Bubbles Weekly

With the AI bubble finally deflating, what can we learn from the gender gap in genAI enthusiasm? Looking at /r/SlopcoreCirclejerk's culture of contempt,…

I took myself off one form of social media, only to replace it in a different form

An excellent article by Arnand Giriharasas, Rich Brain, looks at the Epstein files and considers what they tell us about the ultra-rich. His observation is…

Debunking the idea of subdermal implants containing trackers that phone home and maintain a constant log of your location, as seen in popular media. Exposing…

Brand loyalty is a poison, you should find the best value for your money, understanding companies are not on your side, but...

original post by living kindfully i'm going to reply from the perspective of an american who's absorbed enough endless bleakness in both the news and in the…

It seems that, no matter where I turn, I can’t escape the talk about how we use our phones. It’s understandable they are an inescapable part of our lives, and…

Most blogs are missing something simple: a photo or two. Not for every post, just a shot on your about page or now page. Easy to add, and it makes your blog…

I was at a wedding party, a boy around 8 years old was sitting next to me. The parents have left him alone with a tablet. I don't know that many people at the…

Today at the supermarket, I was smiling at a baby. The baby saw my smile and she smiled back. I did a few more times with older kids and they all smiled back.…

I spent three hours last weekend trying to figure out if a pair of earbuds was worth buying. Not three hours of enjoyable research. Three hours of wading…

Samantha Cole, 404 Media: On the morning of December 4, five ninth grade girls, all 14 or 15 years old, showed up for class at Radnor High School. By 8 a.m. —…

In 2019 I wrote the kinder gentler version of this blog post. You want the happy version? Read that. I still believe in the vast majority of it. But in 2026 —…

I'm just a regular ol' end user. I'm not some cyber security guru who actually understands how any of this shit works, but I use a password manager and 2FA…

I'm a South African, which means that I'm used to a very friendly sort of atmosphere in general. You go to a shop, say hello and greet someone with a smile,…

Back in September 2023 I noted that the biggest hurdle for AI completely replacing physicians is the physicality of the job. Sure, LLMs are good at giving…

I saw today that Plex is increasing the cost of its lifetime pass by a truly eye-watering jump of US$500, taking the price from US$249.99 to US$749.99. I’m a…

This post is not about electric vehicle hesitations like range anxiety and more complicated trip planning. No, this post is just me complaining about the…

It’s Google I/O week and this year’s theme is performative slop. Budding Googlers battle it out on stage vying for executive eyeballs. The prize? Exemption…

A sort of meta-blogpost and rambling about the reason I blog sometimes and why I feel in a bit of a slump lately, just write guys.

In Yesterday’s IO Keynote Google declared war on the remnants of the Web. (See longer description on their website.) TL;DR: They are pushing Search more into…

So let's say you've had enough of all the ads, the tracking, the promoted posts, the I'm Never Seeing Anything my Friends Post, and you want... a different…

I don't need to tell you that generative AI has been shoehorned into just about every tech product and user interface lately1. Microsoft has been guilty of…

Puppy wrote a post, the appeal of lowercase text. There are several comments on Bubbles disagreeing, saying that lowercase posts are hard to read. I won’t…

In 2005, a Dutch startup called Booking.com offered hotels a deal: list your rooms on our platform for a 12% commission, and we will send you customers you…

A few months back, Ars Technica published Password managers' promise that they can't see your vaults isn't always true. I haven't used an online password…

This is how I start new blog posts: $ ./new.sh permalink-for-new-post This sends a command to Hugo, the static site generator I use, to create a new file with…

I've tried to block and delay unwanted websites, such as reddit, in many ways. Three things I've learned: It's easy to temporarily bypass these blocks There…

Among computer programmers, and especially among those who work on security-sensitive systems, there is a well-known maxim: Don't roll your own crypto. Of…

James asked: "How have you changed since you started your website?" Ever since I built my personal realmlets on Nekoweb and Bear Blog, I became more…

Before committing to yet another subscription model, I always want to check out the offering, or have access to a demo. I'm currently looking at email…

This site is about learning in public. As it turns a decade old, I scrounge around for 10 things I’ve learned while writing it. Also: my gratitude.

I’ve been putting off writing about this because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it and it took some time to work through. Long story short, someone is selling…

As Jan Lukas wrote, and as Patrick wrote, and as Kev Quirk wrote, it really does look like BitWarden, the go-to password manager since LastPass screwed up, is…

At Google I/O this week, the company announced the biggest change to Search in 25 years. The ten blue links? Gone. Instead, you get “generative UI” – custom…

Right now, it's too easy to let AI write the code while you skip the learning. The bug gets fixed. Your mental model doesn't move. We are silently trading…

Nobody cares about your day, that doesn't mean it's not worth writing about.

I haven’t done one of these in a while! Here are some books I’ve read so far this year that I enjoyed. I don’t think I have especially wild or interesting…