📋 Log for 2026-05-18

😄 Joke of the Day

Where does astronauts hangout after work? At the spacebar.

Category: dad

YouTube Summaries

[Don't try to learn a new skill in a vacuum - build with a goal in mind](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g4Jne1qDDhU)

Channel: freeCodeCamp.org

Summary:

• Based on the provided description:

Key Takeaways

• Learning a new skill is more effective and motivating when approached with a specific goal or project in mind.
• Avoid learning skills in isolation; practical application should be prioritized.

Main Arguments

• Building with a goal in mind serves as a stronger motivator for learning.
• It is acceptable and often practical to address foundational knowledge gaps after an initial project is underway.

Notable Quotes

• "Don't try to learn a new skill in a vacuum - build with a goal in mind."
• "It's more motivating, and you can go back and fill in the gaps later."

Important Nuances

• This approach advocates for a project-driven learning methodology, emphasizing tangible outcomes.
• The strategy suggests that theoretical learning can be deferred and integrated as needed, rather than being a prerequisite for starting a project.
• Carl's reasoning for this perspective was discussed on the freeCodeCamp podcast.

Published: 2026-05-18T12:17:23+00:00

Latest OpenRouter Models

Qwen: Qwen3.7 Max (qwen/qwen3.7-max)

Qwen3.7-Max is the flagship model in Alibaba's Qwen3.7 series. It supports text input and output and is designed for agent-centric workloads, with particular strengths in coding, office and productivity tasks,...

Published: 21/05/2026

https://openrouter.ai/qwen/qwen3.7-max

xAI: Grok Build 0.1 (x-ai/grok-build-0.1)

Grok Build 0.1 is xAI’s fast coding model trained specifically for agentic software engineering workflows. It supports text and image inputs with text output, and is optimized for interactive coding...

Published: 20/05/2026

https://openrouter.ai/x-ai/grok-build-0.1

Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash (google/gemini-3.5-flash)

Gemini 3.5 Flash is Google's high-efficiency multimodal model, bringing near-Pro level coding and reasoning at Flash-tier cost and speed. It is highly optimized for coding proficiency and parallel agentic execution...

Published: 19/05/2026

https://openrouter.ai/google/gemini-3.5-flash

Free Models Catalog

📢 OpenClaw Releases

🌟 openclaw 2026.5.18-beta.1 🚧 Pre-release

Changes

• Agents: clarify that fixes should default to clean bounded refactors, lean internals, and explicit plugin SDK/API deprecation paths.
• Dependencies: update `@openclaw/proxyline` to 0.3.3.
• Dependencies: update Pi packages to 0.75.1 and raise the minimum supported Node.js 22 line to 22.19.
• Docker/Podman: add `OPENCLAW_IMAGE_APT_PACKAGES` as the runtime-neutral image build arg for extra apt packages while keeping `OPENCLAW_DOCKER_APT_PACKAGES` as a legacy fallback. (#62431) Thanks @urtabajev.
• Gateway/ACPX: attribute startup probe, config, runtime, and resource-count costs in restart traces without changing readiness behavior. (#83300) Thanks @samzong.
• Gateway: overlap startup logging and plugin-service startup with channel sidecars to reduce restart ready latency while preserving `/readyz` sidecar gating. (#83301) Thanks @samzong.
• Plugins/admin-http-rpc: allow trusted admin HTTP RPC clients to start and wait for web QR login flows. (#83259) Thanks @liorb-mountapp...

Published: today https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.5.18-beta.1

🌟 openclaw 2026.5.16-beta.7 🚧 Pre-release

Changes

• Dependencies: update `@openclaw/proxyline` to 0.3.3.
• Dependencies: update Pi packages to 0.75.1 and raise the minimum supported Node.js 22 line to 22.19.
• Docker/Podman: add `OPENCLAW_IMAGE_APT_PACKAGES` as the runtime-neutral image build arg for extra apt packages while keeping `OPENCLAW_DOCKER_APT_PACKAGES` as a legacy fallback. (#62431) Thanks @urtabajev.
• Gateway/ACPX: attribute startup probe, config, runtime, and resource-count costs in restart traces without changing readiness behavior. (#83300) Thanks @samzong.
• Gateway: overlap startup logging and plugin-service startup with channel sidecars to reduce restart ready latency while preserving `/readyz` sidecar gating. (#83301) Thanks @samzong.
• Mac app: redesign Settings pages with consistent card layouts, cached navigation, cleaner permissions/voice/skills/cron/exec/debug panes, and steadier spacing around the native sidebar.
• Skills: rename the repo-local Codex closeout review skill and helper to `autorevi...

Published: today https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.5.16-beta.7

🌟 openclaw 2026.5.16-beta.6 🚧 Pre-release

Changes

• Mac app: redesign Settings pages with consistent card layouts, cached navigation, cleaner permissions/voice/skills/cron/exec/debug panes, and steadier spacing around the native sidebar.
• Skills: rename the repo-local Codex closeout review skill and helper to `autoreview` while preserving the Codex-first fallback behavior.
• Skills: add a meme-maker skill for curated template search, local SVG/PNG rendering, Imgflip hosted rendering, and Know Your Meme provenance links.
• Browser: surface pending and recently handled modal dialogs in snapshots, return `blockedByDialog` when an action opens a modal, and allow `browser dialog --dialog-id` to answer pending dialogs.
• Agents/tools: shorten built-in tool descriptions and schema hints across media, messaging, sessions, cron, Gateway, web, image/PDF, TTS, nodes, and plan tools while preserving routing guardrails.
• Skills: add node inspector debugging, fused diagram generation, and throwaway spike workflow skills.
• CLI/plugi...

