Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

I am super-excited by this new machine. While I already have a nice CNC, my existing X-Carve is meant for milling large items. I use it mostly to mill plywood sheets for shop storage.

I plan to use this Makera Z1 to mill precision aluminum parts, just as soon as I figure out how to do it. As I did the unboxing, I also discovered it will mill brass. That’s doubly exciting, so you’ll probably also see me making brass fittings at some time in the future. So very cool.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

How Google used AI agents to find and fix 1,072 Chrome security bugs - in 60 days: With 3.5 billion active users to protect, Google is relying on Gemini to find Chrome security bugs fast - and before attackers do.

My 3 favorite AI tools for voice dictation while vibe coding - and one is free: I’ve tested the top AI voice tools to find which delivers the best accuracy, privacy, and corrections.

Taught by AI pioneers, Stanford’s free online course takes you far beyond ChatGPT: Most AI courses teach today’s tools, but this free Stanford classic by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun dives into the deeper foundational ideas you need to truly understand artificial intelligence.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• This woman built a tiny diorama inside a set of fake books, then hid it inside a bookstore.

• It’s ugly and messy, but this dude demuddified a Mercedes with a ton of flood damage. It’s an oddly compelling thing to watch.

• This is one of the strangest product placements I’ve ever seen. Somehow Mattel and Apple(?) turned the classic Matchbox cars into an action movie. And we’re not talking about Red One, where Dwayne Johnson magically turns toy cars into big ones. No, this is just a movie with car chases that somehow references Matchbox cars in the characters’ childhoods. Yeah, it’s probably a Dave Movie.

Merch of the week

I know I cover AI a lot. But tell us how you really feel, David. Here you go.

Hey, and I have a favor to ask. In order to get the shop to rank, reviews are really important. After you decide you want one of the shirts (they come in lots of colors and sizes) and place your order, please leave a review. The more reviews, the better. Even if you don’t order, you can help kickstart the store by favoriting a shirt or two.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but not this week.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• This guy makes a case for buying broken GPUs.

• Science says coffee is better and better for you. True story: back in the day, my doctor actually told me I should drink more coffee. I have been aggressively following his directions ever since.

• Fan favorite Ed Bott has a new article on ZDNET. He’s holding Microsoft’s feet to the fire again. This time, it’s over a Windows 11 “quality” progress report (the editorial quotation marks are Ed’s).

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

Both House of the Head and Choices Are Voices T-shirts are now on the merch store.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

Bambu Lab was kind enough to provide me with their large-format A2L bed slinger to test and tell you about. This week, I set up the printer and give you my first impressions. I gotta be honest. There’s good, and there’s not so good. Watch to learn all about it.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

Google Earth added Nano Banana, and I immediately reimagined Philly with zombies and evil clowns: Can Google Earth’s new AI accurately redesign homes, recreate history, and imagine the future? I tested Nano Banana across several locations, and the results ranged from useful to gloriously absurd.

There’s more to this story. I’m fairly certain I didn’t break Google Earth. Or, at the very least, it wasn’t just me. I posted the above article on Thursday at 5:30am, right as the embargo lifted. Then Google sent me this on Friday evening at exactly 5pm:

“We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth for a reliable view of the world. We've seen geospatial professionals using this feature for a range of useful purposes, however we've also seen people sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies. So we're rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails. It's important to note that generated images didn't appear in the main Google Earth experience for others to see and were watermarked as AI generated."

I wasn’t told exactly what policies were violated. Nor, when I asked, did they say whether it was my zombies that inspired this reaction. I tend to think not, because I can’t be the only one who decided to play with the new image creation capability.

Fundamentally, there’s nothing new here. You could always take a screen capture, feed it to Nano Banana, and get a result. I proved in my article that the AI imaging feature introduced had no real geographic or historical awareness, and was really only processing a screenshot.

I have to ask, what exactly is the fuss? The Google folks had to know people would get creative. The only real pro capability would have been architectural rendering from Street View, but that feature wasn’t provided. So, all that’s really left is being creative with the product.

Ah, well. When the feature comes back with its guardrails, perhaps zombies and evil clowns will be personae non gratae. Stay tuned. If there’s more to this story, I’ll let you know.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Joanna Stern has an extended interview with OpenAI president Greg Brockman. She rightly calls him out on marketing speak.

• Although not my style, this woman has a fairly comprehensive overview of the tools she uses to make videos. It relies heavily on Canva in a way I hadn’t seen before.

• Completely unrelated to anything, this girl does some amazing acrobatics with a jump rope. This is why we have YouTube.

Merch of the week

The long-awaited official T-shirt for my Choices Are Voices EP is finally available. Now that my Etsy merch store is back, I’m able to bring you my newly favorite graphic T-shirt. You’ve listened to the tunes. Now you can wear the shirt.

Hey, and I have a favor to ask. In order to get the shop to rank, reviews are really important. After you decide you want one of the shirts (they come in lots of colors and sizes) and place your order, please leave a review. The more reviews, the better. Even if you don’t order, you can help kickstart the store by favoriting a shirt or two.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but not this week.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• ZDNET’s David Berlind takes a deep dive into just how OpenAI’s AI managed to escape its bounds and attack Hugging Face’s servers.

• Not to be outdone, even in rogue AI activities, Anthropic’s Claude models got loose and went on the warpath as well. ZDNET’s Charlie Osborne has the details.

• In non-AI news, NASA has discovered oddly beautiful honeycomb patterns on the surface of Mars.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

House of the Head T-shirts are finally back on the merch store. Stay tuned. Choices Are Voices shirts are coming soon.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest preview video

If you’ve been following my ZDNET articles, you know I’ve been working on a filament management tool called My Filament Stash. Here’s another sneak peek feature that will be in the upcoming release of the product. It’s being built for the Apple ecosystem and will run on iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I recreated OpenAI’s Codex Micro for a lot less - and mine is more customizable: The $230 Codex Micro sold out before I could buy one, so I turned my Stream Deck+ into a surprisingly capable alternative.

