Author | Lightnews

Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

I don’t know what “Gay Halloween” is but I love it because gay people rule. If you’re not gay, you should support gay people. If you are gay, you should support gay people, too.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

I’ve gotten to the point of parenthood where your kid comes home at midnight with two friends and wants to hang out in the basement until their parents come over to get them. Time is an illusion, parenthood doubly so. (Apologies to Douglas Adams)

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

A distinct sign of my maturity is that i don’t post everything I think or feel anymore. I know it might seem like I do, to some, but I don’t.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

Rode my other bike to the lake today.

1962 blue and white Lambretta scooter in a parking lot, lake and treeline, with blue sky and clouds in the rear.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

Rode my other bike to the lake today.

Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 3d

My friend Joe Fabisevich has been locked-in on AI since the outset. Everybody knows more than somebody about AI, and Joe probably knows more than you. mastodon.social/@mergesor…

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 8d

So annoying.

Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 8d

Since I got scale religion I weigh almost everything!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 8d

There should be some legal consequence for a President who just up and destroys 1/3 of the White House without consulting anybody. Then again, there should be some legal consequence for a President who does all the things Trump has gotten away with.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 10d

Because I was born in the LA area, I was a die-hard LA Dodgers fan as a kid, even though I grew up in the SF Bay Area. Eventually I starting rooting for the Giants, and after moving to Boston 20 years ago, the Red Sox. But now I want the Blue Jays to win. Yes, against my childhood team. Go Toronto!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 10d

I’m actually a fan of SwiftUI, but I’m not a fan, as primarily a macOS developer, of the constraints it would place on me. I stay subscribed to SwiftUI help channels primarily to remind myself of the anguish I’m missing by holding out. AppKit + Swift + Mac = Gold.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 12d

After working with AI assistance for a number of coding tasks over several months, I think I understand where it lands in terms of human metaphors.

An AI assistant is an extremely knowledgeable, confident, adaptable, and tireless worker with NO GODDAMN COMMON SENSE.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 12d

Sometimes it really is worth going to the doctor. I stubbed my toe pretty bad, and after a week it was still hurting. Everybody knows they “can’t do anything” for broken toes. But my doctor noticed it was red and swollen and looked more like an infection. An x-ray proved there was no fracture.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 15d

PLEASE tell me some Manhattan deli has named one of their sandwiches “New York’s Hottest Club” …

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 18d

First cold water swim of the season. 59F. It’s time!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 21d

Trump deserves praise for brokering this very-welcome Israel/Gaza peace deal. Let’s hope it lasts. But nothing will ever outshine his cruel fascism. He’s particularly vindictive against his own compatriots. That’s his legacy.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 21d

The “me in my antifa uniform” meme is delicious. For the slow people in the class: nearly every American soldier throughout history was antifa.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 21d

Maybe Donald Trump should be President of Israel. Starting immediately.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 21d

LLMs are particularly good for asking “did I miss anything?” Whether that’s a piece of writing meant to convey something, a piece of code meant to perform something, or anything else where a “second opinion” might be ... https://danielpunkass.micro.blog/2025/10/13/llms-are-particularly-good-for.html

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 24d

Dismissal of AI technology today is akin to somebody in 1982 complaining that a Commodore-64 couldn’t scan their photos. You need imagination to understand how different the future will be.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 24d

AI is a technological inflection point. It’s scary, but also exhilarating and fun to live through. Most of the world is as ignorant about AI as people were about personal computing in 1982. It’s just breaking in to the mainstream, yet totally mysterious. IMHO, it’s a good time to learn about AI.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 27d

IMHO the #1 fix 99% of all web apps need to make is intercepting Cmd/Ctrl-Z so it doesn’t reopen the last tab you closed.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 27d

I’m seeing more of a scam directed at customer support addresses, where the scammer pretends to be a customer who is having trouble with the app, and asks you to look at a screenshot of the problem, which is a link to a page that coaxes you into running a nefarious program on your computer.

Screenshot of web interface reading: “Verification steps: Open Spotlight with Command and Space, type ‘Terminal’ and press Return. In the Terminal window, press Command and V to paste, then press Return again to complete.”

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 29d

Afterwards, the photographer gave me a side offer to purchase rights to all the other photos in the shoot, for some ridiculously low amount, so I did. I’ve never used them, but they’re good photos.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 29d

Eleven years ago, Macworld sent a freelance photographer to my house in Arlington, MA. It’s one of the best photos of me.

Picture of a full page of a traditional print magazine, where the top portion is a picture of a caucasian man standing, smiling, with his arms crossed, looking straight at the camera. He is surrounded by a staged workplace desk in his home office, with a stack of books and a Macworld award statue. The bottom portion of the image is interview text.

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