The Braindump Blog

Technology

2026-04-09: Anthropic develops an AI model that is extremely good at finding and exploiting previously unknown security bugs in software

2026-04-08

The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign: Turns out America isn’t the only country that can meme-war (to the detriment of the rest of us I’m certain).

2026-04-04

Maybe you should have bought an electric car: Electric cars have improved a lot since they came out and are much cheaper to run than petrol alternatives, even before the incredible price rises from the Iran conflict.

2026-04-03: The British Home Secretary's lust for the panopticon

2026-03-29

‘The era of invincibility is over’: the week big tech was brought to heel: If only.

2026-03-27

Four Steps to Hell: ‘…if you’re seeking the most influential aesthetic vision on the 21st century, this is it. It’s simple to describe–but it’s ugly as sin.’

2026-03-22: 📚 Finished reading OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information by Michael Bazzell and Jason Edison.

2026-03-22: 📚 Finished reading Cult of the Dead Cow How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World by Joseph Menn.

2026-03-20

Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute Reverberates in European Capitals: ‘It puts a very stark light on technological dependency and the need for some form of sovereignty, autonomy and control in Europe’.

2026-03-14

What do coders do after AI?: Somewhat depends on whether you like coding as a craft in itself or endure it as a means to an end.

2026-03-10: Noted 6 decades ago: '...extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people'

2026-03-08: One reason LLMs hallucinate is because we incentivise them to give any answer over saying they don't know

2026-03-04: A GUI for the Substack archiving process

2026-02-25: 📚 Finished reading This Is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee.

2026-02-21: Companies are trying to force their employees to use generative AI

2026-02-20

Accenture ‘links staff promotions to use of AI tools’

2026-02-19: Researchers find that using X's algorithm shifts people's political views to the right

2026-02-17

The left is missing out on AI: ‘…ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right.’

2026-02-16: How to archive even paid Substacks - converting them into an eBook

2026-02-10

Stop generating, start thinking: Arguments against letting Claude Code et al just blindly do your whole job for you.

2026-02-08: A non-exhaustive list of cases where it is alleged that generative AI may have played some part in humans committing fatal violence to themselves or others

2026-02-04: The enshittification of the United States of America

2026-01-31

Only the Metrics Care: ‘The user isn’t the customer. And they’re not the product either. The real product is behavioral optimization–metrics on a dashboard’

The Who Cares Era: ‘…where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.’

Abusers using AI and digital tech to attack and control women, charity warns: ‘Smartwatches, Oura rings, smart home devices and Fitbits being weaponised’