Caught a Durham Bulls game tonight with a bunch of WillowTree folk. Unfortunately the Bulls lost in extra innings but it’s a beautiful downtown and the ballpark is gorgeous.
Having a nice mocha at Cocoa Cinnamon in downtown Durham.
I like this city.
I’m in the Durham WillowTree office for a few days for our WWDC get together for all our iOS Devs.
Should be fun!
I had no idea David Sunflower Seeds started in Fresno. Learned something new today.
I couldn’t resist posting this here. 🤣
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Well, it’s been kind of a slow week on the project front. Sure, we’re still plugging away and the React Native devs are actively adding new features. I’m spending most of my time fixing the occasional bug that crops up and working on performance stuff, which is always fun. I love doing this type of work.
Chris Cameron • The New York Times
Former President Donald J. Trump has in recent days been escalating his suggestions that he could prosecute his political enemies if elected in November.
Defeat him at the polls and be prepared for a shitstorm and massive temper tantrum if the Orangeman loses.
You’re building a fantastic Xojo application that needs to connect to the internet, grab data from websites, or send information to web services. This is where HTTP requests come in. They’re the language your application uses to talk to the web.
I’ve mentioned my love for the BASIC language many times over the years. Xojo is a cross platform development environment with a very modernized form of BASIC.
I’d put money on it being much easier to learn than Swift and Xcode.
Swift is 100% not a beginning programming language.
In all these years, I have never seen the GNU/Linux distribution landscape regress so far away from our needs. It is almost impossible to find a distribution where you can professionally run and set up our most basic tools: Creative software, graphic pen tablet, color calibration. And I tested a wide range of GNU/Linux distributions to make this guide! The choice we have in 2024 is super limited.
It’s kind of sad to see Linux get worse for professional artists.
Any time now it’ll be the year of the Linux Desktop. 🫠
Kevin Turong • The San Francisco Standard
Billionaire entrepreneur Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish-born CEO and founder of Chobani, the country’s largest producer of Greek yogurt, has purchased the brewery and its 2.17-acre Potrero Hill home.
This is super nice! I’m so happy for beer lovers everywhere and especially beer lovers in San Francisco. A legend is reborn!
A YouTube influencer is facing federal charges for shooting illegal fireworks from a helicopter at a Lamborghini doing donuts on federal land. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in California filed charges against Alex Choi for “causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.”
I watched a clip of the video and it’s a pretty darned fun video. It’s also my understanding he’s a real jerk and karma ultimately catches up with folks like that.
Sources speculate the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed north on Franklin. At an estimated 80 mph the car blew through the stop sign , mowed through vegetation, went up the 45% incline, jumped the railroad tracks and was stopped suddenly on the north side of the embankment by a 12″ diameter tree.
This happened not far from WillowTree’s Woolen Mills HQ!
Can you imagine what a wild ride that must’ve been? 😳
Don Estridge broke all of Big Blue’s rules to create the home computer. The company would never forgive him for it.
I love finding stories like this! Computing history I hadn’t a clue about.
She said when he wouldn’t take it she dropped the book at Superintendent Derek Bub’s feet. She believes it may have added more fuel to the fire.
Good for Ms. Jenkins! I’m sure the nutball district is full on MAGA and doesn’t want folks to read the book the MAGA GOP is using as their blueprint for a new America.
Andrew Cunningham • Ars Technica
Windows Recall demands an extraordinary level of trust that Microsoft hasn’t earned
I’m still not sure how to feel about this. Hey, as long as I can turn it off I don’t think it’s that big an issue.
And, yes, I’d turn it off right away. Don’t want it, don’t need it.
Heck, if I get another Windows box I don’t really care to have a Microsoft login. Having access to the computer with a local login is good enough for me.
Starting today, Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitor (CGM) users will be able to monitor their real-time blood sugar data straight from an Apple Watch.
I linked to this because WillowTree was involved with the G7 project for quite a while. I was part of a team that worked on a prototype app. It was a super fun project and one of my favorites!
