Simon Willison
Aug 15
Northern Gannet
Northern Gannet, in Pillar Point Harbor, CA, US This is Morris. Morris is a local celebrity: the only known Northern Gannet ( Morus bassanus ) in the entire Pacific Ocean.
Rex's Dino Store
Rex's Dino Store is a former newsstand located just before the turnstiles in the Grand Army Plaza subway station at the north end of Brooklyn's Prospect Park. It has been repurposed into a dinosaur-themed shop, featuring an exceptional density of dinosaur puns. The store is categorized under art and New York tags.
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Simon Willison
Aug 17
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility Excellent piece of reporting from 404 Media.
Simon Willison
Sep 9
.blend URL Viewer
Simon Willison created a .blend URL Viewer tool that lets users view a Blender model of a Fabergé egg themed after the TV show Pluribus directly in their browser. He generated the egg image using ChatGPT Images 2.5, then fed it to GPT‑6 Astra with a custom Blender skill to produce several .blend files. The viewer, built with JavaScript, is now part of his tools collection for easy access to the resulting 3D model.
Simon Willison
Sep 25
Northern Gannet, Great Blue Heron, California Brown Pelican
The photographer captured a Northern Gannet, Great Blue Heron, and California Brown Pelican in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California, using a 200‑800mm Canon EF lens. The birds were observed congregating beneath a harbor sign, providing a striking image of wildlife in their natural habitat.
Simon Willison
Sep 29
OpenAI DevDay 2026 live blog
Simon Willison is live‑blogging the OpenAI DevDay event in Fort Mason, San Francisco, covering the keynote and other highlights. He received a free ticket and a seat in the "creator" area for the keynote. The blog will include notes from the day’s sessions.
Simon Willison
Sep 26
Kākāpō Party
Simon Willison presented a closing keynote at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, where he showcased a pixel‑art animation of kakapo parrots celebrating a record‑breaking breeding season in 2026. He used Claude Opus 5.5 to generate the animation from Google‑searched kakapo photos, then employed Claude Code with Playwright to record a 15‑second video of the animated HTML5 canvas, which he embedded in his Keynote slide.
Simon Willison
Sep 29
GPT 6.1 Sol: Near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price
Simon Willison comments on GPT 6.1‑Sol, describing it as "Near‑Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price." He notes that the model’s pelican illustrations are similar to those of the GPT‑6 family and provides links to the live‑blog of the keynote and to the pelican images. The post is tagged with AI, OpenAI, generative‑AI, LLMs, and playful references to pelican‑riding‑a‑bicycle.
Simon Willison
Sep 12
California Brown Pelican
The California Brown Pelican has taken over the Pacifica Pier in San Mateo County, CA, after the pier was shut down in early June due to a cracked concrete walkway that made it unsafe for public access. The pelicans have occupied the area, effectively replacing human use of the pier. The incident highlights how wildlife can quickly reclaim abandoned or unsafe human structures.
Simon Willison
Sep 19
California Sea Lion, Brandt's Cormorant
The photograph captures a California Sea Lion and a Brandt's Cormorant at Pillar Point Harbor in California, USA. While the main subjects are the sea lion and cormorant, the image also reveals a Northern Gannet named Morris peeking out from behind a sign’s base. The scene showcases a diverse group of marine wildlife in a harbor setting.
Simon Willison
Sep 5
Introducing GPT-6 Astra for developers
Simon Willison introduces GPT‑6 Astra, a new model that offers improved attention to detail, better prompt comprehension, and the ability to generate more sophisticated outputs. The model excels at creating 3D renderings, producing detailed scenes such as gardens, shipyards, animals, cityscapes, and even Dyson spheres. Willison highlights its whimsical creativity, noting examples like a pelican wearing a red neckerchief riding a bicycle.
Simon Willison
Sep 25
Quoting John Gruber
The article discusses Meta’s new AI system, Muse, which offers each user a persistent Linux VM in the cloud and is marketed as an easy-to-use, consumer‑friendly agentic AI. It highlights the system’s technical innovation and the company’s packaging as a cute mascot, while noting that users may not fully grasp the power and potential danger of such an advanced tool, especially when running it locally on a Mac.
Towards Data Science
Aug 20
Three Kinds of RAG Corpus, and What It Costs to Build for the Wrong One
The article explains that enterprise document intelligence can be categorized into three distinct corpus types, each requiring a specific architecture. It outlines how to determine the shape of a document collection through three key questions. The piece also discusses the costs associated with building a system for the incorrect corpus type.