Jack Danger

The characters in AI are anthropomorphic, so describing them in human terms is meaningful. The shoggoth underneath is not, and anthropomorphizing it does not help readers understand bsky.app/profile/coli...

Anthropic is misaligned with humanity because I don’t want to end up talking like that

Serious question: How are eng leaders bringing their teams safely through this AI shit? There is so much to learn, so much to grieve, so much fun to be had, and everybody is handling it differently.

This might be the most beautiful thing I've read in my life. What a privilege to be alive in 2026. ordinaryabundance.com

Just got The Predator’s Table by @kimcrayton1.bsky.social and she’s pulling zero punches

Two AI truths through which I see everything: * commoditization is inherent - everything is a race to the bottom because there is zero stickiness anywhere * what you can do with AI is limited by your own knowledge

I’m not sure I’d buy the idea of AI addiction (people destroy themselves and their families to feed an addiction), but it obviously generates intense dependency (like phones do)

If I have to read shit like “the gate is not the lever, it’s the seam” one more time I’m gonna lose it

I’ve been working on a longform blog post, but I realized the whole takeaway is this: computer science degree matter again. Source code is free forever, but actually running software has not become any easier.

omg I thought of a word for it: "Claudchés" It's not X, it's Y. The A is the B, and it's the X The key insight is A isn't just B, it's X etc.

Alfred Nobel was mistakenly believed dead and his obit written honestly. He read it and sought to change his life, establishing the Nobel Prize. McConnell and Graham have destroyed countless communities and impoverished millions because of their failed moral compasses.

If you want: * The public to think AI is scary * To pump up mentions of your name before IPO * To stop losing $400/query I imagine you might shut down your giant uses-8-racks-to-answer-questions model when any fed gives you a chance

I thought Python would be the default language of the future because the folks who built LLMs used it the most. These days I'm doing everything in Rust because only correctness and performance matters if I'm not seeing the code anyway

When you realize you're carefully reading an article fully written by Opus

Anthropic, as a company, has many strengths. But their leadership exists in a realm where everything is free. So nothing about their products or tooling is informed by customer cost-sensitivity

When inference prices go up (likely this summer IMO) software engineering will look even more like engineering: methodical and intuitive cost/value trade-offs over a complex system

isotropic.org/papers/chick...

I voted for Steyer but I’m happy with Becerra in part because all the wonkiest people I know in CA say he’s legit, if not colorful. After seeing the outcomes of a dramatic government, I bet I’d be pretty happy with a merely effective one

I’m experimenting with posting more. The internet can’t die as long as people keep writing

Start planning now to attend a No Kings protest on Oct. 18. We need this one to be even bigger than the last one. Invite your family and friends, and ask them to invite their family and friends. People power can defeat fascism.

@popular.info Is there any non-substack way I can subscribe and continue financially supporting the team's good work?

If you appreciate my reporting, consider a paid subscription to The Handbasket: www.thehandbasket.co/upgrade

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

Time lapse of Oakland no kings march eventually taking over both sides of Broadway from @oaklandside.org. Many thousands of people.

Almost half a million people live in Oakland, CA and it seemed like we were all marching today

Remember that we’re nearly powerless to effect change in one day, but we can do anything if we show up to bi-weekly meetings for years. Literally anything. Find a group, plug in deeply and regularly until you have power.

Do not obey in advance

Hello folks, ramping up my participation on this lovely platform. I know the election was last week, but if you want to learn more about how voting works, the mechanics of it, especially in the US, you might enjoy my podcast. how.voting.works 3 episodes out, 1 more later this week.

This is so good. Love @kmtani.bsky.social's perfect description of what it really would mean to think of the justices as a certain kind of umpire.

I've extracted the thesis of my new book into a short blog post (with images!). If you've ever seen an engineering team slow down over time this is for you: jackdanger.com/technical-co...

When Elon bought Twitter I left. I used my new free time to write a book on the fundamental forces of software engineering. It's now available: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...