Summer Lin, Joseph Serna, and Alex Wigglesworth • Los Angeles Times
As heat wave envelopes California, 14,000-acre Corral fire burns in San Joaquin County
California, and the San Joaquin Valley in particular, have been fighting high temperatures all week. Over 100 is not uncommon but it doesn’t usually happen this early in the summer.
I use an app called Watch Duty and there are fires burning all over California. My notifications have been firing multiple times a day.
California fire season is in full swing.
Faced with the challenge of how to respond to the increasing enshittification of the web, and fuelled by a night out with Flipboard’s Mike McCue and Mastodon’s Eugen Rochko, Casey Newton of Platformer laughs and says:
This made me think about a post the week from Mastodon creator, Eugen Rochko:
I should be able to follow #Cara users from my Mastodon account. You can’t convince me to make yet another account in a yet another silo, but I’d love to see and share more art in my home feed. - Eugen Rochko
I would also love to see this and I believe we’re making good headway.
Talk about a platform that allows flowers to bloom!
The Apple Vision Pro can be used as a display for a connected Mac, but it is bulky, heavy, and uncomfortable. The Spacetop G1, a new laptop from former Magic Leap employees, promises to solve those problems by pairing a computer with a set of lightweight AR glasses that look more comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
I really hope these folks can pull this off. Even if they do I’m sure every Apple blog will pan it for not being as good, or better, than Vision Pro.
If they can pull it off it’ll beg the question: Why couldn’t Apple do it?
I’ll be keeping my eye on this story.
As a kid, I wasn’t in the Pepsi or Coke camp (I liked both about the same), I was fully in the Dr Pepper camp. It was different, sort of weird, like me. One New Year’s Eve I drank so much of it that I got pretty ill and was worried I would have to go to the hospital. Those were different times. As are these, apparently!
It’s kind of crazy to see Dr. Pepper take over second place. I’m a Pepsi fan, always have been, but I have family who are into Dr. Pepper, so I guess it shouldn’t be that big a surprise.
I’m sure Pepsi is doing just fine.
I wonder if he knows of what is now called Dublin Dr. Pepper? The original Texas born Pepper.
My WWDC 2024 Wish List:
- Developer Kit for making custom watch faces.
That’s it. That’s the list.
Old Programming Book
I shared these photos this morning in our Staff and Senior Engineers Slack channel.
I owe my career to Windows and the Windows API. I spent years writing Windows apps and loved every minute of it. Sometimes I wish I was still doing it. C, C++, Win32, and even COM feel like an old friend compared to my comfort level with iOS dev. Even after 14 years of iOS Dev. I don’t know why that is, but there you go.
I built my personal Windows Class Libraries — ACLLib — based on these API’s and they still work to this day. That is an amazing testament to how good Microsoft’s backward compatibility promise has been for Windows Developers.
These are pictures of Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows, 1988.
Got a buddy pair coding with me on the porch this morning. 🐸
Orangeman would never leave
Paul Krugman • The New York Times
There’s a very real possibility that if Trump wins in November it’ll be the last real national election America holds for a very long time. And while there’s room for disagreement here, if you consider that statement to be outrageous hyperbole, you haven’t been paying attention.
A lot of folks believe this, including me. He refused to leave after he lost in 2020, contested the results in multiple states losing 60 complaints brought before courts, and started an insurrection to stay in office.
What makes you believe he’d leave peacefully after serving a second term?
I don’t believe it for a moment. He wants to be a dictator and change the face of American Democracy.
He wants to lock up his political rivals.
Sound familiar? That’s right. His hero is Vladimir Putin. He wants to be just like his hero.
We moved Kim’s gardenia out front last Sunday. It didn’t have a single bloom opened at the time. It’s been busy this week.
I found Mothra.
Epimecis hortaria, the tulip-tree beauty, is a moth species of the Ennominae subfamily found in North America.
I obviously haven’t paid attention to one part of our yard. Now, it’s covered in poison ivy. I’m a big dummy. 🤣
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
We had a lot of fun this week tracking down a bug in the project I’m working on. It was exposed by slow server response, which was because the service had grown. So the bug was icky. Once we tracked it down on the client side we were able to fix it up pretty quickly. I love doing stuff like this! Finding and fixing bugs is part of any developers job along with writing code.
