Rob Fahrni

President Biden, thank you for being the President America needs at this very dark time. 🙏🏼

I’ll probably be sharing these over the next few days because it’s cold. 🥶🤣

This is pure murder. Zero doubt.

These “agents” need to be brought up on murder charges, especially the first one to fire. What a coward. They cannot be trusted to serve the public much less carry a firearm.

Shut this mess down. Disband ICE and put someone in charge of Border Patrol who will conduct themselves with honor and integrity.

These “agents” are going to start being killed if they keep murdering peaceful protesters trying to help their fellow citizens.

Our democracy is lost. How do we take it back?

War.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

🚨 BREAKING NEWS: It’s Sunday 🚨

We had our grandkids yesterday so it gets very busy in the Fahrni household. That’s why I’m publishing this on Sunday.

I started a new project this week and can’t really say more than that. It’s another React Native project with a very short timeframe so it’s time to knuckle down and go to work. 👷‍♂️

We’re getting ready for a real cold spell leading into next week accompanied by possibly 18-24” of snow. 🥶

Folks at work have labeled it snowmageddon. 😂

Some call it Southern Winter. 🤣

My biggest worry is loss of power. It’s not just snow. We’re expected to get an ice storm as well. That leads to complete chaos. Here’s hoping the power stays on. 🙏🏼

I hope you enjoy the links.

Ashur Cabrera

I’ll cover some specifics like which tools I’m using, but won’t dive into implementation details or code snippets. Instead, my hope is that a high-level overview might plant a seed for someone else to try a new idea, or to finally fix that thing that’s been bugging them about their blog.

Ashur is someone I have a great deal of respect for and he’s a talented person, especially when it comes to the web. He creates beautiful, creative, websites you can’t label as boring.

I really love it when folks share how they produce their weblogs. No two workflows and tooling are the same. It’s a wonderful thing. 🧰

Varun Santhanam

Working with JSON in Swift can feel like fighting gravity. Swift is modern, powerful, expressive, and has perhaps the best type system of any programming language. But when it comes to working with JSON, especially unstructured or semi-structured payloads, you’re left with tools that are either clumsy, slow, or both. It barely feels like Swift. I wanted something better. When I couldn’t find it, I built it myself.

I’ve never found the JSON support offered by Codable to be slow but there are definitely software developers with the low level talent and who are speed demons who won’t put up with what they notice is slow.

This library might be for you. 🐦‍🔥

Henry Desroches

We were given this vast, holy realm of self-discovery and joy and philosophy and community; a thousand thousand acres of digital landscape, on which to grow our forests and grasslands of imagination, plant our gardens of learning, explore the caves of our making. We were given the chance to know anything about anything, to be our own Prometheus, to make wishes and to grant them.

But that’s not what we use the Internet for anymore. These days, instead of using it to make ourselves, most of us are using it to waste ourselves: we’re doom-scrolling brain-rot on the attention-farm, we’re getting slop from the feed.

More and more folks are discovering the power and freedom of the blog and RSS. Some of us never left but may have faltered a bit during the very dominant Twitter years. I’m guilty of that but I love my blog now more than ever. ❤️

Dave Rogers

I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose most of my 11 readers if I start writing about Nazis and fascists exclusively, but there’s only so many places I can direct this rage and incomprehension at the absence of rage all around me.

Write about the state of America and our failed democracy all you want, Dave. I’m still reading and agree with you more than ever. I’ve always loved your voice and how you share it through your writing. ❤️

Yosh • Unix Dog

C doesn’t have an official documentation channel, nor does it have syntax or standard library constructs that encourage one particular way of doing things. from this, there’s a bunch of inconsistencies in how people do things, and–especially in the early days of the language and standard library–the landscape and general practice is quite error prone.

It’s true. C is for folks who want to do it all. At least that was mostly my experience as I learned C and later C++. Platform vendors supplied us with frameworks and SDKs that gave us the building blocks we needed to do our jobs. No package managers.

⚠️ POLITICS BELOW HERE ⚠️

The Nobel Peace Prize

The medal and the diploma are the physical symbols confirming that an individual or organisation has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize itself – the honour and recognition – remains inseparably linked to the person or organisation designated as the laureate by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Yeah, what more can we say? Marmalade Messiah is a sociopathic narcissist. It’s all about him but he’s fake as hell and a hollow shell of a man.

Not to mention bully, rapist, pedophile, failed businessman, convicted felon, and now party to murder in Minnesota.

Just a garbage human who’d already be dead or in prison if he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his lying mouth. 🤬

⚠️ Before reading any further I’m posting links from writers I really respect who have chosen to use a service that supports and publishes Nazi content. I won’t mention the name here but if you’ve followed me on this blog or on Mastodon you’ve heard me mention it.

I’ve encouraged both of them to leave and find better places to write but I’m a nobody so my begging goes unanswered (by unanswered they don’t interact with their audience much.)

I’ve made a rule not to link to these writers and others as long as they’re using this despicable service but with the murder of Alex Pretti I felt it necessary to ignore my own rule for the moment.