I use Anthropic’s Claude AI tools for very different jobs: How to pick between models, Code, and Cowork: Here’s how Anthropic’s AI tools work, what they can accomplish, and why security, cost, and your oversight still matter.

Claude Opus 5 arrives with near Fable performance at half the price: Anthropic’s latest Claude upgrade targets developers and enterprises with stronger coding, better reasoning efficiency, prompt-cache-friendly tool changes, and near-Fable performance at Opus pricing.

So-this-happened of the week

I ran Windows’ memory test all the way through twice, before and after a power cycle. Windows reports that it’s a memory issue, so as soon as I dig out my workshop from the three active projects filling up all surfaces, I’ll dig in, open the machine up, and reseat the RAM.

I really hope it’s not a bad memory stick. When I purchased the G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series (Intel XMP) DDR4 RAM 32GB in 2023, I spent $74.99. That same exact product today is $240 with a 25% discount (normal price $319)! I really don’t want to have to replace RAM in today’s market.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Tom Scott has an interesting theory about why the first cast iron bridge ever built has a bit of a peak at its middle.

• Admittedly, this guy does Lego for a living. Still, he has way more Legos than seems healthy.

• Stumpy Nubs (James Hamilton) is back with a video about how to make easy box joints three separate ways.

Merch of the week

After a quiet hiatus, my Etsy merch store is back with a bunch of new geekerly sayings. I’ll be adding more each week. This week, though, I felt this one was the most appropriate given my blue screen above: Ninety percent of repair is reseating RAM. Here’s hoping it’s true.

Hey, and I have a favor to ask. In order to get the shop to rank, reviews are really important. After you decide you want one of the shirts (they come in lots of colors and sizes) and place your order, please leave a review. The more reviews, the better. Even if you don’t order, you can help kickstart the store by favoriting a shirt or two.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but not this week.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• I feel vindicated. According to science, five cups of coffee a day is fine for most adults.

• Apparently, science thinks that we all share a one-eyed cyclops-like ancestor, because of course it does.

• ZDNET’s Elyse Betters Picaro has a disturbing report about the rise of Flock AI-assisted law enforcement cameras. There are more than 90,000 operating today.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

House of the Head T-shirts are finally back on the merch store. Stay tuned. Choices Are Voices shirts are coming soon.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I loved ChatGPT Desktop until OpenAI gutted it to make room for Codex and Work: OpenAI just merged the ChatGPT desktop app with Codex, and removed my favorite productivity features. What were they thinking?

I let ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork loose on my files - only one made me nervous: How does ChatGPT Work compare with Claude Cowork for desktop automation? My testing reveals similar results, similar strengths, and one major reason Claude feels considerably safer right now.

1Password’s new Agentic Mode lets Claude log into your accounts without seeing your credentials: 1Password wants to solve one of AI’s biggest practical problems: secure logins. Its Claude integration can enter passwords and MFA codes without exposing credentials to Anthropic or the model.

Project of the week

Now that the reviews are done on these great Anycubic printers, it’s time to pack them up for donation. This will make space for an exciting printer I’ll be looking at in the next few weeks. Stay tuned. I have a few big projects ready to roll out.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Are 3D printed houses already failing? This video contends there are some structural difficulties, but the real problems have more to do with traditional problems like financing, corrupt builders, and regulatory hurdles.

• This deep-dive video explains why single-staircase apartment buildings are banned in many states, and how reducing the regulatory restrictions might help solve some of the housing crisis. Interesting backgrounder.

• All production may have ceased on Star Trek TV shows, but there are still three seasons in the can. Season 4 of Strange New Worlds kicks off on Thursday, and if you’d like to come up to speed before watching, here’s a recap for you.

Merch of the week

After a quiet hiatus, my Etsy merch store is back with a bunch of new geekerly sayings. I’ll be adding more each week. This week, though, I wanted to kick off this Merch of the Week section with a philosophy I’m sure almost all Advanced Geekery readers and viewers will identify with: I void warranties recreationally.

Hey, and I have a favor to ask. In order to get the shop to rank, reviews are really important. After you decide you want one of the shirts (they come in lots of colors and sizes) and place your order, please leave a review. The more reviews, the better. I just ordered mine and it should be here in a few days.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but not this week.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Irwin Allen made some of my all-time favorite science fiction TV, including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants. Now, a Star Trek showrunner is trying to bring them back. Let’s hope they don’t suffer the same fate as the not-rebooted Stargate series Amazon squelched for no good reason (but I’m not bitter).

• Then there’s 95-year-old William Shatner, who’s doing more in his 90s than many of us do in middle age. Headline of the week: The Greatest Star Trek Icon Just Created A Vulgar Heavy Metal Band. Gotta love the dude.

• On a less fun, but far more essential note, ZDNET’s Charlie Osborne shows how to spot quishing (QR code phishing) scams before it’s too late. Scary stuff. Must read.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

As promised, here’s my review of the Anycubic Kobra X. It’s inexpensive (if you shop around). It has a bunch of annoyances. But it has one huge win: it works. Unlike previous Anycubic printers that failed in oh-so-many ways, this machine has been rock solid. Iterative improvement, for the win!

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

Claude Fable 5 is back, but I’m sticking with Opus 4.8 for daily work: 5 reasons why: Anthropic’s Fable 5 promises mythic AI power, but surprise restrictions make me wonder if it’s more trouble than it’s worth for day-to-day use.

I tried Claude Cowork on my Gmail inbox after Gemini choked - and it saved me hours of work: Gmail’s AI failed at a nuanced research task, but Claude Cowork found the right pitches, quotes, and permissions, proving that connected AI assistants may finally help tackle some aspects of email overload.

I gave Claude Cowork 7 non-coding jobs, and it earned a spot in my toolbox: Claude Cowork is brilliant, unnerving, and far more useful than I expected.

Anthropic’s Claude Cowork heads to the cloud as data shows 90% of sessions aren’t for coding: Claude Cowork is moving to web and mobile. New data shows it’s being used far beyond coding and software development. Can it safely replace OpenClaw for me? Stay tuned.

OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work aim to beat Anthropic on price, speed, and productivity: OpenAI’s latest announcement looks like a lot more than a model upgrade.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Marques Brownlee has an interesting take on Apple’s part in the AI race.

