Blogs

To date, my only sizable experience with AI has been OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Codex. However, I was curious about the big alternatives, Gemini and Claude. I’ve heard on podcasts that Gemini is best for front-end work and Codex for back-end. So I gave them a shot. I’ve spent minimal time with each on the web interface and the CLI.

Here’s what I’ve tested so far:

• Codex: GPT-5.4 w/ extra high reasoning
• ChatGPT: GPT-5.4 w/ Thinking
• Gemini: Gemini 3 w/ Thinking
• Gemini CLI: Gemini 3 - v0.33.1
• Claude Code: Sonnet 4.6 - v2.1.76 - medium effort

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I would very much like to revisit the world of the zine and blog. We’ve cornered ourselves into this “comment culture” of social media, where actions and reactions are monitored, triggered, and tracked. It’s fine for what it is. There’s a place for Facebook and other social media platforms, but they don’t encourage the best behavior from us loyal participants.

If social media encourages dislikes and comments, anti-social media encourages a person to engage only through observation. When one reads a magazine, it’s read-only. If you feel strongly in response to what you read, you slam the cover shut or discuss it with a coworker. However, when an X or Facebook post hits a reader in the same way, that person re-shares it with their first visceral emotion, lacking the opportunity to digest their own sentiment before putting it into the world for someone else to be affected by. All of this is logged, aggregated, purchased, and sold so someone can generate profit or refine their service to better facilitate that purpose.

The e-zine was simple. If you didn’t like what you read, you closed it and deleted it. If you hated what you read, you wrote an email, or your own commentary, on a platform of your own. This was a form of discussion that allowed for more than 160 characters. It encouraged the articulation of ideas. You wrote about it in your blog.

I’m playing with Scratch as part of a Computer Science course CS50: Introduction to Computer Science .

My dog just watches as I use it, and I know he’s contemplating how unfair it is that I won’t look out the window every time the neighbor’s cat comes into our yard, despite the attention I’m giving this cat code.

That look Codex gives me when I say the website content is loading too slowly…

Before vs. After

Music search (search_p1)

• Before: ~285.5ms p50 / 311.0ms p95
• After: ~250.4ms p50 / 280.9ms p95
• Change: -35.1ms p50, -30.1ms p95

Music search (search_p1, earlier baseline)

• Before: ~295.6ms p50 / 569.6ms p95
• After: ~250.4ms p50 / 280.9ms p95
• Change: -45.2ms p50, -288.7ms p95

Music most_played

• Before: ~26.6ms p50 / 41.5ms p95
• After: ~27.4ms p50 / 31.3ms p95
• Change: p95 improved by 10.2ms

This is something I’m really excited about. There’s now a Trim function on https://fcc.cc/music that allows logged-in users to clip leading and trailing audio from each track. The full audio is still preserved and available if someone prefers it; however, cutting out the audience noise makes it much more enjoyable when you’re not listening to an entire performance from start to finish.

Additionally, there’s now an Alias function that allows a track to be marked as a cover of an artist—Joni Mitchell, for example. This allows the performance to show up in search results for Joni Mitchell, hopefully making it easier for people to find and enjoy it.

Hey, I think this is the end-of-world button everyone is so afraid of in AI.

Run. Close your laptop. Say no. Think twice. If you wanted it, you probably would have asked for it.

I’ve made real progress turning https://fcc.cc/music into a website I actually want to visit. It’s great right now because I’m the only person using it. :D

User logins to save playlists and preferences are mostly ready. I’ve spent most of my time trying to tweak the search results so they align more with what’s intended. Now I can actually find something other than weird electronica, so that’s a win.

I tried Gemini for the first time today and it did not go well. I feel as though Codex/ChatGPT and I have such a rapport that it understands me when I’m less clear than is needed and prompts me to follow up to ensure we are on the same page. Gemini just rolls with the punches and says, “I GOT THIS” before coming back with dubious results.

I recently began listening to the A16Z podcast, and one of the voices there said that Codex is best for backend and Gemini for frontend. Codex has been struggling to get my CSS 100% on point, so I thought I’d give Gemini a whirl. I’m not using it in the Google site directly, but rather the CLI from Homebrew. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ll keep toying around.

Relevant:

Also, some cool new design and layout updates are live at https://fcc.cc/

This is an update I’m excited about: a voting system has been integrated into https://news.fcc.cc/ . In typical democratic fasion, the vote doesn’t seem to have much effect but I love it anyway.