daring-rss

Michelle Lim, writing for the Warp blog (Warp, I’ll note, has previously sponsored DF):

Agent Mode raises the level of abstraction in the terminal. Using
natural language, you can ask the terminal to accomplish any high
level task without worrying about the specific commands you need.

Agent Mode knows when it needs more information to help you
complete a task. It will ask permission to run commands on your
machine and use the outputs to guide you, step-by-step. It’s also
self-correcting when it runs into errors.

Because Agent Mode executes tasks through the CLI, it integrates
with practically any service with zero configuration. If the
service has a CLI, an API, or publicly available docs, you can use
Agent Mode for the task. Agent Mode has inherent knowledge of most
public CLIs, and you can easily teach it how to use internal CLIs
by asking it to read their help content.

Man (no pun intended?) is this cool. I just tried “How do I generate a random number between 0000 and 9999?” and got:

You can generate a random number between 0000 and 9999 using the
following shell command in the Fish shell:

printf “%04dn” (random 0 9999)

And when I followed up with “How can I use jot to generate a random number between 0000 and 9999?” I got:

You can use the jot command to generate a random number between
0000 and 9999 using the following command:

jot -w “%04d” -r 1 0 9999

Both of which answers are correct. For jot — a tool I first learned about, of course, from the inimitable Dr. Drang — I think a simpler, and thus better, answer is:

jot -r 1 0000 9999

but Warp’s Agent Mode suggestion is certainly good enough.

 ★ 

Michelle Lim, writing for the Warp blog (Warp, I’ll note, has previously sponsored DF):

Agent Mode raises the level of abstraction in the terminal. Using
natural language, you can ask the terminal to accomplish any high
level task without worrying about the specific commands you need.

Agent Mode knows when it needs more information to help you
complete a task. It will ask permission to run commands on your
machine and use the outputs to guide you, step-by-step. It’s also
self-correcting when it runs into errors.

Because Agent Mode executes tasks through the CLI, it integrates
with practically any service with zero configuration. If the
service has a CLI, an API, or publicly available docs, you can use
Agent Mode for the task. Agent Mode has inherent knowledge of most
public CLIs, and you can easily teach it how to use internal CLIs
by asking it to read their help content.

Man (no pun intended?) is this cool. I just tried “How do I generate a random number between 0000 and 9999?” and got:

You can generate a random number between 0000 and 9999 using the
following shell command in the Fish shell:

printf “%04dn” (random 0 9999)

And when I followed up with “How can I use jot to generate a random number between 0000 and 9999?” I got:

You can use the jot command to generate a random number between
0000 and 9999 using the following command:

jot -w “%04d” -r 1 0 9999

Both of which answers are correct. For jot — a tool I first learned about, of course, from the inimitable Dr. Drang — I think a simpler, and thus better, answer is:

jot -r 1 0000 9999

but Warp’s Agent Mode suggestion is certainly good enough.

Read More 

Clothilde Goujard, reporting for Politico:

A vote scheduled today to amend a draft law that may require WhatsApp and Signal to scan people’s pictures and links for potential child sexual abuse material was removed from European Union countries’ agenda, according to three EU diplomats.

Ambassadors in the EU Council were scheduled to decide whether to back a joint position on an EU regulation to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM). But many EU countries including Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were expected to abstain or oppose the law over cybersecurity and privacy concerns.

“In the last hours, it appeared that the required qualified majority would just not be met,” said an EU diplomat from the Belgian presidency, which is spearheading negotiations until end June as chair of the EU Council.

Sanity prevails, for now.

 ★ 

Clothilde Goujard, reporting for Politico:

A vote scheduled today to amend a draft law that may require WhatsApp and Signal to scan people’s pictures and links for potential child sexual abuse material was removed from European Union countries’ agenda, according to three EU diplomats.

Ambassadors in the EU Council were scheduled to decide whether to back a joint position on an EU regulation to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM). But many EU countries including Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were expected to abstain or oppose the law over cybersecurity and privacy concerns.

“In the last hours, it appeared that the required qualified majority would just not be met,” said an EU diplomat from the Belgian presidency, which is spearheading negotiations until end June as chair of the EU Council.

Sanity prevails, for now.