• James Bruton is using giant rubber bands to make a highly-geared yet still mediocre go-cart.

• Super-sensitive potassium Xialidiousus! The Google Translate players are back after running Mary Poppins through a bank of translations.

Lubricant of the week

These have been out of stock for a while, but they’re back. Even though shipping will take a few weeks, I just placed my order. They make applying lubricant to your 3D printers and other moving parts about as easy as painting. You just open the stick, and brush on a small amount of lubricant. A set of three should last quite a while. Just don’t store them with the brush down, because they might leak.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• If you happen to be in Europe (especially Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain), get ready for next month’s total solar eclipse. There’s probably still time to book your tickets.

• Gizmodo suggests that Apple’s getting ready to launch a bonkers-expensive M7 Ultra-based Pro machine sometime in 2028. Better start saving your pennies (if you can find any).

• We’re back with ZDNET’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols, who reports that Linus Torvalds no longer considers himself a programmer.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

I’m getting ready to put out my review of the Anycubic Kobra X, but before I’m ready to conclude my testing, I needed to see how it did on a bigger project. My shocking discovery was, after all this time 3D printing things, that I’ve never made an R2-D2. Well, that was an omission that needed to be rectified. I did, and I have some learnings to impart after doing so.

Here’s an interesting story. When I shared my script with ChatGPT to get its help with the above picture, it refused to help out when it knew the model was called R2-D2. Even when I told the AI that this was fair use and I was holding a physical item I made, it did not relent. But when I started a new session and called R2 a robot instead of its proper name, ChatGPT helped produce the thumbnail you see above.

I also had to spend a few prompts trying to convince it to use my actual face, but I’m fairly certain it finally figured out I’m not a Disney character.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

How I stopped a massive WordPress spam attack with 4,700 lines of code in two days - thanks to Codex and Claude: Spam accounts overwhelmed my database. Claude found the weaknesses, Codex wrote the fixes, and I deployed a new defense.

How I set OpenAI API usage limits to stop agent overspending and other AI billing nightmares: OpenAI API costs can spiral when agents run wild. Here’s how to set spend limits, enable hard caps, and avoid surprise AI bills.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Alexandre Chappel, one of my favorite YouTube makers, has a lightning round of tips and recommendations for 3D printing. It’s definitely worth a watch.

• This dude has a bunch of recommendations for what plumbers do to keep their own drains clean. I’m fairly certain at least some of this is AI, but still. Watch it for the tips, stay for the pipe gross-outs.

• The Lincoln Memorial undercroft is now open for visitors. While it’s mostly a history museum, the civil engineering required to put such a mass on a swamp is quite interesting all on its own.

Adhesive of the week

This is some nasty stuff, but it’s nasty in a good way. It’s not just “spray glue.” It is closer to contact cement in a can. It grabs fast, covers big surfaces evenly, and bonds materials that are miserable with ordinary glue, like foam, fabric, cardboard, insulation, plastic, metal, wood, laminates, and more. The cool part is the speed and reach. You can coat a wide area without brushing, clumping, soaking, or waiting around forever.

On the other hand, it could kill you, or at least muck you up. Amazon says it’s not for sale in California and “other states.” That’s because of its VOC content. Aerosol adhesives put solvents into the air, and some states limit which versions can be sold or used. 3M’s own aerosol guidance says VOC rules may restrict sale or use in CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, UT, and VA. So it is powerful stuff, but it is regulated like powerful stuff. In other words, use a mask.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe just did near-contact flyby of an asteroid near Earth orbit. Did you ever watch Bruce Willis in Armageddon (one of the best movies ever made)? This Japanese probe is kind of like a beta Brucebot, as it’s helping Japan develop what might someday be a response protecting the planet from cosmic extinction-level events.

• Why do trees planted in the desert grow faster than trees planted in the forest? Scientists at China’s “Great Green Wall” are trying to figure it out.

• ZDNET’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains that Secure Boot has always been a nuisance for Linux users, but Microsoft’s expiring 2011 certificate authorities are making it a real pain.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest preview video

If you’ve been following my ZDNET articles, you know I’ve been working on a filament management tool called My Filament Stash. Here’s another sneak peek feature that will be in the upcoming release of the product. It’s being built for the Apple ecosystem and will run on iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I let Gemini Flows organize my Gmail, and it effectively filtered my inbox (with one sneaky catch): Gmail’s genius Gemini Flows feature fixes filters - but there’s a monthly limit that you should know about.

Anthropic rolls out Claude Tag, your new agentic AI coworker in Slack: Claude Tag could turn your Slack channels into shared spaces where an agentic coworker reads the room, joins threads, remembers context, and moves team tasks forward. Is your workplace ready?

Project of the week

I’ve been using the Anycubic Kobra X for a while now, and I’m pretty happy with it. But it’s time to do a major color print to see how well big projects work on the little machine. As it turns out, I hadn’t yet made an R2D2. This print aims to rectify that situation. Stay tuned. I’ll show it off with supports removed once it finishes its more than 72-hour print process.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• The OpenAI folks managed to connect a plant to an Arduino and a bunch of sensors, hooked it up to GPT, and let it talk. Let us know in the comments below if this is the first step for a flora-flavored Skynet.

• Zion Brock (the guy who designed that cool 3D printed radio from a few issues back) takes a look at Bambu’s new PURE filament, which is supposed to be food safe. Spoiler: it kinda (kinda) is.

• Dude winds and cooks raw filament to make springy springs.

Gadget of the week

We’re so screwed! What? You all know I have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old. This device is a screw counting machine. Sam at Samcraft spotlighted it in a recent video and I had to share it. This is a tool you might use in manufacturing (Sam does), to create little packages of screws to accompany products. I don’t need one, but I love the idea.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Weird story about how astronauts have an out-of-body sensation when they return to Earth.

• Why Doc Brown’s DeLorean had to hit exactly 88 MPH to time travel.

