Technology Commentary

While CES 2025 showcased many new exciting products, it also introduced plenty of gadgets with unnecessary waste, cost, and surveillance.

So, we are coming up on a little anniversary for me this weekend. On the 5th of January 2000, Steve Jobs unveiled the new Aqua user interface of Mac OS X to the world at Macworld Expo. The Age of A…

How Apple's Macintosh design philosphy affects the web.

This is my dashboard for Los Angeles as it looks this morning: Five TV stations, one radio station, one newspaper: KNBC/4 “4 Los Angeles” KTLA/5 “LA’s Very Own” KABC/7…

Introduction Can you believe it’s been almost a year since my last blog? It’s incredible how fast time flies. Thank you all for continuing to read the blog and sharing it with engineers in the community. I can’t thank you enough for all the support and encouragement I’ve received on this journey. This blog is going to take a bit of a turn. I usually write in the form of a tool I have used or been presented with and think, “This is incredible; more people should know about it.

Posted on Friday 10 Jan 2025. 932 words, 8 links. By Matt Webb.

8 pieces of technology that have dramatically improved my life

What to make of the statements of the AI labs?

Automattic decides to pull back on the WordPress project. But in the process, the firm may have accidentally explained why competitors were able to one-up them.

After the Civil War, the economic recovery of the southern United States hinged on trade with the North and moving goods westward via the railroad. But there was a problem. Tracks in the South had been built with a gauge (or track width) of 5 feet but the

Watch now (54 mins) | A re-record of my NeurIPS tutorial on language modeling (plus some added content).

Part 2: Navigating Ambiguity

Many developers hesitate to adopt GraphQL for their fullstack projects, believing the setup overhead outweighs the benefits, especially for smaller teams or solo projects. Recent discussions around GraphQL often highlight its enterprise-level advantages, particularly in federation and tooling—as seen with WunderGraph Cosmo or Hive Router. But what if GraphQL’s power isn’t reserved just for large-scale systems? Let’s explore how GraphQL can offer tangible benefits, even for small teams or individual developers.

I recently watched Netflix’s Bryan Johnson documentary (Netflix Link) and came away both intrigued and amused by his extreme quest to maximize health and minimize biological age.

Generalist multimodal models (GMMs) can learn easily across diverse modalities and perform well with different types of tasks.

Strong relationships with data require more than relevant context and controls in the era of AI.

Billions of tons of carbon are being locked away in the stuff we build, use, and throw out—but it won’t stay trapped forever.

Why Apple Intelligence failed even though everything it's built upon is nearly perfect

P. Martin Ortiz writing for Rogue Engine: Your App Should Have Been a Website Some companies push for app installations because they gain access to more permissions than they would in the browser. Apps allow them to collect more data and track user activity, often under the pretense of a

Discover why native apps are becoming obsolete in today's web-first world. Learn how web apps, including web games, are revolutionizing industries and how platforms like Rogue Engine are leading the charge.

From jealous spouses to paranoid bosses, 19th-century pedometers quantified suspicion and reshaped the dynamics of surveillance.

Neatnik Notes

BLUF: 10x engineers find the biggest fires, and execute on extreme straight-line solutions, often stepping on toes in the process

Even Microsoft's lead architect misunderstood the failure

From GitHub Copilot to ChatGPT to Claude Artifacts, how Val Town borrowed the best of all the code generation tools

What makes software maintainable and easy to evolve? Austin Story shares his approach to simplifying systems, migrating architectures, and fostering a culture of intentional development.