shocked to hear it. I've always admired Cliff and his work. But then again, he was the one who posted it on HN.

Large language models learn facts by scraping the web, including facebook. So an LLM had ingested this information and regurgitated the information as fact. Wikipedia also used the facebook post as reference for his death.

AI hallucinations are getting ambitious.
A couple people recently emailed, asking whether the Klein bottle business was still operating after my death.
“Huh?” I thought. “I ain’t dead yet.”
After some digging, I discovered the source: an AI-generated review of The Cuckoo’s Egg circulating on Facebook. Alongside the usual synthetic praise and fabricated details, it confidently announced that I had died in May 2024.
Apparently AI has now advanced to the point where it can kill people off before they notice.
Mark Twain once wrote, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I never expected to field-test the quote personally.
source: [redacted to stop the spread]

Cheers, -Cliff

It was a funny story. It reminded me of the story of Doc Daneeka in the book Catch-22. Doc Daneeka is an army doctor who is afraid of flying. He bribes other soldiers to add his name on the flight manifest so as to appear as if he had performed his mandatory flight time. One day his name is entered in the manifest, the plane takes off, then crashes. The army checks the logs and sees that his name is in the logs. The army sends a generic message to his wife. I decided to respond in kind to Cliff’s post.

Oh we already mailed the letter:
"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Stoll

Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action"

It was funny. I got many Internet points. But the last thing I expected was a response from Mr. Stoll himself:

Oh my, but you know more than you can guess. About a year ago, my wife passed on. While deep in grief, I began receiving letters from financial institutions and banks that began, "Dear Mr/Ms Stoll, we offer our sincere condolences ..." How can a corporation have "sincere condolences"? They're the last place I'd go for comfort or sincerity.

Everyday Catch-22 seems to become less and less absurd. 1984 is becoming a reality. Brave New World is the world we live in. These authors have become oracles.

Somehow, the joke wasn't funny anymore. Because it was true.