I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.
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Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.
This new Claude skill saves you from bad contracts - and costs less than a lawyer: I tested Claude for Small Business, which has 31 skills, and the contract review tool is amazing.
I compared how Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude can analyze videos - this model wins: Can AI really watch video, or does it just fake it? I tested my favorite AI tools on YouTube clips and local files to find the best.
How to learn Claude Code for free with Anthropic’s AI courses - one took me just 20 minutes: With Anthropic’s free course library, you can train online and learn about Claude, Claude Code, AI agents, and MCP.
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
How we spent our time off, across the decades.
Silly skit about what it’s like when your boss bans coding with keyboards.
I’m reading enormously fun Eric Flint’s 1632 alternate history series. One of the main characters is Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus. Dude was a badass.
Last week, I showed you a completely over-the-top power strip, which is now plugged into my big UPS and installed and running on my server rack. Despite my best efforts, it’s not exactly pretty, but it is functional as heck.
This week, I’m spotlighting a filming cart, which is also pretty much over-the-top. There are three things I like about it: it folds, it has very large wheels, and it supports a ton of attachment points for cameras and gears. This one is on my wishlist in case I ever need a rolling studio. Not cheap, but powerful.
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And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.
Researchers discovered a 9th-century copy of the oldest surviving English poem hidden inside a Latin manuscript in Rome. This is big, because it means English was studied outside of England three centuries earlier than previously known.
ZDNET’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has some solid advice about switching to plug-in solar power.
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.
If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
Available on all your favorite streaming services.
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!