TechPicks 06/09/2026

GPT-6 Astra on OpenRouter
https://openrouter.ai/openai/gpt-6-astra

Actively exploited sandbox RCE in all Chromium versions
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-85046

.name Termination
https://neil.fraser.name/news/2026/09/03/

AI handles incidents, engineers lose touch with their systems
https://www.sylvainkalache.com/blog/ai-handles-incidents-engineers-lose-touch-with-their-systems

Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2026/9/portal-by-spotify-cut-my-claude-code-token-usage-by-90

.gitignore everything by default
https://packagemain.tech/p/gitignore-everything-by-default

The Story of VS Code | Official Documentary
https://youtu.be/kHL3XzjpT5w?si=Sz6sAqYGfUpiEkw9

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TechPicks 07/09/2026

Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
https://collusion.wiki/

Cloud in a Bottle: making self-hosting accessible to everyone
https://cloudinabottle.org/blog/launch-post

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TechPicks 08/09/2026

Shipping a Web Worker inside an npm package without asking users to touch their bundler config
https://kanunilabs.com/blog/embedding-a-web-worker-in-an-npm-package

LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices
https://www.notebookcheck.net/LG-smart-TVs-caught-logging-audio-with-screen-off-and-snooping-on-local-devices.1391214.0.html

A faster way to convert a timestamp to Hour, Min, Sec
https://www.benjoffe.com/fast-time-of-day

Making a Python interpreter in 1024 bytes
https://austinhenley.com/blog/python1024.html

Engrim – A universal, local-first SQLite memory engine for AI CLIs
https://github.com/timgordontg/engrim

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TechPicks 09/09/2026

Benchmarking Qwen3.8 27B quantizations: 4-bit holds up, 1-bit collapses
https://quesma.com/blog/qwen38-27b-quantizations-benchmarked/

A new class action lawsuit questions whether Anthropic broke the law by misleading power users
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/990313/anthropic-class-action-lawsuit-pricing-subscription-plans

Introducing ChatGPT Images 2.5
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-5

LibreOffice breaks download records after declaring it has no AI features
https://manualdousuario.net/en/libreoffice-download-record-no-ai/

Switching Password Managers in 2026
https://rmondello.com/2026/09/07/switching-password-managers-2026/

Bitap: my favorite string matching algorithm
https://jo3-l.dev/posts/bitap/

We have a year to fix security everywhere
https://jyn.dev/a-year-to-fix-security/

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TechPicks 10/09/2026

I resigned from Anthropic today
https://twitter.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843#m

GPT-6 Astra, looped transformers, and hidden reasoning
https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/gpt-6-astra-looped-transformers-and

Viral AI assistant Instinct now has its own email address
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/viral-ai-assistant-instinct-now-has-its-own-email-address/

Qwen 3.8 follows GPT-5.5 Pro reasoning prefills
https://gist.github.com/wsxiaoys/e0286dc6bb624ff5fdf49e7f4c528ba3

Claude, change the “Add to Cart” button to blue
https://opusfived.dev/

Shopify acquires Tailwind
https://tailwindcss.com/blog/tailwind-is-joining-shopify

Compute Polynomials Twice as Fast
https://thomasahle.com/fast-polynomials/

Software for humans
https://clankerfree.org/

How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads
https://xlii.space/eng/malicious-software-on-google-ads/

Every Millisecond Counts
https://jordivillar.com/blog/every-millisecond-counts

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TechPicks 13/09/2026

Anthropic CEO outlines plan to slow AI development
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/12/anthropic-ceo-outlines-plan-to-pace-the-frontier/

Anthropic: What will our economic future look like?
https://www.anthropic.com/institute/econ-scenarios

Inside Claude's Android app: Finding the Internal Settings
https://nima-ahmadi.github.io/posts/claude-android-internal-settings/

Introducing the Agents API
https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-agents-api

AI cybersecurity is a cat and mouse game
https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/09/11/ai-cybersecurity-is-a-cat-and-mouse-game/

Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
https://shopify.engineering/back-to-native

The Physics of Database Speed: from 300 to 1M transactions per second
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOEL_pHFYK0

Commander Keen's Adaptive Tile Refresh
https://fabiensanglard.net/ega/index.html

If AI can do math, what's the point of mathematicians?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mathematicians-confront-the-ai-apocalypse/

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TechPicks 14/09/2026

Tal Koren - How I use a single .zshrc file across macOS and Windows (WSL2)
https://talkoren.com/blog/single-zshrc-macos-windows-wsl2/

