The future is gradually getting a little better.
Emergence is all you need
I recently spent a couple of weeks building-out a LLM-driven product concept (which I’ll be writing more about soon over on Mozilla’s blog). The experience triggered a lot of thoughts and feelings. Among them is the realization that the way we build software products is about to change irrevocably. …
Running Vicuna locally: the complete idiot's guide to basically running ChatGPT on your own laptop for free
The new Vicuna-13B large language model is a Very Big Deal. A big enough deal to drive one of the biggest players in AI into a state of panic. Why? Because it produces results of near-ChatGPT quality with a model that’s a fraction of the size, is freely available, and runs comfortably on …
Picked up a Stadler Made outdoor wood-fired pizza oven. Made out of naturally-weathering corten steel, it arrives flat-packed and slots together fairly easily. I’ve been able to get it up to a scorching 950F, which means proper Neapolitan pizza in 90 seconds. Ingenious design, great results, …
AI is an invasive species
Let’s talk about carp. I ran across this video from Tom Scott about invasive Asian carp. What began decades ago as a well-meaning experiment to control algae in US reservoirs and treatment ponds has turned into an ecological disaster. Algae-chomping carp escaped into the wild and did what they …
Storium is coming to Kickstarter in early 2014
From protagonistlabs: “We’re happy to share some great news: in the next few months we will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for Storium, the online storytelling game.” That’s right, we’ve decided to crowdfund the next phase of Storium’s development. Crowdfunding is a perfect fit for …
We're working with J.C. Hutchins
If you haven’t read the “7th Son” series of sci-fi thrillers, you really should. They’re about a government human cloning project gone disastrously awry. It’s an epic story chock-full of bizarre technologies, memorable characters, and endless plot twists. I adore these books and ever since I read …
Will Hindmarch is our first advisor for Protagonist Labs
Today we announced that Will Hindmarch is our first advisor for Protagonist Labs. I’m over the moon about this news. I mean, I know that’s not physically possible and how would I even breathe in outer space let alone get up there in the first place but shut up I’m excited here okay? Will is a …
Steve Jobs, Google Maps, and the digital afterlife
Because Google Maps (like other mapping services) utilizes imaging data from multiple sources gathered at different points in time, the same geographic spot can sometimes look very different as you move between zoom levels and views. Weather and seasons can change unexpectedly. Cars can disappear …
Remembering how I got here
The first time I saw a computer – an Apple ][+ in my elementary school’s library. The first time I made the turtle move in Logo. The day the guidance counselor nervously asked my mother, “Do you know how many floppy disks your son has?” The first time they kicked me out of the local library for …
Unlit Social Graphs and the Post-Friend Economy
Lawrence Coburn of The Next Web wrote yesterday about “The Unlit Social Graph”. It’s a well-framed article and worth a read. Coburn’s premise is that Facebook, despite its pervasiveness and dominance, does not represent the only type of social graph in our lives. There are many other networks out …
We can save del.icio.us, but probably not in the way you think
I left Yahoo over two years ago, but prior to that I spent three years running product for del.icio.us. Since then I’ve remained a loyal user and supporter. To this day I keep in touch with former del.icio.us colleagues and consider many to be friends. And though I’ve felt that del.icio.us has been …
Google Instant is an example of how Yahoo could have won in search
Today Google launched Google Instant, and make no mistake: this is big. It’s far more than just a new fancy interface. It’s a fundamental change to a user interaction model that’s been largely unchallenged for years. It also represents a significant financial and technical commitment on Google’s …
Initiating Stage 2
So the news is out: we’ve raised our first round of funding for BlockChalk. It turns out that today is an especially appropriate day for the news to break. I’m currently in Washington D.C. for O’Reilly’s Gov 2.0 Expo, the leading conference on open government and citizen engagement. These …
My talk from Where 2.0
O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference has just wrapped up. I’ve been to my share of conferences lately but Brady Forrest and company really outdid themselves with this one. The entire experience was solid at every level of detail, from the big (interesting and relevant keynotes and sessions) to the …
SXSW: it's not a war, it's a scouting mission
As everyone knows, the focus at South By Southwest this year (at least from a tech perspective) is on location-based services (I’m there representing BlockChalk). Oh, and apparently we’re all at war! Foursquare and Gowalla are at each other’s throats, and the other startups are fighting over the …
Don't think you care about privacy? You will... eventually
In the tech industry it has almost become embarrassing to voice concerns about erosion of personal privacy. After all, it’s no longer a social norm, right? In this brave new world that Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare hath wrought, privacy is often seen as an outdated concern. People who speak out …
Living in the bubble (or, why the future of location is even bigger than you think)
Last Friday I attended TechCrunch’s excellent Real Time CrunchUp in San Francisco. Real time web services are all the rage these days of course, and this conference brought together entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, and others to discuss the field and debate where it’s going. Much of the focus …