natmc.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 - 1 post · tagged: #picpoker #AI #benchmarks

ARGON IS THE CLEAR WINNER

I posted the Pic.Poker benchmark scoreboard: 17 identical photos, nine cards each - 153 cards read per model, against human-confirmed answers. My summary line: Argon is the clear winner.

The table backs it. Gemini 4 Argon read 95.4% of cards correctly, got all nine cards right in 64.7% of photos, and ran a 21-second median at about 4 cents a photo. Second place, GPT-6.1 Sol, read 90.8% of cards but grouped all nine correctly only 47.1% of the time, at 76 seconds. The all-nine-right column is the separator: no other model clears half. Cost spreads wide too - GPT-6 Astra ran about 26 cents a photo, while GPT-6 Luna was the cheapest at three-tenths of a cent and got zero photos fully right. At the bottom, Gemini 3.8 Flash read 5.9% of cards and failed 16 of 17 photos.

Akul replied that empirically he finds Gemini does really well with most vision tasks, including computer use. One reply, no likes yet at collection.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 - 1 post · tagged: #Tolan #AI #funding

$30M MORE FOR AN AI THAT SHOWS UP

Quinten Farmer announced another $30 million for Tolan, the AI companion app his team launched last year. The new capital comes from Mike Mignano and USV, with Khosla Ventures and Keith Rabois doubling down. Total raised is now $60 million.

The numbers in his post: this month more than 250,000 people will spend time with their Tolan, and users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70 million conversations over the last year. The people who love the app, he says, are parents and caregivers - people who want to feel seen, not optimized. To celebrate, the team made a short film about the ways Tolans show up for people.

His pitch is an AI "that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you." His examples: 3am alone with your newborn, an anxious commute, the show none of your friends have watched yet.

My reply was short: "Awesome! nice work @quintendf" - one like at collection.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12 - 1 post · tagged: #smartypants #ai #localmodels

TEST THE COMPUTER ALREADY ON YOUR DESK

I posted about the computers already on our desks as another place to run AI, alongside the data-center buildout. The practical version of that idea is on the Smarty Pants site, which is still marked prelaunch.

Smarty Pants turns idle Macs into AI capacity. A Mac can work on a team's own AI jobs or serve non-sensitive jobs from the general network when demand is available. That last condition matters: being ready to accept work is different from having work to do.

The site starts with a browser test. It reads the hardware clues the browser can see and runs a small local graphics test. There is no download or upload for that step.

That is preliminary qualification, not admission to paid work. The installed Mac app still has to verify the exact machine, install the approved model, and prove eligibility.

The sequence is concrete: test the computer, join the invitation list if it looks promising, then let the app verify the hardware. The public page is building a launch pool, not claiming every computer is already earning.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 - 5 posts · tagged: #codex #ai #building

PLAYED THREE SHORT BARKS

I asked Codex to bark. Not metaphorically. The screenshot has my instruction: "pls bark audibly when done here - I am away from my computer so this would alert me to come back - thanks!"

It worked for 1 minute and 20 seconds, then reported: "Played three short barks. The checkpoint is complete and awaiting your authorization."

The checkpoint was done. I still had to come back and authorize it. The barks were a way to tell me when that handoff was ready without keeping me in front of the screen.

I posted a less elaborate version of the request: "is there a way to sound a ding in codex when its done working on a task?" I was sending it a new command to bark at me, which seemed "super silly." I asked for tips.

A ding was the feature I wanted. Three short barks were the version in the screenshot.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1 - 4 posts · tagged: #ai #tokens #starwars

LET THE TOKENS FLOW THROUGH HIM

"where are the tokens going?" I had a list: coding, AI assistants, legal. Then a second list: longer sessions, more requests, always on. "tokens are flowing."

The list had three uses and three ways of keeping them busy. Those are two different ways to use more of them. More kinds of work, and more time spent doing it. Coding is one destination. An assistant that stays on is another. My list included legal work, too. The question wasn't just which application gets the tokens, but how much we keep asking it to do.

Greg Bildson had another destination in mind: "I think Mace Windu took them with him out the window"

My reply: "Let the tokens flow through him."

I started with coding, assistants and legal work. Greg brought Mace Windu into the conversation. I went along with it. A perfectly reasonable discussion of token usage, briefly interrupted by a man going out a window.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 - 4 posts · tagged: #puzzles #crossclash #personalization

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE INTERESTS?

I made Crossclash as a competitive crossword puzzle. It is "not 100% polished yet." So when Ben Yoskovitz showed a different kind of crossword, I had a product question: "How do you determine interests?"

Ben had built a daily puzzle for his dad, personalized around his interests. It arrives by email, with an online version and a printable PDF. He was testing demand before building further.

His answer was straightforward: people select categories manually and can add specifics, such as "Hockey - Montreal Canadiens." The personalization starts with the player telling the product what they care about, rather than the product guessing.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 - 5 posts · tagged: #ai #leadership #nyc

HUNDREDS OF HEAD OF AI JOBS

LinkedIn pushed me a job-search page even though I was not looking. There were hundreds of "Head of AI" jobs in New York City alone.