• ZDNET’s Ed Bott reports that Windows 10 users just got another (very unexpected) year of support.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

If you’ve been following my ZDNET articles, you know I’ve been working on a filament management tool called My Filament Stash. This video is the first of a series that will provide sneak peeks of individual capabilities of the product. It’s being built for the Apple ecosystem and will run on iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

Why Anthropic suddenly pulled Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for everyone: Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are gone. The reason? A US government directive.

AI agents are getting their own search engine: AI agents may soon search for and use their own tools at runtime, thanks to a new open standard backed by Microsoft and Google.

Project of the week

Last week, I told you about the wire shelf drawers I’m putting up in the workshop. This week, I designed and started to 3D print plastic base plates to make those drawers solid.

Each shelf requires two rows of four thin strips and two rows of four wider strips. All told, I need to print 40 thin strips and 40 wide strips, for a total of 80 prints. I’m printing them at the maximum size of my biggest printer, so the Creality K2 Plus is getting a real run for its money. It’s hanging in there like a champ.

I’m using the same XFasten double-sided sticky tape I use for my CNC, which holds very well, leaves no residue, and releases (with effort) on demand. So far, the strips have been holding well.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• This guy uses AI to make 50s retro style trailers of popular movies. In this video, he shows all the tools he uses. Even though he’s using a lot of AI (and arguably producing AI slop), there’s still a lot of work involved.

• Joanna Stern spent a week testing out the new Siri AI. She didn’t hate it.

• My Internet Press Guild colleague Tristan Louis did a TED talk about the challenges of protecting free speech.

Gadget of the week

I am really intrigued by this thing. It’s a power strip under the desk and a charging hub on top of the desk, with a clamp that holds the two parts in place. I haven’t bought it yet, but I’m definitely thinking about it. Might just tidy up the underside of my desk a bit.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• A Microsoft researcher built a goat-powered LLM in Age of Empires II to prove it’s not sentient. That’s the actual headline. That article alone makes it worth subscribing to this newsletter, and you know it. And yes, I both downloaded and read the entire academic paper it references because I’m that much of an advanced geek.

• Apparently, fish oil makes folks less aggressive. Our vet told us to give the pup fish oil. It doesn’t make him yap any less. Want me to be less aggressive? Feed me some crab-stuffed lobster. That’ll do it every time.

• ZDNET’s Charlie Osborne just put out an important article about the 10 signs that someone is monitoring or accessing your accounts. She also shows you how to stop them.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

NEWS ALERT - ANTHROPIC CLAUDE FABLE

So, there’s some bonkers stuff happening out there. Since I wrote the following two articles earlier in the week, the US government has banned foreign access to Fable, including for foreign nationals living in the US. Anthropic responded by turning off Fable for everyone. Stay tuned later today on ZDNET for my in-depth analysis of the situation.

Anthropic’s new Claude Fable 5 is a nerfed Mythos with guardrails attached: Claude Fable 5 brings Mythos-class AI coding power to general users, but with cybersecurity guardrails, fallback models, and pricing that could make developers think twice.

Claude Fable 5 secretly throttled AI researchers, and the internet went wild: Claude Fable 5 gave users access to Mythos-class power, but its hidden safeguards turned a safety feature into a trust problem for Anthropic.

OTHER ARTICLES LAST WEEK

ChatGPT’s new memory upgrade is powerful - and could poison every answer it gives you: OpenAI says ChatGPT’s memory is getting better. But my tests show outdated assumptions, personal profiling, and wrong details that could quietly distort future answers.

How I used Airtable to swap my daily fast-food habit with 5-minute meal planning: I used Airtable to turn daily meal planning into a simple database system, reducing food stress, grocery confusion, and last-minute takeout temptations without counting calories, macros, or points.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Some crazy person made a first person shooter using COBOL. I was a teenage COBOL programmer, and that was the last time I touched that frak’d up language.

• Ever wanted to use aluminum extrusions in a project? This guy tells you all about how to do it and what to look for.

• This dude reinterprets the Gilligan’s Island theme for dark metal (give it about 90 seconds to really ramp up). Come to think about it, the Gilligan’s Island premise could benefit from an intense reinterpretation like they did with the new Battlestar Galactica. It would be like Lost meets Gilligan.

Project and Tool of the Week

We’re all familiar with the robust classic, wire shelving units. I’ve used these for years. They’re versatile, but they tend to be space wasters. With only five shelves, there’s often a ton of space between one shelf and the next.

What I really need is drawers. I need pull-out drawers to organize my filming gear, test equipment, and more. Unfortunately, wire shelves don’t typically come with drawers. I searched all over the Internet and found only one source, which was out of stock for months (and is again).

Finally, I got a note indicating the drawers were back in stock. The reviews were terrible. Almost all said the drawers arrived broken. But since I couldn’t find an alternate solution, I took the chance and placed my order. And, ya know what? They arrived broken. Almost all of them

The drawers are attached to the drawer slides with pop rivets. All of them came either missing or sheared off. So, I bought the pop-rivet gun shown below.

Mine cost me five bucks more than the exact same kit available from Amazon. I wanted it right then, when my buddy was over to help me set things up. So I got it in ten minutes rather than two days, purchased from our little town’s local hardware store. I honestly don’t mind the extra Lincoln, because those folks are incredibly helpful. Plus they have a model railroad running inside the store. That alone is worth the price of admission.

I’ve never used a rivet gun before. It definitely takes some hand strength. But it’s a very cool joining technique. Now that I have one, I’ll probably use it for other projects. Have you used a rivet gun? Have any advice? Let us know in the comments.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• These guys show how to build a lightsaber from common hardware store fasteners and such.

• Headline of the week: ‘Spy turtles’ and ‘spy fish’ being used to monitor Chinese waters, Beijing claims.

• ZDNET’s Erin Carson wrote a great piece on the battle between a data center and the Nashville Zoo.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I set 10 honesty traps for Claude Opus 4.8 - and a legal test broke it: The latest models were pitted against coding, medical, finance, and legal traps, then I cross-checked the results with multiple AIs.

Work IQ is Microsoft’s big bet on agent-first enterprise IT, and I have questions: Microsoft’s Work IQ could make enterprise AI agents dramatically smarter, but the shift to agent-first IT brings serious questions about cost, governance, data exposure, and operational risk.