I hope you enjoy the links.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' rare warning during a commencement speech about former President Donald Trump, sparked outrage from supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement this weekend.
People are right to continue to warn us all of the dangers of electing Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump to the Presidency.
Anyone who reads this site — thanks to both of you — knows I’m a Liberal Democrat suffering from “The Woke Mind Virus.” 😃 So of course I think a man set on destroying Democracy as we know it is dangerous.
Now, former board member Helen Toner is explaining her decision. In a new podcast interview, the artificial intelligence researcher blasted Altman’s lack of transparency and said the board was kept in the dark about key decisions. She accused Altman of “withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening in the company, [and] in some cases outright lying to the board.”
AI will continue to be controversial and it looks like Sam Altman will be the poster boy for the controversy, at least in the short term.
Keeping a full commercial product rollout from the board seems like a bad idea, doesn’t it? No wonder they fired him.
Popular TechTuber Jeff Geerling has delivered an updated take on the old chestnut about the relative merits of pigeon-based vs internet data transfers.
TL;DR - Data delivery by pigeon is still faster than the internet. 🤣
In a joint statement issued Tuesday, Tony Stewart and Gene Haas confirmed that Stewart-Haas Racing will cease NASCAR operations at season’s end.
This is a real bummer for NASCAR fans and the sport in general. Stewart Haas had a championship team not so long ago but it’s been a long time since they’ve seen victory lane.
They have four cars on the grid. Three teams field four drivers and it’s my understanding NASCAR is going to limit team size to three going forward.
In 2016 NASCAR switched to a Charter system. In that system teams purchase a charter from NASCAR to be part of the system. Those charters are expected to grow in value so a team would have more than physical goods to sale should they decide to close shop. They’re not cheap. Spire Motorsports bought one last year for $40mm. What will each Stewart Haas charter sell for? 😳
Writing an NVMe Driver in Rust
The link above is to a PDF for Thomas Pirhonen’s Bachelors Thesis. Rust has really made inroads into systems development and I’m happy to see it. Having memory safe code at the systems level seems like a smart thing to do, don’t you think? 😃
I’d be curious to see how much unsafe code exists in the various Rust OS level projects I’ve heard of. But, you gotta start somewhere!
When will Swift be used to build major parts of Apple’s OS level code? Or is it already being used?
I’ve long had a longing to have a Mac Mini as build server in my technics room. After Apple finally updated it to (now) fashionable space grey, it was a must purchase for my company.
I’ve had a hankering to do this very thing. I can see setting up the server much in the way we see here and trigger builds via GitHub Actions to start the process. Heck, I could use Xcode’s built in support for automating builds and kick it off right from within Xcode on my laptop. Yeah, Xcode has a decent enough build system to make it useful. Makes me wonder how much of it Apple is using for Xcode Cloud or is 100% of that custom code?
If you work with sensitive data, and want to be 100% sure that there is no trace of the old data after it has been updated or deleted — SQLite has you covered. The secure_delete pragma (off by default) causes SQLite to overwrite deleted content with zeros.
TIL! I’ve used SQLite in quite a few projects, including Stream. I love it for local storage and still prefer it to CoreData, it’s just straightforward SQL. Anywho, I had no idea you could do this. Another nice tool to keep in the toolbox.
Doctor Who returned to TV recently as a “soft reboot” to attract a new generation of viewers. Yeah, okay, but the older generations didn’t exactly go away, and since I am a member of an older generation, I am qualified to say that the show sucks.
I think we’ve all been here when we see a big change to our favorite Television show.
Heck, I’m torn about continuing to watch The Witcher. Henry Cavil is The Witcher and to see him replaced just feels wrong.
Two years ago when “Michael,” an owner of cryptocurrency, contacted Joe Grand to help recover access to about $2 million worth of bitcoin he stored in encrypted format on his computer, Grand turned him down.
