A new law passed in California to require every operating system to collect the user's age at account creation time. The law is AB-1043. And it was passed in October of 2025.

How does it work? Does it apply to offline systems? When I set up my Raspberry Pi at home, is this enforced? What if I give an incorrect age, am I breaking the law now? What if I set my account correctly, but then my kids use the device? What happens?

There is no way to enforce this law, but I suspect that's not the point. It's similar to statements you find in IRS documents. The IRS requires you to report all income from illegal activities, such as bribes and scams. Obviously, if you are getting a bribe, you wouldn't report it, but by not reporting it you are breaking additional laws that can be used to get you prosecuted.

When you don't report your age to your OS whether it's a windows device or a Tamagotchi, you are breaking the law. It's not enforced of course, but when you are suspected of any other crime, you can be arrested for the age violation first, then prosecuted for something else.

What a world we live in.

Just like everyone, I read Sam Altman's tweet about joining the so-called Department of War, to use ChatGPT on DoW classified networks. As others have pointed out, this is the entry point for mass surveillance and using the technology for weapons deployment. I wrote before that we had the infrastructure for mass surveillance in place already, we just needed an enabler. This is the enabler.

This comes right after Anthropic's CEO wrote a public letter stating their refusal to work with the DoW under their current terms. Now Anthropic has been declared a public risk by the President and banned from every government system.

Large language models have become ubiquitous. You can't say you don't use them because they power every tech imaginable. If you search the web, they write a summary for you. If you watch YouTube, one appears right below the video. There's a Gemini button on Chrome, there's Copilot on Edge and every Microsoft product. There it is in your IDE, in Notepad, in MS Paint. You can't escape it.

Switching from one LLM to the next makes minimal to no difference for everyday use. If you have a question you want answered or a document to summarize, your local Llama will do the job just fine. If you want to compose an email or proofread your writing, there's no need to reach for the state of the art, any model will do. For reviewing code, DeepSeek will do as fine a job as any other model.

A good use of ChatGPT's image generator.

All this to say, ChatGPT doesn't have a moat. If it's your go-to tool, switching away from it wouldn't make much of a difference. At this point, I think the difference is psychological. For example, my wife once told me she only ever uses Google and can't stand any other search engine. What she didn't know was that she had been using Bing on her device for years. She had never noticed, because it was the default.

When I read the news about OpenAI, I was ready to close my account. The only problem is, well, I never use ChatGPT. I haven't used it in years. My personal account lay dormant. My work account has a single test query despite my employer trying its hardest to get us to use it.

But I think none of that matters when OpenAI caters to a government agency with a near-infinite budget. For every public account that gets closed, OpenAI will make up for it with deeper integration into classified networks.

Not even 24 hours later, the US is at war with Iran. So while we're at it, here is a nice little link to help you close your OpenAI account.

Nvidia was only invited to invest.

That is one reversal of commitment. Remember that graph that has been circling around for some time now? The one that shows the circular investment from AI companies:

Basically Nvidia will invest $100 billion in OpenAI. OpenAI will then invest $300 billion in Oracle, then Oracle invests back into Nvidia. Now, Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO, is back tracking and saying he never made that commitment.

“It was never a commitment. They invited us to invest up to $100 billion and of course, we were, we were very happy and honored that they invited us, but we will invest one step at a time.”

So he never committed? Did we make up all these graphs in our head? Was it a misquote from a journalist somewhere that sparkled all this frenzy? Well, you can take a look in OpenAI press release in September of 2025. They wrote:

NVIDIA intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the new NVIDIA systems are deployed.

In fact, Jensen Huang went on to say:

“NVIDIA and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT. This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward—deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence.”

It sounds like Jensen is distancing himself from that $100 billion commitment. Did he take a peak inside OpenAI and change his mind? At the same time, OpenAI is experimenting with ads. Sam Altman stated before that they would only ever use ads as a last resort. It sounds like we are in the phase.

I've been spending time looking through "skills" for LLMs, and I feel like I'm the only one panicking. Nobody else seems to care.

Agent skills are supposed to be a way to teach your LLM how to handle specific tasks. For example, if you have a particular method for adding tasks to your calendar, you write a skill file with step-by-step instructions on how to retrieve a task from an email and export it. Once the agent reads the file, it knows exactly what to do, rather than guessing.