I had ChatGPT build me a free PDF editor because I didn’t trust it to change my files - it worked! The smartest way to use AI may not be letting it touch your files, but asking it to write software that handles them safely - in the time it takes to make dinner.

Build 2026: Microsoft’s MDASH exits preview with 100+ specialized threat-hunting AI agents: Microsoft’s Build 2026 security news centers on an agentic AI vulnerability system designed to find real exploitable flaws, connect them to Defender and GitHub, and help developers fix them faster.

Project of the Week

Back when we moved into our new home, one of the features that excited me most was an upstairs room I could turn into my office and studio for talking head-style interviews. Unfortunately, even with the air conditioner blowing on full blast, that room often hit 90+ degrees from May through September.

But last year, we had a roof leak and wound up replacing the entire roof. That room now stays within a degree or two of the downstairs temperature, all summer long. Who knew a roof could do such a wonder for insulation quality?

In any case, I’ve been revamping my talking head studio, updating the tech, and rearranging the room. This is a quick photo of the back of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K I use for filming. Stay tuned. Once I get everything tuned and operating smoothly, I’ll take you on a tour of what’s changed.

It’s super-exciting to be able regain year-round usage of my office.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• This video showcases a warehouse heavily structured around robotic inventory movement for e-commerce fulfillment. It’s a bit hype-y, but it’s still worth a watch just for the tech involved.

• Really fascinating overview of a mill that “re-engineers logs” by producing veneer sheets and repurposing all the aspects of small log Douglas Fir wood harvesting for engineered wood, paper, hog feed, and more.

• Last November, I reported that my all-time favorite TV show, Stargate, was back in production. It seemed like such good news. The original producers were back. Canon was going to be preserved. But then, this week, we found out that Amazon killed the project. Given the depth of the franchise and its enormous staying power and popularity, it seems like a genuinely stupid move. This sucks.

Tool of the week

I just picked up this inexpensive pin-punch set to help me set magnets into 3D prints. The prints have a really tight tolerance, and these flat-ended punches do the trick to pop them into place.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Grades are plummeting in UC Berkeley CS classes. Professors attribute the crash to AI usage.

• Can you imagine dragonflies with a 2-foot wingspan? They existed…about 285 million years ago.

• ZDNET’s Ed Bott says he paid Microsoft’s premium Copilot agents to do his work. Apparently, they were confidently bad at it.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

Bambu Lab has an interesting new 3D printer, the X2D. This is set to take over from their 2-year-old flagship, the X1C. The X2D offers two extruders instead of one, but the second extruder is not direct drive. Instead, it’s fed by an external Bowden-style extruder. In this video, I look at how the setup and external design of the new X2D differs from the X1C, plus give it a quick test. So far, so good.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

When my eye doctor got my glasses prescription wrong, AI helped me fix it: An eye exam produced a good distance prescription and a terrible computer prescription. Here’s how AI helped decode the numbers and expose the mismatch.

Anthropic launches Opus 4.8, with honesty as its killer feature: Anthropic’s latest Claude model isn’t just faster or smarter. Opus 4.8 is being pitched as more honest, more careful, and better suited to complex coding projects.

Stopping bugs before they ship: The shift to preventative security: Secure software starts before coding begins. Threat modeling, safer defaults, dependency hygiene, and developer workflow guardrails can help prevent vulnerabilities.

Beyond the cleanup job: Redefining application security for the modern enterprise: Secure-by-design is no longer just a developer concern. Enterprise leaders must treat application security as a board-level responsibility, with accountability, incentives, and customer risk reduction built in.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• I have always been fascinated by the Longaberger building in Newark, Ohio. This iconic structure is shaped like a basket, reminiscent of the former company’s products. Now, it’s up for sale. You can see it from the inside and out. Cool building, even if the company became a basket case. What?

• Vox does a strong analysis of the Taiwan/People’s Republic of China issue. Good explainer.

• Ever wonder why car windows have dots on them? This guy has the answer.

Tool of the week

Why would you use a corner chisel instead of just a chisel on each of two right angles? Mainly, for speed and consistency. I like it because I’m just not that good at getting the angles perfect. If I’m using a chisel, it’s because I need to get something trimmed out that’s pretty darned perfect.

Plus, this thing is under $20 and you can set it to a maximum depth. Pretty cool.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Mike Elgan says Google betrayed the web.

• Using a DNS sinkhole instead of an ad blocker.

• ZDNET’s Ritoban Mukherjee digs into a challenging problem nobody wants to face: how to migrate to a new CRM.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

The patching treadmill: Why traditional application security is no longer enough: Find-and-fix security once made sense, but AI-assisted development, continuous deployment, and exploding vulnerability backlogs are changing the rules. The old application security playbook is breaking down fast.

Google’s new Omni AI tool will let you video clone yourself - I’m intrigued (and concerned): Google Gemini Omni aims to do for AI video what Nano Banana did for images - combining realism, style control, avatars, and natural-language editing into one ambitious tool.

OpenAI’s new image watermarks make it easier to spot AI fakes - here’s how: Older metadata could be stripped out. OpenAI’s new approach hides signals in the pixels themselves.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• How Cuban mechanics keep 1950s-era cars running. This video is undoubtedly AI-generated, but it’s still quite interesting.

• Email getting you down? Here’s how it felt to use email in the 1980s. Remember those briefcases? My dad had one.

• My inexplicable Christopher Walken obsession continues. This is Googly Eyes Gardener.

Gadget of the week

I am fairly obsessed by this thing. It’s a lifting platform, which isn’t anything particularly new. But this one is powered and can be controlled remotely. At 150x150mm, it’s the size of a small 3D printer bed, so it’s actually bigger than the typical coaster-sized platform.

But…what to do with it? The most obvious idea is putting a phone stand and a phone on it, to create a simple vertical filming platform. But what else? Please let us know in the comments below. Hopefully, one of you will come up with the perfect suggestion to help me justify getting one.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• A flooded, misidentified tomb offers rare clues about a forgotten pharaoh, Egypt’s royal succession, and later royal tomb design.