Paul Krugman

It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government — Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more — are monsters.

Robert Reich

He’s coming after all of us who oppose his tyranny and brutality. All of us who defy his dictatorship. All of us who challenge his out-of-control, murderous goons.

Murder. Alex Pretti was murdered in cold blood for what? Filming ICE agents and trying to pick a woman up off the ground.

The man was shot 10 times. If that’s not an intentional act meant to kill him, I don’t know what is.

Our democracy is collapsing. When future generations of Americans and other countrymen write about the Second American Civil War they will name Minneapolis the event that catalyzed Americans to act. To use violence against violence.

Donald J. Trump, you are a thug, racist, pedophile, and rapist. You can now add murderer to that list.

It’s a dark time in the world and to have a once great nation fall this quickly is gut wrenching.

Link to eyewitness statement.

It’s pretty darned cold this morning and the wind definitely doesn’t help.

12F with a feels like of 4F and you can feel every bit of it. 🥶

Coffee with Bug.

Hey baby it’s cold outside!

We’re getting ready for snowmageddon here in Charlottesville, or what folks in Toronto call Tuesday. 🥶

Bills over Broncos

Bears over Rams

Seahawks over 49’ers

Texans over Patriots

I really question my Bears pick. My brain says Rams win but my heart is with the Bears.

The Bills and Texans look so good I had to pick them. Just had to.

New England does look really good as well!

I do wonder if the Seahawks having an extra week off helped or hurt them in the long run?

The NFC West has put three teams in the final four that remain. All of them look really good.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Last week was my final week on a two plus year project to integrate React Native into native iOS and Android code bases and ultimately migrate to a 100% React Native application. That goal was accomplished at the end of 2025, now we hand it over to our client so they can develop everything in pure React Native. It was a very enjoyable ride but our involvement with the project is scaled way back now. Some folks are still working on it but most of us will be moving on. To what? I have no idea at the moment. We’ll see!

Enjoy the links!

James Hibberd • The Hollywood Reporter

Martin wanted to build an empire — and did. Yet “productive” is the last word any Thrones fan would use to describe him. The author’s worry that he wouldn’t be able to finish Winter has borne out to a staggering degree. His tortured inability to “finish the book, George!” — as online hordes regularly chide — is almost as impressive, in its way, as his success at doing everything else.

It’s hard to believe he’s still working on the final book. I’m not a big follower of Mr. Martin but he’s obviously a prolific writer, just a bit slow, that’s all.

I hope he’s able to complete his book and feel really great about it.

Jack McKessy and Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz • USA Today

The New York Giants have offered Harbaugh a five-year deal to become their next head coach, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport reported Thursday morning. Harbaugh has already accepted the offer, which will make him one of the NFL’s highest-paid coaches, Rapoport reports.

I’m really happy for John Harbaugh. I think everyone knew he’d have his choice of teams given how consistent his teams have been over the years.

I hope he’s able to develop Jaxson Dart into an A-tier quarterback.

Stevie Bonifield • The Verge

One year on Linux, two distros, a few tears, four desktop environments, and zero regrets about leaving Windows.

I’ve seen more people moving to Linux than ever before. Microsoft seems to be doing its best to make Windows an Enterprise only operating system. It’s really very sad.

I started my Windows development journey with Windows 2.1 and it really took off with Windows 3.0.

I worked at Microsoft on Windows for Workgroups version 3.11 in the International Group as a Test Engineer.

I left there for Visio and was a Tester for Visio 1.0.

I owe a lot to Windows professionally. Microsoft always had a great developer story with great SDK support. Now it’s a pretty strange company that doesn’t have a unified developer story and doesn’t even use its own tools for development of its own products. 😔

I think I can get the core bits of Stream ported to Linux, then I’d need to build a UI. 🤣

Dave Winer

I’ve been watching Jake Savin for the last couple of months using Claude.ai and ChatGPT to create a headless version of Frontier that will run on Linux and current versions of MacOS.

This is extremely interesting. There are projects that come along once in a while that I’d like to contribute to, this is one, but I already have enough on my plate with Stream and [Secret Project].

Will Graves • AP News

Mike Tomlin was an unknown when the Pittsburgh Steelers plucked him from obscurity in 2007 and handed the young and charismatic Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator one of the most stable jobs in sports.

Mike Tomlin has been such a constant at Pittsburgh it’s hard to see him leave but I’m happy for him.

I hope he has an amazing retirement.

Dan Moren • Six Colors

Pixelmator Pro is perhaps the biggest part of this announcement, as many have wondered what was in store for the graphics app after its parent company’s acquisition by Apple in late 2024. The Mac app comes to the iPad for the first time with Apple Pencil support, and there’s a new Warp tool across all versions.

This bundle seems a bit strange to me.😃 I can see having the high end creative tools in one bundle but the iWorks apps seem strange in the same group. They seem like should be two separate offerings to me.

Oh, it’s also kind of strange they’re keeping the old versions around and you can still do a one time purchase of them.

