iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

GPT-5.5 isn't the best coding companion by a long way, but I do love the banter. "That’s macOS Bash being ancient." Yes, shiny new machine, talk down your elders.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

OMG, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is totally real, just with kebabs. Kebab firm fined £500k for selling lamb that was mostly skin and fat - and sometimes goat. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Kebab firm fined £500k for selling lamb that was mostly skin and fat

Kismet Kebabs are found to have engaged in "considerable dishonesty", Swansea Crown Court finds.

000

Reposted by Phillip de Wet

Sarah Wild @sarahemilywild.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

CALL FOR SOURCES: Have you been through a multi-stage interview recently? Have you hired someone after a multi-stage interview? I'd love to speak to you for a story I'm working on for Nature Careers. Please share and DM if you'd like to chat.

042

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I suspect the phrase "globalise the intifada" will be hotly debated in the United Kingdom next week. And the heat may be worth it. South Africa kept a lid on "kill the Boer" by going legal rather than political. That avoided trouble, but also resolution. sigstat.substack.com/p/south-afri...

sigstat.substack.com

South Africa went legal on its version of "globalise the intifada". Political debate is better. Maybe.

The chant Julius Malema adopted had South Africa look deeply at its rules rather than its collective navel.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Random AP at what is effectively public wifi at the AWS Summit London. I'm trying to pretend I'm not impressed.

A speed test result page showing 105Mbps down and 142Mbps up.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I feel like @nytimes.com and LinkedIn need to have a games coordination council. A numeric CrossClimb is nice, a graphic Connections is interesting. Both on the same day is just discombobulating.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Amazing to see how fast the markets swing when Donald Trump says "good and productive conversations" with Iran – without a breath of counterparty confirmation. In theory the there is pre-verification risk (of the US just plain lying) built into the *pricing*, but it sure doesn't show as *lag*.

110

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

When users revolt against your pricing strategy: "... more than 300 regular travellers trade tickets for trains between Folkestone and London, often ones purchased well in advance—to secure the very cheapest fares—but which are no longer needed." folkestonedispatch.substack.com/p/commuters-...

folkestonedispatch.substack.com

🚄 Commuters bemoan ‘eye-wateringly expensive’ fares for packed Folkestone trains

Plus: Car park's ANPR cameras to be scrapped after unsuccessful trial, and lorry driver charged with dangerous driving after crash

262

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

It takes guts to lead you (news-site) newsletter with a hot cross bun taste test. And editorial leadership more open-minded than the average. But if you follow the data, that is what some audiences want. They won't say it when asked, but their clicks speak for them, eloquently.

220

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

If you are watching for signs of AI recursive self-improvement, take note of OpenAI's latest claim on #FirstProof. It's been messy, and the proofs are still not validated, but it points to genuine novel discovery, potentially fully automated. www.thestack.technology/openai-tease...

thestack.technology

OpenAI teases new model with "chaotic" First Proof test

After "chaotic sprint" attempts with rule-breaking human prompting, OpenAI believes it can now beat First Proof type challenges with a simple prompting strategy.

010

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

We always knew AI would take over. We never knew it would be lobster themed. #OpenClaw

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

First government-level partnership deal in Africa for @anthropic.com it is is with... Rwanda. South Africa and Nigeria have a lot to learn from Rwanda's approach. It should be at a reputation disadvantage, but somehow it keeps getting the Western outreach. www.anthropic.com/news/anthrop...

anthropic.com

Anthropic and the Government of Rwanda sign MOU for AI in health and education

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

130

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

The OpenClaw news today reminds me of this ancient* post by @commaok.xyz on building an app while shopping. The sub-head has haunted me ever since: "Creating is faster than searching". The realisation hasn't really broken beyond devs yet, but any day now commaok.xyz/ai/just-in-t... * 2-month-old

commaok.xyz

Just in time software

I didn’t plan to write software in the grocery store last night. I was tired and hungry, kids in tow. My long shopping list sat in a text message. I wished I could check items off as I found them. Ide...

110

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

I love ads. Not only because they have largely paid my bills all my life, also at a philosophical level. But those damn Anthropic ads about AI and ads are living in my head. I may have to switch from ChatGPT to Claude for language work just to avoid thinking about the big picture a little longer.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

In the late 90s, the CIA World #Factbook was indispensable. There weren't many comprehensive reference works freely available, and it came with rock-solid provenance. Now the source is untrustworthy, with the US going post-truth, meh, no big loss. www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

cia.gov

Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell - CIA

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

This is why writing columns rules. "Nobody was in an armchair, nobody was smoking a pipe, and I was probably the person closest to having a beard, but it works better if you imagine everyone sitting around in armchairs, smoking pipes, and stroking their beards." www.news24.com/opinions/col...

