Numeric Citizen Blog

Too hot

Vacations coming to an end this weekend, expect normal programming resuming by Sunday. It was a great two-week vacation in France but the overwhelming heat wherever we stayed was a challenge that we didn’t expect and was hard at some points to cope with, especially in Paris.

2026-07-03 ∞

Bye Bye ChatGPT Atlas

Back home. Rebooted my Mac because of an issue with macOS 27 Golden Gate. Got this warning. Oh well, I didn’t use Atlas anyway. I’m not even sure if Atlas is on OpenAI roadmap for the long run.

2026-07-05 ∞

Anthropic: you can do better

From the DF Archive: ‘Electron and the Decline of Native Apps’:

The ironic frustration with Anthropic’s Claude app being an Electron turd is that Claude and especially Claude Code are so capable of helping to create good native Mac apps. It’s one thing for a big company or organization with cross-platform aspirations but no institutional Mac expertise, like Notion or Slack or Discord, to choose Electron to create their Mac client. It’s another when it’s a company like Anthropic, whose only product’s single most impressive ability is generating programming code, including high-quality AppKit and SwiftUI code for the Mac. To return to my hammering-screws-into-the-walls metaphor from yesterday, it’s as though the building into which Anthropic decided to hammer all the screws is a renowned screwdriver factory.

Bingo.

2026-07-05 ∞

On MacSurfer's Headlines Evolution

I often revisit MacSurfer’s Headlines website because I’ve been a fan since it launched. Here are some thoughts from my latest visit: the wave logo has been revamped, and I like it — it looks glossy and modern. Now, readers can hide articles behind a paywall, a feature I don’t recall seeing on similar sites. In this screenshot, 19 out of 40 articles are paywalled, which is very useful. Also, readers can subscribe to a newsletter; I’m not sure if this was always available. Lastly, Amazon ads appear on the left sidebar and inline, which has always been part of MacSurfer and has returned after the recent site reboot. Unfortunately, that’s a bit disappointing. I hope MacSurfer continues to thrive by relying solely on human curation. Do we need another OpenAI Pulse or Kagi News, both of which are AI-based?

2026-07-05 ∞

Claude Cowork unleashed

Anthropic is unleashing Claude Cowork, which means artifacts can now be run in the cloud rather than on the machine where they were created. This means that if an artifact depends only on cloud resources and services, it can be executed in the cloud and accessed from anywhere, on any device. Until today, I was looking for a way to migrate my artifacts from my MacBook Air to my desktop Mac, but there were no easy solutions. So far, I have four artifacts that I use daily, and I plan to build more.

2026-07-08 ∞

Apple Ring confirmed?

A very telling image of Eddy Cue. First, Eddy Cue is not a fan of the iPad and prefers to use paper for his agenda. Second, and not least, Apple is clearly working on an Oura Ring competitor. The first Apple ring to be offered in light gray. 🤫

2026-07-08 ∞

Perhaps Meta Should Not Have Spent Decades Being Creepy — Pixel Envy

Meta is in the business of asking for forgiveness instead of seeking permission. It will release these regardless of public approval, and with the belief it can control how that continuous recording is used.

How much of this corporate behaviour would change if Meta had a different CEO instead of this creepy one?

2026-07-12 ∞

Working for the soon-to-be-winners?

Apple lawsuit reveals how many of its former employees now work at OpenAI — 9to5Mac

While Apple doesn’t get into specifics, we know from Bloomberg reporting that Apple employees across countless teams inside Apple have left for OpenAI. Most recently, OpenAI poached Paul Meade, who had been in charge of Apple Vision Pro and Apple’s smart glasses project.

Maybe those former Apple employees think that Apple is no longer THE place to be to invent the best possible user experiences or the next revolutionnary device? Or maybe OpenAI simply pays more than Apple? Or maybe a combination of both?

