Nelson's Linkblog 2025-08

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GPT-5 prompting guide

Advice from OpenAI about how to induce better answers from their LLM

2025-08-31 ai • chatgpt • llm • openai • programming • promptengineering

Volvo software bugs

Article about the terrible state of Volvo's EV cars software. My C40 is very disappointing

2025-08-31 bugs • cars • engineering • evs • quality • software • volvo

The Windows open source screenshot tool finally got new releases after many years

2025-08-30 capture • ocr • screenshot • utility • windows

Spy vs Spy Apple ][

Classic videogame, innovative split screen multiplayer

2025-08-29 apple • games • retrogaming • spyvsspy

A new diet tracker / food journal, this one has the ability to log food by simply taking a photo of it

2025-08-28 android • apps • cronometer • diary • diet • food • macros • tracking

Typepad shutting down

One of the old school blog platforms, it'd been pretty moribund for the last few years and is now closing

2025-08-27 anildash • blogs • shutdown • sixapart • typepad • weblogs

The New Life chapter 1

NSFW, porny text. Newish gay novel, I quite enjoyed the writing in this first chapter.

2025-08-27 books • frottage • gay • lgbt • nsfw • porn • sex • tomcrewe

Bounce social media tool

New service to help move followers between Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed

2025-08-26 bluesky • fediverse • freedom • friends • mastodon • socialmedia

Sub-millisecond time

Detailed experiments of trying to push the limits of time synchronization on Linux on commodity hardware. <1ms is easy, 20-60ns may be a practical limit

2025-08-26 linux • ntp • ptp • synchronization • time

Software package manager like Python's uv, but for Ruby

2025-08-26 programming • python • ruby • software • uv

Grinding the Bay Bridge

Skydiver maneuvers parachute to let him grind the cable on top of the Bay Bridge

2025-08-26 awesome • baybridge • redbull • sanfrancisco • skydiving • stunt • xtreeeem

Android lockdown

Google is threatening to make it much harder to sideload apps outside their ecosystem

2025-08-25 android • google • jailbreak • lockdown • opensource

MetaFilter activity stats

Disheartening statistics from an older online social community

2025-08-24 death • forum • growth • metafilter • socialmedia • stats

Build Factorio factories with Lean code, compile to blueprints of belts and machines

2025-08-24 batshitinsane • factorio • functional • games • lean • programming

A new 64 bit number to use as constants

2025-08-22 8647 • acab • cafebabe • deadbeef • funny • politics • trump • uspol

Peter Thiel lectures on The Antichrist

Takes one to know one

2025-08-22 christianity • fascism • hate • politics • thiel

Google AI energy

Detailed report on how much energy their AI systems use

2025-08-21 ai • datacenter • energy • google • llm • scaling

NCHS online archive

A nonprofit I've helped with a little has digitized records and put them online

2025-08-20 archive • california • history • nchs • nevadacounty • photos • search

Starlink stupidity

Musk trying to use the political influence he bought to undercut broadband expansion in favor of his useful but not sufficient alternative

2025-08-19 broadband • corruption • elonmusk • fcc • politics • spacex • starlink

SF Leather district

San Francisco has created a formal cultural district for Leather & LGBTQ culture

2025-08-19 bdsm • folsom • gay • kink • leather • lgbt • sanfrancisco

Android hackery: open source software that pairs with various fitness trackers, headphones, etc so you can use the devices without the vendor's software

2025-08-18 android • fitness • hacking • privacy • tracker • watch

"Private and Uncensored", I think the porn world uses this? Also maybe hacking and fraud.