AJ Dellinger • Gizmodo

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has seen his net worth skyrocket by nearly $100 billion since the AI boom started a couple of years ago, would really appreciate it if you would stop talking about the potential harms of the technology that’s supercharged his fortune. It’s really harshing his vibe.

I figure he’ll get over it somehow. 🤣

Luke Smith • The Athletic

At the end of his gruelling, podium-less first season with Ferrari in 2025, Hamilton needed that break and reset more than ever. Because 2026 will be the year that defines the late stages of his storied career, and the unification between the most successful driver in F1 history and the sport’s most successful, iconic team.

Mr. Hamilton is toward the end of his career. This may be the natural drop off in talent that comes with age.

I like F1 but I pay more attention to NASCAR and I’m witnessing that with Kyle Busch as well. The man is seven wins from 70 and I’d love to see him make it, but I feel like he won’t, which is a real bummer.

I’d be really happy to see Lewis Hamilton win another championship and walk away on top. Of course these folks are the best in the world and can’t walk away. 😁

Annie Snider • Politico

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on Monday called for curtailing her state’s lucrative tax incentives for data centers and imposing new water use fees on the growing industry.

This is good. Water is a very precious resource and needs to be treated accordingly. In fact, water poor areas like California, Arizona, Nevada, etc shouldn’t have big AI data centers. Put them in Alaska or northern states that have cold winters. As if I’m some expert on cooling data centers. 🤣

Daring Fireball

Emphasizing that leaving X and Grok available in the App Store and Play Store is directly contradictory to Apple and Google’s stated reasons for maintaining control over software distribution is a good pressure point. Do they selectively enforce content moderation based on whims and/or shifting political winds, or rigorously enforce the plain language of their own content guidelines? Which is it? It can’t be both.

Apple and Google are disappointing their fans. I know I’m disappointed as are many geeky developer and pundit types.

Space Karen needs to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Johnathan M. Gitlin • Ars Technica

The outcry from Bolt fans was loud and vociferous, and in July 2025 GM CEO Mary Barra announced that it would be coming back, with a new Ultium-based battery pack. But only in the Bolt EUV body style—if you prefer the original hatchback, you’re out of luck.

I really like this little car and think it’s absolutely perfect as a commuter car but it’s waaaaay too expensive. How can Chevrolet bring the price down to under $20k for the base model?

That would be incredible. Cars are way too costly. Especially EV’s. I’d imagine that’s part of the reason people still drive gas powered vehicles.

Dave Winer

If I were making a Bluesky client, I would get together with the other independent developers who are creating those clients and agree on adding features that Bluesky itself doesn’t support and be compatible with each other.

I like the idea of this it’s just too bad all of these platforms don’t have a way for third parties to add their own RSS elements. E.G. Dave has introduced a new RSS element named ‘source:markdown’ that is the same as ‘description’ except it’s formatted as Markdown. Pretty cool, aye?

My wife brought these home for me a couple weeks back. Boy oh boy are they dangerous! 🤣 Eating one leads to two leads to… You get the picture.

Today’s NFL Playoff Picks

Buffalo over Jacksonville

San Francisco over Philadelphia

Los Angeles over New England

Monday Night Pick

Pittsburgh over Houston

I typically pick the wrong team. These picks are picks from the heart, not the head. 😁

Alexander Willis • Raw Story

“Would you have gone to watch the Olympics in Nazi Germany in 1936?” asked Pekka Kallioniemi, a Finnish social media analyst with a focus on propaganda and disinformation, in a social media post on X Friday. “If the answer is no, it’s time to cancel your US World Cup tickets.”

It’s a shame FIFA is a highly corrupt organization. I know these events take years and years to put together but if FIFA had good leadership they’d have pulled the World Cup from the States. Move it to Canada or Mexico, or both?

I love my country but I’m so embarrassed to be an American at the moment.

Mike Pearl • Gizmodo

Elon Musk says that in a week, the new X algorithm—meaning all the code that determines what you see in your X feed—will be made open source. 

We all know this man is a liar, right? He’s almost as bad as Marmalade Messiah.

He said we’d have self driving cars in three years. The problem is he said that in 2013. So if I’m capable of doing addition we should’ve had self driving vehicles in 2016. That’s 10 years ago.

The man may be smart but genius he is not. He’s a sociopathic narcissist and a bully.

Go to Mars and leave us alone.

By Glen Owen and Dan Hodges • Daily Mail

Donald Trump has ordered his special forces commanders to draw up a plan for the invasion of Greenland - but is being resisted by senior military figures, The Mail on Sunday has learned

All you Republican lickspittle toadies need to grow a pair and push back against this. We cannot just start taking over countries. I don’t care what your justification is. This is as un-American as anything I’ve seen from any administration in my lifetime.

NATO needs to get involved now and American soldiers need to refuse to carry out these orders.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

This week has been a tough one. Our country is going right down the toilet with the current administration pulling the handle.

They’re just itching for a reason to declare marshal law and the events of this week with the murder of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross puts us one step closer to one of us killing one of them.

At some point it has to stop or we will go down that road.

