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Bret Carmichael

@bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

33 followers 0 following 816 posts

Opinions about technology news, social media platforms, and policy. Interested in the future of tech and its power to shape society. 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.social/@bretcarmichael, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11h

I actually agree with Musk. Sounds crazy.

A screenshot of a tweet by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) with the text "This will sound super crazy, but I see a path to SpaceX being worth orders of magnitude more than the current Earth economy". The tweet includes a timestamp of "5:55 PM · Oct 8, 2026" and "8.8M Views", with engagement metrics showing "9.5K" comments, "8.9K" retweets, "115K" likes, and "6.9K" bookmarks.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

The FxTwitter connector is working better than I expected. Sliding right-to-left on any X post will show replies: thread or other. No account required. Tapestry for the win! apps.apple.com/us/app/iconfactory-t…

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

I can’t help but notice the difference in strategies. OpenAI and Anthropic keep pumping out new stuff while Google is adding new paywalls for old stuff.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Again, these are crimes. These are not “rogue” AI agents. AI companies are not the victims in their cries for regulation. The FBI is responsible for investigating and prosecuting cybercrimes. It’s not doing its job. If executives start getting convicted of felonies, testing protocols and safety […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I expect to see this in Google Workspace as well. My guess is: Gemini 3.1 Thinking and Pro will be replaced by Gemini 4 Argon. That will only be available in Workspace through Google’s “Extended” $25/mo tier, and Thinking and Pro will leave Workspace. Google will have raised the price of […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

📣 X / Twitter is back in Tapestry for iOS. This new and free connector requires no subscription or API key. It doesn’t rely on XCancel. Instead, it uses FxTwitter, which is hosted on Cloudflare’s edge network. ✔️ Faster than XCancel’s RSS feed. ✔️ Media loads consistently. ✔️Per feed options to […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

“One of the most heated discussions occurring on X at the moment is about the ethics of a GitHub project in which a person is running Saw-like “torture” and “pain” experiments on a series of locally hosted large language models…” […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

It’s a bold strategy for the trailing AI company to block paying users from accessing its best third-tier models when they can do better for free elsewhere.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

PAC leaders and sometimes-venture capitalists, Andreessen-Horowitz, are pumping money into GOP campaigns so they can dump crypto again.

Top GOP Political Donors:
Yass
Andreesen
Horowitz
Musk

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

No. But OpenAI is aimed at business users. Meta wants to be an enterprise company, but that’s quite the hill to climb. Where is Google on this? www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-inte…

OpenAI’s new agent is a shot at Meta — but can it compete with free?

OpenAI and Meta’s cutesy AI agents are about to fight to the death.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Apple ads are really improving, depending on how you define “improving.”

AI multi-tool that clearly can’t do anything.

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117350164162… This is great. Luckily, gas is only $4.40/gal, and diesel is only $6.50/gal, so the upward pressure the added consumption placed on fuel prices won’t matter. Vote for nihilism. Get nihilism.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117349771097… I doubt this is intentional, but it gives off Apple-Samsung vibes. Apple taught Samsung how to build the iPhone, then it built one of its own and competed with Apple. There’s an argument to be made that AI companies should take inspiration […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

Europe intends to reduce its dependencies on the U.S. and China. Given how utterly bad this is, something needs to change fast: Said ASML’s Frank Heemskerk, “We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe... Because Europe is not investing and because no chip factories are being built in Europe […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

RE: techhub.social/@Techmeme/1173203028… Great! 🇺🇦

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

The U.S.’s argument that allowing users to opt out of algorithms would “lead to ‘viewpoint-based censorship’” misunderstands how social media algorithms work. They’re designed to serve confirmation bias all day long to keep users on the platform longer, so they can serve ads. I think that’s the […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

This seems unlikely. Prices are high because compute and memory are high. Apple can’t get enough to fulfill demand that it already has. Exacerbating the problem for lower-margin devices seems like a tough sell. www.theverge.com/24289730/apple-mac…

Apple Mac Mini M4 review: a tiny wonder

This is now the best value of any Mac in Apple’s lineup.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

RE: iconfactory.world/@Iconfactory/1173… 😗 🎉 This is a big update to a great app that I use every day.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

The new frontier of agentic consumer AI is AI companies blocking each other’s agentic consumer AI’s to make them useless. www.engadget.com/2263659/amazon-bar…

Amazon bars Meta's Muse AI from shopping on its site - Engadget

Amazon claims Meta’s Muse is a safety risk and bars the AI agent from shopping on its website.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

RE: techhub.social/@Techmeme/1173085649… ✋ I have an idea. When a company’s AI hacks another company or entity, treat it like the crime that it is. AI companies will implement safeguards.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

I know people have some feels on Meta, but they’ve democratized the AI user experience so a lot more people can use it. Muse is also free for consumers that hate to pay for stuff. It’s going to catch on in a big way. ai.meta.com/muse/download

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

RE: mas.to/@carnage4life/11728618998789… The more this dialogue continues, the more I believe it’s a prisoner’s dilemma scenario. All the AI companies want to slow spending. But if one doesn’t, they take it all. ⛽️ It’s like Big Oil saying, “You need to stop us from pumping. The […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@404mediaco/1172772… On the plus side, it’s easy to identify lots of downsides.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

You could read this another way. AI spending is a collective action problem. Thay all know they’re overspending, but if one stops, it will be overtaken and drown. It’ll be better for everyone if a higher power makes them stop. apple.news/AaoAoUMieTd2mF8TKRV4gVA

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: "For too long the industry lied" about AI risks — CBS News

The head of the artificial intelligence company calls the exponential rate of AI developments a "warning sign," with risks for humanity, and says, "We need to slow down." He talks with "Sunday Morning" about possible steps forward.

