iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 29/09/2026

Why do we call them photographs and not “portrait slop”?

Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 29/09/2026

Just posted MarsEdit 5.4.6 with faster syntax coloring for long posts, lower CPU usage in the rich text editor, and a fix for posts getting stuck in “Publishing.” redsweater.com/blog/4298…

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 29/09/2026

It is kind of funny they named the product, an AI-enabled CMS, after the one punctuation mark that AI can’t resist. emdashcms.com/blog/emda…

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 27/09/2026

Just want to remind everybody that I predicted Apple would use “Apple Intelligence” as a clever spin on “AI”. I know predicting what multinational corporations will do isn’t the coolest thing but I still feel pretty good about this one. bitsplitting.org/2023/05/2…

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

Yep, but you can actually instruct them to be less confident.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

Listening to “The Decemberists” for the first time in a long while. They lost me at some point but this album, “Her Majesty”, still rocks the house down. www.youtube.com/watch

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

One of my many hot takes is that people have generally fled to either “AI can’t do anything” or “AI can do everything” and haven’t stopped to consider the middle ground. There is an art to getting AI to do what you want. It will rarely do it by default.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

Understand, but you can train it to be more resistant!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

I maintain most people who are stridently against AI have not even tried to appreciate what it can do. I think that being blanket against AI is similar to being blanket against home computers in the late 1970’s. Yes, there are implications, but the problems are inevitably outweighed by the benefits.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

Totally. But they are evidently VERY good. It makes sense, because LLMs are all about language.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 26/09/2026

As an indie developer who has never completely hired a second developer, working with an AI agent is great training. I get about the same pushback and negotiation that I’d expect from an employee.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

I am aware that as amazing as AI is, it can never substitute for a human translator. But AI gives a running start. I’m also including a menu item that only appears in non-English languages, so that native speakers can easily report problems.

Screenshot of a macOS interface menu showing a selected item "Enviar comentarios sobre la traducción", which is Spanish for "Send localization feedback".

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

For FastScripts 4.0 I’m leveraging AI not only to help me harden security, but also to localize to other languages.

Screenshot of a FastScripts preferences panel showing multiple security options in Spanish.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

I used Claude Opus to design this amazing (as far as I can tell) system for FastScripts, to control whether outside entities can run scripts on the user’s behalf. Security, yay! I would have had the idea before, but never all the ideas for execution. I think this is going to be good.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

Honestly I think AI naysayers are not even trying to embrace it, Maybe with good reason, but to discredit the whole technology is an own-goal. We are in a situation where the technology is coming, and we have to decide by our selves, as a country, and as a world how we’ll deal with it.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

The ability to easily localize apps to almost any language is one example of a benefit to developers and their users from AI. I’m working on it now, and I’m impressed by its careful consideration of locale differences. With Apple’s own built-in Xcode guidance, it seems pretty frickin’ good!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

God help me if I ever go around the internet looking for things to object to and mundane as @cautiousoptimistic.bsky.social does

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

AI is powerful enough that if there are significant externalized costs, for example using resources or polluting the environment, we need as a society to decide who gets to use it. Because it’s definitely something that should be used.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

I also loooooove that Prusa hosts fully interactive 3d models of their machines' parts.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

I’ve had a 3D printer for a few years, but my interest and productivity with it have only shot up recently. Count me among the many psyched Prusa customers who is excited to be able to print his own replacement parts for the printer itself.

3D-printed component that serves as part of the Prusa MK3 line of printers. Material is a dark blue filament against a wood table. Otherwise the contours are probably not interesting.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 25/09/2026

I’d like a “Screentime”-like app that just tells me how many times per day I select the Slack app icon when I meant to choose Photos.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 22/09/2026

Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, deserves some kind of Nobel Peace Prize for American unity by continuing to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 21/09/2026

“UGH! I can’t break into the sub-20s Rubik’s Cube solving average!” is not a lament I ever expected to express. But here we are.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

RE: Donald Trump's announcement of a "military rights deal" with Greenland and Denmark. The first rule of Trump is never believe Trump.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

I’m using AI like crazy to build apps that no other human or AI could create.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

30+ year Green Day fan happy I picked the good band.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

When an AI says “Honest answer:” it means “I fucked up.”