• Even the Pope is freaked out by AI.

• ZDNET’s Ed Bott says cloud attacks are getting faster and deadlier. He shows four ways to secure your business.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

This new Claude skill saves you from bad contracts - and costs less than a lawyer: I tested Claude for Small Business, which has 31 skills, and the contract review tool is amazing.

I compared how Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude can analyze videos - this model wins: Can AI really watch video, or does it just fake it? I tested my favorite AI tools on YouTube clips and local files to find the best.

How to learn Claude Code for free with Anthropic’s AI courses - one took me just 20 minutes: With Anthropic’s free course library, you can train online and learn about Claude, Claude Code, AI agents, and MCP.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• How we spent our time off, across the decades.

• Silly skit about what it’s like when your boss bans coding with keyboards.

• I’m reading enormously fun Eric Flint’s 1632 alternate history series. One of the main characters is Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus. Dude was a badass.

Gear of the week

Last week, I showed you a completely over-the-top power strip, which is now plugged into my big UPS and installed and running on my server rack. Despite my best efforts, it’s not exactly pretty, but it is functional as heck.

This week, I’m spotlighting a filming cart, which is also pretty much over-the-top. There are three things I like about it: it folds, it has very large wheels, and it supports a ton of attachment points for cameras and gears. This one is on my wishlist in case I ever need a rolling studio. Not cheap, but powerful.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Researchers discovered a 9th-century copy of the oldest surviving English poem hidden inside a Latin manuscript in Rome. This is big, because it means English was studied outside of England three centuries earlier than previously known.

• ZDNET’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has some solid advice about switching to plug-in solar power.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

How we test AI at ZDNET: AI is the hottest topic in tech with new models and products launching daily. Here’s how we test the latest AI developments at ZDNET.

The 5 myths of the agentic coding apocalypse: Agentic AI promises faster coding, but hidden risks in testing, security, and maintenance could derail projects unless developers rethink how they manage, validate, and supervise machine-generated software at scale.

Building an agentic AI strategy that pays off - without risking business failure: Companies are chasing tenfold AI gains, but many projects are failing fast. We break down the real risks and show you how to turn agentic AI into reliable, profitable outcomes.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• When I was a kid, I loved Matchbox cars. Here’s how they were made. So, Hot Wheels or Matchbox? Let us know in the comments below.

• Here’s another great Rex Krueger video. How woodworking became a hobby.

• If you love Stargate SG-1, you know it has an iconic theme song. Here, it’s reimagined as a metal cover. Needless to say, it rocks.

Gadget of the week

I just picked up this completely over-the-top power strip for my server rack. To be clear, nobody should plug 22 devices into this thing. But my server rack is filled, not only with traditional servers, but all the smart home hubs and dongley things that come with pucks on their power adapters.

The very nice spacing of the outer sockets should make those dongles actually fit, without the usual cord extenders that I’ve used on traditional power strips. Also, the maker of this thing is SuperDanny. For some reason, that deeply amuses me. Super…Danny! Best brand name of the week.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• WKRP in Cincinnati is now a real-life radio station, in Cincinnati. Life imitates art, especially when there’s some brand equity involved.

• There’s a massive hidden void in the Great Pyramid of Giza. There’s also a massive hidden void in the brains of most congresscritters, but y’all know that already.

• ZDNET’s Charlie Osborne has an important article about the steps you should take if you’re worried about the giant Canvas learning management system breach. 275 million records. Ouch.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I tested ChatGPT Images 2.0 vs. Gemini Nano Banana to see which is better - this model wins: I put ChatGPT Images 2.0 and Gemini Nano Banana through nine image-generation tests. The winner was clear.

I used Photoshop’s new AI tool to rotate objects in 3D, and it’s pure magic: Adobe’s AI-enabled Rotate Object tool can do some really cool things, but human skill is still crucial for success.

I asked ChatGPT Images 2.0 to redesign my app UIs - and wow: ChatGPT analyzed two of my apps, flagged issues, and generated new mockups. It’s a game-changer.

Anthropic’s new Claude Security tool scans your codebase for flaws - and helps you decide what to fix first: It uses Opus 4.7 to scan, validate, and generate patches, helping fix dangerous flaws before they can be exploited.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• PBS takes a look at the trend of folks using small, plug-in solar panels to augment their electrical needs.

• Tom Scott visits a giant grocery-processing warehouse that’s all robots, all the time.

• It’s time for more Christopher Walken. Here’s Trivial Psychic from an old SNL episode. It’s five ludicrous minutes of your life you’ll never get back.

Tool of the week

This is one of those inexpensive and irresistable tool add-ons that may or may not be a good idea. Rather than cutting sheet metal by hand or using an air-powered tool, you can attach this thing right to the end of your power drill.

How well does it work? I have no idea. But if you try it out, let us know in the comments below. Wishlisted.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• ZDNET’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols shares his unique perspective on Microsoft’s open-source release of DOS 1.0.

• Steven’s article reminded me that I did a ZDNET piece back in the day on CP/M’s open source release, as well as my very personal history with CP/M.

• Psychology Today explains why intelligent people may feel loneliness differently that other folks. Since all of you are highly intelligent (you’re reading this, aren’t you?), I figured you might be interested. But always know you’re not really alone as long as you’re subscribed here.

Pixel pic of the week

My very good little boy looks a bit suspicious right now. There he is with his very well-chewed buddy (which, IRL, smells more than a little nasty). Also, check out the sweater his Mom made for him. Stylin’.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

This week, I printed a wall-busting bust of Ghostbuster’s Slimer using the Bambu Lab H2D and six spools of filament loaded at once. I gave a still from the video to the new ChatGPT Images 2.0 using GPT-5.5 (both reviewed in the next section) and it generated the thumbnail you see below.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I put GPT-5.5 through a 10-round test: It scored 93/100, losing points only for exuberance: OpenAI’s latest model delivers powerful results but sometimes ignores simple directions, creating a tension between intelligence and control.

I tried ChatGPT Images 2.0: A fun, huge leap - and surprisingly useful for real work: My ChatGPT Images 2.0 results were impressive, but occassionally wrong. Here’s how it handles branding, text, and infographics.