This can be incredibly useful. But when people download and share skills from the internet, it becomes a massive attack vector. Whether it's a repository or a marketplace, there is ample room for attackers to introduce malicious instructions that users never bother to vet. It is happening.

We are effectively back to the era of downloading .exe files from the internet and running them without a second thought.

Microsoft won't let you dismiss the upgrade notification

So support for Windows 10 has ended. Yes, millions of users are still on it. One of my main laptops runs Windows 10. I can't update to Windows 11 because of the hardware requirements. It's not that I don't have enough RAM, storage, or CPU power. The hardware limitation is specifically TPM 2.0.

What is TPM 2.0, you say? It stands for Trusted Platform Module. It's basically a security chip on the motherboard that enables some security features. It's good and all, but Windows says my laptop doesn't support it. Great! Now leave me alone.

Well, every time I turn on my computer, I get a reminder that I need to update to Windows 11. OK, at this point a Windows machine only belongs to you in name. Microsoft can run arbitrary code on it. They already ran the code to decide that my computer doesn't support Windows 11. So why do they keep bothering me?

Fine, I'm frustrated. That's why I'm complaining. I've accepted the fact that my powerful, yet 10-year-old laptop won't get the latest update. But if Microsoft's own systems have determined my hardware is incompatible, why are they harassing? I'll just have to dismiss this notification and call it a day.

But wait a minute. How do I dismiss it?

I cannot dismiss it. I can only be reminded later or... I have to learn more. If I click "remind me later," I'm basically telling Microsoft that I consent to being shown the same message again whenever they feel like it. If I click "learn more"? I'm taken to the Windows Store, where I'm shown ads for different laptops I can buy instead. Apparently, I'm also probably giving them consent to show me this ad the next time I log in.

It's one thing to be at the forefront of enshittification, but Microsoft is now actively hostile to its users. I've written about this passive-aggressive illusion of choice before. They are basically asking "Do you want to buy a new laptop?" And the options they are presenting are "Yes" and "OK."

This isn't a bug. This is intentional design. Microsoft has deliberately removed the ability to decline.

Dear Microsoft

Listen. You said my device doesn't support Windows 11. You're right. Now leave me alone. I have another device running Windows 11. It's festered with ads, and you're trying everything in your power to get me to create a Microsoft account.

I paid for that computer. I also paid for a pro version of the OS. I don't want OneDrive. I don't want to sign up with my Microsoft account. Whether I use my computer online or offline is none of your business. In fact, if you want me to create an account on your servers, you are first required to register your OS on my own website. The terms and conditions are simple. Every time you perform any network access, you have to send a copy of the payload and response back to my server. Either that, or you're in breach of my terms.

Notes:

By the way, the application showing this notification is called Reusable UX Interaction Manager sometimes. Other times it appears as Campaign Manager.

It's the holiday season. My kids are doing all sorts of projects at school, this means we are doing a whole lot of printing. So I went online to look for the ink cartridge for our printer. I typed the printer name and model because who knows the ink cartridge number? I found our printer. And to my surprise, the printer only costs $64.

What a time to be alive. I grew up in the 90s, those are not the numbers my father dealt with when we wasted paper on his printer. Buying a printer was a privilege. We dressed up nice, went to the computer store where we met with a salesperson who led us to an office where grown ups negotiated.

Office depot (as of December 10th, 2025)

Now, it's only $64.99 and you can complete the transaction from the comfort of your phone. That's Printer + Ink, mind you. What an amazing deal. But what if you already have a printer and only want to replenish your ink? How much does that cost? For the compatible ink cartridges, you'll pay $81.99. Just for ink.

Office depot (as of December 10th, 2025)

The ink itself is more expensive than ink + printer.

OK, to be fair, the printer I took a screenshot of is on sale. The price was $64.99 until the sale was scheduled to end on Dec 6th. Then the price goes back up to $107. So this whole thing is just sensational writing to make Canon look bad, and to farm for engagement, right? Well, I waited until Dec 6th and checked again. Guess what? The printer is on sale again, with a new end sale date!

I checked Amazon, Walmart, and Newegg. This printer is always on sale.