You gotta love these hacker folks. At least he’s using his talent for good.
My Home Server Journey - From Raspberry Pi to Ryzen
What’s up with two server based links today? Guess I’m just in a very hardware mood today.
This reminds me I need to setup my $99 Mac Mini I purchased months ago. It’s an x86 based Mini and fairly old but I want it for media streaming and another local backup system.
Those who miss the days of full-time Apple/Microsoft beef will have been heartened last week by bold claims that the latest Surface devices are faster than the M3 MacBook Air. It’s fun to see Microsoft’s marketing department in a combative mood, but part of me wishes the company would stop trying so hard to show it’s better than Apple.
I don’t know that I’d go this far. Microsoft is just trying to lead the industry into an ARM focused world by attempting to create a new standard of PC.
I’ve been on the Mac, almost exclusively, since around 2006(?) and I love the experience from a user and developer point of view.
There’s still that part of me that loves my old development days on Windows. It was also a great platform to build on.
The new Microsoft Surface Pro looks absolutely amazing and I’ve lusted for one of these computers for years. Microsoft has proven for years and years a tablet/laptop can have excellent touch support and a full desktop class OS underpinning it.
It’s only a matter of time before Apple does it. When it happens all doubt around Apple creating a convertible will disappear and folks will think it’s the greatest thing ever.
Each quarter at the University of Chicago includes nine weeks of instruction. In the eighth week, I ask students to submit questions that they would like our ninth and final session to cover. This quarter, a third of the students in the class submitted some version of the question: “How can I use ChatGPT to get ahead in my programming job?”
I know of a lot of developers at work using ChatGPT to their advantage. It’s not that it’s doing their job, no, it’s just another tool to get started with a thought.
The intended takeaway from the “Big Data is coming” chart was that pretty soon, everyone will be inundated by their data. Ten years in, that future just hasn’t materialized. We can validate this several ways: looking at data (quantitatively), asking people if it is consistent with their experience (qualitatively), and thinking it through from first principles (inductively).
I’m not really into backend stuff like this. It seems kind of boring but it’s good to know some folks are really into it.
Declaring something dead is a bit strange to me, because it was never a living thing, but I get the gist.
I’m sure your mileage will vary but this is a small piece worth a read just to understand his declaration.
BigData, it turns out, ain’t all that big.
Donald J. Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case stemming from a payment that silenced a porn star.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow.
Donald J. Trump, convicted felon. Has a really nice ring to it.
Why do you stay in Texas?
My heart is broken💔: As friends & family know, my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child, & about to begin her 2nd trimester. A few days ago she had severe pains, & bleeding, and had to go to the emergency room. There, it was discovered that our baby no longer had a heartbeat.… pic.twitter.com/k1INqq94c0
— Ryan Hamilton (@TheRyanHamilton) May 20, 2024
Texas doesn’t care about women. To Texas they exist to incubate and pop out babies, cook your meals, and clean your house.
If you have a woman in your life why are you still there?
Are you trying to make Texas a better place by getting Republicans out of office?
Is it where you grew up?
Do you want to get out of there but are trapped because you can’t afford the cost of moving?
Is your job too good to leave?
Maybe you don’t care because it’s someone else’s problem?
What about it is keeping you there?
Kim’s roses are pretty happy but something has been snacking on the leaves.
One year ago Ms. Gracie joined our family. At the time she was five months old and weighed in at 45lbs. Today she’s 95lbs of cuddly dog and owns my heart. ❤️
Saturday Morning Coffee
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.
iPad Sucks Eggs 🥚
No, it doesn’t suck eggs. That’s a clickbait title. Tell all your friends to visit. 🤣
The simplest tasks on iPadOS are either incredibly difficult and time-consuming, or they’re so unintuitive that even a 25-year Apple veteran can’t figure them out. Frankly, neither reflects well on iPadOS.
I have a very simple explanation for this.
Dude, it ain’t a Mac.
I know, I know, that’s a dumbass answer and iPad fans don’t want to hear it. I don’t blame you.