2026-07-13 ∞

Frustration buildup

I don’t know if I should trust the news, but it seems that opposition to data centers and artificial intelligence is growing. Nowadays, you have to be cautious about what the media spreads. Controversial topics sell, but they don’t always reflect reality. Still, I get the feeling that frustration is gradually building. 🤨

2026-07-13 ∞

When paranoia becomes projection

Gruber on Musk fixation on Apple and ChatGPT in a recent blog post: Remember Musk’s Suit Alleging a Conspiracy Between Apple and OpenAI? — Daring Fireball

Musk alleges that the top downloads list is crooked too. That’s just projection. If Musk ran a popular App Store he’d put his thumb on the scale to make sure his own apps always top the list. That’s what he’s done with his personal account, and accounts aligned with his politics, on Twitter/X. Because that’s what he would do, he thinks that’s what Apple does.

He’s probably right: Cheaters are often suspicious of others cheating too.

2026-07-14 ∞

The Siri AI paradox

If Siri AI delivers on its promise, what does it mean for app developers? Since 2008, the iPhone experience has been built on top of application-based experiences. Siri AI seems to be offering a bridge between these apps, pushing the application experience behind Siri’s. Not only that, but Apple will ask developers to add support for Siri AI, accelerating the paradox of helping Apple’s bottom line, not the developers’. Interesting read from The Verge, for more context.

2026-07-14 ∞

On OpenAI HomePod

OpenAI’s First AI Device Will Be a Portable Smart Speaker:

OpenAI’s speaker-like product is designed to “serve as a humanlike AI companion that lives in the home,” according to Bloomberg. It will be able to control smart home accessories, answer questions, play media, respond to messages, and more, with the device powered by ChatGPT. It is meant to learn more about the user over time, becoming more personalized and proactive, using GPT-Live to communicate with users.

What will be the onboarding experience? Will it require a smartphone? Can they beat Apple on integrations? How is this OpenAI device going to access my messages? Which messaging service will be supported?

2026-07-14 ∞

A Permanent digital artefact: Om Malik RSS feed

I’ll keep Om Malik’s RSS feed in my Inoreader account forever because I think it perfectly reflects his personality and contribution to this world.

2026-07-16 ∞

How AI Freed Me to Focus on What Actually Matters

Today, for the first time, I used AI to write an email for me. It was a rather typical email: asking a colleague for his contribution on a large project so that he could validate potential technical issues that might become a risk in the project. I had a full picture of how I would ask his contribution and what I expect from it. AI came back with a perfectly structured request. I don’t expect this to become a trend but today, I saved precious minutes for other more high-value tasks.

Yeah, I know, very click-baty title. 🫣

2026-07-17 ∞

Card view on RSS feeds

Today, I implemented a card view in my RSS flow web app. I don’t recall seeing this style of RSS feed display in the numerous RSS readers I’ve tried and used. It’s quite fun.

2026-07-17 ∞

AI and weather map interpretation

I’ve been a weather enthusiast since I was a teenager. At that time, I wanted a weather station (which I got) and manually recorded weather conditions on paper, one page per day with three observations per page (early morning, noon, and before going to bed). It was fun, and I learned a lot in those days. I even met a real meteorologist who was also doing the public radio weather forecast. I was lucky. I still have an interest in weather and climate, but it takes a different form these days.

This morning, I wondered if Claude AI could read a surface conditions map. It can. 🤯 I wonder if today’s meteorologists are using AI to summarize weather conditions.

Canada Weather Snapshot — Friday, July 18, 2026

Valid morning of July 18 (08:00 EDT / 12:00 UTC). A single-moment snapshot, not a forecast.

The big picture

A tale of two countries this morning. A deep summer storm system is spinning over northern Quebec and the Hudson Strait, keeping the Far North unsettled and breezy, while most of southern Canada sits under warm, humid, and comparatively quiet air. The sharpest weather is well to the north; the population belt along the U.S. border is having a mild, muggy summer day.

Region by region

Northern Quebec, Nunavik & Labrador

This is the active zone. A strong low is churning over the region, so expect gusty winds, unsettled skies, and periods of cloud and showers, especially around Ungava Bay and the Hudson Strait. Conditions ease the further south you go.

Southern Quebec & the St. Lawrence Valley

Warm and humid, with a gentle flow of muggy air moving up from the south. Comfortable-to-sticky temperatures and a fair amount of moisture in the air — a typical mid-July feel. Nothing severe on the map here.