Curt Devine, Thomas Bordeaux, Allison Gordon, Kyung Lah • CNN

As he approached Renee Good’s vehicle on a Minneapolis street on Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross held up his phone camera and recorded video.

Less than a minute later, he was still recording when he drew his weapon and fatally shot Good as she accelerated.

This whole situation is disgusting and vile. The ICEhole who killed Ms. Good should be prosecuted to the full extent possible. He committed murder in plain sight and we have him on video doing it.

Sean Heber

I feel like if Iconfactory brought in that much or sold that many copies of any of our software in one year we’d be throwing a freakin’ party.

Sean is one of the amazing software developers behind beloved titles like Twitterrific and Tapestry. The Iconfactory is full of incredible folks; support staff, designers, and devs. At last count the company is six incredible people working their tails off to produce some of the best software on the Mac and iOS and they’re always struggling to keep the doors open.

Yes, that’s how tough modern software development shops have it.

I wish I were a really rich man. I’d give them a bunch of money, just because.

If you have design or app development needs, please, visit my friends at The Iconfactory and hire them. You will not be disappointed.

Yes, I love this shop so much I’ve tried to get a job there a couple times. 😄 They’ve never had open positions and I don’t think I have the chops to match Craig Hockenberry and Sean Heber, but I’d sure love to work with them. ❤️

I still think Apple should buy the company. Six amazing folks and an amazing catalog of apps in one nice little package. 😃

Dan Moren • Six Colors

It is absolutely unconscionable that, as of this writing, X is not only still on the App Store but is ranked #1 in “News”1 and that Grok is the #3 free app. Moreover, there has been—as far as I have seen—no public statement from Apple or Cook about this situation in the days, at least, over which it has unfolded. Probably because it is indefensible. Even, if at this point, they removed X/Grok from the store—which, don’t get me wrong, they absolutely should—the question would be “what took so long”?

I reported X for child porn at the App Store yesterday and you should too. Space Karen is a disgusting human being and everything he touches turns to amoral shit.

Toss their software out of the store until they fix it, Mr. Cook. You’re one of the largest most profitable companies in the world. Get off the MAGA train. 🤬

Anil Dash

The number one question I get from my friends, acquaintances, and mentees in the technology industry these days is, by far, variations on the basic theme of, “what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

Indeed. What are we supposed to do now? As of this writing I’m 58 years old with no hope of retirement and I’m in an industry going through a radical transformation because of LLMs. They’re damned useful today. What happens when/if they become useful enough I’m no longer needed?

As it stands that day hasn’t come. Humans still need to look over LLM work to make sure it’s correct. Use for everyday things is not trustworthy because it still makes stuff up. But, for software development is pretty darned good.

Every day I expect to be laid off. No, that’s not an exaggeration. I think about it every darned day and I hate it.

I only hope I can find a job when that happens. Being older doesn’t help.

There’s alway Starbucks. ☕️

Joan Westenberg

Before social media ate the internet, and before the internet ate everything else, and before everything else ate itself, blogs occupied a wonderful and formative niche in the information ecosystem. They were personal but public, permanent but updateable, long-form but informal. A blog post could be three paragraphs or thirty pages. It could be rigorously researched or entirely speculative. It could build an argument over weeks or months, with each post serving as a chapter in an ongoing intellectual project that readers could follow, critique, and respond to.

I love Joan’s writing. She’s so thoughtful and her writing is clear and often resonates with me. This piece is no exception. It’s excellent and you should read it. She has an RSS feed, as any great writer should have. Go subscribe now. 👍🏼

Jason Poitras • IntelliCAD Technology Consortium

AutoLISP® is often used to solve practical problems in CAD workflows, with small custom commands that save time and reduce repetitive work. What has traditionally been missing in IntelliCAD is a modern, developer-friendly way to write and debug those scripts. With IntelliCAD 14.0, the new VLISPcommand introduces a Visual LISP–style debugging workflow using Visual Studio Code, powered by the IntelliCAD LISP Debugger extension.

How cool is this? This is going to prove to be extremely useful for IntelliCAD LISP developers. They’re as close to a full IDE without writing an IDE as one could get and they’re leveraging extremely popular open source tools like. VS Code.

Oh, and they have an existing, built in, IDE that’s one of the best ever built: Visual Basic for Applications, or VBA. It’s an add-on developers dream platform. 😀

Kauy Ostlien • Daily Downforce

Brad Keselowski is set to miss the 2026 NASCAR Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, following an injury suffered during the offseason, per a new report.

This is a bummer but I hope to see Mr. Keselowski healthy and ready to roll for Daytona.

I also like that they tapped Corey LaJoie to drive the 6 for The Clash at Bowman Gray.

If Mr. Keselowski isn’t ready for Daytona I’m curious to see how Mr. LaJoie fairs given the great equipment he’ll have. He’s always wanted to race in better equipment. Now may be his chance! 🚙

Daring Fireball

Nielsen’s post on MacOS 26 Tahoe’s tragic “icons for every menu item” design edict was published a month ago, before Nikita Prokopov’s post on the same subject yesterday. Both posts are crackerjack good, and complement each other. Nielsen makes the point that the Mac stood as a counter to platforms and systems that put icons next to every menu item. Of course Google Docs has icons next to every menu item. It sucks. Google sucks at UI design. We Mac users laugh at their crappy designs.

