Have A Good Day

For 15 years, Siri conditioned us to be very careful with our requests. Sometimes the results were perfect, and for a moment you thought the future of digital assistants had arrived.

Impressions of the US Open:

Substack introduced a tool that detects “AI-assisted writing” in posts. Of course they did. Many of the most successful Substacks are run by professional writers, who are naturally concerned that AI could help others compete with their content. So creating a culture where using AI for writing is generally frowned upon is appealing to them.

The Brooklyn-based artist Carol Bove shapes massive steel as if it were clay. It looks so unbelievable that you want to touch it (don’t!) to see if it is real. There is much more to her art than that, and in fact, it was one of the most holistic exhibitions I have seen at the Guggenheim. It still runs through August 2.

The World Cup is a great festival for the world. Not perfect, it is one of the few events where people from all over the planet come together to play.

As a teenager, I was into aviation, hung out at airports, and collected postcards of airplanes. The Boeing 747, the jumbo jet, was the obvious crown jewel. Seeing one, or receiving a postcard of one, brought a jolt of joy.

Of all the World Cups I’ve experienced, none took place in the country where I lived. Until 2026. This one snuck up on me. With “so many things going on in the world,” it just did not fit in mentally.

When we were in Lisbon, we had to take a cab because of a transit strike. Elke asked the driver whether he spoke English, and indeed, like most people in Lisbon, he did. From there, we had a lively conversation about life in the city, with its ups and downs.

Into the Gap by Thompson Twins was the first album I bought myself in a record store. A friend who already had a record collection recommended some titles to me. I chose Thompson Twins because I knew their hits, and there was a woman in the band (which was rare in the 80s). I didn’t like the album much back then. While I loved synth-pop, “Into The Gap” was too upbeat and whimsical for my taste. Today, I would give it more credit for its intricate production, including Alannah Currie’s creative use of percussion.

You don’t code anymore as a software engineer; you only prompt. For years, knowledge of a particular programming language ecosystem was a core distinction for developers, but almost overnight, it no longer matters. It still helps to be able to quickly read and understand code. Also, software engineering is much more than coding, but the job has changed a lot.

In 2026, I started using a paper notebook as my main organizational tool. That came with a conscious effort to let go of the idea of finding the perfect workflow or toolchain. Four months in, I have to say it is working pretty well. First, handwriting is faster and more fun than typing on a keyboard, especially a virtual one. If you need the copy digitized, you have to rekey it, but I find that small overhead acceptable, because in many cases I need to revise the text anyway[^1].

For a while now, we have been editing many of our posts on glamglare using ChatGPT. It is truly a dance.