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toddmorey

6,899 karma · joined November 25, 2009

Building for the web for 20+ years. Currently with amazing folks at OnMachina.
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toddmorey··on Introducing System One Models and Jev
I mean, it's a structured output model that (apparently) can't hallucinate. I don't mind the name.
toddmorey··on Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking
From the demo video: "Welcome to the team, we're looking forward to working with you" is sooo creepy in a synthetic AI voice. In general, try not to have agents express sentiment that really should come from a human in your company.
toddmorey··on Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent
How long until "conversations are not shared with Meta's ad systems" quietly disappears from the site?

I almost think they would have done better to launch this as more disconnected sub-brand. I think Meta / Facebook are actual brand baggage for this sort of thing, even outside of tech circles.

toddmorey··on Three sites made 215,128 “best software” pages for AI. Perplexity cites them
I do think models currently don't have enough source skepticism.

If you look at agent traces when asked to compare two options to help inform a decision, many of the comparison pages cited in research are often hosted by one of the companies being compared; nearly all are AI-generated AEO plays. Not deeply considering the motive of published information is currently a glitch that can be exploited, but the window will close.

I'm sure model providers will set up some crappy pay for play verification system for "trusted" product information, comparisons, and reviews.

toddmorey··on Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down
Luckily he does not enjoy anywhere close to 50% support
toddmorey··on The Amazon tax
Yes, this is a horrible practice. Not just Amazon… most major e-commerce platforms set up fake pages for products they don’t offer to try to get you to the products they actually do.

Google needs to ban this practice because it makes their results garbage.

toddmorey··on Introducing Toast 1
Have always joked with colleagues about how hard it is to find content in Google Docs, the office suite built by a search company.
toddmorey··on Choosing an AI model: one prompt, 11 models, different results
Yeah the difference in token usage across difference models they found in the article was broader than I expected, but I was sort of floored by the variance in token usage for the same prompt (run multiple times) with the same model.
toddmorey··on Choosing an AI model: one prompt, 11 models, different results
As someone who's done web development for 20+ years, I find the model personalities pretty dang fascinating, especially how they develop (and evolve) design sensibilities.

I'm interested to know how the classic AI "purple preference" emerged (organically?) and if the beige wave came out of specific training efforts to combat it?

To your point on development work (the code itself), I was talking to some friends on the Google Chrome team about any research understanding the model's preferences around framework ergonomics and abilities to properly implement core web standards for given tasks. I think that would be super fascinating.

toddmorey··on Waymo in Dallas
You can’t do inter-city Waymo trips. These are different animals.
toddmorey··on Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?
Agreed, but I think people can imagine and companies are very motivated: powertools, phones, laptops, watches, backup UPS, cars, hospital equipment... there's high demand for durable, long-lasting batteries. I think the research is there, it's just complex chemistry. We'll get there. Impressive to see the progress in EV batteries and they've actually turned out to be more durable than first feared.
toddmorey··on Underwater oxygen loss threatens earth's stability, researchers warn
Have we ever as a species successfully changed our behavior on a scale needed to address something like climate change and underwater oxygen loss?

What would be the closest “we’ve got to change or perish” moment we’ve successfully navigated?

toddmorey··on Removing React.js from the codebase and adapting Htmx for UI interactivity (2023)
Nope, HTMX could power endless scroll features if you want them
toddmorey··on Be skeptical of OpenAI's rogue hacker agent story
One way to think about it is that more powerful models mean solid best practices are more important than ever, so humans moving too quickly / carelessly bites us more than ever.

If a typical SaaS platform moved and shifted this fast with this many downstream consequences, we’d tell them to slow the fuck down, stop launching new features, and focus on security for a second.

But in AI I guess the idea is that more power and intelligence will solve for everything else.

toddmorey··on Flock CEO Apologizes for Calling Activists 'Terrorists'
"We believe in a world where we can have safety and privacy."