I’d like to be able to do all the iPad stuff on my iPhone with a second display and have it work more like macOS. I want full Xcode and a Terminal and free form windowing.
I know, that’s all on my Mac, today.
I’ll just use my Mac. It’s an amazing device. Besides, if Apple treated all the platforms the same how would they increase sales every quarter like Wall Street expects?
Maybe that sounds cynical. I’m not trying to be. Apple is a for profit enterprise. We all know that. Their goal is to extract as much money out of you as they possibly can. One great way to do that is make multiple different form factors that excel at specific niches.
I haven’t had a new iPad in years. My wife gave me her 9.7” when she upgraded a couple years back and I never use it. But if I were to use it, it would be for consuming movies and reading.
And for the reading bit my iPad Mini, gen 1, was the best device I’ve ever used for that. It was crazy light.
I use my iPhone for a lot of stuff. Social junk and writing blog posts. I’m using it now and it’s great for that.
Look, if I could have an iPhone that could display multiple windows and have all the things I get with macOS and the power of my MacBook Pro, I’d use this for everything.
As it is, it doesn’t work like that, and I don’t expect it to, ever.
Keep on keeping on iPad people. You never know, maybe someday you’ll get what you’re after. ✌🏼
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
It’s been pouring overnight and into this morning. We have a flood watch in effect until 10AM. I bet it extends.
I finally got the opportunity to do a little async/await Swift this week. Using a combination of generics, Decodable, and async/await makes for an extremely powerful network client. It’s pretty shocking how simple it was to combine those three items to form a set of methods that return fully decoded models with so few lines of code and zero blocks/closures/whatever you call them in your favorite language.
I’m sure some folks will laugh and say “We’ve had that for X years in language Y!” I get it. It’s fairly new to Swift and I’m finally getting to work with it properly.
I’ve also been dabbling with SwiftUI and find some of the concepts weird, but as with all moves to new frameworks or languages, I’ll pick it up and it’ll feel natural at some point.
It’s past time to get my first cup of coffee. I hope you enjoy the links.
Everything Announced at Google I/O: Gemini Takes Over
The week was Google’s Developer Conference. I’m not too much into Google or Android for that matter and while I know LLM’s are here to stay I’m not deep minded enough to find them exciting. Super smart developers find it exciting because they’re challenging in a way they grok and Management find them exciting because they’re a way to do more with fewer people and charge you a ton of money for it. 🤣
Hey, I just want to hack away on my little iOS and Mac Apps and build something I love that I hope others will too. I’m sure someday I’ll have to integrate an LLM into an app. 🤖
Raymond Chen • The Old New Thing
In other words, take the existing component and run it before making any changes to it at all. Does it work?
I’ve said it before so I’ll say it again: Raymond Chen is a gift to computing and Microsoft is fortunate to have him.
He’s done so much for Microsoft and the tools we use everyday so when he shares his pearls of wisdom, I listen.
React, Electron, and LLMs have a common purpose: the labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
This was a very interesting read and I found myself nodding in agreement a lot but I also disagreed with things.
Something that does bother me about the move to more abstract tooling is the loss of expertise about the platform and knowing the platform provided tools will be the best for solving problems and creating the best possible apps I’m capable of.
Of course you can still make a crummy app with native tools and a brilliant app with tools like React Native.
When I was a Windows developer I could always tell when an application was written in Classic Visual Basic because of how the windows drew. It was a dead giveaway. That always bothered me. Nothing against Classic Visual Basic, it was a native development tool, and you could be extremely productive with it. Just like modern web tooling being used everywhere.
The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.
Musk isn’t a genius. He’s a bully who wins by being an asshole to folks until he gets his way. During the entire charging team over a plan he didn’t agree with is a prime example of how big a baby man he really is.
Why Tesla keeps him around is beyond me. Jettison the man so he can go work on X so you can continue to lead in the EV space. Who needs a network of cars being used for their compute so some dude and do AI stuff with it? What?
How about getting Tesla to do more good for the world by building trucks for hauling large loads across country or building all electric high speed rail systems and busses. You know, mass transport.
