Shinome Brief · 2026-11-08

AI & Tech

5 stories

The lead

Apiiro finds passwords in 1,122 public GitHub files, from Claude Code settings that people committed

The headline overstates it: the button alone publishes nothing. Boris Cherny of the Claude Code team said on the thread that settings.local.json is gitignored automatically when Claude creates it, that these files were checked in by hand, and that the team is looking at what it can do to prevent this.

Choosing 'Don't Ask Again' saves the approved command in a .claude settings file, including any password typed into that command. The exposure happens when that file is committed to a public repo.

Apiiro, via Hacker News

SHINOMERun git ls-files | grep .claude/settings in each Shinome repo before the next push. Any hit with a key in it means rotate the key first, then remove the file.

1
MaxxBench: small requirement changes split coding models that tied at about 74 percent
The team altered 89 DeepSWE tasks, with reference fixes growing a median of 17 lines. Claude Opus 5.5 went from 74.2 to 76.4 percent, GPT-6 Astra from 74.1 to 71.9, and Gemini 3.8 Flash from 73.8 to 53.4; many models coded to the tests they guessed a grader would run.
MaxxBench
JOBInterview line on AI tools: six models sat within 1.5 points on the leaderboard and 23 points apart once the brief changed, so I test a tool on my own revised task before I trust it.
2
Researchers document the on-device graph every Mac since macOS 13 builds about you and your contacts
Two background processes fill 51 plaintext SQLite databases in ~/Library/IntelligencePlatform from Contacts, Photos, Calendar, Family Sharing and more, using 181 entity classes and 278 relationship types, and infer how people are related. The folder sits behind Full Disk Access, and the authors released iKnow, a local tool to read your own graph.
Eighth Rank
SHINOMEOpen System Settings, Privacy & Security, Full Disk Access, and remove any app you no longer use. That permission is what guards a store holding your client contacts.
3
Microsoft Research's AI Frontiers group ends after a reorg into Microsoft AI, its co-founder writes
The group of about 50 people, behind the Autogen agent framework, was moved into Microsoft AI in early September. Langford says that organisation's philosophy is scaling and 'aggressively not research', that every other founding leader has reached the same conclusion, and that he has left.
John Langford, hunch.net
CONVOUse it when someone says AI spend is all compute: Langford's counter is that a variant of one research idea may match a model twice the size, which is a cost argument, and Microsoft still chose scale.
4
US cleared a Chinese firm for Nvidia H200 chips whose listed office is empty, New York Times reports
New Matrix, created 17 months ago, is absent from its building's directory and unknown to the property manager. Its owners have ties to a Chinese private equity firm blacklisted by the US since 2024, and the Times describes this as a pattern among approved buyers.
The Verge, citing The New York Times
JOBReady-made case for KYC interviews: a site visit and a beneficial-owner check would each have flagged this, which shows you understand why those steps exist beyond ticking the file.

Finance & Markets

7 stories

The lead

Berkshire more than doubles buybacks to 9.6 billion dollars in the third quarter as operating profit falls 5.8 percent

Class A shares are up more than 12 percent over the past month while the S&P 500 lost 5.5 percent, as money leaves tech. Stripped of rail and utility cash and T-bill payables, the hoard actually fell 1.9 percent to 352.3 billion.

Buybacks rose from 4.5 billion dollars in the second quarter, while operating earnings fell to 12.7 billion and insurance underwriting dropped 43 percent. Cash reached 377.4 billion dollars.

CNBC

CONVOSenior-room question: Greg Abel bought 9.6 billion of his own stock during a flight to safety that was already lifting it, so is that conviction or a shortage of targets with 377 billion in cash?

1
Anthropic signs a 3.4 billion dollar deal to generate its own gas-fired power for data centres
The FT says the lab bypassed traditional suppliers to secure scarce equipment (feed text only). It lands as Anthropic targets a mid-November Nasdaq listing and after voters opposed data centre measures in 40 of 41 midterm ballots, CNBC reports.
Financial Times; CNBC
CONVOSharp point for the IPO conversation: a software company is now signing multi-billion power contracts, so an investor is also underwriting energy supply and local politics.
2
Brent drops more than 16 percent in five days on peace hopes, while attacks in the Gulf continue
Brent traded above 97 dollars on Friday after JD Vance blamed the midterm loss on the war. Since the vote, tankers have been attacked near Oman, killing one seafarer, and a third US carrier group is on its way; Democrats cannot act in Congress until January.
CNBC
CONVOLine for this week: oil priced in peace from one political remark, while the people on the ground are preparing for more fighting. Say which of the two you would trade against.
3
Meta's former CFO Dave Wehner leaves to become CFO of AI infrastructure startup Fireworks
Wehner was Meta's CFO from 2014 to 2022 and most recently its chief strategy officer. Fireworks, founded in 2022 and valued at 17.5 billion dollars in July, is in early talks to raise at 30 to 40 billion, Business Insider reported.
CNBC
JOBAdd 'AI infrastructure' and 'inference' to your finance job search terms this week: senior finance people are moving there, and these firms need teams beneath them.
4
Singapore overtakes Ireland as Apple's biggest tax shelter, saving it 2.7 billion dollars
New disclosures show Apple saved 2.7 billion dollars by booking profits in the city-state (feed text only, the full article was not readable).
Financial Times
CONVOCorporate finance interview question to ask: if the largest filers can still move the location of profit this far, how much has the 15 percent global minimum tax changed in practice?
5
France: 146,000 protest over living costs on a fourth straight weekend, and the prime minister meets unions Monday
The Interior Ministry counted 46,000 in Paris and at least 360 arrests nationwide; a youth union alliance claimed 250,000. Sébastien Lecornu meets labour and employer representatives on Monday to discuss wages and purchasing power.
CNBC
CONVOMonday's meeting is the date to know if a recruiter or client has French exposure: a wage concession is the outcome that would touch budgets and margins next door.
6
Geneva watch awards: independent Rexhep Rexhepi, 39, wins the top prize, and Rolex is still absent
Rexhepi, who came to Switzerland from Kosovo at 11 and opened his workshop Akrivia at 25, took the Aiguille d'Or at the 26th GPHG, a year after Swatch Group's Breguet. Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, Chopard and Piaget were also celebrated.
Le Temps
CONVOSmall-talk opener for Geneva rooms this week: the top prize in Swiss watchmaking went to a 39-year-old independent, not a group brand.