  - Flock camera feeds were set up public-facing, giving anyone on the internet access to live high-resolution feeds
  - Flock's AI does more than just read license plates. It catalogs vehicle color, make, model, bumper stickers, dents, and roof racks.
  - Police officers nationwide have abused their access to the Flock network to inappropriately track romantic partners, neighbors, and personal acquaintances
  - local police departments share Flock-captured license plate data with federal immigration agencies like ICE and CBP
  - Flock cameras have been used to track lawful citizens attending political demonstrations
  - Flock also expanded into audio surveillance (!!) before public outrage made them back down a bit
toddmorey··on NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook
Yeah I think the podcasts were just a clever hack until AI is fast enough to support realtime. It’s practically there now, so a fake podcast is a funny relic and hard to sit through.
toddmorey··on NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook
I can’t believe how bad Claude’s voice mode is. So much latency and it often tells me “this is rather technical” and would be better talking it out over text.

OpenAI has much less latency, can adapt to speak about any topic (though will tell you it put a code sample to look at later), and it just feels like brainstorming with a colleague.

If you haven’t tried the live voice version of ChatGPT recently, you should. I love to brainstorm ideas while on walks and it’s fabulous for that.

Ask it to summarize the conversation into a doc that will be waiting for you when you are back at your desk.

toddmorey··on Codex Micro
I did too! That HAD to be by design.
toddmorey··on Collection of Digital Clock Designs
This is awesome! I made a Soroban (Japanese abacus) version, but I couldn't add it to the collection since I used css-based animations. Published here: https://soroban-clock.netlify.app
toddmorey··on SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status
I'm very pro tech. Because I'm pro tech, I honestly wish there were more ethical companies in the space. It can be hard to find US tech companies to cheer for. My main business-related challenge with Elon is his public predictions are so wildly ungrounded. Skepticism is absolutely warranted.

Two things:

  - You can cheer for his companies and technologies but against these financial maneuverings because they risk genuine harm & setback to the industry

  - I stopped asking for people to put politics aside in support of these companies when I realized Elon couldn't put politics aside to support these companies.
toddmorey··on Migrating a production AI agent to GPT-5.6: 2.2x faster, 27% cheaper
But it's not about whether it was AI or human authored. That misses the point. We're all fatigued on the writing style. The same cadence and patterns; the same phrases and terms like "load-bearing". Used everywhere, they create a super fatiguing monoculture in all the writing. It's like if every illustration on the internet suddenly contained Garfield the cat.
toddmorey··on Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k
I thought I read somewhere that according to filings for going public, subscription revenue is tiny… like 5%.

Edit: consumer Claude subs are the 5%. I’d bet most all of CC subs lump in under enterprise.

  - API & Enterprise: 75% to 85% of total revenue.
  - Business Subscriptions: Roughly 10% to 15%.
  - Individual Subscriptions: About 5%.
toddmorey··on Satteri: A Markdown pipeline forged in Rust for the JavaScript world
Processing markdown into html is a significant task for many blogs, sites, and apps. Satteri moves that processing into rust for speed gains.

Now used in Astro 7: https://astro.build/blog/astro-7/#markdown--mdx-in-rust

toddmorey··on Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?
“Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books.”
toddmorey··on Has America Crossed the Asshole Threshold?
Also: load-bearing!
toddmorey··on Astro 7.0
Thanks for your work on this!
toddmorey··on Please stop the AI confidence theater
I value both great devs and great marketers because I’ve seen dev teams build awesome tech that never found its audience.

It’s the culture of the org and that decides how the ammo is used. What you want is good devs AND good marketers building and promoting great product.

Anyone in any role who works at facebook holds culpability. Marketers aren’t building all those user hostile features.

toddmorey··on ZCode – Harness for GLM-5.2
Does anyone use an agnostic TUI or harness for development tasks that can fairly seamlessly switch between providers?

I'm wanting local context in the spirit of "here are 3 AI providers available, for coding tasks use this one... and for writing prose use this one... and for generating images use this one..." etc.

toddmorey··on Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5
I predict we all be using the hell out of fable until the next great model comes around and in two weeks we won’t be talking about the export controls anymore. We just don’t have the attention span.

Nobody should be putting loadbearing weight on Amazon or Microsoft with their ruthless monopoly ambitions, yet here we are

toddmorey··on Apple increases MacBook and iPad prices by 20%
I think the AI companies are so motivated (desperate) it just puts all the existing rules and contracts at risk. The Apple supply chain has always had aggressive contracts and commitments... for normal times.
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