Scott Boehmer

Author: Scott Boehmer

  • Yes AI or No AI?

    Many people want to opt out of AI features right now, but most tech companies are ignoring them. At DuckDuckGo our approach to AI is to only make AI features that are useful, private, and optional. Whether you are Yes AI or No AI, or somewhere in between, we think you deserve a product that gives you the option of whether or not to use AI features.

    Gabriel Weinberg

    Yes AI or No AI, that is the question (Gabriel Weinberg)

    Personally, I prefer to avoid generative AI products, and I like that DuckDuckGo makes it easy to opt out. Compared to my former employers, it is an approach that I’m much happier with.

    You can pick an option at VoteYesOrNoAi.com and see here the current results are. As of when I’m writing this, there have been nearly 165,000 votes and 90% of those are people choosing No AI.

  • Thumbs

    A friend shared this song in a chat a little bit ago, and since then it has made its way into my regular rotation.

    Sabrina Carpenter – Thumbs (Official Video) (YouTube – Sabrina Carpenter)

  • Jerome Powell Under Investigation

    As bad as this is, it also shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is the same pattern used against Lisa Cook with the Department of Justice weaponized against those that Trump sees as standing in his way.

    Statement by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell (YouTube – Federal Reserve)

  • An Official Rewrite

    Stolen Election Certified

    After law enforcement clears the Capitol, Congress reconvenes late that night and certifies Joe Biden’s electoral votes—votes from battleground states marred by massive mail-in ballot fraud, hidden suitcases of ballots, exploding water pipes, voting machine irregularities, and unprecedented pandemic-era rule changes that bypassed state legislatures. 2020 is considered the greatest election theft in U.S. history, with widespread fraud deliberately ignored by courts, officials and the media.

    January 6: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy (The White House)

    That’s from the White House web site. The page is filled with lies about the relatively recent past to attempt to rewrite history, and yet, there appear to be no consequences. I don’t know how things work out when this level of dishonesty is just accepted by so many Americans.

  • Destroying Democracy for Bananas

    This was an interesting video about how the United States has exploited Central America and worked against democracy and stability in the pursuit of profits.

    The CIA Coup That Broke Latin America (Cogito – YouTube)

  • 10 Surprising Things about DuckDuckGo

    I’ve been working at DuckDuckGo on their browser for Windows for a little more than 3 months now. Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo’s founder and CEO, recently shared a post with 10 surprising things about the company:

    Some surprising things about DuckDuckGo you probably don’t know (Gabriel Weinberg)

  • Trump Widens the Breach

    That is the final measure. In moments when the country looks up for orientation, Trump does not steady the room. He destabilizes it. He does not merely break norms; he erodes the conditions that make shared meaning possible. Where Reiner built a national cultural space—worlds we could all inhabit together—Trump dissolves it. He takes the scaffolding we’ve constructed and sets it on fire.

    John Dickerson

    Trump Widens the Breach (The Atlantic)

  • Color themes with Baseline CSS features

    This article by David A. Herron is a nice overview of some of the more recent CSS features for color themes.

    Color themes with Baseline CSS features (web.dev)

  • North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival

    One of my favorite holiday season events since moving to North Carolina is the Chinese Lantern Festival. We attended the first time for a Microsoft holiday event, but have returned several of the years since then, including last weekend.

  • Condemning Millions for One Man’s Crime

    Miller is justifying collective punishment and guilt by blood. I’ve witnessed those barbarisms elsewhere, in war-ravaged countries and in dictatorships, but never before during my lifetime as a matter of national policy here at home. Trump and his top aides are re-creating in America the conditions and terrors of failed states.

    George Packer

    Condemning Millions for One Man’s Crime (The Atlantic)