Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
It’s been a strange week for me. I started on a new project, 50% of my time, as a developer while transferring my work as a Director the other 50% of my time. That is some strange hat swapping. 😃
Coffee in hand! Let’s go!
Allison Quinn • The Daily Beast
Middle school students in Florida will soon be taught that slavery gave Black people a “personal benefit” because they “developed skills.”
Florida is the worst place in our nation. How in the world can a government be so stupid and cruel all at the same time? Oh, right, Ron DeSantis is how.
Friends in Florida. If you have the will to stay I hope you’re ready to fight the good fight. These sorts of policies on seem to be getting more and more extreme. I hope, for the sake of future Floridians, and our Nation you can make a change.
The other option? Get out.
A deeply disturbing New York Times story published Monday described in polite terms a plan for “sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government,” what might be more accurately described as an aggressive effort underway to install dictatorship if Donald Trump retakes the White House.
I love reading Steve Beschloss’ work. I’ve never read a story of his with such a tone of fear. I’ve made the comment that I thought TFG wanted to be a dictator but we’ve managed to avoid it. I keep coming back to a statement he made about China not having term limits for their leader and saying “maybe we should try that” or something to that effect.
No, we shouldn’t try that out. We don’t need a dictator. Stopping that for future generations is worth dying for. I hope I don’t have to see it come to fruition. 🙏🏼
It only runs on certain architectures (arm64-v8a) and Android API versions (26+), but still. It doesn’t sound like a big deal until you realize that I’m using my own C++ game engine. It took me about a week to support building for Android, and in this post I’m going to tell you how this is done.
So how cool is this? Yeah! Go write your Android code in C++, that’s the way it should be done! 😃
Yes, I’m a big fan of C++ and kind of wish we could write more platform neutral UI code using the language but each platform brings its own style and unique perspective on their UI. It’s just plain better to do your UI using the frameworks and preferred language of the platform. In most cases. 🔧
Games, of course, seem to be the exception. 👾
I use Bear 300 times a day. Probably more. I could sketch their five preference screens from memory. I’ve written and edited two books in Bear. I’ve spent hours understanding how tags propagate through the system. Ask me about their sync system. Quiz me on their keyboard shortcuts.
Shiny Frog recently released a new version of their award winning writing tool, Bear. Congratulations! 🥳
Of course I have it on my iPhone and Mac but I’ve found I really enjoy the absolute simplicity and versatility of Iconfactory’s Tot for writing. It’s just plain old text and I add Markdown by hand. Super easy.
They’re both wonderful writing tools if you’re ever in the market for one.
Before Async/Await was officially introduced into Swift, many of us adopted Combine for one-shot operations that don’t necessarily need a stream of values, such as API calls. The new feature, however, makes such operations easier to construct and to read, thus it makes sense to consider migrating them. We will see a simple extension that lets us work with both Combine and Async/Await at the same time, making it possible to gradually migrate our code.
I haven’t written production code in a year-and-a-half. In that time a lot has changed in the iOS Development community. Namely SwiftUI and async / await have become the preferred way to do UI and asynchronous programming respectively.
The addition of async / await to my iOS and Mac development toolbox is a welcome site and one I’ll put to use in Stream.
Now if I can wrap my brain around SwiftUI I’ll be off and running. 👍🏼
Scott Dance • The Washington Post
In recent days, China set an all-time high of nearly 126 degrees Fahrenheit, while Death Valley hit 128 degrees, two shy of the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth. Phoenix experienced a record-breaking 19th consecutive day at or above 110 degrees Tuesday. And in the Middle East, the heat index reached 152 degrees, nearing — or surpassing — levels thought to be the most intense the human body can withstand.
Nahhh, climate change isn’t a thing. 🤬
I suppose Earth will heal herself by killing us all off. 🌞
Amanda Silberling • TechCrunch
According to Mullenweg, Tumblr is spending about $30 million more than it makes each year. This isn’t too surprising, given Tumblr’s history as a company.
I’d imagine most folks (all two of you) reading this blog have a Tumblr account? I know I do. At one point I’d considered using Tumblr as my blogging platform. It has almost everything I’m looking for, but there are two things missing; taxonomy choice and static publishing.
I like my posts to have a YYYY/MM/DD/post format and I love having them published statically. By having them published as plain HTML it makes it super easy to pick them up and move them somewhere else.
For some reason I still have a soft spot for Tumblr and even tried to get a job there a few times! Heck, I’d still like to work for them. Perhaps I could influence them to make the changes I want? 🤔
Anywho, I hope it survives and manages to pull off ActivityPub and Mastodon support. Matt Mullenweg understands open communities and I believe Automattic will do right by the ActivityPub and Mastodon communities.
I love my Crocs. I have 3 pairs, and in this post I’m going to convince you that they’re the best shoes on earth.
I’ve worn Crocs and they are quite comfortable and squishy. I like that. 👞
But, yes, I am a member of SAG-AFTRA since 1980, and I am on strike with my union, which has been in solidarity with the WGA since May.
Wil Wheaton is an interesting character and seems like a really great fella.
It’s nice to see actors come out in force to support writers. They need each other. 🪧
Whether you like it or not, subscription-based vehicle features are coming. Make no mistake, its a horrible idea to have to pay to unlock a feature that has already been built into your vehicle. But automakers are in the business to make money and they don’t care.
I really hate this trend. Fine, charge me for satellite radio, no problem or for OnStar but this idea of charging a subscription for heated seats and who knows what else is ludicrous to me.
It’s a good thing we continue to have choices. Chevrolet seems to be headed down the subscription road but Ford may not? I hope we have at least one big American car maker who keeps it simple.
There’s yet another bid for the bankrupt, 127-year-old Anchor Brewing Co., and the call is coming from inside the house, as brewery employees are launching a seemingly longshot bid to buy the company.
I’d like to see Anchor survive. It’s made it through tough times and here’s another one staring them in the face.
If they do close here’s hoping someone revives the name and recipes down the road. I hope it doesn’t get that far.
Oh, and shame on Sapporo.
Today, in the New York Times, Paul Krugman shares a key insight that his headline editor summarizes as The Rich Are Crazier Than You and Me. While this is true, what’s even more key to me is why the most prominent tech tycoons (who are one of the most powerful cohorts of the rich) have gotten so radicalized.
The Silicon Valley is full of strange bro billionaires like Andreessen, Dorsey, Thiel, and Space Karen. They’re American Oligarchs with a thirst for power and some strange ideas.
The ultra rich definitely live in a reality distortion field of their own making and enable each other.