Tahoe’s design continues to be dragged through the muck. I don’t blame all the longtime Mac experts for being pissed off. Some developers are ignoring the new guidance and I don’t blame them for doing it. When someone uses your software and finds it messy, even if it’s the recommended way, they don’t see it as an Apple problem. They see it as the developers problem.

Jason Snell • Six Colors

Leaks from Apple’s supply chain have begun to strongly suggest the shape and size of the product we’ll call, for lack of a better name, the iPhone Fold. And since it’s likely going to be nine months before anyone holds one of these things in their hands, this seems like as good a time as any to consider the story Apple is likely to tell when it’s selling this device.

Whoa! While I don’t consider myself the target user for this device, I really do not like this form factor. It’s way too wide for my taste. It’s definitely more iPad than iPhone in my view.

Of course that mockup may not be anywhere close to the real design. I, for one, hope it isn’t. 🤞🏼

Ken Case • The Omni Group

Happy New Year! Ready for a productive 2026? We have just the thing: we’re pleased to share that a major upgrade of OmniOutliner is ready for you today!

Omni Group is another premier Mac and iOS shop and it’s really nice to see them release updates to their incredible software.

Congratulations! 🥳

Joe Roberts • Slashfilm

David Harbour explained how he and pretty much everyone else was caught off-guard by the popularity of season 1. “By the time we finished, we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season,” he said. “We’d be the first Netflix show kind of ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.”

Wow. They thought it would be a flop and it becomes one of the most beloved shows Netflix has ever created, thanks, in part, to Mr. David Harbour.

Liz Sawyer, Andy Mannix and Sarah Nelson The Minnesota Star Tribune

Star Tribune identifies ICE agent who fatally shot woman in Minneapolis

Jonathan Ross was dragged in a separate incident last year by a fleeing driver, according to court records.

Jonathan Ross, you’re a murderer.

Daring Fireball

But I want to add another note. The main footage here comes from bystander Caitlin Callenson. Here’s her full 4m:25s footage, uncensored, hosted — with credit, and I hope, permission — on the YouTube account of Minnesota Reformer. Be warned that it shows Good being shot to death (albeit sans gore), and contains many loud profanities. This is very good and clear footage. It is difficult viewing but you should watch it. Callenson was very close to Good’s vehicle. I’d say about 30 feet or so. You can see why she thought to start filming before the murderous agent drew his gun and fired.

Go watch that video. When the ICEholes get out of their vehicles you can hear Ms. Good tell them “go around.” One agent approaches aggressively and tries to open the door. The other one is saying something but it’s hard to make out.

Then the asshole agent shoots her on the face. Once he does that he walks to the SUV, checks it out, turns around and walks away, ultimately LEAVING THE SCENE.

That man needs to get out of this kind of work if he’s that afraid.

He also needs to be brought up on murder charges, which he won’t, because the Trump administration is full of sissies who must’ve been bullied on their grade school playground so they hate everyone and have to carry a gun to feel safe.

In an email today from RetroSnap. (This site for this link may disappear soon.)

Alex here, founder at RetroSnap and the geekiest geek of retro gadgets. You may be receiving this message as part of a store-wide notification. If you have already received your order, please disregard this email.

We’re writing to share an important update regarding our store.

Due to recent increases in international import tariffs and related cross-border compliance costs, we’ve been forced to make the difficult decision to close our store and discontinue operations. These tariff changes are outside of our control and have made it impossible for us to continue operating sustainably. Please note that our business email will also be deactivated shortly.

So, I ordered one of these for Kim in early December, for Christmas. It still hasn’t arrived and I was really worried it wouldn’t get here, but I just checked and it’s due in Richmond, VA today. That’s a relief.

Also, thanks you damned Jackass in the White House whose last name rhymes with Dump. Those tariffs have been a real boon to the economy, right? 🤬

Jackass.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Sorry I missed last weekend. I had the flu and it really kicked my butt. When Kim got up on Saturday morning I went back to bed and slept until 4:30 that afternoon. I needed it. I was wiped out. Sunday was even worse. I felt completely disconnected from my body. Really fuzzy brained, fever, chills, achy, and a lovely cough. That lasted for most of the week. I started feeling more myself on Thursday. Of course I’m back to work on Monday. 😂 I’m grateful I had the week to recover.

I hope you enjoy the links!

Carly Thomas and Abid Rahman • The Hollywood Reporter

James Ransone, the versatile character actor best known for his roles in The Wire, Tangerine, Generation Kill, It: Chapter Two and The Black Phone, died on Dec. 19. He was 46.

This really bummed me out because I thought Mr. Ransone was an incredible actor. It’s not mentioned above but my favorite character of his was Deputy So and So in Sinister.

RIP Deputy So and So. 🪦

Leave Substack

You should probably leave Substack. Here’s why and how.

