Will Hackett

Downloaded.

Open-weight models are now good enough to make self-hosting a financial question rather than a capability one.

The capability gap between closed and open AI models, collapsing.

Git worktrees only clone your code, so every worktree uses the same local database.

The US government just ordered Anthropic to switch off two of its best models for everyone, citing national security over a jailbreak the company disputes.

Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5 at $10/$50 per million tokens, a full tier above Opus and exactly double its price.

Your team is paying flagship AI prices for everyday tasks.

Apple introduced Siri AI for iOS 27 but not in the EU, blaming the Digital Markets Act, while giving EU users the same assistant on the Mac.

Most teams overpay for AI twice without noticing: they run everything through the default flagship model, and they buy the tokens on a metered plan they can't see into.

Microsoft moved the menu again.

How posts on this site actually get made — from a thought to a published page, and the per-sentence commenting layer I use to chase down where a draft is breaking.

A new paper from Stanford, Michigan, DeepMind and All Hands is the first open empirical study of how AI agents actually spend tokens at scale.

AI is fantastic for extending thinking.

A tribute to Peter Whitehouse, my high-school IT teacher in Brisbane, who taught me memory management at fifteen, ran the IT club out of his spare time, and quietly built the architecture-thinking I lean on every day.

The browser wars settled into a three-horse race.

In 2012 Scott Weiss wrote that the best preparation for becoming a founder is working at a startup.

Postgres' WindowAgg node doesn't propagate cardinality estimates.

Every discipline starts the same way.

Workforce Engineering is the practice of deliberately designing, measuring and optimising how an organisation deploys its labour, human and AI, to produce outcomes.

I needed to store massive OpenTelemetry data for AI spend analysis.

We are currently adjusting our EBITDA to account for a sophisticated parrot that read the internet.

AI agents won't hollow out systems of record.

We have a digital identity problem.

After years with Fastmail, we switched to Microsoft 365.

The EU sees open source as the path to digital sovereignty.

Why fluid planning beats rigid quarters, and how the best CTOs build cultures that adapt without chaos.

AI coding tools have crossed a critical adoption threshold.

On the case for moving away from anonymous "ghost" accounts toward a pragmatic internet—one where we can protect the vulnerable without silencing the dissident.

Exploring historic AI model prices, and Google's new Gemini 3 Flash at $0.50/$3.00 per million tokens—a 67% increase over 2.5 Flash.

It's IEEE Spectrum time again, so it's time to talk about why adding management layers early is the real problem behind $2 trillion in annual software failures.

Google's AI Overview recently told users that astronauts met cats on the moon.

So you're spending 20 million on engineering.

89% of malicious emails bypass SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Reflections on building Jamie, an AI assistant for email, and the decision to wind down Pragmatic after not finding product-market fit.

Analytics is curiosity about what works.

The tech industry's rush to embed AI into every product is creating exhausted users and half-baked features.

AI is cheap for end-users right now, but only because venture capital is picking up the tab.

My take on the next version of the web given the failures of Web 3.0 and the need for a more organised, user-centric approach.

Reflections on meeting a team of scrappy, multi-faceted engineers and what makes the best startups work

A tale of 6,000 f-bombs and one accidental victory.

What if your AI assistant could actually feel what kind of day you're having?

How switching from a broken WordPress site to Luma transformed It's Culture Innit's event management, proving that buying beats building when software isn't your core value.

Essential principles for defining Generic Business Objects (GBOs) in your system architecture to avoid expensive re-engineering and maintain clean data models.

A founder's warning about why early-stage startups should ignore cloud vendor sales calls and keep infrastructure simple to preserve runway and focus on shipping product.

How unnecessary CAPTCHAs, cookie prompts, and popup modals are driving customers away from websites, with practical advice on reducing friction.

Why VCs should back focused tools that integrate well with existing platforms instead of chasing the next monolithic unicorn that tries to do everything.

Why product teams need to embrace simplicity over complexity, focusing on clear blueprints and agility rather than endless documentation and rigid processes.

A detailed comparison of UK pensions versus Australian superannuation, highlighting how Australia's mandatory 11% employer contributions, lower fees, and better returns outshine the UK's restrictive system.

A reflection on how web development has evolved from the simple FTP upload days to today's complex ecosystem of frameworks, security concerns, and over-engineering.

A review of BunnyCDN as a European alternative to Cloudflare, highlighting its strengths in Edge Rules and constraint-driven development approach.