Read More 

Matthew Panzarino, writing at The Obsessor:

The cardboard is inescapable if you use Amazon or other online
stores, they pile up in the hallways and next to the garbage cans
and you triage as you can.

We get so many that I have to break down our boxes in order to
fit them in our recycle bin. I’ve used all of the typical tools — scissors, pocket knife, box cutter — and many unconventional
ones like drywall saws just trying to make this painful job a
bit easier.

The CANARY is uniquely serrated all the way around its edge, like
a chainsaw. This makes it incredibly good at cutting cardboard
either with or across corrugation with ease. I cannot express how
easily this knife cuts cardboard, it’s like slicing through
regular old paper, it’s amazing.

Last year when I linked to (and recommended) Studio Neat’s Keen — the world’s best box cutter, but which costs about $100 — at least one reader recommended the Canary. For $8 I figured why not. It truly is an amazing product. I do still love my prototype Keen but for opening and breaking down cardboard boxes, the Canary can’t be beat. It’s both highly effective and very safe.

 ★ 

Matthew Panzarino, writing at The Obsessor:

The cardboard is inescapable if you use Amazon or other online
stores, they pile up in the hallways and next to the garbage cans
and you triage as you can.

We get so many that I have to break down our boxes in order to
fit them in our recycle bin. I’ve used all of the typical tools — scissors, pocket knife, box cutter — and many unconventional
ones like drywall saws just trying to make this painful job a
bit easier.

The CANARY is uniquely serrated all the way around its edge, like
a chainsaw. This makes it incredibly good at cutting cardboard
either with or across corrugation with ease. I cannot express how
easily this knife cuts cardboard, it’s like slicing through
regular old paper, it’s amazing.

Last year when I linked to (and recommended) Studio Neat’s Keen — the world’s best box cutter, but which costs about $100 — at least one reader recommended the Canary. For $8 I figured why not. It truly is an amazing product. I do still love my prototype Keen but for opening and breaking down cardboard boxes, the Canary can’t be beat. It’s both highly effective and very safe.

Read More 

Ben Sandofksy went deep on the history of Lambda School, a learn-to-code startup that aimed to disrupt computer science education, and its founder, Austen Allred:

What set his boot camp apart from the others were “Income Share
Agreements.” Instead of paying up-front for tuition, students
agreed to pay a portion of future income. If you don’t get a job,
you pay nothing. It was an idea so clever it became a breakout hit
of Y Combinator, the same tech incubator that birthed
Stripe, AirBnb, and countless other unicorns.

When Lambda School launched in 2017, critics likened ISAs to
indentured servitude, but by 2019 it was Silicon Valley’s golden
child. Every day, Austen tweeted jaw-dropping results. […]

Things got worse from there, and we’ll get to it. First I need to
address a common question: what do I have to do with any of this?
I have no professional or personal connections to the company or
the team. What compelled me to follow this story for the last
five years?

On the surface, this is another window into the 2010’s tech
bubble, a period where mediocre people could raise ludicrous money
amid a venture capitalist echo chamber fueled by low-interest
rates. But what makes this any worse than Juicero, Clinkle, or
Humane? Why does this rise to the level of Theranos?

These stories hinge on their villains, whose hubris and stupidity
end in comeuppance. Theranos had Elizabeth Holmes, Fyre Festival
had Bobby McFarlane, and Lambda School has Austen Allred.

Independent journalism at its best.

 ★ 

Ben Sandofksy went deep on the history of Lambda School, a learn-to-code startup that aimed to disrupt computer science education, and its founder, Austen Allred:

What set his boot camp apart from the others were “Income Share
Agreements.” Instead of paying up-front for tuition, students
agreed to pay a portion of future income. If you don’t get a job,
you pay nothing. It was an idea so clever it became a breakout hit
of Y Combinator, the same tech incubator that birthed
Stripe, AirBnb, and countless other unicorns.

When Lambda School launched in 2017, critics likened ISAs to
indentured servitude, but by 2019 it was Silicon Valley’s golden
child. Every day, Austen tweeted jaw-dropping results. […]

Things got worse from there, and we’ll get to it. First I need to
address a common question: what do I have to do with any of this?
I have no professional or personal connections to the company or
the team. What compelled me to follow this story for the last
five years?