Musk talks about a desire to save mankind but he’s only paying lip service to it as far as I can tell. He is obviously obsessed with making crap tons of money and getting his way at the expense of others.
Joseph Savona, Ricky Hanlon, Andrew Clark, Matt Carroll, and Dan Abramov • react.dev
React Compiler is no longer a research project: the compiler now powers instagram.com in production, and we are working to ship the compiler across additional surfaces at Meta and to prepare the first open source release.
I need to go read more about this React Compiler or at the very least get the lowdown from a friend. I wonder if this will come to the React Native world and if it does what would that look like? Would we get everything compiled down to Web Assembly we push through a mobile device JavaScript runtime?
Web stuff is such a hodge-podge of stuff. It’s like the duct tape and baling wire of development.
I consider myself a duct tape a baling wire developer, so that’s not an insult to me. 😃
America’s second civil war? It’s already begun
I try to stay away from links to Substack articles but I thought this River Reich article was important enough to break my rule.
If the Orange Menace gets back in office I’d fully expect us to see skirmishes break out all over the country at times due to his draconian policies.
Full on war would only break out if things get bad enough the people finally stand up and say enough is enough.
I hope beyond hope we can keep Joe Biden in the White House for four more years and TFG goes away, either to jail, Russia, or succumbs to a natural end.
Having said that we’re going to be fighting against authoritarian MAGA’s for years and years to come. Here’s hoping the GOP comes to its senses and stops this horseshit.
Still, as I was thinking about my usage of the iPad and why I enjoy using the device so much despite its limitations, I realized that I have never actually written about all of those “limitations” in a single, comprehensive article.
Nice piece that goes into the things Federico finds lacking on iPad. My knee jerk reaction is to think “just move back to a Mac” but folks should do what they want and complaining about the state of things is the only real power they have to hopefully influence Apple to make changes.
I’m still a big fan of Federico’s FrankenMac or MonsterPad, whatever you’d like to call it, it’s extremely cool so of course Apple will never do it. It would poach sales from Mac and iPad and they certainly want you to purchase both, separately. 🧌
Last week, General Motors announced that it would end production of the Chevrolet Malibu, which the company first introduced in 1964. Although not exactly a head turner (the Malibu was “so uncool, it was cool,” declared the New York Times), the sedan has become an American fixture, even an icon, appearing in classic films like Say Anything and Pulp Fiction. Over the past 60 years, GM produced some 10 million of them.
This is really weird to see from American car companies. Why abandon the sedan? Well it’s because American’s are ridiculous. We want the biggest darned cars we could possibly fit on the road.
For me personally I’d really love to have a $10k or less, limited range, EV. It could be small, that’s fine. It would be for running errands and commuting into town, not that I have a commute any longer but if I did I’d like a super economical EV.
Something like this. Would I prefer to buy a ‘Murican version of one, heck yeah! Will a ‘Murican company build one, heck no! 😄
The recent news that the NFL is in negotiations with Netflix (!!!) for the two Christmas Day games this year really made my blood boil. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised. The league has been slowly chipping away at fans’ goodwill for years. But the fact that Netflix (!!!) is involved makes it extra offensive.
Professional sporting is just as greedy as any other business. They’re there to make money, not just break even, they want to make crap tons of money. This is how they do it. They make deals with the highest bidder. If that means selling the rights to some special games at jacked up rates, it’s what they’re gonna do.
Fans be damned.
The only clue given by Apple comes in a single word buried in the sentence “Share code between apps on multiple platforms with views and controls that adapt to their context and presentation.” The key word there is adapt. SwiftUI is a forceful move in delivering an adaptive human interface, one that adapts to the user, the task, the data, and the platform.
Really nice piece on using SwiftUI and how it’s built to adapt to each device, at least that’s the idea.
I also like that it points out there’s nothing wrong with UIKit and AppKit.
Heck, one of the most beautiful, high quality, iOS apps made today is Ivory from Tapbots and last I heard it’s still written in Objective-C on UIKit and AppKit. No need to throw out perfectly good code in favor of an expensive rewrite for the sake of the new hotness.