Yes, you should 100% leave Substack. I can list so many amazing journalists who’ve created their presence on Substack. They don’t say they’ve created a blog, no, they say they’ve created a Substack which makes it even worse. They’re just blogs and, unfortunately, Substack created an environment attractive to writers because it has everything they need; a place to write, social features, and a way to make money doing it. All without lifting a finger to maintain servers or collect money from paid subscribers. It was smart of the founders, but it turns out the founders support some pretty disgusting people, like Nazis.🤬

Robert Lea • Space

Astronomers have made a truly mind-boggling discovery using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a runaway black hole 10 million times larger than the sun, rocketing through space at a staggering 2.2 million miles per hour (1,000 kilometers per second).

Isn’t this incredible? It’s so difficult to wrap your brain around the idea that a black hole is traveling through space at that speed, creating a wake, and creating new stars as it goes. Just fascinating!🖤

Benj Edwards • Ars Technica

While the JavaScript language didn’t ship publicly until that September and didn’t reach a 1.0 release until March 1996, the descendants of Eich’s initial 10-day hack now run on approximately 98.9 percent of all websites with client-side code, making JavaScript the dominant programming language of the web.

Much to my chagrin JavaScript has become the de facto language of the web. At one time I’d hoped Common Language Infrastructure would become the way of the web, but it didn’t happen. Instead we got WebAssembly, which is fine, I just wish it had been CLI. It would’ve been great to be able to write code in C# or F# or whatever language supported CLI. JavaScript could’ve been CLI compliant.

It is what it is and if you want to do web, you gotta do JavaScript. ☕️

Lexington Herald Leader

Jim Beam, which is one of the largest makers of American whiskey in the world, is planning to shut down production in Happy Hollow in Clermont Jan. 1 through 2026.

Y’all can thank President Orange for this. Canadians have decided they don’t need to purchase American made Bourbon any longer and it’s hurting American Bourbon makers.

That’s not political. That’s just bad business.

Andru Marino • The Verge

With podcasting pivoting to video this year, the word used to describe an audio-only show is becoming meaningless.

Nope. Podcasting is still its own thing. It’s open, distributed via RSS, and all about audio. Now, perhaps I’m misguided with that third assertion? RSS is built to deliver any media type as an enclosure but it’s mostly been used to deliver podcasts.

Besides, how many podcasters with video casts use anything other than YouTube for distribution? I think it’s safe to say very few, if any.

Podcasting, like blogging before it, was created to be an open ecosystem. Sure, go ahead and monetize your podcast, but don’t lock it behind a special service that only supports a proprietary distribution mechanism. That is not podcasting, nor should it be used for the video version of it. Whatever that’s called. Calling it a Video Podcast may be the right thing to do, but being distributed via RSS is partly what would allow using the name Podcast for it.

Marshall Pruett • Racer

Katherine Legge used the momentum from her run at the 2024 Indianapolis 500 with Dale Coyne Racing to expand her career into NASCAR in 2025, and with the support of her sponsors, the Briton is keen to make a return to the Speedway.

I like Katherine Legge. She’s a very versatile driver who’s competed in the Indy 500 and NASCAR Cup Series races. I just wish she could find a full time NASCAR Cup ride. Last year she ran a few Cup races with backing from E.L.F. Cosmetics and I’d love to see them or another woman focused brand step up to give her the ability to run full time. She has what it takes, she just needs money, better equipment, and manufacturer support, like all other drivers. 😀

Maybe a new Dodge Cup team would be interested in having her full time. It would be really great to see! 🤞🏼

Lua.org

Here are the main changes introduced in Lua 5.5. The reference manual lists the incompatibilities that had to be introduced.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Lua, don’t know why. I just like how compact it is and how easy it is to include as a scripting language in other codebases. One of our junior developers at Pelco developed a tool for that allowed a developer to build media pipelines, using our custom media pipeline framework, by writing Lua instead of C++. It was all hosted inside a custom Qt app. It was a great tool mostly because Lua was easier to write and definitely improved developer experimentation and testing velocity. Not to mention the usefulness to the test team. 🧰

Christopher Goffard • Los Angeles Times

Alex Baber, a 50-year-old West Virginia man who dropped out of high school and taught himself codebreaking, now says he has cracked the Zodiac killer’s identity — and in the process solved the Black Dahlia case as well.

This is absolutely fascinating but we’ll never really know the truth of either case.

Perhaps Mr. Barber hit the nail on the head but it sure seems unlikely given the time they’ve gone unsolved and lack of a living suspect to verify it, assuming they’d confess.

Zac Bowden • Windows Central

Too many bugs. Too many changes. Too little control. Windows 11’s reputation might be at its lowest it’s ever been as 2025 comes to a close.

This is a real shame. I cut my teeth as a software developer on Windows and the Windows API. I owe my career to some amazing Windows developer who took me under their wing and taught me how to use those APIs to great effect. After all these years as an iOS developer I still believe I know the Windows API better than I do Cocoa.

I’d really love to see Microsoft put together a small team dedicated to unifying the user interface design and usability of Windows. Eliminate some old cruft and make it rock solid. The underlying foundation is so good to build on.