On the surface, this is another window into the 2010’s tech
bubble, a period where mediocre people could raise ludicrous money
amid a venture capitalist echo chamber fueled by low-interest
rates. But what makes this any worse than Juicero, Clinkle, or
Humane? Why does this rise to the level of Theranos?

These stories hinge on their villains, whose hubris and stupidity
end in comeuppance. Theranos had Elizabeth Holmes, Fyre Festival
had Bobby McFarlane, and Lambda School has Austen Allred.

Independent journalism at its best.

Read More 

Adam Engst, TidBITS:

The real problem comes when tech writers document features across
multiple versions of Apple’s operating systems. We’ll probably use
both terms for a while before slowly standardizing on the new
term. Blame Apple if you see awkward sentences like “Continuity
features require that you be logged into the same Apple Account
(Apple ID in pre-2024 operating systems).” Or maybe writers will
compress further to “Continuity features require that you be
logged into the same Apple Account/ID.”

I do think “Apple Account” is a better name, so I think the transitional pain is worthwhile.

 ★ 

Adam Engst, TidBITS:

The real problem comes when tech writers document features across
multiple versions of Apple’s operating systems. We’ll probably use
both terms for a while before slowly standardizing on the new
term. Blame Apple if you see awkward sentences like “Continuity
features require that you be logged into the same Apple Account
(Apple ID in pre-2024 operating systems).” Or maybe writers will
compress further to “Continuity features require that you be
logged into the same Apple Account/ID.”

I do think “Apple Account” is a better name, so I think the transitional pain is worthwhile.

Read More 

Robb Knight:

I put up a post about blocking AI bots after the block was in
place, so assuming the user agents are sent, there’s no way
Perplexity should be able to access my site. So I asked:

What is this post about
https://rknight.me/blog/blocking-bots-with-nginx/

I got a perfect summary of the post including various details that
they couldn’t have just guessed. Read the full response
here. So what the fuck are they doing?

I checked a few sites and this is just Google Chrome running on
Windows 10. So they’re using headless browsers to scrape content,
ignoring robots.txt, and not sending their user agent string. I
can’t even block their IP ranges because it appears these headless
browsers are not on their IP ranges.

Terrific, succinct write-up documenting that Perplexity has clearly been reading and indexing web pages that it is forbidden, by site owner policy, from reading and indexing — all contrary to Perplexity’s own documentation and public statements.

 ★ 

Robb Knight:

I put up a post about blocking AI bots after the block was in
place, so assuming the user agents are sent, there’s no way
Perplexity should be able to access my site. So I asked:

What is this post about
https://rknight.me/blog/blocking-bots-with-nginx/

I got a perfect summary of the post including various details that
they couldn’t have just guessed. Read the full response
here. So what the fuck are they doing?

I checked a few sites and this is just Google Chrome running on
Windows 10. So they’re using headless browsers to scrape content,
ignoring robots.txt, and not sending their user agent string. I
can’t even block their IP ranges because it appears these headless
browsers are not on their IP ranges.

Terrific, succinct write-up documenting that Perplexity has clearly been reading and indexing web pages that it is forbidden, by site owner policy, from reading and indexing — all contrary to Perplexity’s own documentation and public statements.

Read More 

Dhruv Mehrotra and Tim Marchman, reporting for Wired (News+ link):

A Wired analysis and one carried out by developer Robb Knight
suggest that Perplexity is able to achieve this partly through
apparently ignoring a widely accepted web standard known as the
Robots Exclusion Protocol to surreptitiously scrape areas of
websites that operators do not want accessed by bots, despite
claiming that it won’t. Wired observed a machine tied to
Perplexity — more specifically, one on an Amazon server and
almost certainly operated by Perplexity — doing this on wired.com
and across other Condé Nast publications.

The Wired analysis also demonstrates that despite claims that
Perplexity’s tools provide “instant, reliable answers to any
question with complete sources and citations included,” doing away
with the need to “click on different links,” its chatbot, which is
capable of accurately summarizing journalistic work with
appropriate credit, is also prone to bullshitting, in the
technical sense of the word.

This paints Perplexity as, effectively, an IP theft engine, and its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, as a degenerate liar. None of this is an oversight or just playing fast and loose. It’s a scheme to deliberately circumvent the plain intention of website owners not to have Perplexity index their sites. Liars and thieves. Utterly shameless.

