Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
I had to set aside my upgrade of some of the networking code changes I wanted to make on the project I’m on at work. That’s fine. I knew it would be a bit of a process to update this code and to be honest it may be a fools errand. But I still believe it would make the code more maintainable and eliminate two third party dependencies. But you have to be ready to sideline work like this when more pressing work shows up.
Here we go. I hope you enjoy the links this week.
Gordon Bell, an architect of our digital age, dies at age 89
RIP 🪦
Microsoft has just announced a new Surface Pro, which is part of the new wave of Copilot Plus PCs. The new Pro, which is technically the “11th edition,” starts at $999, comes in four colors, and is powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X processors.
I don’t care about the AI stuff Microsoft announced and hopefully folks can turn it off because it sounds terrible but I do like seeing them ship new hardware with vastly improved performance. 👍🏼
Fingers crossed this one is a winner. 🤞🏼
There is nothing unusual about the outside of these disks, but there is something unique about the data that is stored on them, something that Sierra On-Line would have been totally unaware of and certainly wouldn’t have wanted them to include.
I love history stories like this! Back in my Visio days I was what we call a Configuration Engineer. I was in charge of our installer code and creating the final gold master disks — 720KB and 1.44MB — and CD, so I’m familiar with this process. I didn’t, however, have an imaging machine. We sent the masters out to a disk duplication service to mass produce them and put them in boxes with documentation.
Anywho, I never made a mistake like that, and this mistake was not the worst you could make. Hey, at least the code wasn’t there in plain text. You actually had to check space the OS has marked as free to find it. Remember kids, do a destructive format or a DoD wipe of space you’d like to be empty.
Kazuaki Nagata • The Japan Times
In a bid to break Apple and Google’s dominance of the smartphone app ecosystem, the Japanese government is looking to change rules on app markets and payments to stimulate competition.
Things are getting interesting for Apple and Google. At what point does Apple decide on a single strategy for managing the availability of third-party stores and installation of software outside of any store?
I can’t see Japan going for Apple’s “Core Technology Fee” but we’ll see as this moves forward.
Pixar Lays Off 175 Employees, 14 Percent of Staff, Shocking No One Who’s Tried Watching Their Recent Films
Harsh take from Gruber. The last Pixar Movie I saw was Onward and I liked it.
I don’t know if it’s that their movies are bad now. Maybe the magic has just worn off?
Google Is Paying Reddit $60 Million for F**ksmith to Tell Its Users to Eat Glue
This is a head scratcher. If LLMs are being trained on all of the Internet then we’re kind of screwed.
I’m not eating a pizza with glue in the sauce, ok. 🍕
Armitage didn’t even know his sword had been stolen until Peter Jackson brought it to his attention. He’d been equally surprised to have Orcrist join his possessions in the first place.
All I could think while reading this is how amazing it would be to have this sword hung above my fireplace. 🗡️
It’s a fun little story.
This post is a look inside how (a small part of) SwiftUI works. I’m mainly writing this as part of my extended memory, so that I can go back to it and read about how it works.
This is the kind of post I need as a developer. Having experienced looks at part of the language you use daily is always helpful.
Swift continues to expand as a programming language and I wish the pace would slow a bit. I’m so far behind the curve it’s frightening. That’s what happens when you spend a year-and-a-half as a Director. Those dev skill wilt a bit and you get really far behind.
The good thing is nobody knows, or cares, if you’re using the latest and creates language features or frameworks. What they want is quality software.
I made note earlier this week that Tapbots beautifully designed and implemented Ivory app is written in Objective-C. Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
(I reached out to Tapbots to see if that was still true. I didn’t receive a reply.)
Elvis Presley’s granddaughter is suing to stop the planned foreclosure sale of his compound Graceland, alleging that the company involved not only forged documents, but doesn’t actually exist.
I really hope they’re able to get this sorted out in favor of Elvis’ estate. It seems Lisa Marie may have gone around the estate to get a loan from a dodgy entity that doesn’t really exist. I’ll keep an eye on this one.
Rich Turner • Microsoft Command Line
We are excited to announce the open-sourcing of Microsoft GW-BASIC on GitHub!
I’ve share my love for BASIC and it’s nice to see Microsoft release this code to the general public.
Hey, can you release the grammar for Microsoft Professional Basic v6.x? I’d like to have that for reasons. 😃
At Build, Microsoft now says it’s adding native version control to File Explorer by integrating systems like Git, letting you see new changes and comments directly from the app.
They’re basically Sherlocking some small plug-in developers with these features. It was inevitable. I used an extension to File Explorer in the mid-2000’s with Subversion that did this very thing. It now does it for git.
Jamelle Bouie • The New York Times
All of this brings us to the most recent controversy surrounding the Supreme Court justice Samuel A. Alito. Not long after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, my colleague Jodi Kantor reported last week, someone in the Alito household flew an inverted American flag in the front yard. The upside-down flag, a sign of naval distress, was one of the preferred symbols of the movement to “stop the steal” — a statement of solidarity with those who disbelieved the results of the 2020 presidential election and fought to return Trump to office against the rule of law and the verdict of the Constitution.
Now we know. Some of the Supreme Court justices are in bed with American Oligarchs and the MAGA movement. They need to be dismissed from the bench.
For a Supreme to openly show support for the overthrow of our country is pathetic and he needs to be held accountable.