Published: today https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.5.16-beta.6

🌟 openclaw 2026.5.16-beta.5 🚧 Pre-release

Changes

• Mac app: redesign Settings pages with consistent card layouts, cached navigation, cleaner permissions/voice/skills/cron/exec/debug panes, and steadier spacing around the native sidebar.
• Skills: rename the repo-local Codex closeout review skill and helper to `autoreview` while preserving the Codex-first fallback behavior.
• Skills: add a meme-maker skill for curated template search, local SVG/PNG rendering, Imgflip hosted rendering, and Know Your Meme provenance links.
• Agents/tools: shorten built-in tool descriptions and schema hints across media, messaging, sessions, cron, Gateway, web, image/PDF, TTS, nodes, and plan tools while preserving routing guardrails.
• Skills: add node inspector debugging, fused diagram generation, and throwaway spike workflow skills.
• CLI/plugins: add `defineToolPlugin` plus `openclaw plugins build`, `validate`, and `init` for typed simple tool plugins with generated manifest metadata, optional tool declarations, and context factories.

-...

Published: today https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.5.16-beta.5

Robot Technology

🤖 Table tennis robot defeats some of world’s best players – why this has major implications for robotics

Ace rotates its paddle as it prepares to return the ball back to its human opponent, Yamato Kawamata, during a match in December 2025. Credit: Sony AI. By Kartikeya Walia, Nottingham Trent University A table tennis robot has outperformed elite players in recent evaluations. The robot, called Ace, marks a significant step toward artificial intelligence […]

Source: robohub.org • Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 10:38:59 +0000

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🤖 AI reveals the invisible magnetic chaos wasting energy inside electric motors

Electric vehicles are pushing scientists to tackle one of the biggest hidden energy drains inside electric motors: magnetic energy loss. Now, researchers in Japan have developed a powerful AI-driven physics model that can peer into the chaotic “maze-like” magnetic patterns inside motor materials and reveal how heat and microscopic magnetic structures trigger wasted energy.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com • Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:02:36 EDT

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🤖 What Makes a Job Dull, Dirty, or Dangerous?

For years, the field of robotics has used the terms “dull, dirty, and dangerous” (DDD) to describe the types of tasks or jobs where robots might be useful—by doing work that’s undesirable for people. A classic example of a DDD job is one of “repetitive physical labor on a steaming hot factory floor involving heavy machinery that threatens life and limb.” But determining which human activities fit into these categories is not as straightforward as it seems. What exactly is a “dull” task and who m...

Source: spectrum.ieee.org • Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 16:57:08 +0000

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🤖 Agentic AI for Robot Teams

This presentation highlights recent efforts at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to advance agentic AI for collaborative robotic teams. It begins by framing the core challenges of enabling autonomy, coordination, and adaptability across heterogeneous systems, then introduces a scalable architecture designed to support agentic behaviors in multi-robot environments. The talk concludes with key challenges encountered and practical lessons learned from ongoing research and development. Ke...

Source: spectrum.ieee.org • Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 10:00:01 +0000

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Good News

Hero British Cop ‘Saves Life’ of American Officer While on Holiday in Nashville

A British policeman has been hailed as a hero after helping to save the life of an American officer while on holiday in Nashville. Off duty sergeant Taylor Johanson had just arrived in the Tennessee city when he saw local Officer Peter Kinsey being assaulted by a man on the side of the road. The […] The post Hero British Cop ‘Saves Life’ of American Officer While on Holiday in Nashville appeared first on Good News Network .

Published: Sun, 17 May 2026 22:31:52 +0000

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Good News in History, May 18

25 years ago today, the computer-animated blockbuster Shrek premiered in the US. In the story, a runaway donkey (voiced by Eddie Murphy) befriends an ogre named Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) and urges him to go on a quest to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz)—who is hiding a secret that will change his life forever. […] The post Good News in History, May 18 appeared first on Good News Network .

Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 07:00:00 +0000

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The new TB diagnostic that could replace 150 years of microscope testing

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Tuberculosis kills more than a million people a year. It’s the world’s deadliest infectious disease. And for most of its history, the standard diagnostic hasn’t changed much since the 1880s: a phlegm sample examined under a microscope. The test has real problems. Not everyone can produce phlegm. Children, elderly […] The post The new TB diagnostic that could replace 150 years of microscope testing first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions t...

Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:50 +0000

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6 small things that make you a guest hosts love having over

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Most dinner party advice is written for hosts. How to plate things beautifully, keep conversation going, and handle a soufflé without panicking. Guests get less coverage, which might be why so many of them don’t really think about it. But hosts notice. They notice the friend who showed up […] The post 6 small things that make you a guest hosts love having over first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News .

Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:33 +0000

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Monet for nothing: the famous artworks cheering up UK high streets

Reproductions of works by Monet, Picasso and Van Gogh are being hung in town centres to bring art closer to communities The post Monet for nothing: the famous artworks cheering up UK high streets appeared first on Positive News .

Published: Mon, 18 May 2026 10:08:13 +0000

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