 ★ 

Dhruv Mehrotra and Tim Marchman, reporting for Wired (News+ link):

A Wired analysis and one carried out by developer Robb Knight
suggest that Perplexity is able to achieve this partly through
apparently ignoring a widely accepted web standard known as the
Robots Exclusion Protocol to surreptitiously scrape areas of
websites that operators do not want accessed by bots, despite
claiming that it won’t. Wired observed a machine tied to
Perplexity — more specifically, one on an Amazon server and
almost certainly operated by Perplexity — doing this on wired.com
and across other Condé Nast publications.

The Wired analysis also demonstrates that despite claims that
Perplexity’s tools provide “instant, reliable answers to any
question with complete sources and citations included,” doing away
with the need to “click on different links,” its chatbot, which is
capable of accurately summarizing journalistic work with
appropriate credit, is also prone to bullshitting, in the
technical sense of the word.

This paints Perplexity as, effectively, an IP theft engine, and its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, as a degenerate liar. None of this is an oversight or just playing fast and loose. It’s a scheme to deliberately circumvent the plain intention of website owners not to have Perplexity index their sites. Liars and thieves. Utterly shameless.

Read More 

Signal president Meredith Whittaker, responding to a new initiative in the EU to ban end-to-end-encryption (for some reason published as a PDF despite the fact that Signal has a blog):

In November, the EU Parliament lit a beacon for global tech policy
when it voted to exclude end-to-end encryption from mass
surveillance orders in the chat control legislation. This move
responded to longstanding expert consensus, and a global coalition
of hundreds of preeminent computer security experts who patiently
weighed in to explain the serious dangers of the approaches on the
table — approaches that aimed to subject everyone’s private
communications to mass scanning against a government-curated
database or AI model of “acceptable” speech and content.

There is no way to implement such proposals in the context of
end-to-end encrypted communications without fundamentally
undermining encryption and creating a dangerous vulnerability in
core infrastructure that would have global implications well
beyond Europe.

Instead of accepting this fundamental mathematical reality, some
European countries continue to play rhetorical games. They’ve come
back to the table with the same idea under a new label. Instead of
using the previous term “client-side scanning,” they’ve rebranded
and are now calling it “upload moderation.” Some are claiming that
“upload moderation” does not undermine encryption because it
happens before your message or video is encrypted. This is untrue.

Yes, but it’s a great idea to let these same EU bureaucrats design how mobile software distribution should work.

 ★ 

Signal president Meredith Whittaker, responding to a new initiative in the EU to ban end-to-end-encryption (for some reason published as a PDF despite the fact that Signal has a blog):

In November, the EU Parliament lit a beacon for global tech policy
when it voted to exclude end-to-end encryption from mass
surveillance orders in the chat control legislation. This move
responded to longstanding expert consensus, and a global coalition
of hundreds of preeminent computer security experts who patiently
weighed in to explain the serious dangers of the approaches on the
table — approaches that aimed to subject everyone’s private
communications to mass scanning against a government-curated
database or AI model of “acceptable” speech and content.

There is no way to implement such proposals in the context of
end-to-end encrypted communications without fundamentally
undermining encryption and creating a dangerous vulnerability in
core infrastructure that would have global implications well
beyond Europe.

Instead of accepting this fundamental mathematical reality, some
European countries continue to play rhetorical games. They’ve come
back to the table with the same idea under a new label. Instead of
using the previous term “client-side scanning,” they’ve rebranded
and are now calling it “upload moderation.” Some are claiming that
“upload moderation” does not undermine encryption because it
happens before your message or video is encrypted. This is untrue.

Yes, but it’s a great idea to let these same EU bureaucrats design how mobile software distribution should work.

Read More 

Paul Thurrott on Threads, after getting his new Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge laptop:

Former Windows head Terry Myerson once told me the goal of
partnering with Qualcomm on Windows on Arm was to “get those
f#$%ing Intel stickers off of PCs.”

Mission accomplished, Terry. There are no Intel stickers on the
new Qualcomm-based Copilot+ PCs.

Still covered with stickers. And as Thurrott’s photo hints at, and this screenshot from Tim Schofield’s unboxing video shows clearly, Samsung can’t even be bother to apply the stickers straight. Looks like they were applied by a little kid. Screams “premium” experience.

