Something it’s taken me many years to learn, even after growing up in a progressive town (Santa Cruz, CA) is that people you’re standing up for are usually pretty lenient about the bozo moves you might make while standing up for them.

Inspired by my kid’s impromptu crossword creation, I decided to take another stab at construction myself. Now my kid is test-solving it. I’ll submit it to the NYT first because of course I want that glory, but then I’ll see if anybody else wants it!

I admit I was anxious to post about my discomfort referring to trans or non-binary kids in the company of their parents. I thought that people who have a much harder time living a life where their identity is constantly challenged might find my concern too trivial. I’ve had good feedback so far. 🙏

Be right back. Just placing seashells on a beach spelling out that we should “86” — and by 86 of course I don’t mean kill, because that would be the stupidest interpretation – the Supreme Court justices who voted to eradicate the Voting Rights Act. And I know we CAN’T 86 them, but still. Seashells.

A very modern social challenge is learning about your kid’s friend being trans or non-binary, and wanting to respect their pronouns, but not sensing any buy-in from the parents. I’m always wondering if they’re misgendering their kid “for my sake” or, because they don’t know yet, or worse…

Unbeknownst to me, my son (17yo) learned enough about crossword construction to make a puzzle, print it with MY APP, and leave it as tribute on the table, waiting for me when I returned home. Very good for somebody who has never had any training or practice, as far as I know!

If you’re a parent who, for whatever reason, is lucky enough to have a piano in your home, the sweetest sound imaginable is the sound of your kids playing the piano.

No idea how likely to be true this is, but I thought it was interesting that AI knowing so much about a particular framework or technology might extend its lifetime, regardless of future frameworks’ merits. bsky.app/profile/m…

I’ve had great experiences with Apple’s “Express Replacement” in the past, but now that I’ve been waiting 10 days for a replacement, with no updates, I’m wondering if other people haven’t had the same stellar service I used to enjoy.

Assistant TO the regional CEO.

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. 😭

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