Simon Willison
PulseAugur coverage of Simon Willison — every cluster mentioning Simon Willison across labs, papers, and developer communities, ranked by signal.
- developed Datasette Agent 95%
- developed by sqlite-utils 95%
- developed datasette-agent-micropython 95%
- founded by Datasette 90%
- developed by GPT -6 Astra 90%
- developed Bluesky 90%
- authored by Python 90%
- founded Datasette 90%
- developed sqlite-utils 90%
- developed Datasette 90%
- developed Bluesky Jetstream 90%
- developed by Datasette 90%
28 day(s) with sentiment data
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AI model generates interactive 3D mech diorama of NYC
Simon Willison created an interactive 3D diorama of New York City called "Yonkers Rises," featuring a giant mech emerging from Yonkers and traversing the city's boroughs. He utilized Claude Fable 5.2's capabilities for …
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AI helps locate mysterious beep using multiple devices
Simon Willison utilized Claude Code to develop "Beep Locator," a software system designed to pinpoint the source of an intermittent beeping sound in his home. The system connects multiple devices, such as iPads and MacB…
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Simon Willison's humorous take on finding a mysterious beep
Simon Willison shared a humorous anecdote about a mysterious intermittent beep emanating from a room full of unopened boxes. He proposed two distinct approaches to locate the source: a methodical, physical search or a m…
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Eliza Gauger critiques LLM capabilities, linking "good" output to user snobbery
Eliza Gauger argues that the perceived "goodness" of LLMs is often a misinterpretation of their capabilities, suggesting that many users simply lack a discerning taste for quality. She contends that LLMs are not inheren…
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GPT-6 Astra's weight-editing demo scrutinized for scaffolding reliance
A recent demonstration of GPT-6 Astra, a model capable of editing neural network weights, has raised questions about the underlying scaffolding required for its success. While the model can reportedly modify weights, a …
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Simon Willison hides AI-generated GitHub PR descriptions
Simon Willison has begun using HTML's details and summary tags to hide AI-generated GitHub pull request descriptions. This approach aims to reduce the verbosity and improve the readability of PRs by making the AI-genera…
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Simon Willison uses HTML tags to manage AI-generated PR descriptions
Simon Willison has adopted a strategy to manage the verbose PR descriptions generated by AI coding assistants like Claude Code and Codex. He uses HTML's `<details>` and `<summary>` tags within GitHub Markdown to collaps…
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Simon Willison compares C vs. Rust for SQLite number parsing extension
Simon Willison explored the creation of a SQLite extension to parse numbers from strings, comparing implementations in C and Rust. Initially, the Rust version, using Rusqlite and sqlite-loadable-rs, was significantly la…
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TV Show "Elsbeth" Features NYC Historic Building
Simon Willison observed that the police precinct building featured in the TV show "Elsbeth" is actually the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York. This historic building also houses the John…
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Datasette serves unnecessary HTTP prefetch headers, impacting Firefox
Simon Willison has identified an issue where Datasette serves HTTP link headers for 'rel=next' on HTML pages, causing browsers like Firefox to prefetch subsequent pages unnecessarily. This behavior, which has been a lon…
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Simon Willison explores "horizontal wealth" inspired by Terry Pratchett
Simon Willison reflects on the concept of "horizontal wealth," inspired by Terry Pratchett's writings. He uses the idea to explain his personal decision to expand his home office into a library for research, contrasting…
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Vibe Game Development: October 2026 Inflection Point Explored
Simon Willison's article discusses the concept of "vibe game development," a term he coined to describe the process of building games based on a specific aesthetic or feeling rather than a predefined gameplay loop. He a…
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Claude Opus 4.7 triples screenshot token costs for large images
Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7 model significantly increases the token cost for processing large screenshots compared to its predecessor, Opus 4.6. A 3.7 MB PNG image that cost 1,578 tokens on Opus 4.6 now costs 4,744 toke…
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AI models show 'Weight Space Programming' capability, sparking debate
Recent developments in AI research highlight the potential for large language models to directly manipulate their own weights, a capability termed "Weight Space Programming." Independent replications by groups like Hugg…
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AI agents need call-level authorization, not tool-level
A new approach to AI agent security proposes authorizing individual tool calls rather than entire tools. This method, detailed by Akarshan, emphasizes that the risk lies in the arguments of a tool's function, not the to…
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Laptop LLM identifies training games from raw weights
A 27B parameter model running on a laptop successfully identified the training game for 3 out of 4 Atari-style games using only raw weights, a process that took nearly three hours. The model failed to identify "Freeway,…
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Simon Willison asks how to stop NYT app from hijacking phone status bar
Simon Willison is seeking advice on how to prevent the New York Times app from taking over his phone's top status bar. He posted his query on Bluesky, a social media platform, hoping to find a solution from the community.
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US Census Bureau rebrands AI to Super Intelligence in business survey
The U.S. Census Bureau has updated its business survey to inquire about the adoption of "Super Intelligence" (SI), a term that now encompasses artificial intelligence (AI). This change, implemented since October, aims t…
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LLMs like GPT-6 Astra and Qwen 3.8 27B can now interpret and modify model weights
A new paper, "Sparks of Weight-Space Programming," demonstrates that advanced AI models like GPT-6 Astra can analyze and modify the raw weights of other machine learning models. This capability, termed Weight-Space Prog…
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Simon Willison shares October newsletter on AI, security, and Python
Simon Willison released his October sponsors-only newsletter, covering topics such as the inflection point for vibe game development, the growing vulnerability apocalypse, and LLM releases. The newsletter also details A…