This week, I learned:

  • ⭐ “… most engineers don’t have public commits. Senior engineers at large tech companies don’t work on open-source projects for the most part.” Why AI Can’t Do Hiring
  • Cloudflare’s Sandbox feature in their Workers looks impressive. It supports streaming, web access to the container, and long-running processes. So we can spawn off a task and have it run a server (at least for a while) or a scraper.
  • Gemini API has a Google Maps tool that it can refer to - like Google Search. Maps Grounding
  • Earlier we needed humans to label data for RLHF. Now we don’t since AI can simulate it. This is a pattern. Once AI learns from a human, that human skill can be automated. How GPT-5 Thinks — OpenAI VP of Research Jerry Tworek
  • The <output> element has a for= attribute indicating which <input> elements it is linked to and a form= attribute indicating which form it belongs to. This works well with screen readers. A good reason to use it more. Examples.
  • Meta built a Code World Model. Basically an LLM that acts like a Python interpreter!
  • sudo apt install moreutils installs a set of useful packages:
    1. chronic. Runs a command quietly (suppressing output) unless it fails — good for cron jobs where you only want noise on errors. chronic backup.sh
    2. combine. Combines lines from two input streams/files using boolean operations (AND, OR, XOR). combine AND fileA fileB
    3. errno. Look up symbolic names, numeric codes, and descriptions for standard errno values. errno -l; errno ENOENT; errno 2
    4. ifdata. Query network interface properties (IP, byte counts, errors) in a script-friendly format. ifdata -sip eth0; ifdata -bops eth0
    5. ifne. Run a command only if stdin is not empty, passing the input through. find . -name core | ifne mail -s "Core files found" admin
    6. isutf8. Check whether a file or stdin is valid UTF-8. isutf8 somefile.txt
    7. lckdo. Run a command while holding an exclusive lock to prevent concurrent runs. lckdo /var/run/mylockfile.cmd myscript.sh
    8. mispipe. Pipe two commands, but return the exit status of the first one (useful in pipelines). cmd1 mispipe cmd2
    9. parallel. Run multiple commands in parallel, reading them from stdin or arguments. parallel < jobs.txt
    10. pee. Like tee, but sends stdin to multiple commands in parallel. echo "foo" | pee cmd1 cmd2
    11. ⭐ sponge. Soak up all input before writing to output — enables in-place edits safely. sort file | sponge file
    12. ⭐ ts. Prefix each input line with a timestamp. tail -f logfile | ts
    13. vidir. Edit a directory listing in your editor to rename, move, or delete files in bulk. vidir ~/myfolder
    14. vipe. Insert a text editor into a pipeline to manually edit streamed input before output. cat file | vipe | wc -l
    15. zrun. Transparently decompress compressed files before passing them to a command. zrun cat file.gz
  • Despite 20 years of SVG experience, I learnt new things from A Friendly Introduction to SVG and A Friendly Introduction to Paths
    • Setting a <rect> width/height or a <circle> radius to zero removes the element instead of drawing a point.
    • There’s no option to draw the stroke on the inside or outside of a shape/path. Only the center.
    • You can override a path’s pathLength attribute to create a new internal scale for its length. It’s unclear where I can use this.
    • <path> arcs have this syntax: A [rx],[ry] [rotation] [large-arc-flag] [sweep-flag] [end-x],[end-y]. SVG first fits an ellipse to these parameters and then draws the arc.
      • If rx and ry of an arc is too small to connect the points, the SVG spec scales up rx and ry.
      • [large-arc-flag]=1 literally uses the larger arc of the fitting ellipse. This is less common.
      • [sweep-flag]=1 its the ellipse to make the connecting arc go clockwise. 0 is anti-clockwise.
      • [rotation] is rarely used because we usually draw arcs and then rotate them.
    • stroke-linejoin automatically flips from miter (sharp) to bevel (cut) if the sharp edge protrudes too long (e.g. small angles). Increasing stroke-miterlimit increases the cutoff (default: 4)
  • ⭐ Always include a thoughtful gallery of examples with tools / libraries. This does more than showing what a tool can do.
    • It’s use-case / domain transfer: showing what it’s useful for in real life - opening ideas, suggesting workflows.
    • It’s style transfer: showing how to use it.
  • ⭐ Here’s what expert AI coders increasingly focus on. Thomas Dohmke
    • Delegation: context engineering agents for success; parallelizing.
    • Verification: efficiently reviewing and testing code/output; setting stop-points.
    • Expanding scope: instead of time saved as the metric.
    • Education: teaching AI-based coding, debugging, reviewing/testing.
    • Product management: combining requirements + UI design + architecture + engineering + deployment.
    • Cross-discipline: blending code with design, governance, finance, marketing, … (“computational creators”).
  • Notes from Taylor’s How I’m using coding agents: October 2025
    • Left monitor: 2-4 desktops (e.g. work, side-project). Right monitor: things I always want available
    • Plan next task while first executes.
    • Use plan mode to write to a plan file.
    • Don’t start big tasks if you have meetings scheduled soon.
  • Recent open source package hack methods seem to work more because of people/process than systems (Filippo):
    1. Phishing the author
    2. Pull requests running unsafe code in CI
    3. Taking over expired domain / user ID
    4. Stealing long-lived tokens
  • uv run --python 3.14 --isolated --with-editable '.[test]' pytest runs pytest on a local project with a specific Python version. Simon Willison
  • Notes from the State of AI Report 2025:
    • Reasoning models are more fragile. Irrelevant phrases make reasoning models spend FAR more tokens and get wrong answers #21
    • AI systems are able to teach experts new concepts #41
    • An environment providing feedback / rewards enables continuous learning #52
      • E.g. Multi-robot chemical labs at U.Liverpool and NCSU #60
    • RLHF has a fundamental flaw: humans reward sycophancy #71
    • We can read what people are typing from brain signals outside the skull #73
    • Model intelligence-to-price ratio doubles every ~6 months #94
    • The AI companies’ valuations are also roughly doubling every ~6 months #181
    • OpenAI is offering Governments giga-watt campuses to run OpenAI models for citizens #122
    • A 1GW clusters costs $50bn capex and $11bn per annum #130
    • China has added ~10X the energy capacity as the US in 2024 #146
    • NVIDIA challengers are still far away #161
    • LLMs can “read between the lines” even if training data is censored #268
    • LLMs can pass information via hidden signals #270
    • Prediction: A major retailer reports >5% of online sales from agentic checkout. AI agent advertising spend hits $5B. #304
  • OpenAI’s leadership guide says:
    • Align
      • Explain WHY AI thoughtfully.
      • Set a goal, e.g. everyone uses ChatGPT 20 times/day (Moderna).
      • Use it yourself. Show how.
      • Have business leaders run AI sessions
    • Activate
      • Launch an AI skills proram
      • Set up an AI champions network
      • Encourage experimentation (dedicated time, workshops, hackathons, …)
      • Link to performance evaluations
    • Amplify
      • Create an AI knowledge base
      • Share success stories (weekly)
      • Create internal groups (Teams, Slack, …)
      • Celebrate AI wins
    • Accelerate
      • Unblock AI tools and data access
      • Simplify project selection. Quick feedback, clear priorities
      • Unblock projects with a cross-functional council
      • Give resources to successful teams
    • Govern
      • Publish a responsible AI playbook (what’s safe to try)
      • Audit AI practices quarterly