So there you go. Don't buy ink again. If you want to save $17, toss that one month old printer in the trash whenever you run low on ink. Buy a brand new one with fresh ink cartridges.

I was in the elevator when an older couple got in, patiently waiting to get to their stop. I smiled, they smiled back, and I pressed the button for the ground floor, just because. All three of us were going down.

I had my back to them when I heard the lady say, "I think he will know." I turned to see if they were talking to me, since it was just us. She stepped forward, put on her glasses, then rummaged through her purse to get her phone out. Before I could say a word, she handed it to me and asked, "How can I find all the pictures I have taken?"

"Oh boy, here we go again", the husband said. "Hush!" She replied to her husband, while she took the phone from me, pressed the button to turn it on, and then placed it back in my hands.

While this may look unusual, I'm completely accustomed to turning into tech support at a moment's notice. When you take pictures on your phone through the camera app, a small preview appears on the bottom. When you click on those pictures, you can view them. The problem was that you can only view the pictures you just took. This is a security measure since the camera app can be activated without entering your pin.

"She wanted a brand new phone." The husband said. "Like you don't have a brand new phone," she answered. We exited the elevator, the phone still in my hand. Every word the man said was contradicted by his wife, and every question she asked was ridiculed by the husband. But they were laughing all the way. So I told them:

"I can show you how, but I have one condition." The husband pulled his glasses from his front pocket, ready for what was coming. I could almost picture him pulling out a checkbook, ready to pay whatever price I named. "First, you have to tell me the secret to your successful marriage."

"This old lady?" the man said. "I barely met her 50 years ago." The lady laughed, then added, "We are always fighting about things we agree on."

That was probably 10 years ago, but I can't forget these words. I was sitting down, observing people from my community, shouting, laughing, taunting each other. When you listen to their conversations, it is full of contradictions, but they are laughing nevertheless. I see the same thing online: people bickering about semantics. An outsider might sense some hostility. But an insider will keep coming back to these discussions, because that's what a community is. Fighting about things you already agree on.

“Hey, what’s the name of that website?”

That was the question my brother asked me. I didn't need any clarification, I knew exactly what he meant. When people come home eager to watch a tv show, they sit in front of the TV scrolling through search results. Then, their phone comes out of their pocket. They search again. They check their subscriptions. Is it on Prime? Ok, maybe available as a rental?

Then you see it. That defeated look on their face as they turn to you and ask:

“Hey, what’s the name of that website?”

I’ve written before about the degraded state of streaming. We went from the convenience of DVDs to the hyper-convenience of early streaming. Now, we’re right back where we started, trapped in a fractured ecosystem of dozens of services. Oh, and a higher monthly fee. The circle is complete.

Piracy is back.

What are my options here?

Inside the "Remind me again in" label are the following options:

• 1 Week
• 30 days

And when I select one option, what does "No thanks" do? Does it dismiss the box entirely and I never have to see it? Or does it validate the reminder schedule? What if I just don't want OneDrive? Microsoft has embedded it so deep into Windows that there are no easy ways of getting rid of it. I would understand if they had asked me when I set up my machine the first time, but why every single time?

This is the illusion of choice. It is "Get it now" or "Get it later". What I'm looking for is the "Get it never option!"

Dark patterns at their finest.

After I restarted, I got this!

August and September. Google unveiled the Pixel 10 in August. Now it's September, it is Apple’s turn with the iPhone 17.

These are not commercials. These are productions. Hollywood gloss, cinematic light.

Jimmy Fallon laughing on cue. Job titles growing longer by the year. Influencers, celebrities, and everywhere you look: Gemini, Gemini, Gemini.

Then Tim Cook, measured, polished. Apple the first, Apple the next. Don’t bother with Netflix & Chill. Just tune in to the event with your date. Apple Intelligence, still missing in action.

But then, the phone is in your hand. You set it up. You sign in. The apps and data return like old furniture. You try the new camera. Three test shots of your living room.

Right then, a notification blinks. Framed by the beautiful liquid glass is a newsletter you never unsubscribed from. Your friend’s. It's been years, and they aren't giving up on their recipe website despite Google now conveniently framing it behind AI overview.

August is September. You are where you began.