Atlantic Canada

Sitting under the influence of a broad ridge of high pressure anchored over the Atlantic and Greenland. That generally means more settled conditions in the east, with the ridge acting as a bit of a wall that keeps systems moving off the continent from barrelling straight through.

The Prairies & Western Interior

A few weak, shallow low-pressure areas are scattered across the Prairies and interior west. These are minor and disorganized — think passing clouds and the odd shower rather than any organized storm. Broadly unremarkable.

British Columbia & the Pacific Coast

Under a mix of weak systems along the coast, with generally mild conditions. No dominant storm feature — a quiet Pacific setup for the day.

The North (Arctic & territories)

Cold air remains locked over the high Arctic, as you’d expect, with the northern Quebec storm being the standout feature. The rest of the territories are relatively calm.

Bottom line

If you’re in southern Canada, it’s a warm, humid, low-drama summer day. If you’re in northern Quebec, Nunavik, or Labrador, keep an eye on the wind and showers from that storm parked overhead. The east is settled thanks to Atlantic high pressure, and the west and Prairies are quiet with only minor disturbances.

2026-07-18 ∞

Always liked working outside on my terrasse during summer. Such a nice and comfortable temperature.

2026-07-20 ∞

On John C. Dvorak

Another tech journalist has passed away: John C. Dvorak at age 80. I recall reading his column in MacUser magazine during the challenging early days of Apple. Although I wasn’t a fan, I occasionally kept reading his work. I always saw him as a perennial Apple skeptic, perhaps more for the sake of it, but personally, he might have felt more warmly about Apple’s future than he let on. He was often wrong on tech trends and about Apple.

2026-07-23 ∞

Is Apple about to win the AI race?

Here’s a very compelling argument that Apple will win the AI race… or, more specifically, the personal AI race. Cue this video for all the details. Spoiler if you are lazy: Apple owns the device and the context, they don’t need the most powerful LLM to succeed in the personal AI space.

2026-07-23 ∞

Ship it when it's ready

MacRumors’s article “Anthropic’s New Claude Opus 5 Nearly Matches Flagship Fable 5 at Half the Cost”:

Anthropic has released Claude Opus 5, an upgraded AI model that delivers near-Fable 5 performance at half the cost and is optimized for everyday use. The new model shows significant improvements over its predecessor (Opus 4.8) across multiple benchmarks including coding, problem-solving, and visual outputs, while maintaining the same pricing structure. Opus 5 is now available as the default model on Claude Max and the strongest option on Claude Pro, with an optional faster mode available at double the cost.

It’s fascinating to watch AI companies release their new offerings. It’s all over the place if you compare that to the way Apple releases their flagship products like the iPhone. “Ship it as soon as it’s ready” seems to be the way to go.

2026-07-24 ∞

About Glaze

I played a little bit with Glaze today. In less than half an hour, I was able to build a “native” macOS app, a front end to my web-based task manager. It’s far from north stars like Things 3, but it is quite capable for the efforts I put into this experiment. Glaze offers a Glaze Store where app builders can share their work with others. A brand new account comes with 120 free credits. I’m currently at a bit less than a hundred credits left now after building this little Mac app. It’s currently in read-only mode and looks very dry but I plan to tweak it and see what I can come up with the remaining credits.

2026-07-24 ∞

I don’t want to link my WhatsApp account with my Facebook account. I don’t use Facebook. Inuse WhatsApp mostly while abroad during vacation. I know I would make a favour to Meta if I did link both in the name of convenience. I’m probably being naive here, though. Postponed indefinitely.

2026-07-25 ∞

About a potential AI bubble

I follow technological news every day, and I’m starting to get nervous about the situation surrounding investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. This video is particularly revealing and convincing. There’s increasing talk of a tech bubble, much bigger than the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. What worries me, actually, is the impact of this crisis on my finances. I’ll be retiring in less than 7 years. A financial crisis of the magnitude being predicted would take years to recover from. I wonder if it’s time to reevaluate some of my investment strategies. 🤨

2026-07-28 ∞

Claude chats exposed in Google searches – another endorsement of Apple’s privacy approach — 9to5Mac

This is not at all what users would expect when they share a conversation, since Anthropic implicitly assures users that nobody can see the chat without knowing the URL.

