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I was talking to some AI industry leaders last night. Their words helped crystalize my own thoughts on Anthropic’s “guardrails” around using their models.

A lot of what I do is legal only because of context. I carry lock picks in my bag. I use them to get into my own stuff (and to satisfy my own curiosity) and never use them to gain access I shouldn’t have. Is it bad to use lock picks? That’s impossible to say without knowing why they’re used.

I ask AI to find security flaws in my software to identify those problems (and to satisfy my own curiosity) and never use it to gain access I shouldn’t have. Is it bad to use Fable — or any number of “hacking” tools like Burp Suite or Metasploit or John The Ripper? That’s impossible to say without knowing why they’re used.

And damned if I want to come to Anthropic, hat in hand, and beg them to please, sir, may I use this tool I’m paying you for, and I’ll let you watch over my shoulder the whole time to see if I’m doing it alright? If they think they might not want my money sometimes, they shouldn’t take it at all.

I didn’t have to explain to the lock picks guy what I’m doing with them.

A coworker brought a little Python-programmable rolling robot ball to the work offsite. She asked a group of us, in seriousness, if she brought it out after dinner, would anyone be able to help debug some of the code.

My friend, you have a robot. A programmable one. Around us. I guarantee that thing’ll get debugged before you take it away for the night. It might not end up with the original code, but it’ll do something alright.

I also got to introduce the word “nerdsniped”.

Authors: no one regularly calls a thing by its full name in informal conversation. In the real world, a television is a TV. People talk about “Smith”, not “President John Smith”. If the star Betelgeuse were a part of everyday chat, it’d be called Juice. All this is 10x true if the military’s involved. No one loves funny nicknames more than the rank and file. Some smartass would call it “Orenthal” one time, and from then it’d be compressed to “Orntall”.

I’m finally getting around to watching the WWDC keynote. Fun fact: if a presenter lowers their hands below waist level, or goes more than 3 seconds before waving them about, they’re penalized stock options.

That’s the only explanation I have for it. Every single presenter, every time. If you had a drinking game for whenever someone swings their hands wide and brings them back together, you’d be dead by the first section.

I bought a DM42n calculator a while ago and it’s been a fun desk toy that I admittedly have little practical need for. I’ve since updated it to use the C47 system which is the most delightfully nerdy, ludicrously powerful calculator mankind’s ever schemed up. My kingdom for a printed manual, but still!

The World Cup potato chip bags look like a xenomorph with an underbite. It creeps me out.

Photo of a potato chip bag with what I presume is a World Cup trophy. That logo is angled such that it looks like a gold plated Alien with a gaping mouth and no chin.

I took my wife and kid to an outdoor swap meet for a few hours around lunchtime today, and now I’m reminded that the sun hates me and wishes to smite me at every chance.

I’ve released a new version of Scrapwire, my Veilid-based TUI chat app. v0.2.1 fixes some Markdown formatting glitches.

“You wouldn’t download a laptop, would you?”

“I’m saddened that you so completely misunderstand me.”

I have, in fact, downloaded a laptop, printed it, and installed a Free operating system.

A 4.3 inch screen with a chiclet keyboard in a boxy white case displaying GNU Emacs on a GUI desktop.