Mark Finkle
@mfinkle.bsky.social
I didn't check to see if @siracusa.social was named in the article
October 17, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I didn't check to see if @siracusa.social was named in the article
Random weird thing: Apple Pay is only a direct payment option in Starbucks app without an account. When you create your account the option disappears... and the experience gets worse.
I deleted the account
I deleted the account
October 13, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Random weird thing: Apple Pay is only a direct payment option in Starbucks app without an account. When you create your account the option disappears... and the experience gets worse.
I deleted the account
I deleted the account
I can't imagine AOL employees are happy about this outcome
Sources: Yahoo is in advanced talks to sell AOL to Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons for about $1.4B (Reuters)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
October 2, 2025 at 3:22 AM
I can't imagine AOL employees are happy about this outcome
Reposted by Mark Finkle
Hard to imagine how the government being shut down could be much worse than the government we’ve had over the past 9 months.
September 27, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Hard to imagine how the government being shut down could be much worse than the government we’ve had over the past 9 months.
Reposted by Mark Finkle
Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.
September 19, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.
Reposted by Mark Finkle
👀 "the US experience is peculiar. Young Euro area workers have record low unemployment. In the UK, the young persons’ unemployment rate has fallen steadily. Employment by young Japanese workers is near all-time highs. It seems implausible that AI uniquely hurts the prospects of younger US workers."
The kids are alright?
Young US citizens are struggling to find work. This seems to be due to a hiring freeze, not because AI is replacing graduates
secure.ubs.com/global/en/we...
#EconSky
Young US citizens are struggling to find work. This seems to be due to a hiring freeze, not because AI is replacing graduates
secure.ubs.com/global/en/we...
#EconSky
The kids are alright?
The unemployment rate of US citizens younger than 25 shot up this year. Moreover, the increase has been mainly amongst people with some education. Those who failed to complete high school have not exp...
secure.ubs.com
September 19, 2025 at 11:28 AM
👀 "the US experience is peculiar. Young Euro area workers have record low unemployment. In the UK, the young persons’ unemployment rate has fallen steadily. Employment by young Japanese workers is near all-time highs. It seems implausible that AI uniquely hurts the prospects of younger US workers."
Reposted by Mark Finkle
Amazing how those democratic lawmakers who were hunted down in their homes in the middle of the night in Minnesota weren’t a watershed moment of political violence, huh?
The assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk marks a watershed moment in a surge of US political violence, one that some experts fear will inflame an already-fractured country and inspire more unrest reut.rs/41PWH4l
Nation on edge: Experts warn of “vicious spiral" in political violence after Kirk killing
The assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk marks a watershed moment in a surge of U.S. political violence, one that some experts fear will inflame an already-fractured country and inspire more unrest.
reut.rs
September 11, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Amazing how those democratic lawmakers who were hunted down in their homes in the middle of the night in Minnesota weren’t a watershed moment of political violence, huh?
Reposted by Mark Finkle
enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits
September 3, 2025 at 8:22 PM
enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits
I'm concerned that my first thought was:
Does @siracusa.social know about this?
Does @siracusa.social know about this?
China is about to launch SSDs so small you insert them like a SIM card
China is about to launch SSDs so small you insert them like a SIM card
Ever heard of a “1517” or a “Mini SSD”?
buff.ly
August 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
I'm concerned that my first thought was:
Does @siracusa.social know about this?
Does @siracusa.social know about this?
Reposted by Mark Finkle
For 20 years Mozilla has developed one of the most useful tools for web devs.
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/m...
Congrats to the MDN team on an awesome milestone. I'm happy that we've played a small part in its history and I'm excited to see it continue to be at the core of every web dev's job.
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/m...
Congrats to the MDN team on an awesome milestone. I'm happy that we've played a small part in its history and I'm excited to see it continue to be at the core of every web dev's job.
Celebrating 20 years of MDN | MDN Blog
MDN turns 20! Let's look at how we started, how MDN became the most trusted resource for web developers, the impact it's had on the open web, and yes, there's cake, too.
developer.mozilla.org
July 25, 2025 at 7:59 AM
For 20 years Mozilla has developed one of the most useful tools for web devs.
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/m...
Congrats to the MDN team on an awesome milestone. I'm happy that we've played a small part in its history and I'm excited to see it continue to be at the core of every web dev's job.
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/m...
Congrats to the MDN team on an awesome milestone. I'm happy that we've played a small part in its history and I'm excited to see it continue to be at the core of every web dev's job.
Pre-sleep thought: My hotel room has a mini-fridge, empty, but running.
Opportunity for removing mini-fridges to save energy? Or at least make a smarter mini-fridge?
