What up nerds? I'm Jared and this is changelognews for the week of Monday, December 8, 2025. We are quickly approaching last call for state of the log voice mails. We record the show in a week and we have to give BMC time to make the remixes, so if you're thinking about sending one in and you should, now is the best time. Submit yours today at changelog.fm.
Okay, let's get into this week's news. The Confident Idiot Problem. Or why AI needs hard rules, not vibe checks. If you've been following the, how do we actually use AI in production? In this stream, you've probably heard people propose a strategy where one LLM checks another LLM results.
But will that work? We are told to ask GPT-40 to grade GPT-3.5. We are told to fix the vibes, but this creates a dangerous circular dependency. If the underlying models suffer from sycophancy, which is agreeing with the user, or hallucination, a judge model often hallucinates a passing grade. We are trying to fix probability with more probability that is a losing game.
One possible way of dealing with these Confident Idiots we've introduced into our software stacks the last few years is to stop treating agents like magic boxes and start treating them like software. Hence the steer SDK was created. Quote, steer is an open source Python library that intercepts agent failures, such as hallucinations, bad JSON, PII leaks, et cetera, and allows you to inject fixes via a local dashboard without changing your code. End quote. Another way of dealing with these Confident Idiots in our software stacks is a removal, but that might not be possible anymore.
Bun is joining anthropic. The company behind Bun, which is the open source runtime for Cloud Code, is joining anthropic. We discussed the big acquisition slash aqua hire on last week's friends episode, but at the time I hadn't quite considered this move and how contrary it is to anthropic's party line that AI agents are replacing software engineers. From anthropic's announcement, quote, we've been a close partner of Bun for many months. Our collaboration has been central to the rapid execution of the Cloud Code team and it directly drove the recent launch of Cloud Code's native installer.
We know the Bun team is building from the same vantage point that we do at anthropic with a focus on rethinking the developer's experience and building innovative, useful products. End quote. Bun is open source. Why not just fork it and have a Cloud Code powered engineer make all the necessary changes and upgrades to the runtime that anthropic needs. Because there's no getting there from here, at least not yet.
Jared Sumner and the Bun team's expertise is what's so valuable. Still, even to anthropic. Claude can't recreate classic space jam site. Jonah Glover tried to recreate everyone's favorite 1996 website by giving Cloud Code, which is running Opus 4.1 a screenshot of the site and all the associated assets. It failed repeatedly in all the ways I would expect for my own front end and design attempts with the tool.
Jonah's finding, which is quite relatable, quote, once Claude's version existed every grid overlay, every comparison step, every precise adjustment was anchored to his layout. Not the real one. I'm left with the irritating fact that, like many engineers, he's wrong and thinks he's right. What this teaches me is that Claude is actually kind of a liar, or at least Claude is confused. However, for the drama, I'll assume Claude is a liar, end quote.
I've been giving Claude Code a lot of props lately, but I've also been giving it a lot of tasks that it can't quite accomplish. This process starts off as fun and interesting, but each time it ends in failure, I am perplexed by all the possible failure paths. Was it me? Am I prompting? Was it the agent?
Was it the model? Or perhaps I'm asking for things that aren't easily accomplished with today's tech? I can be quite demanding. This all makes me yearn for the days when the only one to blame for my failures was me. This now time for sponsor news.
Depo's advent of code 2025. Depo is running a community leaderboard for advent of code 2025, and they're putting real money behind it. The top five finishers each direct $1,000 to a registered charity of their choice. If you pick a charity supporting STEM education or the developer ecosystem, Depo adds a 50% bonus. They've already generated 7,500 Indonesians.
Here's the format. 12 days of puzzles, unlocking daily at midnight eastern starting December 1st. Solve at your own pace, there's no time limit. Any language, any skill level, each day brings a two-part programming challenge from Eric Wostles' advent of code. To join Depo's private leaderboard, request access on their events page.
They'll send you a code, whether you're competing for the top five or just want to sharpen your skills alongside other devs, it's a good excuse to write some code this month. Check it out at depo.dev slash events slash advent dash of dash code dash 2025 or just follow a link in the newsletter. It's also in your chapter data. Thank you to Depo for sponsoring ChangeLog News. Google un-kills jpeg XL.
Quote, in a dramatic turn of events, the Chromium team has reversed its obsolete tag and has decided to support the format in Blink, which is the engine behind Chrome, Chromium and Edge. Given Chrome's position in the browser market share, I predict the format will become a de facto standard for images in the near future. End quote. We're used to things being killed by Google, but un-killed? This is a trend I can get behind.
Here's my un-kill requests. It's time to bring back Zeitgeist, dodgeball, and of course, Google Reader. The next generation of Linux gaming. If the mythical year of Linux desktop is ever to materialize, it will first be preceded by a C-change in gaming options for the venerable Open Source OS. The gaming C-change appears to be in full swing with Steam on Linux sitting in all time high of over 3% usage last month.
Enter Bazite, a Fedora based Linux distro that's hyper focused on making gaming awesome. Quote, Bazite is designed for Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike with Steam pre-installed, HDR and VRR support, improved CPU schedulers for responsive gameplay, and numerous community developed tools and tweaks to streamline your gaming and streaming experience. End quote. The project began back in 2023, but it appears to be maturing and aiming at sustainability by setting up ways to donate with its latest update. Quote, as Bazite matures, we began to tackle more ambitious projects such as proper secure boot, support for more handheld devices, and conference attendance, which means more costs for us, and we would gladly appreciate the help in covering them.