Week 21 Summary

Blogs, AI, Tech

Datasette, Llm, Css, Openclaw, Git, Open Source, Security, AI, Gov-Uk, Birds, Birdwatching, Los Angeles, Pycon Us, Llms, Gemini, Local Llms, Coding-Agents, Llm-Pricing, Generative-Ai, Prompt-Injection, Sqlite, Sandboxing, Artificial Intelligence, Privacy, Memory, Advertising

Simon Willison — Week of 2026-05-16 to 2026-05-22#

Highlight of the Week#

The most impactful milestone this week is the official announcement of Datasette Agent, merging Simon’s three years of work on his LLM library directly into Datasette. This conversational AI interface allows users to naturally interrogate their databases, boasting an extensible plugin architecture for charts, image generation, and secure code execution.

Key Posts#

[The last six months in LLMs in five minutes] · Source Simon shared annotated slides from his PyCon US 2026 lightning talk capturing a major inflection point in AI developer tooling. He highlights how coding agents crossed the threshold to become reliable daily drivers, and points to the astonishing capabilities of massive local models running on consumer hardware like Mac Minis.

2026-05-18

Blogs, AI, Tech

Birds, Birdwatching, Los Angeles, Pycon Us

Simon Willison — 2026-05-18#

Highlight#

Today’s update takes a brief step away from developer tooling as Simon shares some bird sightings from a morning walk along the Los Angeles River as he wraps up his time at PyCon US.

Posts#

[Glaucous-winged Gull, Brown Pelican, Snowy Egret, Canada Goose] · Source In a brief personal update, Simon recounts his final morning walk before traveling home from PyCon US. He explored the Los Angeles River specifically hoping to spot a pelican, which he successfully found, alongside other birds including a Glaucous-winged Gull, a Snowy Egret, and some Canada Goose goslings near the swan boat lake.