Mega Ultra Smart Meta Employees
They are so rare that most people don’t work with them directly, but their work is highly visible.
The thing that stands out to me is Meta has all these absolutely amazing people working for them and what exactly do they work on? New ways to extract personal information or track people around the web?
It’s too bad they’re wasting their talent at such a horrible company.
If I were that talented I would, unfortunately, be tempted by a $3mm per year salary. Thing is, I kind of doubt that entire $3mm+ is entirely salary. It’s probably some mix of salary, benefits, bonuses, and stock options. That’s how Meta keeps their talent I suppose, those golden handcuffs are tempting.
To quote the Tool song, Hooker with a Penis:
All you know about me is what I’ve sold you, dumb fuck I sold out long before you’d ever even heard my name I sold my soul to make a record, dip shit And then you bought one
Yes indeed. I suppose we’re all Hookers at some level.
Our daughter and son-in-law are moving. As they were cleaning out their shed they were greeted by a two foot long copperhead.
Our daughter moved a storage tote and there it was. It struck out and luckily it hit the tote.
She, her hubby, and children are all fine.
More of Kim’s roses. She’s had this one for a very long time. It’s moved from house to house through the years.
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Well, we’re in another of Virginia’s 12 seasons. Fake Spring is over, now it’s time for Winter Two or Three, I can’t remember the funny names given to them. 🤣 It’s been gray and rainy with thunderstorms all week. ⛈️ After a month of beautiful, mostly sunny days, it’s hard to go back to rain. Oh well, such is life in the Southeast.
Hey, good news! That project I loved so much is extended through the end of June. That makes me super happy. 😃
Gracie and Kolby are fired up this morning. Let’s see if they’ll let me get through this in a decent amount of time. Apparently it’s playtime. 🐶
Hope you enjoy the links.
Campbell Robertson • The New York Times
After a meeting that lasted for hours, the Shenandoah County school board voted early Friday morning to restore the names of three Confederate officers to schools in the district.
Good grief. Just when you think the South is finally making some progress stuff like this happens.
Racist bastards. 🤬
As nice as the new OLED display looks, and no matter how powerful the new M4 may be, the iPad’s problem in 2024 — or another year for that matter — is the software.
Power users continue to basically want macOS installed on their iPads.
I say Federico Viticci should find a way to make his FrankenPad easy to reproduce with a full line of accessories and how-to articles to guid you through the process.
He’d make tens of dollars.
Musk is not a tech visionary with a side interest in politics these days, nor is he just another bored billionaire with a nativist streak; the political activism and the technological ambitions are inseparable. He believes his work is part of a civilizational struggle in which woke progressives pose an existential threat to humanity. And he spends most of his days inside a feedback loop that’s radicalizing him even more.
I think we all know good old Space Karen has been Red Pilled for a very long time. Folks like him and Jack Dorsey slide further and further down the rabbit hole with each passing day.
Good riddance I say. I hope they buy some island, move there, and never come back. 🤡
Data centers in Northern Virginia are using “absurd amounts of water” to power cooling systems, writes Sachi Kitajima Mulkey in Grist, causing concern among local officials.
How is it I live in Virginia and didn’t know it was home to so many data centers?
You’d think all these smart people would figure out how to power everything with good clean energy and find alternative cooling methods. Like building underground or something. 💧
It’s time to wake up, folks. When someone offers you “exposure” or says they want to “empower creators,” keep a firm hand on your wallet. They’re not your friend, and they don’t care about supporting the arts. They care about money, pure and simple, and they see creators as resources to be exploited.
I instantly thought of most YouTubers and Musicians. Sure, there are some who make a killing off their works but most make almost nothing.
I thought, very foolishly, I’d be able to make $200 a month with my Indie Apps. Boy was I ever dumb to think that way. At its high point in 2009 to 2011 I was making about $20 a month from RxCalc. It’s still my biggest money maker between it and Stream. That is, of course, my fault. Making my apps better may result in better income.
Do YouTubers and Musicians feel that way or do they feel ripped off by the platforms?
