As a kid who grew up in the 80s, I was asked to write my predictions of the future and put them into a time capsule.

I wrote about a future which included robot servants, flying cars and of course jet packs.

To my disappointment, we dug up the time capsule the following year and of course none of those things transpired.

40 years later, it is funny to think how this time where we will be living with robots may have actually arrived. Be that good or bad.

And whilst we spend much time debating...

At the end of every AI agent automation, a human is required to ask:

1. Did it do it right?
2. Does it solve the problem?

I’m not convinced we can ever remove that person. Nor can that person be anyone other than a capable expert who is able to evaluate these questions with a high level of reliability.

Did you know... iOS has this:

webapp://

So you can launch "ANY URL" as a full blown iOS application.

Here's how I'm using it:

1. Make a new Shortcut
2. Get it to Open an URL
3. Tell it to open webapp://mail.google.com
4. Add the Shortcut to your lock screen

Bam! Direct access. No Safari guff. Just a full blown app experience.

As someone who has given up on the Apple Developer program, this tiny thing makes...

I may have just made a crude version of Netscape Communicator (on Chromium).

Oddly, the clunky nature of this half built application feels about right…

No annoying Cloudflare captchas on sites either.

Staying in the private repo for now but I might release it later if I end up fixing all the quirks.

Feeling oppressed by "Big Word Processor"?

Nope? Well, you may still like this one, straight from 1998...!

https://writer-98.com

Why make a Word Processor?

• At work, a lot of people do two things:
• search the web
• write things
• For many; this means using Google and Microsoft products
• But both those products have been ruined over time

So, it was time to make a word processor from the "hey day" of word processors. 1998! Before they all turned...

Game & Watch

Hands down, Nintendo at their peak.

Enjoy.

http://bdrgames.nl/lcdgames

(Desktop only)

Someone remade: WINAMP

Feels like I might be late to the party on this one. Pretty sure this has been around for while.

Either way, here it is:

https://webamp.org/

What I like!

• They've included themes!!! (There's even a museum)
• It works on mobile... (sort of, I couldn't get any MP3s to upload)
• It can be embedded into your own site. (Neocities here I come)
• Arc detects it is playing and gives me player controls!
• Shortcut...

Want an Indie Web replacement for Maps?

Check out: https://indie-maps.com

It's Google Maps from 20 years ago.

What you'll love

• Shows where you are, and where you want to go!
• Screaming with 2005 design spirit
• Slightly janky on mobile (by design), but ever reliable
• No Google. No privacy issues. No tracking.
• GPL 3. Open Source. Do what you want with it.
• A single HTML file. Host it anywhere.

What will drive you nuts!

• The oversized...

Replace Google with an "Indie Web Search Engine"

• Tired of Google Ads?
• Love a 2000s aesthetic?
• Know how to run an html file on localhost?
• Capable of signing up for an API key?

Yes! Great, I made: Indie Search

https://github.com/seven20solutions/indiesearch

What's great about it?

• It's made to become your "default" search tool (seriously)
• Supports VIM key bindings
• Light, Dark and System mode
• Search results for...

Do you use OpenCode to co-code / vibe code?

@simonelone told me about this amazing tool.

https://opencode.ai/

It's the best in its class from my experience...

...however, right now, it's a bit busted. They dropped a version with some sort of recursion error.

So hold off testing it out until you see version 1.3.34 or higher.

Robots

• Detail 1: Elon Musk says "there will be more robots than people"
• Detail 2: China's ratio of "old vs young" is tilted too much towards "old"
• Detail 3: Robots represent mildly capable employees who don't demand any rights (pay, leave, health benefits, etc) making them appealing to every business on the planet

Population

• We must be headed to for a population explosion. (see detail #1)
• Robots occupy exactly "1 person" worth of physical space. So everything will get very...

Terminal Music Player - No Subscription Required

Meet: Shellbeats

https://github.com/lalo-space/shellbeats

It's a TUI which uses Youtube to stream music through your terminal.

Benefits:

1. It is just audio (no video player... which I think this breaches a terms-of-use policy... not sure, not a lawyer)
2. Huge selection of music (official releases, live music, etc)
3. Includes a "download" function for offline listening (the legalities of that...

CHROME DEV TOOLS IN THE TERMINAL (Network Tab)

Ever wished you could see the Network Traffic from your browser in your terminal?

Check out Mitmproxy

https://www.mitmproxy.org/

Here's an inadequate setup guide:

1. Install mitmproxy
2. Run it!
3. Pick a browser you don't care about (I used a Firefox variant) and point at the proxy: 127.0.0.1 port 8080
4. Visit: http://mitm.it in your chosen browser
5. Install the certificate
6. Update...

Want a TERMINAL TOOL which can do EVERYTHING?

Yeah, me neither.

But... X-CMD may have proved me wrong...

https://www.x-cmd.com/

What is this tool?

X-CMD gives you access to better versions of normal terminal tools AND puts tools you haven't installed right under your finger tips.

Example 1:

x find

This will start an "interactive" version of find.

Example 2:

x mac battery

This shows how much juice you have left in your battery (if it is a...

Love the terminal?

Hate having to “watch” videos?

Then give ytfetcher a spin:

https://github.com/kaya70875/ytfetcher

It will show the transcript of a YouTube video so you can grep that 3 seconds of information you wanted from it.

Or… feed the output file direct to a AI CLI tool like aichat or mods. Both use AI to read the transcript so you can ask questions like a normal person.

How I just used it:

ytfetcher from_video_ids XX

...

Is this the best Terminal tool for "writing"?

Dawn:

https://github.com/andrewmd5/dawn

"Yes!"

Why?

Out of the box, it is ONLY a writing tool.

• It looks amazing. Markdown is fully rendered as you write. No need for dual panes.
• The width of your writing is restricted to human readable length.
• Movement through the document is based on what you've written (via a TOC)
• You can draft notes / ideas instantly.
• It saves as you write.

I...

Raycast

An amazing app for MacOS (and now Windows) which helps you control you computer faster and invoke AI assistance.

However... their innovation has slowed...

MacOS updates Jan - Jun 2025:

12 releases

MacOS updates July - Dec 2025:

3 releases

The reason... maybe this this...

Windows updates July - Dec 2025:

14 releases

So what has happened?

They have refocused towards Windows.

Makes sense, Windows is a big market

Yes, but...

Today’s terminal tool is:

Space Invaders

https://github.com/mattdowdell/invaders

Because it’s the weekend and you should all be having fun.

What I like about it:

• It works out of the box
• It feels like I remember space invaders

But…

It dies when you run it in tmux… maybe that’s just me..?

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

da Vinci…

or possibly Picasso…

Source:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci#Unsourced

Another EDC item I always have with me:

A handkerchief

Why?

Other than the obvious, having a clean piece of cloth in your pocket is really useful.

• I can clean my hands with it after tinkering with my bike
• I can use it to pull a thorny weed I spotted in the yard
• It’s useful when there’s been a small spill
• You can clean a grubby phone or laptop screen (or child) with it
• You can handle something hot for a short period of time

There’s a great article on the value of a...