I got an early look at ChatGPT Images 2.0, and it’s impressive - with one exception: OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Images 2.0 promises precision and design control. Here’s how to try it for yourself.

Moonshot AI’s new Kimi K2.6 swarms your complex tasks with 1,000 collaborating agents: Kimi K2.6’s impressive new capabilities could redefine how developers approach complex, multi-step engineering workflows.

Google bets $32B on AI agent cyber force as security arms race escalates: With Wiz and AI agents, Google is gearing up for a cyberwar where machines fight at speeds humans can’t match.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Most of you probably know by now how much I enjoy the Apple TV show For All Mankind. Well, Star City is coming out next month, and it’s the same story from the point of view of the Soviets. Here’s the trailer. I can’t wait!

• I like Morley Kurt’s projects. This time, he turns an old pallet into a desk he sold for $1,200.

• Here’s a fun musical selection, courtesy of my wife. This bluegrass band performs “Gangnam Style”. This is why the Internet was invented.

Tool of the week

Some of you might have noticed an interesting spatula used to remove the Ghostbusters Slimer model from my H2D. The fine folks at BuildTak sent one to me a few years back and it’s sometimes the only thing that works to get a model off of a build plate.

It comes in two sizes, it’s been with me for years, and it’s fairly inexpensive. If you do 3D printing, this should be in your build kit.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (but not this week).

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• I’ve always found that extra space at the end of a ruler annoying. But here’s why it’s there.

• A 2,000 year old carnyx, an Iron Age trumpet, was found in England, nearly completely intact. It’s quite the find.

• ZDNET’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes drives a bulldozer over an SSD enclosure. Based on his review of the SSD enclosure, I now want a bulldozer.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

I’ve really been enjoying making larger models on the two really big 3D printers in the Fab Lab. This is a remake of a very old model, but the scale and choice of filament make it into something quite impressive.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

• OpenAI’s Codex Desktop can run your computer now - and has its own browser: From coding tool to productivity powerhouse, Codex Desktop adds computer control, automation memory, and plugin support. But can it replace traditional software?

• AI-powered website builders have come a long way - here’s your best option in 2026: Last year, the best we could say about AI website builders is they had potential. This year, we found some that can actually do the job.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• Dude uses the baking soda trick to rebuild a pair of glasses. It’s not like you’re going to use the same trick for your glasses, but it’s a real interesting look at how to MacGyver small repairs like this.

• Why towels have stripes. Apparently, they’re not for decoration.

• Look, I know we all hate AI slop. And AI-generated content makes life harder for content creators. But then there’s this video, which is all wrong on so many levels, and yet so incredibly fun. Fake Neil deGrasse Tyson is the hero, and then there’s Fake Elon Musk, Fake Bill Gates, and other, well, you just gotta watch it. Thanks to the Internet Press Guild’s Alfred Poor for pointing this one out.

Gear of the week

I just discovered this company on Amazon. They make a line of tiny gear racks. This one is two feet high, but they have them as short as under a foot high. I’m thinking these might make great home lab server racks, as a way to organize gear that’s normally just piled on a shelf.

I haven’t bought these yet, and they are competing in my mind with something I might custom design for 3D printing or CNC fabricating. But still, they’re cool and potentially useful for small scale racking requirements.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Some psychologists are saying that people who prefer texting to phone calls aren’t being antisocial, they’re protecting the quality of their thinking from the demands of real-time performance. What do you think?

• Apparently, Chernobyl has spawned some mutant fungus that uses radiation as food. Thanks to my Facebook buddy, author David Brin, for pointing out this article.

• ZDNET’s Erin Carson has a helpful piece on how to polish up your LinkedIn profile so you stand out from the crowd (in a good way).

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

Welcome new readers!

We had another big surge in new subscribers this week. Welcome everybody! Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and make yourself comfortable. Lots of great stuff to read and watch in this week’s issue.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

How I set up Claude Code in iTerm2 to launch all my AI coding projects in one click: Managing multiple Claude Code projects doesn’t have to be chaotic. My iTerm2 setup dramatically reduces friction in my daily AI-assisted coding workflows - here’s how.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft join Anthropic’s Project Glasswing to defend world’s most critical software: Is this AI’s Manhattan Project? 12 tech rivals are banding together, and using Anthropic’s unreleased Mythos model, to find thousands of vulnerabilities before adversaries do.

Two deep dives coming soon from me on ZDNET: “Building an agentic AI strategy that pays off,” and “The 5 myths of the agentic coding apocalypse.”

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• In-depth interview with my ZDNET colleague Steven Vaughan-Nichols. This guy’s a legend and his Linux perspective is unmatched.

• Fun history of hobby shops. I remember Polk hobbies. My dad took me there when I was a little boy.

• Excavations led by the University of Oregon have unearthed artifacts suggesting the oldest human settlement in America was here in Oregon as far back as 18,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Project of the week

Most of my writing time this week has been spent working on two exciting new special feature articles that will be coming out soon on ZDNET. In between keyboarding sessions, I built this helpful little wheeled structure for my workbench, shown above.

I’ve had two of these Harbor Freight workbenches for years. They’ve served me well, but the metal on their legs is super flimsy. Any attempt to weld casters on them would just blow through the metal. But I want to be able to move the workbenches so I can get behind them. Just about everything else in both the Fab Lab and workshop is on wheels.

This project was very easy. For each workbench, I took a 2x4 foot Melamine project board from Home Depot and attached six casters. I bought three sets of four, so that I could have one on each corner and two in the middle (just because the span is a bit long and melamine project panels aren’t as robust as plywood). The benches mostly stay in place due to their weight, but to prevent them from sliding off, I added a heavy duty steel L bracket on each corner.

It was a fairly simple and easy project, but it tackled a toleration I’ve had for years. A side benefit to the mobility is that I now have a new shelf for storage. It nicely holds two Sterilite bins.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Jason Perlow is back with a look at what an alternate history of the technology industry might look like. This brilliant piece is what happens when Jason can write whatever he wants to write.

• How the 2025 Superman movie used 3D printers as a production tool.