Fitness & Performance

5 stories

Last 7 daysThe week's trials mostly found less than the claim on the label: blueberry yogurt matched a sugar-syrup yogurt, velocity-based 1RM estimates carried wide error, and the 5 November umbrella review rated 30 of 33 reviews critically low confidence. The one positive signal is logging, and it is observational.

This quarterDigital behaviour support is a running thread in the archive: self-monitoring sat in more than 60 percent of weight-loss interventions that worked (3 October), a self-regulation app cut 1.9 kg (10 October), commitment devices added about 665 steps a day (27 October), and a coaching app failed to beat a digital control at 6 months (3 November). Today's paper moves the question to people on GLP-1 drugs, and the logging feature again stands out, still without causal proof.

The lead

Study of 6,113 adults on GLP-1 drugs: app users were more likely to reach weight-loss targets, and only progress logging tracked with faster loss

This is a retrospective study and the authors say the effects are not causal. A company, Hairmop, collected and supplied the data, and people who log may simply be more engaged.

In an Australian direct-to-consumer programme, adding the app and support was linked to 1.38 to 2.22 times the odds of losing at least 5 percent of body weight, and 1.99 times the odds of losing 15 percent by 180 days. Progress logging was the only feature consistently associated with weight-loss trajectory, adding 0.26 percentage points per 30 days.

Journal of Medical Internet Research

sharpensself-monitoringOf the app features studied, logging alone tracked with loss, in an observational sample on medication. It does not test a taper.

SHINOMEIn the client PWA, make the progress log the one required action in the first four weeks, then record logging frequency per client next to their weight trend so you have your own numbers.

1
Oslo follow-up: continued steroid use tracked with lasting heart changes, and stopping tracked with recovery toward lifters' values
Of 70 users followed up, the 35 who continued had a mean ejection fraction of 48 percent and persistent left ventricular enlargement. The 15 who stopped showed left ventricular mass down 21 g/m2 and ejection fraction up 6 points, comparable with 35 non-using lifters.
European Heart Journal, Cardiovascular Imaging
SHINOMEKeep this for the moment a client asks about enhanced physiques: quote the 48 percent figure as what the study measured, and send anything personal to a doctor.
2
Squat 1RM from bar speed: a 0.37 m/s threshold avoided overestimation, but error ran 4.5 to 8.3 percent
In 30 trained adults comparing eight estimation methods, only individual and average optimal thresholds avoided systematic overestimation of 1RM. Sex did not affect accuracy, the optimal threshold had poor reliability, and the authors warn that all methods had wide limits of agreement.
European Journal of Sport Science
SHINOMEIf Coach OS ever shows an estimated 1RM, display it as a range and label it an estimate: an 8 percent miss is 12 kg on a 150 kg squat.
3
Eight-week deficit trial: wild blueberry yogurt and calorie-matched syrup yogurt produced the same weight loss
Of 38 adults randomised, 36 completed; they lost 1.1 kg on blueberries and 1.3 kg on syrup, a 170 kcal snack daily, with no group differences in appetite ratings or weight. Cravings control only trended toward blueberries (p = 0.059). Published 22 October, indexed this week.
Metabolism Open
supportsenergy-balanceSwapping one 170 kcal snack for a matched one changed no weight outcome, in a small and short trial.
SHINOMEShort content idea: 'same calories, same result' with this trial as the example, stating the small sample and eight weeks.
4
Triceps pre-exhaustion before bench press raised chest activation in 30 lifters, and triceps activation only in women
In a crossover of 15 trained women and 15 trained men doing 10RM bench, pectoral activation rose similarly in both sexes after pre-exhaustion, and front deltoid activation did not change. The study measured muscle activity in one session, not growth.
European Journal of Sport Science
SHINOMEWhen a client brings up pre-exhaustion, separate the two claims: this shows more muscle activity in one session and says nothing about muscle gained over time.