WTF, Anthropic! Does this problem affect chat with a private link (instead of a public one)?

2026-07-28 ∞

Links to Claude Chats Were Indexed by Google and ‘Bing’, Whatever That Is — Pixel Envy

Search engines do not automatically discover new URLs as they are created. They are typically indexed by taking one of two actions: either the site owner submits URLs to search engines — by using a site map, for example, or by manually submitting the page for indexing — or by someone linking to the URL from a different already-indexed page. The critical thing left unreported in Varner’s article is whether these Claude links were being indexed thanks to Anthropic’s actions or those of users.

Following up on my previous blog post, I’m now confident my private chat sessions are “safe”.

2026-07-29 ∞

WTF Substack? What are you for?

I’m unsure who Substack writers aim to reach. In my view, Substack might be the most anti-reader platform I’ve ever seen, even more so than Medium, which is in itself very telling. Today, I wanted to read an article on Substack after following a link in an email from my inbox, but my app wasn’t installed on my iPhone. After reinstalling it, I tried to open the link again, but it didn’t work. I had to log back in, apparently, which I did. The next step? Reading the article? Not quite—now it asks for topics of interest, then requests access to my Contacts. I stopped there, killed and removed the app from my phone and never read that article. Instead, I’m here to vent my frustration.

2026-07-29 ∞

Too much to ask

For the past two or three years, I’ve been contemplating the idea of creating a comprehensive training course for Craft. There’s nothing comparable to what you find for Notion or Obsidian. I think it’s a great opportunity, very niche, but still an opportunity. Craft has evolved considerably in recent years, making it difficult to produce content that doesn’t become outdated quickly. Now that Craft’s evolution seems to be slowing down, the idea of creating this training keeps resurfacing. But there’s a problem: a lack of motivation and time with no guarantee of results.

I tested creating a training plan using Claude AI, and while I’m impressed by the level of detail and completeness of the proposed content, I would need to record more than 75 video capsules lasting 2 to 4 minutes each. Preparing those recordings requires between 15 to 45 minutes of preparation, without considering the post-processing requirements. That’s quite a commitment!

I’m afraid the idea won’t materialize. Life is short and I’m not here on a humanitarian mission. I think I’ll move on to something else. 😌

2026-07-31 ∞

Yes this is scary as hell

The real AI risk is inside the labs -

I believe we should not consider AI safe. A critical event that may result in the extinction of Homo sapiens is possible, but the danger is not in open models, or China making faster progress than the US. The danger is that a few CEOs (everywhere in the world) without the required background and legitimacy are in the position of making hard choices for humanity at large. They were not selected to do so; it was just the randomness of events that created this setup. They can’t speak for everybody, given the stakes, just because they have GPUs and money. This is the first thing that should be fixed.

In light of recent security-related events, both at OpenAI and Anthropic, I also believe these companies must be held accountable for what they put out there. I believe we are entering dangerous times with AI, maybe we are even on the verge of being out of control with this. Add this to the AI bubble speculation. Scary.

2026-07-31 ∞

Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide - Schneier on Security

But it’s precisely because I have spent years developing my own writing skills that I’m able to identify prose that sounds great but doesn’t actually make sense. My students don’t have that skill; they mistakenly view a confident, well-written essay as evidence of the quality of their ideas. They see the AI as cleaning those ideas up, getting them through that uncomfortable stretch of having to turn those ideas into prose. What the students miss is that their initial discomfort is a normal and healthy stage of writing, and not something to quickly get beyond. The very act of struggling with how to express what they think is an important part of the process. It’s how they test out their ideas, examine their hypotheses, and actually figure out what they think. Homework is not work; it’s the gym.

Learning can be hard, for many people at least. I like the feeling of being outside my comfort zone when working on something because I know that at some point, the journey is going to be the reward. We forget that in the age of AI.

2026-07-31 ∞