Opportunity for removing mini-fridges to save energy? Or at least make a smarter mini-fridge?
July 21, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Pre-sleep thought: My hotel room has a mini-fridge, empty, but running.
Opportunity for removing mini-fridges to save energy? Or at least make a smarter mini-fridge?
Opportunity for removing mini-fridges to save energy? Or at least make a smarter mini-fridge?
Seen in Slack: it is working due to a litany of absolute HACKS!
One person's hacks is another person's temporary fix
One person's hacks is another person's temporary fix
July 17, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Seen in Slack: it is working due to a litany of absolute HACKS!
One person's hacks is another person's temporary fix
One person's hacks is another person's temporary fix
Reposted by Mark Finkle
Congratulations to Figma for filing for an IPO. Regulators blocking the Adobe deal must have felt bad in the moment but this is a better outcome.
Stay independent and get rich on your own terms.
Stay independent and get rich on your own terms.
Figma files for IPO on NYSE, plans to 'take big swings' with acquisitions
Figma filed its IPO prospectus on Tuesday, as the design software vendor looks to raise money and awareness to take on Adobe.
www.cnbc.com
July 2, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Congratulations to Figma for filing for an IPO. Regulators blocking the Adobe deal must have felt bad in the moment but this is a better outcome.
Stay independent and get rich on your own terms.
Stay independent and get rich on your own terms.
Reposted by Mark Finkle
"We're all going to die anyway" - Ancient Republican Proverb
E.P.A. Plans to Reconsider a Ban on Cancer-Causing Asbestos
www.nytimes.com
June 18, 2025 at 12:53 PM
"We're all going to die anyway" - Ancient Republican Proverb
What reason could I possibly have to use such a browser?
techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/p...
techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/p...
Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads | TechCrunch
Perplexity is building its own browser is to collect data on everything users do outside of its own app to sell ads.
techcrunch.com
May 1, 2025 at 6:31 PM
What reason could I possibly have to use such a browser?
techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/p...
techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/p...
Google released Agent Development Kit, a framework for building agent workflows with everything we expect from an agent frameworks.
I recreated my ToolAgent quasi-framework using ADK. I could expose my mock tools, add ReAct planning, and switch between different LLMs. It worked out really well. 🎉
I recreated my ToolAgent quasi-framework using ADK. I could expose my mock tools, add ReAct planning, and switch between different LLMs. It worked out really well. 🎉
Exploring LLMs as Agents: Google Agent Dev Kit
Up to this point, I have been experimenting with my own home-grown agent framework, based on Simon Willison’s great LLM project to handle wrapping the different LLMs. Armed with some experien…
starkravingfinkle.org
April 14, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Google released Agent Development Kit, a framework for building agent workflows with everything we expect from an agent frameworks.
I recreated my ToolAgent quasi-framework using ADK. I could expose my mock tools, add ReAct planning, and switch between different LLMs. It worked out really well. 🎉
I recreated my ToolAgent quasi-framework using ADK. I could expose my mock tools, add ReAct planning, and switch between different LLMs. It worked out really well. 🎉
I finally got around to exploring local LLMs. It was easier to set up than I expected. I tired a few different models of different sizes. The smaller ones didn't have enough "reasoning" ability to work as agents, but the larger ones did a pretty good job.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/04...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/04...
Exploring LLMs as Agents: Local Models
I finally got around to exploring local models, which is surprisingly simple to set up. I wanted to see how well a local model would perform in ToolAgent compared to the remote models (mostly Gemin…
starkravingfinkle.org
April 14, 2025 at 1:45 PM
I finally got around to exploring local LLMs. It was easier to set up than I expected. I tired a few different models of different sizes. The smaller ones didn't have enough "reasoning" ability to work as agents, but the larger ones did a pretty good job.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/04...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/04...
I took some time to experiment with MCP Client and Servers. I converted my ToolProvider system to become an MCP Server and made an MCP Client from my ToolAgent. I use zero dependencies on other frameworks, just to see how the protocol works.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
Exploring LLMs as Agents: Model Context Protocol
I will likely run out of topics to cover in the “LLMs as Agents” series, eventually. I wanted to explore creating a chat UI and what I could do with embeddings but I didn’t do tha…
starkravingfinkle.org
March 31, 2025 at 3:16 PM
I took some time to experiment with MCP Client and Servers. I converted my ToolProvider system to become an MCP Server and made an MCP Client from my ToolAgent. I use zero dependencies on other frameworks, just to see how the protocol works.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
This is pretty interesting. After building something similar (WebAgent), I can understand what the code is doing. I also exposed Playwright as "tools", but I didn't realize Playwright has a a11y snapshot feature to get a reduced set of elements. Very handy.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
March 25, 2025 at 1:54 AM
This is pretty interesting. After building something similar (WebAgent), I can understand what the code is doing. I also exposed Playwright as "tools", but I didn't realize Playwright has a a11y snapshot feature to get a reduced set of elements. Very handy.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
With the new ToolAgent framework, I refactored my web automation agent into WebAgent. The Playwright-based automation actions are now tools used by the agent.