2025-08-18 ai • generator • llm • porn

auth-results@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

check-auth@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

New derogatory slang for AIs and bots online

2025-08-16 ai • bots • culture • language • spam

Facebook friends feed

Facebook has a feature to just show you posts from your friends

2025-08-15 ads • facebook • filter • friends • socialmedia

An app for running LLMs on iOS

2025-08-15 ai • app • apple • ios • iphone • llm

An Android app for running LLMs locally on your phone

2025-08-15 ai • android • app • llm • phone

Google released a new LLM that is very very small and intended as a building block for your own tuned systems

2025-08-14 ai • fun • gemma • google • hacking • llm • simonw

Wplace - Paint the world

Web game where people draw pixel art on the world map

2025-08-14 games • maps • multiplayer • place

A storygame platform using AI and well known books

2025-08-13 ai • games • reading • startup • vampires

Company is starting a commercial package repository as an alternative to PyPI

2025-08-13 astral • pypi • python • pyx • uv • vc

Code comparison tool that understands programming language structure instead of just giving line or word diffs

2025-08-13 change • coding • diff • git • programming

A programming library for syncing state between multiple instances. Sort of like git or syncthing, but designed for embedding

2025-08-13 crdt • git • library • programming • sync • syncthing

The Nazi abuse of justice, a second legal system for victims allowed most Germans to live ordinary lives. The US is establishing something similar.

2025-08-13 fascism • german • history • nazi • politics • trump • uspol

A privacy-oriented RAG + LLM toolkit in Python, for building custom AI stuff that you can run locally

2025-08-12 ai • llm • programming • python • query • rag

git manpage generator

A parody, something generating plausible but fictional documentation for git

2025-08-12 documentation • dvcs • funny • git • unix • vcs

You Got the Power

A 2000 magazine article about my startup

2025-08-11 computing • marc • me • nelson • popularpower • startup

Experienced engineer wondering why the latest AI integration stuff ignores 40+ years of expertise in distributed systems

2025-08-11 ai • distributed • llm • mcp • programming • rpc

WordPress asset leaking

It's easy to download any asset uploaded to WordPress, even if it's not published

2025-08-11 privacy • scraping • security • wordpress

America's most popular dial-up ISP is shutting down dial-up service

2025-08-10 aol • dialup • history • internet • modem

Directory of Retrieval-Augmented Generation tools for AI work

2025-08-10 ai • llm • rag • retrieval • search

RIP Chromebook Steam

Google removes the popular gaming option for Chromebooks. A whole lot of schoolkids are going to be devastated

2025-08-09 chromebook • chromeos • games • gaming • google • steam

Tiny electric jet boat

Weird EV from China, goes 30mph and fits in a car

2025-08-09 boats • china • electricvehicles • evs

Netnews: The Origin Story

Steve Bellovin's paper about the beginning of Usenet

2025-08-08 history • internet • netnews • socialmedia • usenet

The Human Line Project

A group providing support to people who have had mental health problems as a result of talking to AI

2025-08-08 ai • chatgpt • llm • mentalhealth

SimonW on GPT-5

Analysis from an expert

2025-08-07 ai • chatgpt • gpt5 • llm • openal • simonw

Introducing GPT-5

Details of OpenAI's new LLM release. It's better at lots of things, they say, and a big emphasis on agentic stuff

2025-08-07 ai • llm • openai

Women's health privacy violation

Meta and Google were buying private information from Flo Health in their advertising systems, learning things like which women were trying to get pregnant

2025-08-07 ads • facebook • google • health • menstruation • meta • privacy • surveillance • women

Home battery power plant

Batteries installed in people's homes participated in an experiment to provide significant grid power when needed

2025-08-05 battery • california • electrify • pge • power • sunrun • tesla

Satellite destruction

Trump administration wants to destroy working climate monitoring satellites

2025-08-05 climatechange • globalwarming • nasa • politics • science • trump • uspol • vandalism

Mothership Strategies

Newsletter claiming a lot of fundraising spam is really one company set up for self-enrichment, with less than 2% of donations getting through to campaigns

2025-08-04 dccc • dnc • fundraising • pac • politics • scam • uspol

A version of Wireguard designed to be harder to detect by deep packet inspection

2025-08-04 internet • networking • privacy • vpn • wireguard