Embracing C# or Rust to do more work would be nice but there is a ton of C code to maintain and enhance and they need to transition all of Windows to using WinUI 3.

Perhaps they could start by replacing the React Native Start Menu with a brand new Rust based version? That would make for a good start.

I’m mostly well now. I still have a cough that’s working hard to get those last remnants of irritation out of my lungs but I’m mostly whole. 🤧

I made it to the coffee shop this morning because I really need to work on Stream. It’s been three or four weeks since I’ve been able to work on it and I miss it.

I have lots of thoughts swirling around in my pea brain this morning. Mostly around a strong desire to retire. Retire from working for someone else, not retire from working. At this time of the year I always think about what it would be like to work on my own stuff full time. Stream and top secret project would get so much attention. I looked at top secret project last week for a moment and realized it’s been over a year since I touched the code. That didn’t seem possible but the dates don’t lie. My brain though it had been a few months, not over a year. It was a shock to the system. I’m not gonna be here forever and someday I may not want to write code any longer. Who knows? I certainly don’t. The way I feel about things now I can see writing code until I drop dead behind my keyboard. Someone finding me face down, my computer in some weird state from my face unintentionally issuing a command. 😄

Of course, as it stands today, I still need a job and I’m very happy to have one.

Oh, sorry for missing Saturday Morning Coffee yesterday. My body needed the sleep. I managed to sleep until 4:30PM and still sleep last night. I’m still tired this morning. This darned bug took it out of me.

That kind of bullshit is why I’m starting this Substack. To call this moment what it is, to track the erosion of democratic guardrails in real time, and to build a community of people who are sick to death of Trump and ready to fight back. - George Conway

I didn’t link to his piece because he posted on, of all places, Substack.

That’s the last place anyone should post if they’re all about democracy because Substack has a history of supporting Nazis. Yes, Nazis.

George, if you’re serious about democracy you should probably find a better place to write because what I see is a pure money play, not a man trying to save democracy.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Gracie decided 5:30 was wake-up time. I felt miserable. I’m definitely sick. Anywho, I started working on Saturday Morning Coffee and as soon as Kim woke up, I went back to bed. That’s why this is so late. I woke up around 11:30 and had to take care of some stuff.

Sorry for the lateness but I hope you enjoy the links.

Five days ‘til Christmas! 🎅🏼

Wil Wheaton

The world knows Rob as a generational talent, a storyteller and humanitarian activist who made a difference with his art, his voice, and his influence. I knew that man, but I also knew a man who treated me with more kindness, care, and love than my own father ever did. And it is the loss of that man that is piercing my heart right now.

The death or Rob and Michele Reiner was a complete shock. I can’t imagine how hard it hit their close friends and family. Wil gives us some clue of what that loss feels like.

I also like that he was able to share his thoughts and feelings on his own terms. No reporters involved. Just a man telling how he wanted to. ❤️

Kate Mothes • This is Colossal

When an oval-shaped portrait fell into his hands, with its structural framework crumbling and its canvas stained, that wasn’t even the worst of it. This particular painting had also been unskillfully painted over to freshen it up, despite—as Baumgartner discovers—the fact that the “fix” actually completely changed the entire feel of the work. As he works, he illuminates how the amateur attempt to restore the work actually eliminated the subtle nuances of the artist’s original intention, and by extension, the sitter’s personality.

This video was a really great watch. Watching someone at the top of their game is a real treat and when he was finished the painting looked incredible.

Take a few minutes out of your day to watch it. It’s really good. 🖼️

Wordpress

WordPress Studio simplifies all of that. 

The free, open-source tool lets you spin up local sites quickly, share previews instantly, and move changes between environments without the usual hassle — helping you focus on creating rather than configuring and troubleshooting.

Tooling makes a huge difference when it comes to managing a large group of systems.

I’d love to see this driven by a real pro.

M.G. Siegler • Spyglass

I’m old enough to remember when the head of Netflix wasn’t just downplaying the importance of movie theaters to the industry, he was eviscerating the entire concept as “outdated”. That is to say, I’m at least eight months old.

I hope Netflix puts an effort behind making top notch movies and lets HBO focus on creation of great series.

Federico Viticci • MacStories

In the 16 years that I’ve been writing for MacStories, I’ve seen my fair share of new apps that have come and gone. Apps that promised to revolutionize a particular segment of the App Store were eventually acquired, discontinued, or simply abandoned. It’s been very unusual to witness an indie app survive in a highly competitive marketplace, let alone to find one that thrived after having been sold twice to different owners over the years. But such is the case of Unread, the RSS client now developed by John Brayton of Golden Hill Software and the recipient of this year’s MacStories Selects Lifetime Achievement Award.

Congratulations, John! You earned it. Unread it a top notch feed reader. 🥳

Malcolm Owen • Apple Insider

The account itself was flagged as “closed in accordance with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.” Naturally, there were repercussions that did a lot more to Dr Buttfield-Addison’s digital life than simply the closure of one account.

Some good news to report. Dr. Butterfield-Addison has regained full access to his account.