I had to stop sending the entire HTML content of the page to the LLM 😱
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
I had to stop sending the entire HTML content of the page to the LLM 😱
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
Exploring LLMs as Agents: WebAgent Gets a Refactor
My fifth post on LLMs as Agents. I just it’s a series now. After refactoring ToolAgent, I decided to do the same with WebAgent, building it on the ToolAgent system. For more context and a ref…
starkravingfinkle.org
March 20, 2025 at 12:26 AM
With the new ToolAgent framework, I refactored my web automation agent into WebAgent. The Playwright-based automation actions are now tools used by the agent.
I had to stop sending the entire HTML content of the page to the LLM 😱
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
I had to stop sending the entire HTML content of the page to the LLM 😱
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
I'm still exploring ("playing") with using LLMs as Agents. I refactored the code into a tiny framework. Have I become that which I wanted to avoid? Maybe 🫠
More tools and a benchmark system allowed me to really improve the agent success outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
More tools and a benchmark system allowed me to really improve the agent success outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
Exploring LLMs as Agents: Tools & Benchmarking
I spent some time refactoring the Tool Agent code, added some additional mock tools and even some basic benchmarking. For more context, checkout the previous posts: Minimalist Approach: I kicked of…
starkravingfinkle.org
March 16, 2025 at 4:55 PM
I'm still exploring ("playing") with using LLMs as Agents. I refactored the code into a tiny framework. Have I become that which I wanted to avoid? Maybe 🫠
More tools and a benchmark system allowed me to really improve the agent success outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
More tools and a benchmark system allowed me to really improve the agent success outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
Reposted by Mark Finkle
BREAKING: The head of the $42 billion federal BEAD program that aims to bring broadband internet to rural and unserved areas has left the Commerce Dept.
He sent a departing email warning of "deeply negative outcomes" for people if the Trump admin shifts $$ from fiber internet to Musk's Starlink:
He sent a departing email warning of "deeply negative outcomes" for people if the Trump admin shifts $$ from fiber internet to Musk's Starlink:
March 16, 2025 at 3:45 PM
BREAKING: The head of the $42 billion federal BEAD program that aims to bring broadband internet to rural and unserved areas has left the Commerce Dept.
He sent a departing email warning of "deeply negative outcomes" for people if the Trump admin shifts $$ from fiber internet to Musk's Starlink:
He sent a departing email warning of "deeply negative outcomes" for people if the Trump admin shifts $$ from fiber internet to Musk's Starlink:
I spent some time adding "planning and reasoning" improvements to my LLMs as Agents project. I introduced a "Reasoning & Action" (ReAct) strategy that allows the LLM to "think out loud" and improve its outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
Exploring LLMs as Agents: Planning via Prompting
My exploration of how to use LLMs as Agents continues. In this post, I’m looking at ways to improve the outcomes by using better approaches to planning. For more context, checkout the previou…
starkravingfinkle.org
March 10, 2025 at 12:08 AM
I spent some time adding "planning and reasoning" improvements to my LLMs as Agents project. I introduced a "Reasoning & Action" (ReAct) strategy that allows the LLM to "think out loud" and improve its outcomes.
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2025/03...
I finally updated my Apple Watch from a Series 1 to a Series 10.
Other than short battery life, the Series 1 was working fine. I am looking forward to the extra features of the Series 10.
Other than short battery life, the Series 1 was working fine. I am looking forward to the extra features of the Series 10.
March 9, 2025 at 7:58 PM
I finally updated my Apple Watch from a Series 1 to a Series 10.
Other than short battery life, the Series 1 was working fine. I am looking forward to the extra features of the Series 10.
Other than short battery life, the Series 1 was working fine. I am looking forward to the extra features of the Series 10.
Reposted by Mark Finkle
Great breakdown of how the "WoeMeter" from the latest Severance episode was built: make3.co/work/woemeter
@adafruit.com ESP32-S3 Feather spotted!
@adafruit.com ESP32-S3 Feather spotted!
March 3, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Great breakdown of how the "WoeMeter" from the latest Severance episode was built: make3.co/work/woemeter
@adafruit.com ESP32-S3 Feather spotted!
@adafruit.com ESP32-S3 Feather spotted!