Tried out the UK government’s official new AI chatbot for jobseekers. Its advice: work in the US. Quick, which public service can we add AI to next

Our statement on the UK government’s demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the country be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/2026-06…

Great video, thanks @siaw23

'rails query' produces an Active Support Notification, `query.rails`. Subscribing to that enables logging and later auditing. Here's a PR in Console 1984 to subscribe to it, to start logging queries made (incl. which agent and user made them). github.com/basecamp/console1…

This Week in Rails: A new `rails query` command lands: run read-only ActiveRecord queries from the command line and get structured JSON output with columns, rows, pagination metadata, query time, and generated SQL. Subcommands include `query schema`, `query models`, and `query explain`. Also: static CSS and HTML files now include `charset=utf-8` in Content-Type, new Rails apps get a PWA offline fallback page, and ParameterFilter gains O(1) hash lookup for exact-match regexp filters. Read all that and more in this week's newsletter: rubyonrails.org/2026/4/17/th…

“rails query” is a great way to have your LLM / Claude / agent of choice query your production database. Read-only with a hook for logging and auditing. Works well with “kamal app exec” and Console 1984. Skill and blog post coming soon! rubyonrails.org/2026/4/17/th…

i'm seeing a new problematic behavior emerge in medium-big companies because of ai somebody notices a performance issue or missing case in a feature they don’t own or maintain instead of creating a ticket, they try to be nice and prompt their way to a PR very nice but…

Open source money is a tricky path, full of dead ends. I have seen a model that works at 37signals: build and sell a product, then open-source the tech behind it. The product is the anchor and aligns incentives: open source serves the product, and the company sustains itself from it. Just the last 5 years of 37signals open source is 🤯: gist.github.com/jorgemanrubi… I wish we had more of this in the industry.

most agent best-practices are human best-practices too. docs, safeguards, bug repro steps etc.

The UK has announced plans to fast-track legislation requiring “age verification for VPN use”. The correct term, however, is not age verification but identity verification. A law like this would require everyone to identify themselves in order to use a VPN. This would pose a risk to whistleblowers, violate human rights, and represent yet another step toward an authoritarian society.

We built Upright to replace Pingdom at 37signals for monitoring all our services, and now we've open-sourced it too. Global checks, playwright smoke tests (with video recording!), detailed uptime tracking, and feeding into Prometheus Grafana. Enjoy! dev.37signals.com/introducin…

Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests. No judicial oversight. No due process. No appeal. No transparency. It required us to not just remove customers, but also censor our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver meaning it risked blacking out any site on the Internet. And it required us not just to censor the content in Italy but globally. In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online. That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme. We, of course, will now fight the unjust fine. Not just because it’s wrong for us but because it is wrong for democratic values. In addition, we are considering the following actions: 1) discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics; 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s Free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; 3) removing all servers from Italian cities; and 4) terminating all plans to build an Italian Cloudflare office or make any investments in the country. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. While there are things I would handle differently than the current U.S. administration, I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers. I will be in DC first thing next week to discuss this with U.S. administration officials and I’ll be meeting with the IOC in Lausanne shortly after to outline the risk to the Olympic Games if @Cloudflare withdraws our cyber security protection. In the meantime, we remain happy to discuss this with Italian government officials who, so far, have been unwilling to engage beyond issuing fines. We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process. And Italy certainly has no right to regulate what is and is not allowed on the Internet in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Brazil, India or anywhere outside its borders. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FIGHT AND WE WILL WIN!!!

For Unraid users I've put together a Docker template to self-host Fizzy. gist.github.com/lewispb/4900…

INTRODUCING FIZZY Have you noticed that every issue and idea tracking tool you loved slowly morphed into boring, sluggish, corporate bloatware? Trello put on 40 pounds of cruft. Jira started charging by the migraine. Asana tried to become everything to everyone. GitHub Issues slipped into a steady state of decline. The whole category is a 20 car pileup of complexity. Time to route around that mess. Today we’re introducing Fizzy. Kanban as it should be, not as it has been. Fizzy is a fresh take on cards and columns, with a few twists, human-nature inspired defaults, and a vibrant interface that’s the opposite of the bland and boring software the industry has been flinging at you for years. Kanban has been around since the 1940s, and Trello brought it into the mainstream in 2011. Since then, some version of column-based kanban-style organization has found its way into any collaboration tool worth its salt. But most have over salted the dish. What was simple is now complicated. What was clear is now cluttered. What just worked now takes work. Fizzy presses reset, reconsiders what really matters, and presents a refreshing way to kanban that just feels right. It’s friendly, colorful, straightforward, and fast as hell. We still use Basecamp for our big, intensive projects, but lately we’ve been reaching for Fizzy to run the smaller ones. It’s perfect for tracking bugs, issues, and ideas, and it shines for lighter, self-contained workflows like podcasts or video production. We didn’t expect it, but Fizzy’s so good it might even cannibalize Basecamp on the lighter side of project management. We’d be thrilled. How much is it? It’s not much for so much. Everyone gets 1000 cards for free. Beyond that, we’ll host your account for just $20/month for unlimited cards and unlimited users. One price for all and everything. No tiers, no “contact us.” No pricing chart at all — just a price tag, like on a pair of jeans. And here’s a surprise... Fizzy is open source! If you’d prefer not to pay us, or you want to customize Fizzy for your own use, you can run it yourself for free forever. Have a great idea? Submit a PR to contribute to the code base and improve the product for everyone. It’s the best of all worlds. No excuses. Every idea comes back around. It’s time for take two on kanban. Fizzy’s our hat in the ring. Let’s make this platform insanely great, together. Come on in! Visit fizzy.do

Last week we had our full company meetup in Whistler, BC, CA. We flew people in from around the world and rented out most of the Nita Lake Lodge. Gorgeous spot. People are aways curious about what we do with the time, so I figured I'd share the full schedule for the week. There are only two mandatory all-company events: The All Hands on Monday morning and the Peer Appreciation closing session on Thursday. Otherwise it's entirely open. Teams connect, people get together in small groups to hang or work on stuff, folks go on planned excursions, grab meals, etc. Breakfast and lunch is provided every day. Lots of stuff happens off schedule too, so it's not all represented below. Let me know if you have any Q's.