Simon @spoltier@qoto.org

So Amazon buying iRobot is a competition problem, according to Lina Khan. A Chinese company "Shenzhen PICEA" acquiring it, however, is apparently no issue at all.

This reflects a deeply misguided approach to antitrust enforcement, under Lina Khan.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-15/robot-vacuum-roomba-maker-files-for-bankruptcy-after-35-years

So ... we're doing this thing, and we want to do it with you:

#ThePerspectiveStudio - A Collaborative Practice for a Fragmented World

with Marcus Neustetter

You can come to the studio — or we can bring the studio to you!

Just published on Andrea Hiott's #LoveAndPhilosophy Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/lovephilosophy/p/the-perspective-studio

I had the great honor to appear on the Quiet Little Horrors podcast to chat about the 1976 film (and the book that it’s based on) The Tenant.

https://quietlittlehorrors.com/episode-06-14-the-tenant/

OpenAI aren't talking about it yet, but it turns out they've adopted Anthropic's brilliant "skills" mechanism in a big way

Skills are now live in both ChatGPT and their Codex CLI tool, I wrote up some detailed notes on how they work so far here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/12/openai-skills/

Can Oxide Run in an Air-Gapped Environment? FAQ Friday #30

i think it kinda gets missed because of the larger backdrop of PASTAGANG and stuff but:

there's now a whole wave of live coders who perform without paste and without undo, whether performing alone or as a group, and i think that's pretty hardcore and that seems pretty LIVE to me

While we're talking about weird Python edge cases, what do you think this does?

```
class Foo:
def __getitem__(self, i):
return i

def __len__(self):
return 5

print(list(Foo()))
```

in the parent circles, there’s horror stories of kitchen remodels getting delayed due to ICE raids, so i anticipate NIMBYs to come out as anti-ICE soon

CBP is proposing that travelers to the US from such countries as France, Germany, South Korea and the UK submit extensive personal info, including social media histories, email addresses used in the past 10 years and parents’ birthplaces. https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-22461.pdf

Put together some notes on Mistral Vibe, Mistral's new CLI coding agent (think Claude Code / OpenAI Codex) which is Apache 2 licensed, written in Python+Pydantic+Textual and has a neat set of system and tool definition prompts that are fun to read https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/9/mistral-vibe/

R-Ladies Zurich is growing an inclusive R community in the middle of a shifting tech and startup landscape.

In this new interview, Luisa Barbanti, organizer of R-Ladies Zurich, shares how they’re adapting to remote work, nurturing new leaders, and keeping events relevant for both newcomers and experienced R users.

Read the story: https://r-consortium.org/posts/growing-an-r-community-in-a-shifting-tech-landscape-the-story-of-rladies-zurich/

#rstats #zurich #opensource #switzerland #shiny

So, how is Embedded doing as a podcast?

We hit the 10th bit this year, talked about the birds that live in giraffe armpits, fancy math, lithium recycling, open source, costumery, finding friends, learning, and teaching.

But how did we do? Really?

A listener put together an Embedded.fm podcast survey.
https://forms.gle/xPp8YkX8MXvgUENM7

Survey or no, please consider donating to Elevate Tutoring! We're matching!
https://donorbox.org/embedded-fm-supports-elevate-tutoring-866250

New newsletter at Fight for the Human!

The chaotic but warm mini Design-a-Study workshop is now available for viewing, PLUS you can access all of my slides with WAY more than we got through 😂.

I cut this out of the video shared, but we stayed for more than half an hour afterward talking shop about research which is pretty much my ideal way to spend a morning.

https://www.fightforthehuman.com/access-the-design-a-study-workshop-become-an-advance-reader-for-my-book/