Curiosity Patch Notes
”I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Pablo Picasso
Previously at the Volcano Base, I was voicing the dog (a lot) and trying to make some sort of profound analogy about interfaces, or something. Jury’s still out on that one.
Since then, people have been kind enough to recommend me to some new companies looking for help with their systems, I’ve kick-started a new project with a charity, and am in the process of finishing up one with a security company. I also had a birthday of sorts.
Mission Briefing
Curiosity Patch Notes
Birthdays are peculiar. On the surface it’s all smiles. Underneath, they are annual system alerts reminding you that your warranty is long expired despite your inner world being belligerently active.
By the usual logic of society, enthusiasm and experience are supposed to be mortal enemies. You start with boundless enthusiasm, you make mistakes, you accumulate experience, and eventually you become the sort of person who sighs before explaining things. Yet if you keep poking at strange new systems long enough, the two swap places. Enthusiasm slowly turns into a kind of applied experience, and experience turns into the well-earned confidence to keep being enthusiastic without embarrassment.
This is lucky, because technology insists on changing its shape every five minutes. Passwords become passkeys, files float off into clouds, and perfectly serviceable buttons vanish into menus with names like “More.” Apple Intelligence, of course, still isn’t.
In such an environment, experience alone is about as much use as a paper map in a thunderstorm. It’s curiosity, the cheerful kind that asks “what happens if I press this?”, that saves you from fossilisation.
So yes, I am older, again. Now running the latest Dearson version n.x. But the true measure of progress isn’t the number of candles one can extinguish in a single breath. It’s the number of experimental patches of curiosity you have managed to install before the next update arrives.
Classified Intel
Some interesting stuff I discovered on my adventures.
An AI-native creative studio, mixing cinematic craft with machine learning. They’re making films, partnering with brands, and generally trying to prove creativity isn’t something you can replace with a prompt alone.
Why care? Because if you’ve ever daydreamed about directing with robots as your crew, this is where the experiments are already happening. AI can enhance creativity!
Apertus: Switzerland’s Open LLM
A multilingual large language model, trained on fifteen trillion tokens in over a thousand languages, and actually open. Weights, data, architecture: all in daylight.
Why care? Because not everyone wants their AI diet decided by Silicon Valley. Apertus is a rare beast: powerful, multilingual, and willing to show you the ingredients list. Expect to see more of these “digital sovereignty” initiatives over time. Although, I’m not sure who I trust least: nation states or multi-national corps.
Apify now plugs directly into n8n agent nodes as a tool, meaning your scrapers and Actors can feed neatly into your automated workflows and AI processes. Less copy-pasting, more actual thinking.
Why care? Because if you’re creating an AI agent or workflow that needs data, the Apify node for n8n means it can reach out into the world and get whatever data it needs, on demand. Geeky but cool.
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