news24.com

Phillip de Wet | How do you solve a problem like democracy? | News24

UK liberals are trying to pre-empt Reform UK taking control of the BBC, and find themselves facing a fundamental problem, writes Phillip de Wet.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

The first world is so weird. In Johannesburg, buildings are hijacked on an enterprise basis, with (non-owner) slumlords using violence and threats as a profit driver. London's equivalent is "rental arbitrageurs", who unlawfully sub-let and don't pay the rent. www.the-londoner.co.uk/claudio-is-s...

the-londoner.co.uk

'Claudio is Scamming'

How an Italian charmer is duping the owners of London’s priciest properties

200

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Gaining traction in Japan this week: some eye-popping results for LLMs on the Common Test for University Admissions. Lifeprompt has been running the experiment for four years. Gemini and Claude did pretty well, but look at GPT! Red means a perfect score. lifeprompt.net/news/w-j19fvl

010

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Holy frigging hell. Chief Constable: [offers hallucinated intelligence] MPs: Is this AI? CC: Nope, Google. MPs: Google AI? CC: "We do not use AI." /time passes/ CC: ... but we do use "Microsoft Co Pilot" thing.... Erm, sorry? www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

bbc.co.uk

Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans

An intelligence report referred to a football game that never existed - Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will make a statement later today.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Today, for the first time ever, I seriously considered buying a small inflatable boat from a supermarket in order to use what was, as recently as Wednesday, a footpath. European weather is weird.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

What should South Africa – specifically the GNU – do about Venezuela? Mpumelelo Mkhabela has nuanced thinking about that. I don't think the rest of the world cares about anything other than what comes out Cyril Ramaphosa's mouth. @news24southafrica.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/6Mqi...

open.spotify.com

Spotify – Web Player

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

It's not just me, right? I feel if you mean human models on a runway, you need to specify, otherwise you mean LLM.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

On this day in 1965, Britain introduced the 70mph (call it 110kph) speed limit, to the outrage of sports car drivers. Which, judging by this BBC report at the time, skewed heavily towards women. Quite amazing to watch now, given today's social norms. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-e...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Rewind: Anger at 'dawdling' 70mph speed limit

Drivers protest over the introduction of speed limits on motorways, which were trialled from 1965.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Some of the best fast food, supermarket, and car companies do everything they can to guarantee franchisees get a great return. Because that is provably good for everyone. If you have to defend allegations you caused their suicide, you've fucked up. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

theguardian.com

New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

Concerns about power imbalance in franchise agreements amid claims over firm’s treatment of small-business owners

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

My media literacy message remains "the media: not as bad as you think!" Simultaneously, we we need to arrange some field trips to Rwanda for editors. I'd go so far as to say it should be a statutory requirement.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

I still firmly believe we're witnessing the end of American hegemony, first political and then cultural. But I could still spot three out of four famous Los Angeles street names in NYT Connections earlier this week.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Most of 2025: CENSORED BY ORDER OF GRU The paper version has a complete key that shows those are the "unconfirmed" attacks with preliminary classification. Even that, though, undermines excellent copy that makes a powerful point, before the chart makes it look like thumb-suck scaremongering.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I still remember the arguments that you can't make money from free software, that open source is inherently unsustainable. (With a lot of that coming from Microsoft...) After Confluent, IBM will have spent well over $50 billion on OSS acquisitions since 2018 www.thestack.technology/ibm-to-buy-c...

thestack.technology

IBM to buy Confluent – and treat it like Red Hat?

More than $50 billion on OSS acquisitions later, some in the Kafka community hope IBM brings stability, others worry about the impact.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

This turned into the hook for today's @news24southafrica.bsky.social column. The apparent involvement of a South African legislative party in sending mercenaries to fight for Russia is no big deal in Washington, but you'd better believe Brussels is watching. www.news24.com/opinions/col...

news24.com

Phillip de Wet | Just as well for SA that the US and Russia are allies right now. But Europe… | News24

Once upon a time, the deployment of South African mercenaries to Russia’s front line would have exploded the US-SA relationship, but it will hurt SA in Europe, writes Phillip de Wet.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

South Africa gets angry if you call it a Russian ally. It has told Ukraine it can be a neutral mediator. ALSO, one of the parties in the legislature apparently paid to send (probably unwitting) mercenaries to fight for Russia. With deep involvement by the immediate family of a former President.

120

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

AI electricity use is a legitimate concern, but projecting current intelligence-per-watt forward without assuming massive efficiency gains is just barely short of a factual mistake. And requires a fundamental misapprehension about how both hardware and software has pretty much always evolved.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

You can put Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk in a pink bikini, via a simple "twinning" LLM attack to bypass filters. ChatGPT5.1 is not falling for it right now, but this is Perplexity's take. Original report is based on Nano Banana Pro. anthonymattas.com/articles/twi...