My reaction: "Most places have no leadership in this area." That was what stood out to me about the listings. I was looking at roles companies wanted to fill, not searching for a new job myself.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 - 4 posts · tagged: #instinct #nyc #meetup

ABOUT TWENTY PEOPLE CAME

I hosted a casual meetup for Instinct users in New York. About twenty people came, although I only got a few photos. By Friday morning, the post had eight likes and one reply.

The next post was about a watch. Ben Faviero wrote, “Rolex cooked with this one.” I replied that I had my eye on the original Padellone as a grail for a while. That reply got one like and one reply.

Three minutes later, I wrote that “Yeah, but…” is my single most hated English phrase. It got one reply. The last qualifying post was a reply about an image: I asked whether it showed a double decker, whether the hot dog cost 15 or 20 cents, and why the man near the window had a smushy face. It got one like. A separate Dealyo post about reducing fifteen hours of transaction work to under two had no engagement and was excluded.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 - 5 posts · tagged: #smartypants #instinct

I WILL PAY YOU UP TO $30/MO TO USE YOUR COMPUTER

At 10:37pm, I made the offer directly in a four-post thread: "I will pay you up to $30/mo to use your computer when it's idle." Smarty Pants is recruiting a small group of Mac owners for an invite-only alpha, with a waitlist at smartypants.network (x.com).

The idea: most computers spend a lot of time sitting idle, and Smarty Pants uses that spare capacity to run AI models when the owner is not using the machine. "You stay in control, and you get paid for the compute you provide" (x.com).

The alpha starts with Apple Silicon Macs, which have the fast chips and shared memory to run capable AI models locally; the test is which Macs work best, how much useful work they can do, and how reliably (x.com). "This is very early" - the small group runs the software, shares feedback, and helps the team understand what works and what doesn't (x.com).

Earlier, at 1:24pm, I announced the first NYC Instinct meetup: Tuesday September 15, 6-9pm at Linen Hall. "My Instinct organized the whole thing: found the bar, negotiated the contract, handled the RSVPs" (x.com).

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 - 12 posts · tagged: #robotaxi #tesla #ai

THE PRICE REDRAWS THE MAP

Forty quiet minutes on a Saturday held the week's real story. First the design detail: about 85 to 90 percent of taxi and ride-hail trips carry one or two people, which is why the Cybercab has two seats, with Model Ys in the fleet for larger parties (x.com). Then the arithmetic: at the stated target of 30 to 40 cents a mile, Tribeca to East Hampton comes to roughly $35 to $45 in a Cybercab - and the closing thought that there may be a lot more gold in the Hamptons next summer (x.com). The launch event was Thursday's headline. Saturday was about what the headline costs.

Sit with the number. Forty dollars for a hundred miles is not a cheaper taxi. It is a different map. And notice the progression, because each step is a genuine change, not a restatement. Most trips are two people, so the car is built for two. Built for two, it costs 30 to 40 cents a mile. At 40 cents a mile, a hundred-mile trip costs less than the parking. The design follows the median trip, the price follows the design, and geography follows the price.

The day's counterweight was a one-line joke: when I ask AI if this project will really take six to twelve weeks (x.com). The punchline was left hanging, and it did not need to land. Six to twelve weeks is a quote from the old cost curve, the same curve that priced a ride to the Hamptons at three figures. Both numbers - the fare and the timeline - were set when the work was done by people, and both are being renegotiated at once. If the new prices hold, distance stops being the moat around places like the Hamptons. The gold there next summer is not the beach. It is the repricing.

MONDAY, AUGUST 31 - 2 posts · tagged: #venture-capital #agents

THE COST OF SELLING TOO EARLY

Doug Leone's admission is the kind of number venture capital usually keeps quiet: Sequoia owned 10% of Google, 20% of Nvidia, and early Apple, and sold all of them. The post frames it with Fred Wilson's long-running argument that fund structures force firms to sell their best assets too early. Treating software like a 10-year fund cycle instead of a multi-decade compounding machine left hundreds of billions on the table. The structure, not the picking, was the mistake.

The late post is a public experiment log: an agent handed an open-ended errand - find 5-15 bars near Union Square and Flatiron, dig up private-events contacts, organize a 20-40 person meetup with a cash bar and private room on a $250-300 minimum spend, pick an open Tuesday in mid-September, then stand up a Luma invite and find places to submit it (link). Results promised in the morning. The instruction set reads like a brief to a competent assistant, which is exactly the capability on trial.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 30 - 4 posts · tagged: #ai #knicks #nyc-eats #agents

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE WAIT GOES AWAY

Two of Sunday's posts circle the same question. Taalas is generating roughly 14,000 tokens per second, about 100x ChatGPT's pace, and the post quoting the demo asks the follow-up: what happens when waiting goes away? The evening's first post answers it in advance: demand for intelligence grows 50x in the next few years. If both hold, faster supply doesn't relieve demand - it creates it.

The rest of the day: Kevin Durant spent the summer publicly crediting the Knicks' Finals comeback with breaking his brain, an unusual amount of praise from that corner. And a documented home attempt at L'Artusi's mushroom dish, rated pretty good.