• According to ZDNET’s Ed Bott, Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program is no longer a confusing mess.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

• I built two apps with just my voice and a mouse - are IDEs already obsolete? With one hand holding my dog and no keyboard, I advanced two serious development projects using AI prompting, proving that the traditional coding setup may no longer be required.

• I used Gmail’s AI tool to do hours of work in 10 minutes - with 3 prompts: I just had a ‘living in the future’ moment with Gmail, of all things. Here’s what happened.

• Google’s Gemma 4 model goes fully open-source and unlocks powerful local AI - even on phones: Now open-source under Apache 2.0, Gemma 4 brings offline, multimodal AI to servers, phones, and Raspberry Pi - giving developers total local control over edge and on-premises deployments.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• This video shows future Darwin Award winners in hang gliders, being towed by drones. Thanks to my Internet Press Guild buddy Phil Shapiro for sharing this.

• YouTuber Tom Buck shows how he uses a magic arm and a super clamp to mount his talking head camera setup. Simple and elegant.

• In this short video, some guy shows how to fix wooden joists damaged by a plumber. This kind of splice patch can work for a lot of homeowner fixes, so it’s worth knowing how to do.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Scientists have found giant eggs nearly 20 inches long about two miles below an active volcano. They belong to a winged fish known as the Pacific white skate. And yes, people eat them. Apparently, Pacific white skate tastes a bit like lobster.

• Your poop schedule says a lot about your overall health, according to this article. Personally, I think it’s a load of crap.

• Want to save bucks on rising gas prices? ZDNET’s Lance Whitney has five apps that can save you real cash.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!

Advanced Geekery is published weekly on Substack and LinkedIn. Same content. Choose your favorite delivery method. Back Issues.

My latest video

Last week, I mentioned that I was testing out the EufyMake E1 UV printer. In this video, I unbox the machine (and a ton of add-on goodies). I also take you through my first run and first impressions. It’s a cool machine.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I turned casual selfies into professional headshots with Gemini - and the results blew me away: I used Gemini Nano Banana 2 to generate professional headshots perfect for LinkedIn - in minutes.

OpenAI upgrades Codex to automate your workflows - and compete better with Claude Code: Codex’s new plugins push it beyond coding and position it to challenge Claude Code’s growing lead among developers.

How Claude Code’s new auto mode prevents AI coding disasters - without slowing you down: Anthropic’s middle-ground mode aims to reduce interruptions while protecting developers from destructive commands. Here’s why I like this new option.

I’m on Disney+

Looks like me from 2010 is on Disney+ this month. If you get a chance, stream The President’s Book of Secrets. It’s a fun (if somewhat dated) look inside the White House and presidential secret-keeping.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

• This guy 3D printed a wonderful analog-like radio for his Dad. It looks great and the story is inspiring.

• If you’ve been following me for any time, you probably know how enamored I’ve always been with the Thunderbirds. This video is a fun, somewhat behind-the-scenes, piece about how they used and reused their shots.

• Since I talked about the new EufyMake E1 UV in this week’s video, I thought I’d show you how one guy hacked the printer to help him solve a manufacturing problem. Creative use of the tech, indeed.

Project (and tool) of the week

I love it when my wife asks me to help solve a problem around the house. Of course, I like the opportunity to help her. Virtue is its own reward. But there’s also often a side benefit. Sometimes her projects require me to get a new tool or two. When I do, I know that tool purchase can be completely justified under the Good Husband clause. I often need to get tools for projects, but the added justification makes me feel virtuous in my tool acquisition.

This time it’s the cool tie wrap tensioner shown above. Additionally, I bought 4-foot long tie wraps. These are, by far, the longest tie wraps I’ve ever used.

The project was fixing the shoe rack shown above. My wife likes this particular shoe rack because it perfectly fits in a corner of our entryway behind the door. But it's made from super-flimsy metal bars press-fitted into equally flimsy plastic sides, causing it to fall apart constantly.

I offered to make her an identical one out of wood and real steel on the CNC. But she wanted this exact unit. She says it took her a while to find it, it’s perfect apart from the fact that it won’t hold together, and she just wanted some kind of fix so it could be used reliably. Cue the engineering challenge.

There is no threading on the rods. They are smooth. Epoxy won’t hold. And there are no fasteners anywhere on the unit. The entire thing is meant to be press-fit so it holds together long enough to exceed the return window offered by the retailer.

I thought of 3D printing a bracket, but that would have the same friction holding problem. Then I thought of using wire rope and turnbuckles, but I couldn’t source anything light and small enough to do the job.

Then, of course, there are tie wraps. I can do anything with duct tape, tie wraps, and an Arduino or two (although I couldn’t figure out a good excuse to mount either duct tape or an Arduino on this project).

The rack is 20 inches wide, so 48 inch tie wraps would work perfectly. The only problem was going to be tensioning these hefty straps. I did some more digging and found the Klein Tools 86570 Tie Tensioning Tool, which works with all different sizes. Once a wrap is tied, you slide it over the loose end. One side of the tool clamps on the tie wrap flap, while the other pushes against the joint.

Bing-bang-boom. Tie wrap tensioned. I so very much love getting new tools! And, as it turns out, Denise is quite thrilled with the fix. Buy a tool. Make your wife happy. Life is good.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

• Apparently, there were tool builders on Earth 600,000 years before Homo erectus (quiet down, back there!) was active on the planet.

• Scientists have confirmed that “time reflections” are real, a discovery that could lead to unhackable phones and lightning-fast computers by reversing the way waves travel.

• The words “portable wind turbine” just cheer me up. I don’t know why, but it’s true. ZDNET’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has one. He looks at whether it works any better than solar panels.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.

Both my EPs are now streaming

Available on all your favorite streaming services.

More clicky

I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:

• All my chewy goodness on ZDNET

• My Advanced Geekery YouTube channel

• House of the Head: home for my published music

• ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects

• The socials: Facebook | Twitter/X | Instagram | LinkedIn

• The Twitter wannabees: Bluesky | Threads | Mastodon

Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!

Leave some comments

Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.

That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.

Have a great week!