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

RE: techhub.social/@Techmeme/1172239911… The knowledge worker jobs hit earliest and hit hardest by AI layoffs will be offshore. Most enterprises offshore their production support (L1/L2, help desk) work to India and countries with lower labor costs. AI is cheaper.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117202354282… Well, if this isn’t an argument for distillation, I don’t know what is, “Letting models train on copyrighted work will preserve ‘American prosperity,’ it says.”

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026

Mozilla takes a page from Apple’s book. Ads are distracting, except when they’re our own. “Unsurprisingly, sponsored shortcuts and other sponsored content shown by Firefox when you open a new tab won’t be blocked, either.” www.theverge.com/news/987247/mozill…

Mozilla launches ad blocking for Firefox on iOS

Mozilla is using Apple’s WebKit Content Blocker technology and the EasyList filter to block ads in Firefox.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026

The impact of AI on consumer costs is something that’s heavily underreported.

From Endgadget: Google raises price of streaming device by 50%z

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

Rest in peace, Optimus Prime.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

I wonder how Nitter, to which XCorp sent a cease and desist for scraping X, is different from Grokpedia, which XCorp created by scraping Wikipedia using tools it used to scrape the entire internet for Grok […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117163032676… Apple follows BMW in the enshittification of its OS, becoming more like its sub-premium competitors. The closer it inches toward ad businesses that also make hardware, the more likely users will be to switch. In this case, might want to give […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

@gedeonm Hi Ged, Sorry if this is out of line. It's just an idea; thinking there may be a market for IconFactory. With XCancel dead, I plan to subscribe to Narro to get my X feeds into Tapestry. If I'm willing to pay a sub for a service, others — including Kickstarter backers — may be willing to […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@bretcarmichael/117… And just like that, XCancel is gone: “On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel. The service XCancel is stopped until further notice. We are seeking legal […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/08/2026

I updated my Tapestry connector. Nitter disabled RSS. Version 1.2 adds support for an Nutter instance, including XCancel, which supports RSS. github.com/bretcarmichael/tapestry-…

tapestry-connectors/nitter.tapestry at main · bretcarmichael/tapestry-connectors

Tapestry connectors for IconFactory's Tapestry for iOS. - bretcarmichael/tapestry-connectors

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117139479002… Thanks to AI, all of last year’s computer consumer electronics will be more expensive on Black Friday than they were two months ago.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

This is going to be great for Chinese models that won’t participate in watermarking content. No one will want to have their ideas and writing marked as AI. I regularly use AI to proofread my own work because I read through my typos. The idea that everything I write would therefore be credited to […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Reposted by Bret Carmichael

sam henri gold @samhenrigold.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

“yeah i vibe coded it in an afternoon, pretty good right?”

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@404mediaco/1171113… To avoid legal problems associated with training models on content they scraped without buying (which is how the first LLMs were trained), AI companies are now purchasing books and destroying them when they’re done. I don’t think it’d […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117082462716… There is no one I trust less with my data than Elon Musk.

mastodon.social

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117071924784… LOL

Meta pledges to climate improvements.

Meta drops out of actual pledge to deliver climate improvements.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/117055724013… 🥱 Like clockwork.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

Your AI isn’t cool until it escapes the lab on its own. 😎 techcrunch.com/2026/08/07/chinese-a…

Chinese AI model Kimi escaped its cybersecurity testing environment, researchers say

In the Kimi test, the sandbox designed to contain the experiment was not properly configured.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@daringfireball/117… From the company that tried to charge a subscription for heated seats, BMW is a luxury brand that’s trading its luxury reputation for easy money. In other news, Apple’s doing the same with ads in Apple Maps.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

A tech company admitting its AI committed a crime by hacking another company has reached the point of being a humble brag.

Meta says its AI hacked another company.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026

RE: mas.to/@carnage4life/11703765639995… Sure, landing 50% of the population that leans left and left Twitter is less than 100% of the population, but it’s also a niche that Bluesky is serving well. It might want to exchange its audience for a larger size, but it’ll be an […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

It’s no wonder that consumer sentiment has turned on AI. It’s making consumer electronics that people use every day a lot more expensive and harder to find, while the value of using AI accrues to businesses at the expense of jobs […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@PCMag/117020534184… People and businesses love to attract eyes through zero marginal content, but users don’t want to see it. AI content has jumped the shark.

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

RE: flipboard.social/@newsguyusa/117009… How can the VOA or any news organization be credible if the government does not agree with its reporting? It’s why the CPB is gone. As Brendan Carr implies and threatens, outlets must serve the “public interest.”

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Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/07/2026

xAI is suing Minnesota for trying to ban nudify apps that create nonconsensual nudes. Apple already disallows such apps, but xAI has always enjoyed special privileges. It had the distinction of distributing the App Store’s only CSAM generator. Minnesota is attacking xAI’s feature differentiation […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Bret Carmichael @bretcarmichael.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@verge/116999336819… I wonder if this means that the government can transport U.S. citizens to ports of entry and void their rights In Constitution-free zones?

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