It’ll be back soon, if only as a static site so the links don’t break. TypePad, the blog host shut down with only a few weeks warning. Read the story of the rescue operation here: medium.com/@gcordidoa/m...

Devs: looking to up your GitHub Copilot game? In 60 mins, I'll be hosting an AMA with Aaron Powell, maintainer of the Awesome Copilot repo, your source of prompts, chat modes and more!

🎙️ New @talkingpostgres.com #podcast Ep30 just published! Guest @simonwillison.net talked about AI for data engineers. We skipped hype & boosterism to chat about Postgres permissions, alt text, 150-line SQL queries, & pelicans on 🚲 🎧 talkingpostgres.com/episodes/ai-... 📺 youtu.be/8SAqeJHsmRM?...

You can try that out yourself by launching a Codespace using this link: codespaces.new/simonw/codes... Notes on how I got this working: simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/13/... - plus a detailed TIL on using devcontainer.json to configure Codespaces: til.simonwillison.net/github/codes...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

This @kashhill.bsky.social piece is wild and disturbing:

Consciousness exists in the observer’s mind

HMMER is literally *the* go-to tool for profile HMMs in bioinformatics. I've used it countless times on a wide range of projects spanning viruses, retrotransposons, etc. Absolute insanity! hmmer.org

I wish journalists would stop framing political news as wins or losses for politicians or political parties. It’s an abrogation of our mission. Why do we keep doing this? Is the spending bill a win or loss for the American people? Who does it help? Who does it hurt? Is it sound policy? Fiscally?

It’s humbling to realize how many innovative/novel things in tech are actually often triggered by existing, proven ideas or practices: and using them in a practical setting. Latest discovery: MCP in-part inspired by LSP (Microsoft’s Language Server Protocol)

Did you know that if you put hot chocolate in a thermos and forget about it, it turns into a bomb?

My new hobby is asking ChatGPT to name the new cocktail my partner creates each evening. It did a good job with this one.

Life hack: write down stuff you’ve already done on your to-do list and slam a checkmark on it

I know this first hand. When I was a child, my entire community was branded as spies and sabateurs, justifying our internment inside barbed wire camps for years without due process, trial or charge.

I’m crying, this is so funny WEAPONIZED MANSPLAINING FOR ESPIONAGE ☠️☠️

Well worth a watch if you're feeling helpless and confused these days.

Coincidentally, 65536 is the maximum number of rows for the Excel 97-2003 file format

GPT-4o? GPT-o3? Llama 3.3? Command-R? Phi-4? If you're not sure what Generative AI model to use (and when!) you're not alone — there are thousands to choose from. Tune in to Model Mondays at 10:30AM to learn now. First episode streams live in a couple of hours! github.com/microsoft/mo...

Global AI Bootcamp 2025 is officially underway! It's organized by Global AI Community, an independent network of AI enthusiasts who will be hosting local AI-focused meetups in 40+ countries worldwide through April 15. youtu.be/W8b6wf19ppU?...

No, Democrats, these little auction signs aren't it. You're acting like Wes Anderson characters who don't understand that they're in a Tarantino movie.

Check out those camouflage videos - cuttlefish really are amazing creatures. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/s...

ProPublica looked into science grants that Ted Cruz's team flagged as "radical" and "neo-Marxist" and, uh. This would be good comedy if it didn't matter so much www.propublica.org/article/ted-...

We are delighted to announce the release of ellmer, an R package for accessing the power of LLMs in R! ellmer supports a variety of model providers. Chat, tool call, stream API calls, extract structured data, and more! Learn about it here: posit.co/blog/announc... #RStats #AI #LLM

1. Today, the NYT has reported that 100 members of an ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ chat in the intelligence community have been fired. This is a new McCarthyism, a new lavender scare meant to remove LGBTQ+ in government, and the way this was done should shake us all. Subscribe to support my journalism.

This is the federal government very explicitly treating folks who are trans as if they are not people at all. And that was the same reasoning the Nazis used to justify genocide. And *THAT* should make you furious.