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

App developers can’t be replaced by AI. Apps are expressions of human priorities. Like movies, essays, and paintings. And smiles, and hugs, and kisses. The ability of an AI to effectively replace ONE app says nothing about its ability to replace ALL apps. Humanity rules.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

My downspout challenge prompted me to buy a telescoping pole, and after its maiden journey, I’m happy with it. It comes with a bunch of attachments, and now I’m excited to 3D print my own attachments. link.amazon/B0d7MNcST (affiliate link)

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 19/09/2026

When I’m 96, I hope I’m in good enough shape to retire.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 18/09/2026

I was so preoccupied with whether I could, I didn’t stop to think whether I should. The hose has a 3D-printed high pressure nozzle. I am now recommending everybody own both a 3D printer AND a telescoping pole.

Quadrant of four photos depicting the attachment of a hose to a telescoping pole in order to flush out a downspout from a 3rd floor window.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 18/09/2026

Every Terminal app, but especially Apple’s Terminal.app, needs a built-in feature to detect when a resumable agentic AI tool is running, suspend them on quit, and resume them on relaunch. Restarting is becoming a babysitting chore.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 18/09/2026

I wonder what Warren Buffett’s plans for retirement are like.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 17/09/2026

Starting with Xcode 27.2, Apple is moving to a new JSON-based project format. Developers have been complaining for at LEAST 25 YEARS about the Xcode project file’s difficulty to manage under source control. AI comes along and complains and Apple fixes it right away!

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 16/09/2026

I had wondered about how trans people would play, and I’m glad to know that my local co-ed softball league has a good policy about this.

Screenshot of a FAQ entry. Q: What is the format of your coed league? A: Our coed league is open to players of all genders. Teams play with 10 fielders and must have at least five women on the field. Batting orders alternate between women and men. Non-binary players are welcome; managers should work with them to determine how they are represented for purposes of the league's gender-balance and batting-order

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 16/09/2026

Remember when following tech news was a way to avoid confronting the most pressing issues in the world?

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 15/09/2026

One of my favorite tricks with LLMs is to just ask “what’s next?”

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 15/09/2026

Does your ADHD limit your ability to organize projects? Just ask AI to lay out what you need to do, step by step, to achieve something. For example.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 14/09/2026

Today I released Black Ink 2.4 for iOS, featuring a new inline calendar browser for puzzle downloads. redsweater.com/blog/4293…

Screenshot of Black Ink for iOS showing a puzzle list and a calendar interface for browsing available puzzle downloads.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

I remember, when I was younger, hearing people say “I still feel like I’m 20,” and thinking it was pretty unbelievable. But now I’m 51 and … I still feel like I’m 20. I know a few more things, but I am very tied to the personality, ethics, and ambitions of that 20-year-old.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

I dunno, maybe I’m crazy, but if you start a company like Automattic, with your own name in it, the board better have a pretty good reason for kicking you out. I’m excited to hear you’re back in the captain’s seat, Matt, both at Automattic and soon (?) on your boat.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

OK but fwiw anybody with a computer can download an open source model that will slowly approximate the results of the big tech companies.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

I imagine the feelings I have about AI with respect to knowledge work are akin to the feelings trades people had when power tools arrived. Yes, it will put you out of business IF you don’t adapt.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

With the advent of mass-market AI, virtually every person alive has the opportunity to multiply their impact on the world by several times. I’m trying my best, and I hope you are too.

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Daniel Jalkut @danielpunkass.punkitup.com · 13/09/2026

If you dismiss absolutely every other positive feature of AI, its ability to empower people suffering from ADHD and similar conditions probably redeems everything negative about it.

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