Unsupervised Learning NO. 489

Hey! Hope you’re doing well!

Tons of updates this week, including lots of tools and workflow updates!

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🚨 We added a new developer to the Fabric team recently. His name is Kayvan Sylvan, and he’s an absolute beast. He’s rolling out features faster than we’ve ever seen on the project, including…

He’s also looking for a new position, so you can actually hire him. He’s the real deal (developer, not programmer), with FAANG experience and true, elite-tier chops. And I’ve seen a lot of developers.

I invited him to my house and had dinner with him before giving him commit access to Fabric, and he’s not just a great coder but a super nice guy as well. You should snatch him up before someone else does. NOTE: This guy is insanely competent and high-agency. He just looks at code bases, studies for a bit, and is ready to add features… REACH OUT TO KAYVAN | CHECK OUT HIS FABRIC COMMITS

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Found someone to train kickboxing with, and I’m super excited about that. My goal with kickboxing (and then with jits as well) is to be able to dance / flow. So like basic movements executed really well on both sides, so my left is not super weaker than my right. Also, just to be able to flow like this and link combinations together on the heavy bag or with a partner in kind of a dancing type of flow. Both for fitness but also just for the kinesthetics of it.

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🚨⚒️ New Workflow/Tool Update: My buddy Pedram Amini has me on a new application / workflow, which is using Wispr Flow to dictate As much as possible instead of typing. This has been a total magnifier of my game with regard to AI and Claude Code. So now I'm basically issuing instructions using my keyboard shortcut to 13 different windows, building various different things, plus responding to texts and responding to emails and doing everything with voice. And it's honestly way better than I thought it was going to be. I think a big reason that it's moved the bar where this has never done so before is because the dictation is actually so good and vastly better than anything that's OS built-in. It does corrections and stuff that no other system has been able to do for me. Which is why they have never stuck for me. Pedram was in the same position, and this is the only one that stuck for him. It's working for me as well. You should definitely check it out. CHECK IT OUT

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🚨⚒️ New Workflow/Tool Update: So for years I’d been using Droplr to Share files quickly, pretty much of any size. I could basically take a screenshot or copy a file or whatever and just paste it to somebody on email or messages, and they could instantly download the file. It's been tooling that I've absolutely loved, but unfortunately, they seem to have dropped off and are not supporting the tool anymore. So I started looking for a replacement, and I just found it with this company called Zight. They even have an S3 option, so that instead of storing all the files with them you can store them in your own S3 bucket, which I think is really cool. CHECK THEM OUT

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🚨⚒️ New Workflow/Tool Update: As you know, I'm on a mission to find a really good browser. I've been messing with a couple of different ones from the browser company (currently Dia). Now I'm messing with Zen, which is Essentially the same as ARC which I really loved from the browser company, but it’s based on Firefox instead of Chrome. I thought that was going to be an issue because I thought Chrome was universally more used and standardized on, but I feel like Mozilla has really upped its game in recent years. This browser is exceedingly fast, and I haven't run into any rendering issues using it. I love its layout, which is exactly the same as ARC. So tabs are on the left and you can have these essential tabs at the top. And I just love the workflow a lot more. Plus you have the really cool thing of doing to being able to do Shift-Cmd+C to copy the current URL. Which is really essential for me. GO CHECK IT OUT

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Google Is Still Tracking You Even When You Use DuckDuckGo
Google can track you through its fonts, analytics, and other services even when you're using DuckDuckGo because the websites you visit are still loading Google's code. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Grok-4 Gets Jailbroken Two Days After Release Using Combined Attack Methods
NeuralTrust researchers successfully jailbroke xAI's new Grok-4 model using a combination of Echo Chamber and Crescendo techniques, achieving up to 67% success rates for generating harmful content like bomb-making instructions. THE SECURITY WEEK ARTICLE | NEURALTRUST'S RESEARCH | ECHO CHAMBER JAILBREAK DETAILS

VSXPloit Zero-Day Could Have Compromised Every Cursor and Windsurf User
Oren Yomtov from Koi Security discovered a critical zero-day in OpenVSX that could have let attackers hijack over 10 million AI coding tool users with a single malicious extension. THE BLEEPING COMPUTER ARTICLE | KOI'S DETAILED ANALYSIS

Columbia University Hack Exposed Personal Data of Every Applicant From 2019-2024
Columbia got hit by a massive cyberattack that took down their entire authentication system and stole personal data from every single person who applied to the university over five years. THE VERGE ANALYSIS | NYT COVERAGE | COLUMBIA SPECTATOR REPORT | BLOOMBERG DETAILS

Microsoft's First Patch Tuesday of 2025 Has No Active Exploits
For the first time this year, Microsoft released 130 patches with no exploited vulnerabilities. THE REGISTER ARTICLE | MICROSOFT'S JULY PATCHES

Browser Extensions Are Turning Browsers Into Website-Scraping Bots
Browser extensions are secretly turning nearly a million users into unwitting participants in massive web scraping operations, creating a distributed botnet that companies can rent access to. THE ARSTECHNICA ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