It took a Herculean effort to get this account unlocked. Normal folks, like most of us, don’t stand a chance of getting our account back. 😔

Jason Owens • Yahoo!Sports

Philip Rivers was competent on Sunday but not much more in his first NFL game since the 2020 season.

Let’s hear it for the old guys of the world. I always liked Phillip Rivers. He has a real drive to win and is tough as nail.

I know I’ve said this many times but the weather in Charlottesville is completely unpredictable. It can be 30F and snowing and 80F and sunny the next.

When I got up with the dogs this morning it was 13F. According to our forecast it’s going to be 60F and sunny Christmas week.

It’s been cold and snowing off and on for a few weeks now. I was hoping for a white Christmas, instead it’s gonna be warm and sunny. 🤣

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Richard MacManus • The New Stack

Thirty years ago, Netscape engineer Brendan Eich famously created a new client-side scripting language in just ten days. It was initially called Mocha, but by the end of the year it would be renamed JavaScript. In 1995, nobody could’ve predicted that JavaScript would become the world’s most popular programming language. But that’s exactly what happened.

JavaScript is most definitely the defacto standard for app development in the browser and it’s used heavily on the server, desktop, and mobile app development. Incredible.

I’ve said for years and years JavaScript is to the browser what C once was to the desktop. Nowadays most folks refer to browser apps as desktop apps, which can be confusing to old timers like me. 😄

Lucien Dupont

If you go see Zootopia 2 this weekend, I’m in the credits, way towards the end, in the technology section.

Congratulations, Lucien! Great Mac developers still exist in the world and Lucien is one of ‘em. Keep on keeping on! ❤️

Dan Wolken • Yahoo!Sports

The work is finally done for the worst selection committee in the College Football Playoff’s dozen-year history, and there are only two ways to explain the grotesque, odious bracket that it belched out Sunday.

I found this upsetting as did many others, but I have to believe that picking the team to leave out was a miserable task. I really hope this wasn’t some kind of political thing because Notre Dame is an independent.

Ben Werdmuller

Throughout my morning, I hadn’t visited a single source website directly. I hadn’t refreshed anything manually. Everything had just appeared, delivered automatically from each source to the app I’d chosen to read it in. My information diet runs on feeds.

Sure, I’m a bit biased, but feed readers are the way to go if you like reading the news. The idea of it coming to you without thinking about it is just plain nice.

I know newsletters have become all the rage. A feed reader gives you the same capability.

Stephen Ramsay

So my question is this: Why vibe code with a language that has humanconvenience and ergonomics in view? Or to put that another way: Wouldn’t a language designed for vibe codingnaturally dispense with much of what is convenient and ergonomic for humans in favor of what is convenient and ergonomic for machines? Why not have it just write C? Or hell, why not x86 assembly?

That’s not a bad idea! Just vibe code in the most efficient language. Hopefully the code is safe and easily readable. I’d imagine at some point a human may want to do some work on it. Maybe I’m being naive. Maybe the LLM would own it and always be used to modify it? 🤔

pmaris • Atlas Obscura

San Francisco’s iconic cable car system is both the world’s oldest and the only one still operating, but that doesn’t mean that the cable cars themselves are all vintage. As working transportation vehicles constructed largely of wood, they have a limited lifespan and periodically need to be rebuilt, and new ones even have to be built from the ground up.

This is one of those craftsman jobs I think is really interesting and would be extremely satisfying. 🪚

Scripting News

The NYT should have started their own Twitter, with exclusive access by people who are quoted in the NYT, so there would have been a connection between the pub, its rep, more inclusive than the masthead.

It’s not too late! They could easily fire up an instance of Mastodon or build ActivityPub directly into their tools.

The easiest route is to start a Mastodon instance. How does nytimes.social sound? 😀

Doug Wilson • Frere Jones

What can be written about Gotham that hasn’t already been published? The typeface, commissioned by GQ Magazine in the early 2000s, is now so ubiquitous it has become part of the visual landscape and can be seen all over the world from Manhattan to Melbourne, Bangkok to Buenos Aires.

What is time? It doesn’t seem like it was created that long ago. It really is a beautiful font.

Ephemeral New York

When it was completed in 1868, this lovely little survivor was not designed to stand out. It may have been built as an outlier, but it was likely part of a row of identical houses meant to appeal to upper middle class buyers enriched by the city’s gangbusters post-Civil War economy.

I want this place. I’d remodel the inside and consider putting a coffee shop in the bottom floor.

I would definitely need an elevator. 😃

The Dallas Express via Yahoo!

In-N-Out Burger has quietly removed the number 67 from its order ticket system after repeated chaos caused by teenagers reacting to the viral “6-7” trend, employees and customers say.

Kids today.

Our grandkids drive us a little nuts with this, especially our grandson. 🤣

stickerart.top via Kottke

Discover a unique collection of laptops adorned with creative stickers from around the world. This project celebrates the art and culture of laptop personalization each laptop tells a story through its stickers and gives us a glimpse of the personality of the owners.

I absolutely love this website and need to submit a picture of mine. 😉

Thanks, Jason.