How does DeepSeek-R1 perform for RAG applications? Let's do a quick test in GitHub Models and see how it performs vs a traditional LLM youtu.be/pK4nXk28e2U

“There are currently four people remaining over there to do the work of 15 people. The danger to the national airspace can’t be understated." "This is a very real threat to the American flying public.” EXCLUSIVE ⤵️

Portuguese editorial cartoonist Zez Vaz reaches back to Tiananmen Square to call on American defiance.

Can’t wait to rip into this book to understand the code base I inherited.

We only know this man is in Gitmo because Noem tweeted a propaganda photo that included him and his sister saw it. He has no criminal record. He entered the US in January and immediately made an appointment with CBP to claim asylum. They sent him to a concentration camp bc of his basketball tattoo.

I wrote this bit that is entirely unrelated to current things

Thread on DEI 1. Removing DEI regulations will harm daily life in ways many don’t realize. DEI isn’t just a corporate buzzword—it ensures fairness, access, and dignity for all. If we lose it, millions will struggle with basic needs. Here’s what’s at stake with explanations:

I will note again the capital D Danger here isn't canceled elections. It’s elections that slip a little further down the slope of not free and fair that still look and feel like they always have.

“There was no way to predict this” says only country in the world where Donald Trump was already President once.

Trump isnt just trying to impound appropriated but unobligated funding. He's frozen dispersement of billions of dollars of CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED funds. Whatever you think about the validity of impounding unobligated funds, this is quite clearly a direct and widespread violation of contract law. 🧵

DeepSeek-R1: It's your octogenarian uncle who responds to your simple question with a rambling story and then doesn't even answer the question.

Contrary take: “hallucination” is a good term, actually. In humans, it’s the brain generating perceptions in the absence of sensory data. In LLMs, it’s a model generating content in the absence of relevant data in training or the meta-prompt. Strong parallels.

Watching DeepSeek's chain of thought process is like listening in on the most insecure intern in the world.

Lysenkoism was a Soviet-era pseudoscientific movement led by Trofim Lysenko, and endorsed by Stalin. It rejected established genetics science in favor of politically driven, unproven agricultural theories and ideological loyalty, leading to widespread crop failures and famine.

Yes, I’m angry, watching the concept of women rebranded to weakness. And people forgetting that they benefit from the hard work of queer people and immigrants. I’m not saying we pick every fight with these sycophantic weirdos, but sometimes they need a reminder of who we are.

Great, very relevant article. See also the section “The leaders of someone else’s organization did something very wrong.”

This is — still — America. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/u...

I really appreciate the number of reasonable posts from super senior developers who talk about how they’re using LLMs, which tasks they’re good for in software dev, and which don’t make sense at all. crawshaw.io/blog/program...

ellmer (formerly known as elmer) is now on CRAN! ellmer makes it easy to chat with LLM models from a variety of providers and includes support for streaming responses, tool calling and structured data extraction: ellmer.tidyverse.org #rstats

My team just launched a new "less BS" #AI page. Check the three links there with FREE GitHub (OSS MIT Licensed!) COURSEWARE on building apps, learning ML, and learning how to pair-program with Copilot developer.microsoft.com/ai

TIL on iPhones with 3 camera lenses you can click the “1x” button to switch to the 28mm lens (1.2x optical zoom) or the 35mm lens (1.5x optical zoom).

Outraged by Jan 6, he spent two years getting inside the top ranks of militias like the Oath Keepers. He was stunningly successful. He penetrated a new generation of militia leaders, which included doctors, cops & government attorneys. This is his story. www.propublica.org/article/ap3-...

DOJ says an informant who made up a bribery scheme involving President Biden that became a cornerstone of Republican efforts to impeach him ended up "warping the important oversight role" of Congress. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Reminder that it’s totally crazy that our elected officials restrict journalists from filming aspects of what’s happening on the floor of the people’s House. It should not be like this!!