Terminator for real
Figure AI just told one of it’s robots to jump into a vat of molten steel – and it did so.
We’re getting closer and closer to real life Terminator every day…
Drift
Studio DRIFT has made some really cool installations and interactive sculptures that combine things in the natural world with technology. I enjoyed the idea of their Murmuring Minds installation which consists of a bunch of small rectangular boxes that flock around a person walking through them (I think it would be even cooler if they were perfect cubes – and perhaps were more active. Like if they were trying to herd YOU to a corner, or if they worked like a random person in a grid of o.
Github cofounder’s fight with cancer
Sid Sijbrandij is a co-founder of Github – he’s also battling cancer. He was diagnosed and went through a standard round of treatment in 2022 that appeared successful. Unfortunately, it came back in 2024 and he was told he had exhausted the standard of care and there were currently no trials.
In facing this information, he said “Assumptions might, quite literally, kill me”. He went back to his roots and engaged what he calls ‘founder mode’.
“Founder Mode meant going deep on every diagnostic and treatment option. It meant assembling a team of physicians and scientists to work from first principles to understand what was possible beyond standard protocols.”
He became directly involved in his care by putting together a organization of doctors and advisors from all over the world. He and his team compile detailed entries for every medical interaction or meeting with a cancer researcher or oncology company they take. The document has grown to over 1,000 pages for just 2025.
Since standard care was exhausted, he set out to create what he called a ‘therapeutic ladder’ of possible treatments. Some rungs on this ladder are existing medicines that could potentially be repurposed from other cancers based on information gained from diagnostics. Others are individualized therapies designed in collaboration with researchers or companies specifically for Sid.
Did it work?
While not considered a cure, as of 2026 Sid’s cancer has been in remission for 18 months.
What did he learn?
A lot. He learned you can also navigate a world-wide health system – not just the US one. Some of the lessons were absolutely fascinating, and worth a read here.
I found the article a great read because I felt, and acted, very similarly when cancer entered my (and several friend’s) lives. I have a huge file of what I learned and was ready to go anywhere I needed to seek treatment. I continue to keep getting 2nd and 3rd opinions and keeping in touch with cancer centers in case it comes back. Diseases like cancer can’t be considered ‘one and done’. You never know when they might come back; so be ready and live the best life you can with the time you have.
Semi-auto potato gun
This is Unix – I know this!
Rik Arends created a really nifty code visualizer. It shows all your code in blocks and then lets you zoom in/out and around the code in real-time rendering. It reminds me a bit of this project that showed live silicon blocks. (Toms Hardware)
I like this other quote, since it’s pretty much the truth these days:
Astra is my vp of engineering, fable is my team lead, and grok is the intern with LOTS of time
Here he shows off the 51 million lines of code in the Chromium codebase:
In-N-Out managers make $200,000/yr
In-N-Out recently revealed their store managers now make an average of $200,000/yr – up from $163,00/yr in just 2018.
So, maybe don’t make fun of fast food folks – they’re probably making more than you.
New AI terms for 2026
Meat Proxy: slang for a human who mindlessly copies/relays between a large language model (LLM) and another person. The phrase was coined by software engineer Niklas Gruhn in an August 2026 blog post titled “Don’t Be a Meat Proxy,” where he complained about coworkers dumping unreviewed AI slop into Slack channels and GitHub code repositories.
Clanker: Originally a sci-fi robot insult from Star Wars, now used online to mock AI, chatbots, customer service bots, or people acting like them.
Slopper: A person who uses generative AI to lazily churn out massive amounts of low-quality text or images (“slop”).
Pump action card gun
十束玩具 / Totsuka Toys has some pretty interesting/innovative toys. Here he demonstrates a pump-action card gun. There’s also blow-back style rubber band gun and a variety of other novel creations for those that want the realism of actual weapons with the non-lethal force of card throwing and rubber bands.
SpaceX Engineer talks control systems
Scott Morton is the founder and CEO of Revel, a software platform for testing and controlling complex hardware systems. Before founding the company in 2024, Scott spent nearly a decade at SpaceX building control software for Falcon 9 and Starship.
Real life paperboy
The arcade game Paperboy has nothing on this guy. Wonder if you could make a new version of paperboy in 3D that captures this kind of feel…