Notes on AI, tools, and tech.
Pierce Allen 
I installed the August Windows 11 update last week. KB5121003. Didn’t think much of it. Security patch, right? Fixes some vulnerabilities, makes things safer. Then I tried to play a game. It crashed. Not a gentle crash either. The screen froze, went black, and then blue screen. EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION. My PC restarted itself. I stared at … Read more
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know this feature existed until about two months ago. And I’ve worn an Apple Watch every day for three years. Here’s what happened. I went to see Dune: Part Two with a friend. Dark theater, big screen, the whole thing. About 20 minutes in, I reached for my popcorn, and … Read more
So Apple is really making AirPods with cameras. I know. It sounds weird. When I first heard the rumor a few months ago, I thought it was one of those Apple is working on a car type leaks, technically true but years away from anything real. But then a video showed up inside macOS Tahoe … Read more
Here’s a thing that kept bothering me. I was at a family gathering last weekend. My nephew was running around doing that thing kids do where they’re having the time of their lives and you’re just trying to capture one decent frame. You know the drill. You tap the shutter, check the photo, and the … Read more
DeepSeek dropped a new model yesterday. No warning. No teaser campaign. Just a quiet API update and a bunch of benchmark numbers that made me do a double take. Here’s the thing about DeepSeek: they always do this. You’re sitting there, minding your own business, and suddenly they launch something that makes everyone else look … Read more
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect much when I saw the announcement. Another vision model. Another API endpoint. Another “exp” tag that usually means “try it if you’re bored.” But then I actually read what this thing does. And I spent a couple hours poking at it. Now I’m sitting here writing this, which means … Read more
DeepSeek’s API is cheap. Like, really cheap. Cheaper than almost anything else out there. That alone makes it worth a look. But here’s the thing — I spent a good chunk of last week hitting every error code they have. Not on purpose at first. But after I tripped over a few, I figured I … Read more
I started using DeepSeek’s API about three weeks ago. Not because I needed another AI tool — I already pay for a few — but because a friend kept mentioning how cheap it was. I figured I’d burn a few bucks, test it out, and forget about it. I didn’t forget about it. But I … Read more
I’ve been quietly watching Tencent’s WorkBuddy for a few months. It’s not the flashiest AI tool out there, but the numbers are hard to ignore. Over 20 million desktop visits in June alone. That’s not nothing. Now they’re about to drop Hy4 into it. Here’s the short version: Tencent’s new flagship model, Hy4, was spotted … Read more
DeepSeek Harness just got another update. RC.8 landed two days after RC.7, and it’s not just a bug-fix release. This one changes how the whole thing works. The short version: DeepSeek Harness is turning into a dispatch layer for AI agents. You give it a task, it works out which agent should handle which part, … Read more