AI · Robots · Automation
Toys for Bots
Practical notes on AI, robots, automation, and the tools around them.
Older posts — Page 8
Search all Toys for Bots articles, including headings and body text.
The Kill Switch and the Price War: AI's Big Picture in 2026
In 2026 Washington gained a kill switch over frontier AI while China made it cheap. The two forces now shaping who controls artificial intelligence.
Read article →The Tiny Text Files That Taught the Internet Manners
From robots.txt to .gitignore to llms.txt, the web has been quietly ruled by tiny files that tell machines what to do.
Read article →Why Shopify Won: From 1990s Self-Hosted Nightmares to SaaS Domination in 2026
How Shopify rose from a small snowboard shop frustration to dominate e-commerce in 2026, while old self-hosted systems like Magento and WooCommerce faded for most users. The lessons for modern tools.
Read article →Why YouTube Still Knows You, Even When You're "Logged Out"
Logged out of YouTube but still getting eerily familiar recommendations? Here's the real reason — shared browser sessions and device fingerprinting — and what actually stops it.
Read article →SEO Used to Be a Keyword Knife Fight. Now the Tricks Wear Suits
From keyword stuffing and doorway pages to AI spam, Maps ads, and real authority, here is what SEO actually means now.
Read article →Your iPhone Can't Check In
Android lets third-party apps ping home on a schedule. Apple doesn't — unless it's Apple's own app. Here's what that means when someone's safety depends on it.
Read article →The Bot Tax Is Coming
AI companies have been scraping the web for free for years. CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai are quietly building a toll road — and site owners may finally get a cut.
Read article →You Changed Your Email. Why Does the Old One Keep Coming Back?
You updated your email or address on Amazon, Fidelity, or Cloudflare — and a month later it's back. Here's why billion-dollar companies still can't sync a single field.
Read article →How Software Decides Whether You're a "He," a "She," or a "They"
From baby-name lists to billion-parameter models: how computers guess gender and pronouns from text, why they get it wrong, and what comes next.
Read article →What Is a Bot, Really? The Most Overused Word on the Internet, Explained
Half the internet isn't human. What a bot really is, the good and bad kinds, who builds them, where they come from, and how the fight is fought.
Read article →How AI Actually Searches the Web — and Why It's Not the Same as Googling
Two kinds of AI now search the web: assistants like Claude and the AI baked into Google. How each one hunts, what it trusts, and where search is headed.
Read article →The Crypto Wars Are Back — This Time the Munition Is a Model
Washington pulled Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 under export controls. We fought this exact battle in the 1990s — over encryption. Here's the echo.
Read article →The HANDOFF.md File: Why Every Serious AI Project Needs One
What a HANDOFF.md is, why AI sessions need one, what happens without it, and whether a smaller model can use notes from a smarter one.
Read article →Handing the Mouse to an AI: What Claude in Chrome Actually Does (and How to Make It Stop)
Claude in Chrome clicks, types, and fills forms for you. What to expect, what it's good at, how the plan step works, and where the stop button is.
Read article →Why Oil Futures Don't Tell You the Truth
Crude oil futures are a political instrument as much as a market one. Here is what they are, why they lag reality, who benefits from keeping prices low, and what the real timeline looks like.
Read article →Why AI Customer Service Still Feels Hostile
Why phone robots and chatbots fail so badly, whether companies make them awful on purpose, and where customer-service AI actually works.
Read article →ASIC Miners vs GPUs: The Specialist vs. the Generalist
ASIC miners vs GPUs for crypto and beyond: which hardware holds long-term value, what each can actually do, and why a retired miner might heat your house.
Read article →DisplayPort vs HDMI: Which Cable Actually Wins in 2026?
DisplayPort vs HDMI compared: bandwidth, refresh rates, audio, market share, and which one you actually need. The dry answer made interesting.
Read article →