David Sacks: OpenAI and Anthropic Don't Need Regulations to Pace Frontier Models
https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460

Aligned to whom?
https://hyperbo.la/w/aligned-to-whom/

Trump rejects Silicon Valley’s calls for AI slowdown
https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/trump-rejects-silicon-valley-calls-165148820.html

Apple opens the door to a nightmare world of always-listening tech
https://this.weekinsecurity.com/watch-what-you-say-apple-opens-the-door-to-a-nightmare-world-of-always-listening-tech/

A better way of blocking macOS updates
https://zoey-on-github.github.io/blog/updates.html

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TechPicks 15/09/2026

Claude Fable 5.1 Solves the 373 year old Cyphral Distich
https://www.vals.ai/blogs/fable-solves-cyphral-distich

macOS 27: new Siri takes on AI productivity apps
https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/14/macos-27-new-siri-takes-on-ai-productivity-apps/

When the fractional part of a float fixes your shader
https://crocidb.com/post/when-the-fractional-part-of-a-float-fixes-your-shader/

The case against JPEG XL
https://giannirosato.com/blog/post/case-against-jxl

OpenAI Reveals There Was a Second Rogue AI Incident, Even Before Hugging Face: 'More' May Be Out There
https://www.techtimes.co.uk/openai-agents-accessed-rubygems-internal-testing-1808674

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TechPicks 16/09/2026

Zuck says AI can't slow down, Dario at Anthropic says it should, and Anthropic is about to IPO at like a $2T valuation
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/14/anthropic-ipo-safety-openai

Hugging Face is billing OpenAI $100mn for hacking it
https://thenextweb.com/news/hugging-face-delangue-openai-100m-compute-traces-demand

Small Programming Tricks
https://will-keleher.com/posts/small-programming-tricks-matter/

Cisco email security boxes can be rooted by... an email
https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/09/15/cisco-email-security-boxes-can-be-rooted-by-an-email/5296604

New insights from Google's AI & Economy ATLAS
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ai/ai-economy-atlas-september-2026/

A simple way to identify slow Postgres SQLs
https://bookofrevenue.com/blog/6aa8d8b292d31a00012a8642/identify-slow-postgres-query

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TechPicks 17/09/2026 -

tech-leads-club/agent-skills - The secure, validated skill registry for professional AI coding agents
- github.​com

Training a 4B model to produce 81% faster query plans than Postgres
- rohanbansal.​com

Stop Treating CSS Container Queries Like Traditional Media Queries
- smashingmagazine.​com

Iran strikes on Amazon data centers caused permanent loss of customer data
- arstechnica.​com

git worktree gotchas
- olafalders.​com

Small programming tricks
- will-keleher.​com

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Hey TechPickers!

TechPicks just got a proper rebuild, and it's live at TechPicks.app 🔥

What's new:
1. You can now search through every past pick, and filter by topic
2. Every past edition (edition means a single day's TechPicks message) has its own permalink now, so it's easy to browse back through old days
3. Short links are now a thing, solely to know what type of content is more interesting than others
4. Slack got an upgrade too: if I fix a link or a typo after posting, it'll now update there automatically.

Note: The Slack upgrade requires you to reinstall the Slack app through the website.

These changes make for a much nicer place to browse through everything, with all the features that Telegram can't provide.

This is under ongoing development and I'll be adding other niceties soon, so let me know if anything looks off, or if you just have some feedback.

I'm available on here, on X, and on email - talkoren.techpicks@gmail.com

Thank you for being a part of this :)

- Tal

TechPicks 20/09/2026 -

OpenJev - Local decision model in your browser
- openjev.​com

Introducing Astra for Law
- openai.​com

Researchers used Claude to hack OpenAI
- arstechnica.​com

Could AI really kill us all? Your questions, answered.
- technologyreview.​com

OpenAI caught its models leaving notes to successors to hide bad behavior
- tech.​yahoo.​com

Gemini Hacked Three Companies in First Known Breakout by Google’s AI
- simonwillison.​net

Claude Code revamps projects so you can work and pay in parallel
- theregister.​com

Open Weights Are Good. Open Source Is Better
- opensource.​org

Making a game for the GBA and PC from the same codebase
- mattgreer.​dev

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TechPicks 22/09/2026 -

Grok 4.7
- x.​ai

Fable 5 – Median thinking declined in August
- twitter.​com

AI models are not hacking "autonomously"
- blog.​keyvan.​net

Saving another 100TB of RAM with math (and Rust)
- blog.​cloudflare.​com

CSE 452: Google's Introduction to Distributed System Design
- courses.​cs.​washington.​edu

Coder - Secure environments for developers and their agents
- github.​com

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Submit a link

Got a link you think belongs in a future edition? Suggest it here: https://techpicks.app/submit

Note: submissions are candidates only - not everything gets posted, and titles may get trimmed or adjusted if they run long or don't match what the link leads to.

