There is no seahorse emoji. But GPT-5, Claude, and most other LLMs are absolutely convinced there is—and will confidently try to give you one if you ask.

I like the slight change in attitude that Sonnet 4.5 has. When it was reviewing my latest link blog post and adding in the confidence it had in its answers (in my preference prompt), it replied: “Confidence level: Pretty high - I write and edit regularly, though of course taste varies.” 🤣

Really cool to see that @flox.dev keeps expanding where Nix and reproducible environments can go.

I really like how Reeder renders the `external_url` property in JSON feed and finally got off my butt and implemented a JSON feed for my site. Yay for the open web!

KPop Demon Hunters is on heavy rotation in the house these days, which means those damn catchy tunes are ear-wormed into my brain. Solution: Headphones and a thorough metal cleanse followed up by some good beats. Today’s treatment is the new Linkin Park followed up by some Chemical Brothers.

Reminder: the ‘Rona is still out there even in the summertime on the beach where I’ve been. This time pretty mild so far, thankfully.

Microsoft lays off ~15,000 people in a year where it reports record profits. Satya Nadella sends a memo framing the pain as necessary and leadership as embracing it early. Om Malik took a closer look: om.co/2025…

Almost four and a half years ago in early 2021, I went to work at Shopify. It was one of the best jobs I’ve had. But every tour of duty comes to a close. I’m going to take a few months this summer to really reflect on what I want to take forward with me. duncan.dev/post/free-ag...

I've found that leaning into Daniel Kahneman’s "Thinking fast and slow" has really improved the way I work with LLMs. It’s all about the mindset you arrive with. duncan.dev/post/ai-thin...

Claude can create 50 API designs in minutes. ChatGPT can write endless variations. The new superpower isn’t generating work — it’s knowing what to reject. duncan.dev/post/art-of-...

I picked up a new MacBook Pro on recent travels and the model I wanted at the Apple Store had a nano-texture screen. And oh boy, yah. Me like. It’s gooooood.

This used to be a Walgreens that i shopped at. Now, i want to shoot a movie here with some sort od fitting plot line of emptiness and a state of being discarded.

Setting up a new personal laptop and digging into @flox.dev to set things up. We’ve been using Nix a lot more at work, but I really like the layer on top of Nix that Flox gives.

Happy to see the Shopify logo up in the Anthropic presentation!

James Duncan Davidson @duncan.dev In SLC, UT bryanwjones.com/2025/05/jame...

I wish I’d been in an A seat for this approach. Still, it always brings a smile to my face to see the Bay Area out the window.

What’s up?

Thanks @craigmod.com craigmod.com/books/other_...

I’m totally stoked about this: zed.dev/agentic. Yes, Cursor and Windsurf and even using Copilot in VScode are good. But, I’ve got a soft spot for @zed.dev and I’m so happy to see their new agent mode ship. Great agent in a super fast editor. 🎉

You know what I really dislike about GraphQL? All requests look the same in HTTP logs. I really miss not having that when I’m trying to figure out why something something that somebody is doing in their app is blowing up our SaaS provider. (intentionally left vague to protect the guilty)

I think the lesson I’m taking away is that I should accept more invitations to group chats that I don’t recognize. 😳

Woke up. Packed. Checked out. Got car to airport. Checked in. Flight delayed. Flight delayed. Flight cancelled. One hour in line. Flight rebooked. Lunch. Connecting flight disappears. Rebooked. Connecting flight disappears. Talk to support with two airlines.

Oh hai, Toronto. You look… welcoming.

Let’s go

Manager: "What's this milestone 'Living on a prayer' ?" Me: "That's the documentation deliverable." Manager: "What's the status of that?" Me: "We're halfway there" Manager: "Why is progress so slow?" Me: "You fired Tommy" Manager: "So?" Me: "Tommy used to work on the docs"

Long day.

Love this: “Instead of buying new clothes, take that money and go travel. Because people there haven’t seen your old clothes yet.”

Dammit. I love em dashes — I wonder what this means about me.

OH one of the devs on my teams: “So, I lost some uranium in my house and was looking for it...” ☢️ 🫠

Breathe, my friends. Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.

My driver from the airport today in Toronto: “Last year, I was excited to see Trump win. I wanted to see him get in and shake things up. But now, now, I think we’ve got idiots on both sides and I’m worried there’s going to be a recession and people are going to go hungry because of it.”

So, we’re on approach on a 777 and the ceiling is low. Something about how the pilot is flying feels like he’s on edge. I start thinking “pilot is gonna do it. He’s gonna hit the TO/GA switch”. Not five seconds later, thrust comes up and we’re zooming up.

In retrospect, “guy who has long wanted to build payment services and mint crypto currencies to replace USD manages to get access to government payment mechanisms” wasn’t on my bingo card just yet. I guess I assumed it would be harder than that.

Fuck it. It’s an “imma gonna put sugar in my coffee” kind of morning after reading up on the news.

Somebody wants to come along.

With the big scale solutions costing so much capital, and in this case precipitated by embargo, Deepseek was inevitable. Simon Sinofksy writes: hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/228-deepse...

Reading Avery’s @tailscale.com post from earlier this month injected some optimism into my day. The c10k problem is now the c10000k problem. It’s a thought-provoking piece showing how we can do more than ever, with less than ever. Are we keeping up with our tools? tailscale.com/blog/living-...

Same! I was quite surprised to find out that the diagram wasn’t from the original work, but something that came 60 years later.

beautiful. resonant. theoatmeal.com/comics/150_c...

Congrats to Blue Origin for making it to orbit!

So much has happened already in 10 days of 2025 and my head is spinning, but I’m still pretty happy about settling into my refreshed terminal setup with Ghostty, Berkeley Mono, and Starship.

Thinking a lot about LA and the people I know there. I hope y’all are (and stay) safe.

I’d like to declare Slack bankruptcy, please.

I half expected @craigmod.com’s byline on this... 🤣

Well this was a gentle reminder to check my filming position even if I’m using my iPhone and shooting something non serious. That print bed came out fast and really said hello.

You’d think that boring things like terminal emulators have long been perfected, but they haven’t. Mitchell's Ghostty is a welcome addition to the ecosystem. Check it out at ghostty.org

My kid and his pal at school are arguing on the phone about why the ^2 in e=mc^2 is called “squared.” The trash talking mixed in with science geekery as they argue is next level. I can’t decide if I’m shocked, in awe, or just proud.

I will never not be amazed by this real world effect.

Oh hai Bluesky.