Not surprising, given the number of times we agreed about it on Core Intuition, but I agree 100% with @Manton’s judgment of acceptable semantic versioning. The only one I suck it up and defy (holding my nose) is “2.1.10”. www.manton.org/2026/04/1…
As my oldest son gets ready for college, I’m thinking about the fears surrounding going out on one’s own. Having to, all at once, pay all the bills while hoping for some relief. He’s lucky to have a backstop in me/us, but so many kids don’t. College should be universally funded.
The biggest marketing coup in the AI era is Anthropic calling its agentic, command-line tool, “Claude Code.” It’s a diversely capable model that can be used for ANY matter of tasks, but calling it “code” made it feel like the perfect choice for coders. OpenAI’s Codex doesn’t hit the same mark.
AI skeptics often express a fear about how it might do something bad without you knowing. You can’t “trust” it. It’s absolutely, 100% true. But the question of whether you trust it or not is entirely in your hands. You CAN review every word, code snippet, etc., before it does it. If you choose to.
The utility that Claude built for me features a tmux (terminal multiplexer) managing orchestrator that dispatches all of my download plugins to do their thing, and monitors the result. It lets me dive in to their logs, connect to the live tty, or kill the pertinent process.
That statements downloading workflow is an example of a pattern in my use of AI: ask it to build the necessary tools for me to do what I want, with my private data, when I want. Don’t ask it to DO what you want. Ask it to AUTOMATE doing what you want.
For years I’ve been grappling with the problem of maintaining a local archive of all the digital documents that used to naturally archive themselves by showing up on paper. I got Claude to help me orchestrate the whole thing, and it’s glorious. Feed this prompt to your LLM of choice: gist.github.com/danielpun…
My kids have been incredibly successful so far. I’m sure they could have done “better” by somebody’s standard, but I never wanted to stress them out. They enjoy doing well, and many times that means getting an A, but sometimes it means getting a B. They are perfect.
I “just” got back from the ACPT: America’s crossword tournament. It takes a while to sink in, because it’s a surreal experience living, eating, drinking, and most importantly SOLVING in the midst of so many amazing crossword enthusiasts. Even the celebrities there are accessible. So cool, so nerdy.
I want to stress that my kids have never been pushed to do anything! I’m so proud of them but their achievements are the result of access to a good school system (and maybe YouTube!), as well as gentle support from parents. Every flower blooms in the right conditions.
My 14yo started with violin in 3rd grade, switch to saxophone in 4th grade, but took piano lessons on the side. Those only lasted a couple years, but thanks to his commitment to the sax he joined the middle school jazz ensemble. Now he’s playing Dave Brubeck riffs on piano while I write this. ðŸ˜
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about “America” (the USA) is that people as diametrically opposed as the staunchest conservative, easily labeled a fascist, and the staunchest liberal, easily labeled an anarchist, find common ground declaring the United States as the country they are most loyal to.
In some countries, announcing you have a better espionage tool than the government might be considered an act of insurrection, but I hope that is not the case here.
If Anthropic has really developed an LLM that can suss out security weaknesses better than any other AI, the US government would be foolish to continue shunning them. Oh, right, it is foolish.
Who’s going to ACPT (American Crossword Puzzle Tournament) this year? I’ll see you there, after I make a quick pit-stop in NYC for the Puzzmo half-day conference. You can still check out the Puzzmo thing virtually: www.crosswordcon.com
Having ADHD or being ADHD-adjacent means you go from never, ever, in a million years wanting to do your taxes again, to wanting to be as qualified as a CPA, in the course of a few hours. Ask me how I know.
I know I’m fighting against a radicalized anti-AI cadre when I say this, but I believe AI is good, will prevail, and that its positives will make every naysayer sorry that they ever doubted it.
If you’re a paying user of Claude, you may or may not have received a message offering an “extra usage” credit equivalent to your monthly plan price. It wasn’t working for me for a while, but now it seems fixed. Go get it! claude.ai/settings/…
AI is a tool. When the axe was invented, somebody probably said, “wow, I’m going to use this to cut so much wood!”, and somebody else said “I’m going to use this to kill so many people!”
I just had the idea that some AI company might use The Pixies’ “Gigantic” to make an ad called “Agentic,” and it horrified me. Anyway this video is cool and does a good job showing how every musician plays their part. www.youtube.com/watch
Every American would be basking in luxury, or at least square meals and healthcare, if our government only thought that investing in ourselves was more prudent than destroying everybody else. A country led by self-proclaimed “fiscal conservatives,” no less. They’re throwing our riches away.
If you want to know when AI is finally coming for your job, just keep an eye on when OpenAI and Anthropic stop hiring for your job.
“The Beginning of Programming as We’ll Know It.” Why I’m confident that embracing AI with a heavy dose of skepticism is the power play for programmers. bitsplitting.org/2026/04/0…