Simon @spoltier@qoto.org

Do you approve of the state of the software industry?

Question for sociologists:

Is there a term for the Overton window that is not linked to political discourse, but rather covers individual personal behaviour?

As in, something that used to be considered an expression of simple decency and respect becoming unusually deferential (ex: lifting or tipping one's hat), or something once commonplace becoming extremely rude (ex: urinating in the street)?

Or would the term "Overton window" apply to that as well?

(Boosts for reach appreciated.)

There may only be two people who can stop OpenAI's for-profit pivot https://www.understandingai.org/p/there-may-only-be-two-people-who (very clear writing about OpenAI as for-profit vs non-profit) #AI #OpenAI

No one would EVER tell me in my field, that a scientist in leadership was not "truly part of my field" and "did not represent me." That is what many many people are telling me in my thread about tech people and users though. It's just very convenient that not a single part of engineering leadership represents engineers???

@codinghorror a short conversation vs a brief one

False Equivalence, 2011 and 2025 https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/false-equivalence

Kerfuffle between the CNCF, one of its projects, and the company that contributed it? Sounds like a topic tailor-made for Oxide and Friends! @bcantrill and I were joined by @rstephensme and @adamhjk to discuss how we got here and possible outcomes. https://youtu.be/dYIgswVvIt0

Qwen 3 offers a case study in how to effectively release a model https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/29/qwen-3/

[POLL, 13 OF 15]

Can you speak/read Polish?

(Czy mówisz po polsku?)

[POLL, 14 OF 15]

Can you speak/read Arabic?

(هل تتكلم اللغة العربية؟)

[POLL, 15 of 15]

Can you speak/read Filipino?

(Nagsasalita ka ba ng Filipino?)

This may be the stupidest thing I've ever made.

Lunch in LA with LeVar Burton, such a delight!

It's been a couple of years since GPT-4 powered Bing, but with the various Deep Research products and now o3/o4-mini I'm ready to say that AI assisted search-based research actually works now https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/21/ai-assisted-search/

"Taking care of your own problem-solving mind no matter what the AI can and can't do: a user manual" ?!!!???

We got our AMD Turin sled booting! And --in classic @oxidecomputer fashion -- we're going to regale with tales of the adventure: join @ahl and me on Monday at 5p Pacific when we will have the engineering team on hand to talk about bringing up Cosmo!

https://discord.gg/QrcKGTTPrF?event=1362938379364466941

If you want the backstory, check out our earlier tales from the bringup lab:

https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/tales-from-the-bringup-lab-2021-12-06
https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/more-tales-from-the-bringup-lab

And learn ,more about Turin:

https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/unshrouding-turin-or-benvenuto-a-torino

@ren my theory is that billionaires mostly have free associative and reactive thoughts about what they feel and then there is a whole apparatus organized around them to translate their amorphously bad feelings into plans that make essentially no sense, but do make sense if the goal is to make the billionaire feel good