McDonald's AI Hiring Bot Exposed Millions of Applicants' Data
McDonald's AI hiring chatbot Olivia had her database breached because the company securing it used the password '123456'. THE WIRED ARTICLE

Anthropic Scores $200M Pentagon Deal to Deploy Claude AI in Defense Operations
The Pentagon just gave Anthropic a massive $200 million contract to deploy Claude AI across critical national security operations. THE CYBERKENDRA ARTICLE | ANTHROPIC'S ANNOUNCEMENT

FBI Using Polygraphs to Test Officials' Loyalty Under New Leadership
The FBI is reportedly using polygraph tests to assess the loyalty of officials under new leadership. THE NYT ARTICLE

America's Way Behind in the Drone War
The U.S. military is scrambling to catch up in drone manufacturing while China and other nations dominate production of the technology that's now essential for modern warfare. THE NYT ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Grok 4 Released
The new Grok models are out, and a lot of people are saying they are extraordinary. But they appear to have some significant weaknesses as well. There are two main models: Grok 4 and Grok Heavy, which is $300/month to get access to.

The livestream product launch was fairly interesting. I watched a replay of it, and the most remarkable thing I saw was Elon grappling in real-time with how powerful the model was getting, and then mumbling to himself that it was a little bit terrifying. Keep in mind he's one of the people from 5 years ago saying we should be very careful about AI. THE MODELS

Grok Gets Anime Companions With NSFW Mode
xAI launched AI "companions" for Grok including an anime character named Ani that has an NSFW lingerie mode, because apparently / obviously that's where we're headed with AI assistants. THE VERGE STORY | MUSK'S ANNOUNCEMENT

AWS Launches Kiro, Its Cursor Clone
AWS just launched Kiro, which is basically their version of Cursor - an AI-powered code editor that integrates with Amazon's Bedrock models. THE KIRO BLOG | HN DISCUSSION

Grok 4 Heavy Decently Protects Its System Prompt
Simon Willison says Grok 4 Heavy is surprisingly effective at refusing system prompt extraction attempts, unlike most other AI models that easily leak their instructions. I'm sure Pliny will get it. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Grok 4 Consults Elon Musk's Posts Before Answering Controversial Questions TechCrunch testing shows Grok 4 actively searches for Elon Musk's X posts and views when answering questions about immigration, Israel-Palestine, and abortion, raising questions about what "maximally truth-seeking" actually means. THE TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE

People Are Becoming Dependent on ChatGPT and Claude
Internet Addicts Anonymous now recognizes AI addiction as a real problem, with people losing sleep, relationships, and productivity from compulsive AI use. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Google's Veo 3 Now Turns Images Into Videos Through Gemini
Google added image-to-video generation to Veo 3 through its Gemini app, letting users create videos from photos with audio descriptions. THE TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE | GOOGLE'S FLOW VIDEO TOOL | VEO 3 GLOBAL ROLLOUT | SYNTHID DETECTOR TOOL

Musk Says Grok Is Coming to Tesla EVs Next Week THE WIRED ARTICLE

AWS is Launching an AI Agent Marketplace With Anthropic
AWS is launching an AI agent marketplace on July 15th with Anthropic as a key partner, creating a centralized hub where enterprises can browse and install AI agents from various startups. THE TECHCRUNCH STORY | ANTHROPIC'S AGENT RESEARCH | ANTHROPIC'S AGENT API

YouTube Goes After AI Slop Videos
YouTube is updating its monetization policies on July 15th to better identify "mass-produced and repetitive" content, but Rene Ritchie clarifies it's just a minor update to existing rules targeting spam, not a ban on AI-enhanced content. THE VERGE ARTICLE | RENE RITCHIE'S EXPLANATION VIDEO

Canva's Building a Serious AI Photo Editor to Challenge Adobe Canva just launched a collection of AI photo editing tools that go way beyond basic filters, including background generation, subject relighting, and Magic Edit that works from text prompts. THE PETAPIXEL ARTICLE | CANVA WEBSITE

Substack Hit 73.9 Million Visitors Last Month, Now Beating Major News Sites Like WSJ and CBS
Substack's getting 73.9 million monthly visitors and making $45 million annually, with over 50 creators earning $1M+ per year as writers ditch traditional media for direct audience monetization. THE MORNING BREW STORY | SHERWOOD TRAFFIC ANALYSIS

China's is Winning in Energy While the US Does the Opposite
China installed 198 GW of renewable capacity in just five months of 2025—more than double California's entire grid—while the US just cut hundreds of billions in clean energy funding. Absolutely infuriating. THE MIT TECH REVIEW ARTICLE | THE SPARK NEWSLETTER | GUARDIAN ON CHINA'S RECORDS

