Some quick thoughts on software development, AI, and startups.
DevelopmentAI
Locally fine-tuning Whisper and ASR models with Listenr · Part 1
Off-the-shelf Whisper models are impressive but struggle with personal vocabulary, accents, and jargon not present in their training data. This post covers why standard open datasets fall short for personal fine-tuning and how I built Listenr to continuously capture and transcribe my own conversational audio as a training set.
Data Investigation ยท AutoTracko
After scanning news organizations across multiple countries, one finding was unmistakable: the overwhelming majority of tracker calls route through US-based corporations. Explore the interactive data investigation.
DevelopmentAI
Make the most of cheap compute to do cool things.
Opinion
Progress waits for no one. And yet is it progress? Apple is rumored to be adding cameras to its highly purchased AirPods.
DevelopmentAI
Firefox's AI chatbot sidebar can talk to a local Lemonade server. One CLI command and one about:config flip and your prompts never leave your machine.
TechnologyAI
After hitting walls with FreeCAD, TinkerCAD, and Fusion 360, I discovered that scripting 3D models in OpenSCAD with an LLM produces precise, reusable parts faster than any GUI-based workflow I tried. Two prompts into ChatGPT, I had a working pipe reducer printed and in hand.
DevelopmentTechnology
Using LLMs to generate deterministic scripts rather than running real-time AI agents is a more reliable, testable, and repeatable approach to automation. This post explains the strategy, shares real examples from managing this blog, and covers how to keep the output production-ready.
Research
After noticing CBC blocking 11 tracker domains in uBlock Origin, I built an automated tool to scan Canadian and international news sites and measure exactly how many trackers each one loads. The results reveal a pattern of aggressive, ad-network-driven data collection that goes well beyond basic analytics.
TechnologyOpinion
Large language models are changing the calculus on when to reach for a third-party library versus generating a lightweight, purpose-built implementation. This post examines the tradeoffs and where a hybrid approach of GenAI-generated code refined by a developer makes the most practical sense.
Development
hCaptcha is a privacy-respecting, drop-in alternative to Google ReCaptcha that actually pays you for serving its challenges on your site. This post shows how to integrate it into a Vue frontend and verify tokens server-side in Node with minimal code.
Development
Google ReCaptcha V3 offers invisible bot detection that scores users without requiring puzzle challenges, and wiring it into an Express backend is straightforward once you understand the token verification flow. This post walks through the full frontend and backend integration with working code examples.
DevelopmentOpinion
Maintaining a legacy web application is a challenge most developers eventually face, where migrations are too costly, rebuilds are impractical, and doing nothing means a growing list of security risks. This post covers practical considerations for keeping aging stacks alive while keeping technical debt in check.
DevelopmentOpinion
Building a URL shortener is a great project for exploring real-world concerns like unique ID generation, database modeling, and abuse prevention. This post covers the core mechanics using Node and MongoDB, focusing on the counter-based schema design that keeps short IDs truly short.
DevelopmentOpinion
Flask is a lightweight Python web framework that gets out of your way, but choosing the right supporting tools for your database, frontend, and dev environment is where the real decisions are made. This post walks through the key choices when building a full Flask application from scratch.