Two of these stickers don’t even make sense. The Snapdragon one is obviously paid for by Qualcomm, the same way Intel pays PC makers to apply their stickers. But why would Samsung booger up its own laptops with stickers promoting their own Dynamic AMOLED 2X display technology? And what’s the deal with the Energy Star stickers? Who pays to put those on laptops and why?

 ★ 

Paul Thurrott on Threads, after getting his new Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge laptop:

Former Windows head Terry Myerson once told me the goal of
partnering with Qualcomm on Windows on Arm was to “get those
f#$%ing Intel stickers off of PCs.”

Mission accomplished, Terry. There are no Intel stickers on the
new Qualcomm-based Copilot+ PCs.

Still covered with stickers. And as Thurrott’s photo hints at, and this screenshot from Tim Schofield’s unboxing video shows clearly, Samsung can’t even be bother to apply the stickers straight. Looks like they were applied by a little kid. Screams “premium” experience.

Two of these stickers don’t even make sense. The Snapdragon one is obviously paid for by Qualcomm, the same way Intel pays PC makers to apply their stickers. But why would Samsung booger up its own laptops with stickers promoting their own Dynamic AMOLED 2X display technology? And what’s the deal with the Energy Star stickers? Who pays to put those on laptops and why?

Read More 

Yang Jie and Jiyoung Sohn, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link):

Samsung’s Galaxy Book 4 Edge [sic], which went on sale Tuesday in the
U.S., South Korea and some other markets, contains Qualcomm’s
Snapdragon processor. It runs a version of Microsoft’s Windows 11
for PCs that uses technology from U.K.-based Arm.

On Wednesday, Samsung put a notice on its Korean-language product
site listing applications that it currently determines are
incompatible with the new laptop or can’t be installed. The list
included some Adobe software as well as popular games including
“League of Legends” and “Fortnite.”

Sounds like maybe Microsoft’s Prism isn’t as good as Apple’s Rosetta 2 after all? Or that Prism isn’t capable of running low-level anti-piracy (Adobe) and anti-cheating (Epic) rootkit-style system extensions?

The issues offer an early hint of the challenges some tech
companies may face as they introduce new AI-powered computers
and smartphones while seeking to maintain compatibility with
existing software.

What an odd paragraph. This has nothing to do with phones, and the only “tech companies” affected are Microsoft, who makes Windows, and PC makers whose machines run Windows and have adopted Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chips. Macs made the transition from Intel’s x86 architecture to Apple’s ARM-based Apple silicon without users noticing anything other than dramatically longer battery life and faster performance, including when running x86 software in emulation.

(I put a sic above because Samsung’s new laptops are named “Galaxy Book4 Edge”, with no space between the “Book” and the “4”. Great product name that rolls right off the tongue, as usual, from Samsung.)

 ★ 

Yang Jie and Jiyoung Sohn, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link):

Samsung’s Galaxy Book 4 Edge [sic], which went on sale Tuesday in the
U.S., South Korea and some other markets, contains Qualcomm’s
Snapdragon processor. It runs a version of Microsoft’s Windows 11
for PCs that uses technology from U.K.-based Arm.

On Wednesday, Samsung put a notice on its Korean-language product
site listing applications that it currently determines are
incompatible with the new laptop or can’t be installed. The list
included some Adobe software as well as popular games including
“League of Legends” and “Fortnite.”

Sounds like maybe Microsoft’s Prism isn’t as good as Apple’s Rosetta 2 after all? Or that Prism isn’t capable of running low-level anti-piracy (Adobe) and anti-cheating (Epic) rootkit-style system extensions?

The issues offer an early hint of the challenges some tech
companies may face as they introduce new AI-powered computers
and smartphones while seeking to maintain compatibility with
existing software.

What an odd paragraph. This has nothing to do with phones, and the only “tech companies” affected are Microsoft, who makes Windows, and PC makers whose machines run Windows and have adopted Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chips. Macs made the transition from Intel’s x86 architecture to Apple’s ARM-based Apple silicon without users noticing anything other than dramatically longer battery life and faster performance, including when running x86 software in emulation.

(I put a sic above because Samsung’s new laptops are named “Galaxy Book4 Edge”, with no space between the “Book” and the “4”. Great product name that rolls right off the tongue, as usual, from Samsung.)

Read More