James Kimbley

With AI, you can simply reverse engineer this code out of your TV and other devices.

People are already doing this to change their smart TV’s interface to their liking.

News article: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/ac17…

Might be in the wrong job, Joe!

I have my walking treadmill linked to a smart plug, which is linked to Google Home. So all I should theoretically have to say is, “Okay, Google, turn on the walking treadmill.” That works maybe 3 out of 10 times. If I then repeat it and say, “Turn on the fucking walking treadmill now”, it works 10 out of 10 times.

Just so you know, this Google outage that the BBC is reporting isn’t affecting Google Workspace at all. It’s as solid as a rock, as usual.

I am genuinely learning new stuff from AI every day. Such as Windows Key + Shift + T.

One of the best keyboard shortcuts I never knew existed, and I have found no one else who was aware of it.

What is it?

It is an OCR-based copy-and-paste.

Say you’re watching a YouTube video and there is some text in the video you want to capture:

• Hit that keyboard shortcut Windows Key + Shift + T

• Draw a box around the text.

• Right-click the text to copy.

• Then paste that text wherever you want.

You no longer need to pause the video and type the text; just use this shortcut!

Even Google’s own AI reveals their laziness in how they designed the URL fetcher in Gemini.

It is the main reason why, when you give Gemini a URL, it can’t always read it or give you any information about it: it’s simply down to Google’s laziness.

Embarrassing.

This Tesla Roadster feature would be very handy for getting around the traffic in some towns and cities when I am visiting clients.

However, the most important part of the presentation was not really the car. It was what Elon Musk said: “It’s the last car Tesla will ever make that a human can drive.”

If you have half an hour to spare, this Veritasium breakdown of how fibre came to replace copper is well worth your time. In the 1960s, copper wiring was hitting its physical limits, yet early glass fibres lost far too much light to be useful over any real distance. It took the relentless dedication of pioneers like Charles Kao whose own boss dismissed the idea as a “wild goose chase” and a small team of scientists at Corning to pull off one of the greatest materials-engineering breakthroughs in history and lay the foundation for the modern internet.

I could count on one hand (and I only need two fingers) how many times this has happened in the last 20 years; a company signs up and partners with us, and then there’s radio silence.

They simply go silent. They don’t take advantage of the partnership to get the value we want to offer them.

It’s really odd, and I’ve never understood the psychology behind it.

At the end of this month, we’re offboarding a micro accounting company that signed up with us in October last year.

And during that time, I haven’t been able to build any relationship with them. I barely know them.

I know some people are introverted, but when you’re paying for a service you’re not using, it’s odd. Especially when we got on so well pre-agreement.

Pretty much every interaction I’ve tried to have with them has just been met with complete silence.

Even though they asked for help with specific areas of Google Workspace pre-onboarding, when I’ve gone to follow up with them, they’ve just ignored it.

• Advice on how best to manage their data in Google Drive.

• Advice on Google Workspace features they could use to save time.

• Advice about scams they should be aware of.

• All attempts to give them value from our service.

All ignored.

The only time one of the owners ever got in touch was a couple of months ago. They’d used AI, which had led them down the wrong path with an app they were vibe-coding. I gave them advice and guidance on deploying their app and offered to help them get it to the finish line.

The message was read, and I never heard back from them then.

Really, really weird. I don’t get why you’d partner with someone, then not use the service at all and ignore all attempts to provide value.

This looks good! The Altruists, a new Netflix series about SBF and the rise and fall of FTX.