Perplexity Launches AI Web Browser Called Comet
Perplexity just launched Comet, an AI web browser that makes their search engine the default and includes a sidebar assistant that can book meetings, send emails, and buy products for you. My buddy Jason Haddix was telling me a while back that he thought the browser was going to be the center of AI for a while. And it looks like he's correct about that. THE VERGE ARTICLE | COMET BROWSER | ARAVIND SRINIVAS ON X | PERPLEXITY TWITTER

Solar Just Became Europe's Biggest Power Source for the First Time
Solar power generated more electricity than any other source in Europe last month, marking a historic milestone in the continent's energy transition. THE YALE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Auto-Focus Glasses Use Liquid Crystals to Replace Bifocals and Varifocals
Finnish company IXI created glasses with liquid crystal lenses that automatically adjust focus based on eye tracking, potentially replacing the need for separate reading and distance glasses. THE BBC ARTICLE | PRESBYOPIA RESEARCH

Things I Learned From 5 Years at Vercel
Lee Robinson shares the key lessons from his time at Vercel, covering everything from technical decisions to career growth in a fast-moving startup environment. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs Are Breaking Life Insurance Math
The insurance industry is scrambling because they can't figure out how to price policies when people can suddenly lose 20% of their body weight with GLP-1 drugs. I have to say, I feel super bad for them. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Psilocybin Treatment Improves Survival in Aged Mice
A new Nature study shows psilocybin treatment significantly extends cellular lifespan and improves survival rates in aged mice, suggesting psychedelics might have anti-aging properties beyond their neurological effects. THE NATURE STUDY | HN DISCUSSION

Investors Now Buy Over a Quarter of All US Homes; Everyone Else Priced Out
Investors bought 27% of all US homes in Q1 2024, as regular homebuyers struggle with affordability and get squeezed out of the market. THE ABC NEWS STORY | HN DISCUSSION

The Death of Partying
Derek Thompson breaks down how Americans are partying way less than they used to, with alcohol consumption dropping and social gatherings becoming less common. Really strange that we're seeing the lack of partying and drinking as being a bad thing. But I agree that it is because of the lack of social interaction. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

Conspiracy Theorists Blame Cloud Seeding for Flash Floods THE VERGE ARTICLE

Sunlight Passes Through Your Body and Somehow Improves Your Vision
A new study shows that longer wavelengths in sunlight actually pass through human tissue and have systemic effects that improve visual function. It suggests sunlight affects vision through your whole body, not just your eyes. I don't get it, but okay. THE NATURE STUDY

Scott Adams’ on Great Writing
I can't stand Scott Adams these days, but this old post (just a few sentences) of his from 2007 is one of the clearest examples of—and lessons on—great writing that I've ever read. THE POST

A Developer Says AI Can't Take Over Soon Enough for Him
This developer argues that AI taking over most jobs would actually be liberating, freeing humans from mundane work to pursue more meaningful activities. This is absolutely right. We still have to be careful because the transition is the hard part. THE ARTICLE | HN DISCUSSION

A Collection of 170+ MCP Servers for AI Tools
A comprehensive collection of reference implementations and community-built servers that give LLMs secure, controlled access to tools and data sources. THE REPOSITORY | MODEL CONTEXT PROTOCOL

UV Cache Prune Can Free Up 37GB of Disk Space
Simon Willison discovered his uv cache was eating 63GB of disk space and freed up 37GB with a simple uv cache prune command. THE BLOG POST | UV DOCUMENTATION | UV ON GITHUB

Wormhole Instant File Sharing with Expiring Links
This tool called Wormhole does end-to-end encrypted file sharing with links that automatically expire. I was checking this out while I was deciding whether what my replacement for Droplr was going to be. Ended up going with Zight, but this one is also pretty cool. WORMHOLE APP

A Better Ghidra MCP Server
jtang613 created GhidrAssistMCP, an improved MCP server that lets AI assistants interact with Ghidra for reverse engineering tasks. THE PROJECT | HN DISCUSSION

VarLock Turns Environment Variables Into Shareable Magic Files
This tool VarLock by the creator lets you turn messy .env files into human-readable, shareable configuration files that work with both humans and AI. Really cool idea, but they are kind of like the most important things to keep private. So hopefully that's a factor. THE TOOL | HN DISCUSSION

Cloudflare Launches One-Click MCP Server Deployment With OAuth Authentication
Cloudflare just launched one-click deployment for remote MCP servers on Workers, And this is how I'm going to basically deploy any MCP server myself. The part I like least about MCP is people building their own servers. THE CLOUDFLARE GUIDE

A Lightweight Cloudflare Dynamic DNS Shell Script
This shell script by fernvenue automatically updates your Cloudflare DNS records when your IP address changes, perfect for home servers and self-hosted setups. THE SCRIPT | HN DISCUSSION

This Built-in macOS Command Shows You Every File Your Programs Touch
Simon Willison shows how to use the macOS fs_usage command to trace filesystem activity for any process, perfect for debugging where apps store their config files. THE TIL POST | SIMON'S GITHUB | SIMON'S BLOG