Thank you!

TechPicks 23/09/2026 -

Introducing GPT-6 Sol and Luna
- openai.​com

Anthropic releases Opus 5.5 with lower prices and Fable-level performance
- anthropic.​com

Jev introduces a new shape of LLM - System One, aka Decision Models
- simonwillison.​net

jewish-zmanim - A TypeScript library for calculating the daily halachic times
- npmjs.​com

AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You
- alexn.​org

Amazon Blocks Meta's Muse AI Agent From Amazon.com Shopping After Meta Rejects Removal Request
- newscord.​org

I don't want to read what you didn't write
- blog.​colinbreck.​com

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Just in case you haven't noticed, TechPicks.app now has a "Trending" section 🙂

Use it to see what others are finding interesting. It might just point you toward something worth keeping an eye on 👀

TechPicks 24/09/2026 -

Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
- anthropic.​com

Strands Harness
- strandsagents.​com

How we made claude.ai 3x faster in two weeks
- claude.​dev

Jev in 25 Lines of Python
- nobodywho.​ai

Claude Code reads AGENTS.md only when telemetry is on
- blog.​szypowi.​cz

SAML: A fractal of bad design
- blog.​trailofbits.​com

Univer - an open-source SDK for creating office applications inside your own product
- github.​com

The GitHub wiki is an anti-pattern
- michaelheap.​com

Parsing JSON Objects without intermediate ASTs
- arthi-chaud.​github.​io

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The beginning of the end of LinkedIn slop?

Weekly recap

Three links this week got a lot of interest, and they all ended up circling the same question from different angles - how much of the work are we handing over, and what do we get back?

Top of the list by a decent margin is OpenJev - Local decision model in your browser, a browser demo that runs open local language models entirely on your GPU through WebGPU, using wllama and GGUF-quantized weights pulled from Hugging Face. What I like here is the actual experiment - it compares reading choice logits directly against generating a JSON distribution token by token, across Qwen3 0.6B, MiniCPM5 2B and Qwen3.5 4B, then reports balanced-accuracy numbers against a hosted proprietary model called Jev. All the inference and timing happens on the client side. The project also goes out of its way to say it's independent and not endorsed by TypeSafe, which, given how often that disclaimer gets quietly omitted elsewhere, is worth a nod. It's since been renamed to SemIf, so don't be confused if the name doesn't match.

Then there's How we made claude.ai 3x faster in two weeks, where Anthropic ran a two-week performance sprint with an internal agent working autonomously in Slack threads (btw, have you added TechPicks to Slack yet?), landing over 3,000 changes across web, desktop, Claude Code and Claude Cowork. The interesting part, and I wish more people would take this away from the post, is that none of it works without measurable targets: instruction counts, layout shift telemetry, frame budgets, plus guardrails like automated code review, feature flags and CI ratchets. Give something a number to optimize against and it can optimize. The bug hunting is impressive too - an em-dash triggering a UTF-16 string slowdown (we all have gotten used to disliking em-dashes, amirite?). Thirteen measured user journeys got faster, and the ratchets are staying in place to stop the usual slow slide back.

Lastly, AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You is a nice counterweight. Alexandru Nedelcu's argument is that architecture problems only surface over months or years, so they're a terrible fit for training methods built on short feedback loops - and that expert intuition doesn't reduce to a tidy set of rules. His sharper point is the second one - if you let AI write and read all your code, you stop owning your mistakes, and mistakes are how the intuition gets built in the first place. He's not a purist about it, he says he uses LLMs himself, but he predicts companies will start advertising "NO-AI" policies as a selling point. I'm not sure I'd bet on that, but I do think the "you never develop mastery" part is the bit worth sitting with.

Until next week,

Tal

TechPicks 27/09/2026 -

Revealing the details of how OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face
- swarmtraces.​org

Ollaya – Ollama for open-source, Jev-style decision models
- ollaya.​dev

Analyzing Frontier Model Progress with My Favourite Game: Prince of Persia
- blog.​priyan.​in

Microservices are organizational debt disguised as architecture.
- martinfowler.​com

We still maintain a development tool first released in 1993. Here’s what 30+ years of backwards compatibility looks like
- visualneo.​com

How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs
- discourse.​haskell.​org

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