Notes

I take the middle ground on this position. AI companies should be doing more traditional security, and security pros often overestimate their abilities here. There are a lot of very smart people who understand core security very well, and just because they don’t carry the badge as everyday security pros doesn’t mean they are ignorant.

When my son first started reading, I made the decision to buy him any reasonable book he asked for. One time at a bookstore, I leaned over to him and said, “I won’t buy you a toy every time you ask, but I’ll buy you a book.” He smiled, and he’s taken me up on it ever since.

I won’t share his reading scores, but suffice it to say he’s reading well above grade level.

You can disagree with someone and still be civil. You can find someone's views on a matter objectionable and still acknowledge when they make meaningful arguments or impacts in a field. It's not necessary to go after someone endlessly when you've raised your objection.

Your argument is either compelling or isn't, but mobbing a person won't change the quality of your argument. We should treat people the way we want to be treated even in the midst of disagreement.

I have lost respect for many a colleague in this field who held "right" views simply because they were jerks in the process. How you disagree matters.

Cub Scouts starts back up again this week. We had our first time back after the summer.

Tonight we set up stations and had the kids walk through them in their dens. My wife and I did a first aid station.

Each student built their own first aid kit, which is one of the 6 requirements they have. It was a great success, and the kids were super engaged and got to take home a first aid kit of their own.

This

Clankers will do exactly what you ask them to and then in the middle of a conversation suddenly stop for the oddest of reasons.

Sol has happily been opening PRs all evening as new code ships but then suddenly stops and doesn't commit or raise PRs. It's so bizarre.

My son wants to try deer hunting this year. We decided, on the advice of a family member, to go with the .350 Legend to extend hunting season a little longer. It falls under the same time as muzzleloaders since it's a straight-wall cartridge.

For the rifle, I went with the CVA Scout 350 Legend in stainless.

We also went with the VX-Freedom 3-9x40 Hunt-Plex glass.

We will see how this goes.

https://www.tn.gov/twra/hunting/tennessee-hunting-seasons-summary.html

I remember my dad getting our first "powerful" computer as a kid. My dad had these terminal green computers that he did some word processing on for graduate school papers, but I remember when he brought home a machine with Windows 95 freshly installed, and it felt so much more modern.

He bought Doom. I have no idea why he picked that game, but that's what he bought with the computer. I played the mess out of that game. It was the first game I could play multiplayer on by using the modem to dial my friend's computer and play alongside him.

Looking back now, it seems so primitive in some ways and yet still so modern. As we go through the birth of the intelligence age, I know my own son, who is playing with AI now on his iPad, will look back the same way I did, with both a sense of awe and wonder and nostalgia.

I can't wait to see what technology looks like when he's my age now. It will be spectacular in so many ways.

“Hey, Gemini, who is this person in this picture?

Beep boop, I won’t tell you who that is, as I can’t identify people.

Hey, Google image search, here’s a picture.

Beep boop, oh, that’s so and so; here’s a bunch more pictures of them…”

Chick-fil-A ice cream cones are top tier.

Son’s first rock concert! Foo Fighters!

It was a late show. 😆

Make sure to not have any fun at the Foo Fighters concert 😂

All the hackers have grown up now from DEF CON and run around sounding like mom and dad, and it’s a bit lame. They hide behind being “right,” and it’s sad to watch. It’s not dangerous anymore and everyone knows it. DEF CON is safe and it’s lame.

If you’re a young hacker, it’s time to go start a new thing. Let DEF CON become a memorial to a bygone time. It will be fun and nostalgic and old.

I was wrong! For the first time in recent memory, the goons didn't yell incessantly at everyone! It was weird, honestly. They were still present but genuinely quiet and in the background. When they did raise their voices, it was to be heard, not to yell at you for no good reason. It was a very pleasant surprise and change. Thanks for getting better!

There’s been a lot of discussion since DEF CON and Black Hat about how good or bad a job OpenAI did in preventing and handling the incident with Hugging Face. I’m a little surprised—I probably shouldn’t be—at how confident people in our industry are that they could do better or even know the full details of the environment to have known if it were even possible without knowledgeable people doing significantly better.

I honestly think there’s a little conflict of interest in some of the criticism. I do think everyone will learn a lot, but there’s also a bunch of “influencers” making a name for themselves by being very vocally critical. It’s cool right now to hate on the frontier labs.

They don’t deserve a pass, but I also think there’s room for a more helpful dialogue. I’ve seen no truly good write-ups from this crowd of how they would have done better, and that’s telling.

This is absolutely the correct way to start thinking about how to use AIs.

Brilliant idea to provide a batphone for AI agents.

People seem surprised when companies build things people want, and get upset when they find out people want different things sometimes.

Picked up a new toy at DEF CON.