Jack Dorsey claims Bluesky is ‘repeating all the mistakes’ he made at Twitter
Dorsey also seems to have been Red Pilled. I’m not really sure what he’s after. It sounds like he wants and no hold barred free for all. What he’s after would turn into a giant garbage fire. A flame war to end all flame wars. It would boil out into the streets. An ultimate chaos machine.
Countries have laws. Those laws are largely in place to protect people.
We don’t need a lawless social network but apparently Dorsey now thinks X is the bastion of free speech. It’s not. It’s become a right wing propaganda machine full of Nazis, white supremacist, and vile right wing extremists with your occasional famous actor or favorite personality. 🗑️
I am leaving my position as Community Manager at Micro.blog at the end of this month.
I wish Jean all the best. She’s been ever present on Micro.blog since day one and she made it a better place.
Cheers, Jean, and all the best in your next adventure! ❤️
Michael McDowell and Spire Motorsports have announced a multi-year agreement for McDowell to become the driver of the team’s No. 71 Chevrolet beginning in 2025.
This caught me off guard! Michael McDowell seems like one of those loyal to a fault type guys. He’s single handedly kept Front Row Motorsports afloat, in my opinion. He’s been very competitive this year at times and spent time leading races. He even came darned close to winning at Talladega. Apparently he told Dale Jr. he was willing to die to win that race. A bit too aggressive for my blood, but that’s the attitude he’ll bring with him to Spire Motorsports.
Here’s hoping he goes to that next level and wins more races.
Boeing says workers skipped required tests on 787 but recorded work as completed
I just can’t with this company. How can anyone get on a plane now?
I’m afraid of heights and flying in general. So, yeah, I already had issues with getting on a giant tube held in the air by some magical force. Ok, ok, you know what I mean.
Now I’m really leery of getting on one. 😰
Bill Doerrfeld • The New Stack
Open source software is having a midlife crisis. Open source contributors are struggling to keep pace. Popular open source projects are making restrictive licensing changes. Backdoor threats are placing the open source supply chain in jeopardy. And, no one seems to have a clear grasp on what “open” means in the context of artificial intelligence.
There’s a lot of open source software available for individuals and corporations to use without paying a dime for it. That can come at a price. We’ve seen developers remove their packages from node, breaking developers worldwide, we’ve seen plenty of repositories go dark and watch contributions waste away from but rot, and recently we’ve witnessed a long game infiltration into an extremely important piece of software by what appears to be a nation state.
I have no idea how to fix these problems. I suppose treating people with kindness and respect could help with certain issues but some are going to take vigilance one all of our parts to make sure the things we use continue to work and aren’t used for nefarious purposes.
Meta’s move into the open social web, also known as the fediverse, is puzzling. Does the Facebook owner see open protocols as the future? Will it embrace the fediverse only to shut it down, shifting people back to its proprietary platforms and decimating startups building in the space? Will it bring its advertising empire to the fediverse, where today clients like Mastodon and others remain ad-free?
It’s hard for me to imagine what Meta can do to take over the Fediverse but I don’t have a devious mind.
The Fediverse feels like the place we commoners can make a place to flourish. To date I know we have Mastodon as a Twitter replacement and PixelFed as an Instagram replacement. What about YouTube and the likes of Spotify and Apple Music? Is there a brave enough musician or group of musicians willing to build a music streaming service based on open protocols and API’s?
Maybe Taylor Swift would like to back a small team to build streaming software that federates and gives indies a way to host their own music and their own stores. I don’t know if something like that is plausible? Anything is possible to build given enough will, inspiration, time, and resources.
Maybe we’ll see some new ventures spring out of the Fediverse related to video and music streaming.
Jason Graziadei • Nantucket Currenr
Cyber Stuck: First Tesla Cybertruck On Nantucket Has A Rough Day
Once again the Cyber Truck gets a lot of attention by being kind of a bad truck. To be fair it’s easy to get stuck on a beach but damn I kind of like seeing it fail. And that all stems from my dislike of Tesla’s public face in Space Karen.