151
Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset
I did not expect this! [...] we are announcing today the general availability of a foundational open data set, Foursquare Open Source Places ("FSQ OS Places"). This base layer of …
Simon Willison
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152
PAGNIs: Probably Are Gonna Need Its (2021)
Luke Page has a great post up with his list of YAGNI exceptions. YAGNI—You Ain’t Gonna Need It—is a rule that says you shouldn’t add a feature just because it …
153
Language models on the command line
I gave a talk about accessing Large Language Models from the command-line last week as part of the Mastering LLMs: A Conference For Developers & Data Scientists six week long …
154
Hacking around with the ScotRail audio announcements
Scottish train operator ScotRail released a two-hour long MP3 file containing all of the components of its automated station announcements. Messing around with them is proving to be a huge …
155
Gemini 3 Deep Think drew me a good SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
New from Google. They say it's "built to push the frontier of intelligence and solve modern challenges across science, research, and engineering". It drew me a really good SVG of …
156
Notes on streaming large API responses
I started a Twitter conversation last week about API endpoints that stream large amounts of data as an alternative to APIs that return 100 results at a time and require …
157
Datasette-ripgrep: a regular expression search engine for your source code
This week I built datasette-ripgrep—a web application for running regular expression searches against source code, built on top of the amazing ripgrep command-line tool. datasette-ripgrep demo I’ve deployed a demo …
158
Three major LLM releases in 24 hours
I’m a bit behind on my weeknotes, so there’s a lot to cover here. But first... a review of the last 24 hours of Large Language Model news. All times …
159
Google's new AI mode is good, actually
When I wrote about how good ChatGPT with GPT-5 is at search yesterday I nearly added a note about how comparatively disappointing Google's efforts around this are. I'm glad I …
160
The U.S. Census Bureau and "Super Intelligence"
I was reminded today of AI Adoption Rate Trending Down for Large Companies, a chart produced by Apollo Global Management in September 2025, which appeared to show a slowdown in …
161
Joining CSV and JSON data with an in-memory SQLite database
The new sqlite-utils memory command can import CSV and JSON data directly into an in-memory SQLite database, combine and query it using SQL and output the results as CSV, JSON …
162
/usr/bin/env -S uv run
This is a really neat pattern. Start your Python script like this: #!/usr/bin/env -S uv run # /// script # requires-python = ">=3.12" # dependencies = [ # "flask==3.*", # …
163
Implementing faceted search with Django and PostgreSQL
I’ve added a faceted search engine to this blog, powered by PostgreSQL. It supports regular text search (proper search, not just SQL“like” queries), filter by tag, filter by date, filter …
164
Things I've learned about building CLI tools in Python
I build a lot of command-line tools in Python. It’s become my favorite way of quickly turning a piece of code into something I can use myself and package up …
165
A tool for capturing captions and transcripts from online videos
I released a new project this weekend, built during the Bellingcat Hackathon (I came second!) It’s called Action Transcription and it’s a tool for caturing captions and transcripts from online …
166
The evolution of OpenAI's mission statement
As a USA 501(c)(3) the OpenAI non-profit has to file a tax return each year with the IRS. One of the required fields on that tax return is to “Briefly …
167
Ask questions of SQLite databases and CSV/JSON files in your terminal
I built a new plugin for my sqlite-utils CLI tool that lets you ask human-language questions directly of SQLite databases and CSV/JSON files on your computer. It’s called sqlite-utils-ask. Here’s …
168
Datasette Facets: Faceted Browse and a JSON API for any CSV File or SQLite DB
Datasette 0.22 is out with the most significant new feature I’ve added since the initial release: faceted browse. Datasette lets you deploy an instant web UI and JSON API for …
169
New prompt injection papers: Agents rule of two and the attacker moves second
Two interesting new papers regarding LLM security and prompt injection came to my attention this weekend. Agents Rule of Two: A Practical Approach to AI Agent Security The first is …
170
Ultrathink is a Claude Code magic word
Extensive new documentation from Anthropic on how to get the best results out of their Claude Code CLI coding agent tool, which includes this fascinating tip: We recommend using the …
171
Leaked Google document: “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI”
SemiAnalysis published something of a bombshell leaked document this morning: Google “We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI”. The source of the document is vague: The text below is …
172
Why I like Redis
I’ve been getting a lot of useful work done with Redis recently. Redis is typically categorised as yet another of those new-fangled NoSQL key/value stores, but if you look closer …
173
SQL Injection Isn't Dead: Smuggling Queries at the Protocol Level
PDF slides from a presentation by Paul Gerste at DEF CON 32. It turns out some databases have vulnerabilities in their binary protocols that can be exploited by carefully crafted …
174
SmolLM2
New from Loubna Ben Allal and her research team at Hugging Face: SmolLM2 is a family of compact language models available in three size: 135M, 360M, and 1.7B parameters. They …
175
Running Python code in a sandbox with MicroPython and WASM
I’ve been experimenting with different approaches to running code in a sandbox for several years now, but my latest attempt feels like it might finally have all of the characteristics …
176
Bundling binary tools in Python wheels
I spotted a new (to me) pattern which I think is pretty interesting: projects are bundling compiled binary applications as part of their Python packaging wheels. I think it’s really …
177
Design Patterns for Securing LLM Agents Against Prompt Injections
This new paper by 11 authors from organizations including IBM, Invariant Labs, ETH Zurich, Google and Microsoft is an excellent addition to the literature on prompt injection and LLM security. …
178
A new AI game: Give me ideas for crimes to do
Less than a week ago OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world, and it kicked off what feels like a seismic shift in many people’s understand of the capabilities of large …
179
Pelicans on a bicycle
I decided to roll out my own LLM benchmark: how well can different models render an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle? I chose that because a) I like …
180
Building a Desktop Application for Datasette
This week I started experimenting with a desktop application version of Datasette—with the goal of providing people who aren’t comfortable with the command-line the ability to get Datasette up and …