building a postmodern services biz. ex- eng / pm / head of some orgs @ amzn, twtr, plaid, znga. leave me anon feedback: https://xitter.cf/t.co/8rLZAru0QI
San Francisco
Joined April 2008
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Built a thing I've started living in recently, and open sourced it: github.com/umangjaipuria/red…
My interaction with agents has moved mostly into docs. They write them, we discuss, they edit and on and on. Sometimes they build what's in the doc, other times the doc is what ships.
And thanks to Thariq and the Claude Code team, these docs are now beautiful html.
But I didn't have an easy way to
- give feedback on specific parts
- ask questions about a paragraph
- ask it to simplify something
- or add more detail (collapsible sections in html are chef's kiss)
Redline lets you leave comments in html docs, and lets agents read those comments and reply as they edit the doc.
Runs locally, state stored in your html files, easily checked into your repo. No db, no 3rd party server, nothing.
It was fun building Redline - I was the user and the builder simultaneously. Literally was giving stream-of-conscious feedback to Codex (sometimes Claude Code) in one window while using the app with another CC instance as we worked on a fairly complex doc.
It’s a role that exists mainly because of a failure in org design.
Each org has its unique failure modes. You find a person that can cover for those failures and make them a “PM” because you don’t know what else to call them, and give them unique authority.
This is fine. And pragmatic.
The problems appear when you try to institutionalize that role.
(a) this is insane
(b) someone should just sell a dumb pane of glass that takes an hdmi input (no sound no nothing)
(c) wonder how much of the consumer prices story in that famous chart is simply subsidies from advertising and data brokers
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
xitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Hey everyone else named Umang and wanting to buy my handle for $20 -
Thank you for the generous offer but you really don’t want a handle that is the same as the name of the most complained-about app from the government of the most populous country over here.
Hope this helps.
i cannot but feel a sense of dread underlying my excitement at how good this model is.
the abyss just looked back.
We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.
block.xyz/dessa
bwahahahaha. this decade's equivalent of "is it just me or is Twitter show me <left wing/right wing> (pick your opposing side) content"
Indira Gandhi would be proud
The EDF (Export Declaration Form) rules are now in effect, and it seems like RBI and banks have conspired to create a new hell. Or actually 5 hells.
I consult for an American company. Raised October invoice. Received the Inward remittance. And bang! Mail from @HDFC_Bank detailing everything needed before the payment can be processed.
Let me tell you what the 5 hells are:
1. The hell of confusion – RBI clarified last month that the EDF rules do not apply to individuals. But looks like they haven’t told the banks. And CAs also don’t seem to know. There’s no official communication on who is exempt. Last I checked, I was an individual. No company, no LLP. But HDFC still wants me to file the EDF to credit my payment.
2. The hell of complexity – See the attached pic of the form the bank has sent in excel. It has 5 sheets. To be filled and submitted. Some abstruse acronyms like “AD” - no clue what it means. Some fields are mandatory. Some fields are to be filled by the bank. No idea which is what. And it needs a physical signature. Which leads to...
3. The hell of paperwork - They also sent a pdf with a bunch of request letters. I’m supposed to choose the right letter, print, sign, scan and submit. Creating more paper today is incredibly silly. And, I suppose, someone in the bank will have to upload all this somewhere. Reminds me of those hand-filled immigration forms. Pointless.
4. The hell of repetition – At least for me, most of the details are constant. One client, one payment. If it’s a one-time exercise, fine. I’ll grit my teeth and get it done. But no. These details have to be given month after month. Else… no payment will be credited.
5. The hell of unpreparedness – It would have been simple enough for RBI or HDFC to create an online portal for this. With dropdowns, saved formats, contextual help, etc. to at least make this easy. But that would be too convenient, no? So, they’ve chosen to dump the entire burden on the taxpayer.
I have no opinion or understanding of why this is needed. Maybe it is critical information. Okay! But why make the process so confusing and painful?
And poor communication has meant that the banks have just passed on the pain to the exporter, and even CAs can’t help.
Basically RBI & HDFC feel I should consult less, and comply more. Maybe my client will also agree :)
whether you're running an Agent Swarm or an Agent Team may depend on whether they're using pheromone trails to co-ordinate or a set of marching orders
Umang Jaipuria retweeted
Somehow, @srajagopalan and @lachygroom have managed to fund a hard-tech revolution in India.
There's something rather massive going on, and everyone else has missed it.
Our story - corememory.com/p/a-new-india…
people who spend most of their time creating podcasts - how do you have time to DO stuff that generates the wisdom to make your podcast worthwhile?
PSA for the SF ice cream lovers: the current Smitten pistachio is better than anything in all of Italy
Much ink has been spilt on how the Product Manager role is changing in the age of AI, but very little on how engineering or design has changed.
Some of that is because PMs like to spill ink over everything.
You would expect in a world of “no one writes codes by hand” the role would have changed, but I suspect it hasn’t. They are doing the same things differently, but not doing different things.
To be clear, I’m not saying these roles shouldn’t change, just that they don’t seem to be changing.
Here’s a post from Anthropic on how roles are changing at their company, one of the most AI-pilled organizations. It’s a worthy blueprint for any company dishing out $20 Claude or ChatGPT subscriptions but lacking the gumption to do more: anthropic.com/research/emplo…
Some quotes:
- “even as the company grows, relative hiring in junior technical positions has slowed”
- “Hiring managers increasingly emphasize applicants’ autonomy and judgment relative to specific technical expertise”
- “Whole teams have also been reallocated as they handed off their work to agents.”
- “Across functions, human involvement increasingly abstracted from a particular piece of code or writing to the tooling necessary to get agents to do their tasks effectively.”
- “Individual contributors orchestrating teams of agents look more like managers in terms of the knowledge they need and the interdependencies in their work.”
I remember when Jeff Bezos once pulled a Kindle launch - after the devices had been shipped to retailers (!!) - because we were about to launch ads on the kindle and we didn’t have a way to tell if the ad was beautiful or not