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Credit to Google.org for going public on its $1m gift around AI to Tel Aviv University (TAU), when its parent is already taking internal pain for selling war-enabling service to Israel. If you could get a "quietly" into the headline, it would run harder. Seeming unapologetic is a lesser PR evil.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Wednesday: Naver (basically S.Korea's Google) buys Upbit (basically S.Korea's Coinbase) with promises to converge AI and Web3 and change the world with hot-shit tech. Thursday: Upbit loses $30 million in what sounds like an old-fashioned bypass hack.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Japan is like an idealised version of what's happening in parts of Europe, the tension between rising xenophobia and the shortage of workers in the short term, and falling birth rates in the longer term. More acute all around. But the impact is almost identical: flashpoint politics, and populism.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Castro double-dipped on the political gains. Gaddafi used it as a tool for extortion. The US made it part of everyday politics. And then planes full of Palestinians arrived in South Africa – which is fundamentally vulnerable to coerced migration. www.news24.com/opinions/col...

news24.com

Phillip de Wet | SA is a big fat weaponised-migration target. It needs a plan | News24

Weaponised migration is an old problem for which South Africa, a prime victim, needs to be better prepared, writes Phillip de Wet.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

The UK's Nuclear Regulatory Review, out today, cites two (2) reasons you have to go build-baby-build on nuclear power: * electrification of stuff like cars as part of de-carbonisation * AI That's the only new demand driver it anticipates, and ranks way below geopolitical instability in importance.

010

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Voice is still expensive and complicated compared to text. But I think the tech space in South Africa is missing out on finally cracking aliterate users. And voice-first should be very politically palatable. www.itweb.co.za/article/oped...

itweb.co.za

OpEd: In SA, you should be thinking voice-led agentic

If you're going agentic for anything public-facing, please build voice into the workflow, writes ITWeb contributor Phillip de Wet.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

"I don't do drugs, but if the 'just say no' campaign was used on me, maybe I would." - (Sadly a Chatham Rule conversation, so I can't attribute.)

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Hating on "AI" (in reference to some stupid video-clip generator) is starting to irk me approximately as much as complaining about "the media" (in reference to one outlet). Do you meant the AI that might solve antibacterial resistance? That is reducing grid energy loss? Then be more specific.

110

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

"...indicators that many [thieves] are only interested in Apple iPhones." iPhones hold value better, sure. But given Apple's tight control of both hardware and software, there's a case to be answered here: where is the vendor? Is it tracking the data, and making a plan?

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Every LLM I use does much better when asked for "succinct" rather than "short" or "brief". This, in my experience, is also true of human writers of every kind. Interesting work to be done, here.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Not sure if this now makes me a royalist. But looking at the British royal family's place in UK society recently, I find myself arguing that other countries can do with a bit of that. As long as the costs are strictly contained. www.news24.com/opinions/col...

news24.com

Phillip de Wet | The British royal family is bad value for money, but still worth emulating | News24

Between kicking out Andrew and simply being there when one man with a knife terrorised Britain, the royal family has partly paid its way, writes Phillip de Wet.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Google and OpenAI effectively have infinite money. Apple and Anthropic and Meta aren't far behind. I'm deep into the Google ecosystem, with a bit of apple. Yet, as a wildly promiscuous LLM user, Perplexity is still my go-to answer engine. Starting to think we don't need to worry about monoculture.

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Mobile phones begat battery development that massively accelerated renewable energy. There seems a decent chance AI will do the same for carbon capture, because data centres that can't wait turn to LNG – but can't defend doing so. And have, effectively, infinite money to address that tension.

110

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Remarkable to listen to analysts talk about Donald Trump's statements (in this case on Nigeria) with the same language Christians use about the Old Testament: it's true but don't take it literally, it meets the morality of the audience, influences through description though it sounds like command.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

All the noise is about AI. But it is striking how 2025 is becoming the year in which the IT sector comes to grips with the encryption disaster that is quantum computing. This week: Cloudflare says it is about to start experimenting with a neat way to prevent server impersonation.

100

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

One way to think about it: like any good employee, LLMs works towards their metrics – and if you have bad metrics, you get bad output from, eventually, bad employees. Some good stuff happening in benchmarking, though, which could help significantly. www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

AI hallucinates because it’s trained to fake answers it doesn’t know

Teaching chatbots to say “I don’t know” could curb hallucinations. It could also break AI’s business model

000

Phillip de Wet @phillipdewet.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Tactical proposal for countries with low birth rates: get younger people into family-friendly social spaces before 9AM Sundays. Instead of sleeping off Saturday night, get late-20-year-olds where the toddlers – fresh from a good sleep, managed by parents not trying to juggle work – are being cute.

110