Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Kim let me sleep in this morning. I must say it was pretty glorious.
Not too much to report on my work week. Busy, but in a good way. I really love this project. The people and the technical aspects have been amazing. Fingers crossed we get to continue on after delivering everything we had to do in this initial round of work. 🤞🏼
Very sad news today as it’s been reported that M. Emmet Walsh has died at the age of 88. No matter the size of the role, the prolific character actor always made a unique impression throughout his long career, which spanned six decades.
He was great in Blade Runner and I loved his character in Christmas with the Kranks.
R.I.P. 🪦
Kushner’s newly disclosed musings last month that Gaza has a lot of “very valuable” waterfront property reminds one of Marie Antoinette’s purported observation, “Let them eat cake.”
Kushner is a perfect fit for the Trump crime organization. He’s a sociopath just like his father-in-law.
My gut reaction earlier sums it up.
Today let’s talk about one of the most significant antitrust lawsuits ever filed in the tech industry: this 88-page complaint against Apple, filed by the Department of Justice and joined by 16 states, accusing the iPhone maker of illegally maintaining its monopoly over high-end smartphones and artificially inflating prices for consumers.
I personally see some similarities between this case and the case the DOJ brought against Microsoft in 1998.
I wrote about it earlier in the week if you’re interested and pointed out the piece from a Jason Snell article that really caught my attention.
Threads is coming to the fediverse — and we just got our first official look at how that might work from Meta itself. During the FediForum conference on Tuesday, Meta’s Peter Cottle showed off a brief demo of how users will eventually be able to connect their accounts and posts to the fediverse.
Being the administrator of a Mastodon instance I’m actually excited for this! There are certain famous people I’d love to follow again and my hope is I’ll find them on Threads.
When I’m away from home, I still want to listen to the music we have at home (well, I can live without the LPs). We had well over a thousand CDs so that’s a lot of music, 12,286 tracks ripped into Apple Lossless. Except for a few MP3s from, well, never mind. This instalment of the De-Google Project is about ways to do that with less Big-Tech involvement.
I really like the idea of this. I have an old Mac Mini I’d like to turn into a media server, most likely using Plex. I’ve started buying Blu-ray’s again for fear of losing parts of my video library at the whim of the corporation I purchased the license from.
Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein • The Washington Post
Lawyers and former judges said they are baffled by an order issued this week by the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s pending trial on charges that he mishandled classified documents — and believe her instructions suggest the case will not go to trial anytime soon.
The sway the Orange Turd has over parts of our government is shocking. I hope she’s replaced and soon.
How one fan picked the greatest March Madness bracket ever built
This is a fun story. I’ve picked Final Four winners and won tournaments among friends with better brackets, but there’s usually a surprise early on that can make or break your bracket.
Just look at the South this year. It’s a mess and I’m here for it.
Jason Karaian • The New York Times
Unilever, the consumer goods giant, said on Tuesday that it would cut 7,500 jobs and spin off its ice cream unit, which includes Ben & Jerry’s, to reduce costs and simplify its portfolio of brands.
Big corporations continue to make huge profits for shareholders at the expense of the working class. I don’t know if that’s exactly what’s happening here but it feels like it.
As part of creating the Grow Your Own Services site, I set up my own Mastodon server through a managed hosting service. I thought I’d write an article about this topic, in order to help others considering doing the same thing. I’ve tried to break down the process into ten main steps.
If you have the gumption to run and maintain your own Mastodon instances this article is for you.
Me? I just use Masto.Host.
Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro • Oracle
Java users on macOS 14 running on Apple silicon systems should consider delaying the macOS 14.4 update
This is a pretty big thing to break and I’m sure the DOJ will not look kindly on it.
We’ve truly lost sight of how to make good apps. There’s a serious lack of vision and taste in the industry. Everyone’s given in to the lowest common denominator in the design of apps, simply mimicking what others do without understanding if it’s even the right choice.
I’ve been reading Louie more and more lately. I’m glad he’s started blogging because I’ve loved his pieces on his work history, from The Icon Factory to Apple.
Not to mention his blog is fully hand built. That is very tempting to me.
After 20 years of development, the open source GnuCOBOL “has reached an industrial maturity and can compete with proprietary offers in all environments,” said OCamlPro founder and GnuCOBOL contributor Fabrice Le Fessant, in a FOSDEM talk about the technology.
What a journey! 20 years in the making. And yes, COBOL is still a thing.
[Erika Morphy • TechSpot](www.techspot.com/news/1022…]
The big picture: Job cuts in the tech industry last year were attributed to the need to economize, driven by inflation and a hiring spree during the pandemic. So, what’s the explanation this year, especially when many of these firms have accumulated a significant amount of cash?
It’s been a rough couple years for tech. 😔
KIRSTEN GRIESHABER • The Associated Press
In Germany, the far right is on the rise again. How did it happen?
The extreme right is growing around the world. Both of my grandfathers would roll in their graves if they were around to see this. They both fought to help free us from fascism.
Derrick Bryson Taylor • The New York Times
The former television anchor Don Lemon’s wide-ranging, testy interview with Elon Musk was released online on Monday morning, touching upon topics including politics, particularly the billionaire’s recent meeting with former President Donald J. Trump; Mr. Musk’s reported drug use; hate speech on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which he now owns; and more.
I watched this and thought Lemon asked some really great, pointed, questions and Musk revealed his authoritarian, racist, self.
Lincoln dealers have a big problem. Aside from having just four models to sell, dealers have a bunch of cars from one and two model years ago that they haven’t been able to move.
I admit it. If I could get my hands on a brand new Lincoln Navigator for a super crazy sub 30,000 price tag, I’d consider it. They’re nice.
