Eventually we’re going to have OpenClaw-like assistants that can filter or prioritize emails and calls, but for now I wish there was some kind of voicemail scripting. If a voicemail transcript contains “$”, delete it.

I have a few blog post drafts about recent AI controversy and advertising that I may post eventually, but for now I do want to note Dario Amodei’s blog post on the ongoing negotiations with the military. I thought his leaked internal post was in poor taste, overly personal, so I like his apology here to correct the record:

It was a difficult day for the company, and I apologize for the tone of the post. It does not reflect my careful or considered views. It was also written six days ago, and is an out-of-date assessment of the current situation.

Simon Carstensen has rebuilt Jottit, the web publishing tool he built with Aaron Swartz in 2007:

Aaron believed the web should be easy enough that anyone could participate. Not just people who know how to code or who can afford a platform’s cut.

Watched: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Enjoyed this more than I was expecting. Good show. 📺

Mountain laurel.

So nice to work on a brand new Mac app, Objective-C, not much code yet. Builds and runs practically instantly.

I’m continuing to tinker with OpenClaw to see how it could be useful to me. For the last week, I’ve had it wake up once an hour and pick a small change to make to a new, experimental project. It’ll track what it’s working on, fix something, then push the change to GitHub for me to review.

White House press briefing on TV in the background while I’m working. They really have no coherent message for why we’re at war, or how to determine when the mission is over. 🇺🇸

The Washington Post reporting on how Claude is being used for the Iran war:

As planning for a potential strike in Iran was underway, Maven, powered by Claude, suggested hundreds of targets, issued precise location coordinates, and prioritized those targets according to importance, said two of the people. The pairing of Maven and Claude has created a tool that is speeding the pace of the campaign…

On social media, we like to pick sides and oversimplify. OpenAI vs. Anthropic! But war is tragic and complicated. I have mixed feelings about all of this.

Naming is hard. New Kickstarter for Build Awesome, the renamed Eleventy. Both names are a bit awkward:

With Font Awesome, we made icons easy. With Web Awesome, we unlocked framework-independent web components. With Build Awesome you can now quickly build and maintain your entire web site — the full (stack) enchilada.

Apple’s pricing this week is interesting to me. Doesn’t matter the size or purpose of a device, everything is the same price:

• iPhone 17e: $599
• iPad Air: $599
• MacBook Neo: $599

Jason Kottke:

Steve Jobs famously said that computers are a bicycle for the mind. What does that make LLMs? An e-bike for the mind? A car for the mind? A jet plane for the mind?

Good question. I think bicycle still works, though.

I had to back the new Brandon Sanderson crowdfunding campaign. Opted for just the new novel.

Brent Simmons blogged last week about why Objective-C. I still prefer Objective-C and plan to continue to use it. One change I’m thinking about making, though… Going all code for UI instead of XIBs or Storyboards, to make it easier to diff when working with AI.

Cosmic. Everything would be perfect about this morning except I just opened my AirPods case and… it was empty! Accidentally left them at home. ☕️

MacBook Neo! I love that Apple might be trying a totally new name.

Back in Austin, voted this morning. I had meant to early vote last week but too much was going on. James Talarico vs. Jasmine Crockett might end up being close! Very curious how it shakes out and if the party can come together united. 🇺🇸

Ben Thompson’s article about Anthropic and the Pentagon is worth a read, although not everyone is going to be satisfied with it. Anthropic is an interesting company because it feels like they don’t fully believe in their own product. Like Dario Amodei kind of wishes he was working on something else.

Good morning, Atlanta.