I took a look at the top “tech” podcasts and holy SHIT all but, like… 2? of them are just straight up fascist propaganda by VC firms promoting their defense investments or lifestyle scams from right-wing bros? Obviously we don’t need any more podcasts, but it made me think I should bring mine back.
I know this is silly, but bringing some of my older pieces online, this one made me happy: Years ago, Prince invited me to his house in LA to preview his new album — and I couldn't go. So I asked for a Purple Raincheck. And I ended up with an even more amazing story.
The Purple Raincheck - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Okay, after *years* of over-hype about AI, does the DeepSeek moment and the deflation of the AI bubble mean we can finally be normal about AI and treat it like any other tech, evaluating it on its pros and cons, and its actual utility? I wrote about how we might actually do that in our day jobs:
Can we be normal about AI now that DeepSeek happened? | Fastly
Explore the evolving landscape of AI in the wake of DeepSeek
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This is a monumental day for the future of the social web, though it might not be obvious for a while. Mastodon matures its governance model with a great, solid non-profit
Mastodon Blog
The people should own the town square
It is more important than ever that the social web is not controlled by corporations. Today, Mastodon is taking another step towards its founding i...
 and a coalition of independents push to open up Bluesky's AT Protocol:
Free Our Feeds
Free Our Feeds
 These two moves together put the most credible players on solid ground for years to come — and set up the open platforms to enable lots of innovation just when it's needed most.
We’ve been watching the Watch Duty team do absolutely *unbelievable* technical work all week (they’re members of the Fast Forward open source program that my team at Fastly works on), handling a surge of millions of people trying to see where the LA fires are in real time. Amidst the hopelessness of the fires causing so much destruction, there’s hope in seeing people taking care of each other in this way. There are still people who do such good on the internet.
Gizmodo
Watch Duty App Creator Says He'll Never Pull an OpenAI
Gizmodo spoke with the creator of the app that provides vital alerts about evacuations.
Here's a quick piece I wrote up on how to understand DOGE as a very blatant attempt at procurement capture, a simple way of making government spending corrupt to benefit the tycoons. Please do pass it along & share any feedback!
Understanding DOGE as Procurement Capture - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
I think everyone who has an opinion, positive or negative, about LLMs, should read how @Simon Willison summed up what’s happened in the space this year. He’s the most credible, most independent, most honest, and most technically fluent person watching the space.
Simon Willison’s Weblog
Things we learned about LLMs in 2024
A lot has happened in the world of Large Language Models over the course of 2024. Here’s a review of things we figured out about the field in the...
It is such a stupid and obvious market failure that nobody has made a consumer AI LLM product that is 1. trained on consensually-acquired material 2. powered with renewable energy 3. genuinely open about its weights and models. Just achieving these things and being creator-friendly would be massive.
The NY Times refuses to cover the murder of Yeremi Colino, which took place in Manhattan the same day as the murder of the UHC CEO, because Colino was an immigrant child killed by a white supremacist who asked whether he could speak English. Just like NYPD refuses to carry out the same kind of manhunt with hourly updates on the killer. They only care about corporate tycoons, not teenagers being killed. This is how they cover for the hate crime.