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.
Kim’s roses are enjoying this weather.
Thinking of San Luis Obispo
If you ever find yourself in San Louis Obispo, California, count your lucky stars for being in such a lovely place and make sure you visit Firestone Grill.
Try their Tri-tip Cobb, the Tri-tip sandwich, or one of their amazing burgers. Order a mixed basket of onion rings and fries.
If you get the Cobb I recommend using their BBQ sauce as the salad dressing. It’s absolutely amazing. 🤤
Yeah, I’m thinking of California again this morning and all the lovely places we miss.
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Feeling under the weather today. I started getting sick in the middle of the week. I slept a lot yesterday and hope to have a quiet weekend.
I hope you enjoy the links.
Just a few days ago, BASIC turned 60! On May 1, 1964 BASIC was created by Dartmouth College professors John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz.
I really love BASIC. It was the first programming language I learned and used professionally. It was all MS-DOS based at the time and the language had changed over time to include functions and custom data types. It was a really great language.
I owe my career to Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System. ❤️
Designing a Swift library with data-race safety
Swift concurrency changes are going to be a lot of fun and take some effort to restructure existing code to make use of it.
And by fun I mean a lot hair pulling, teeth gnashing and head banging on the desk.
Marvel couldn’t have made a better choice if it had the Time Stone itself. Back when a “Doctor Strange” movie was far from a guaranteed hit, Scott Derrickson and Kevin Feige knew they simply couldn’t afford to get the casting wrong.
Can you imagine anyone other than Benedict Cumberbatch playing Dr. Strange? I can’t.
And to think Joaquin Phoenix was on their radar sounds strange to me. To be clear Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor and can play anything but after seeing Benedict Cumberbatch playing him I can’t imagine anyone else doing it.
I always knew that distractions in the workplace are harmful, but only after reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, did I understand how severe the problem is!
This is why I prefer an office to open office spaces. I don’t know how anyone thrives in an open space. Add multiple meetings a day to the mix and you’re not getting much done.
Since the pandemic I’ve been working from home and it’s wonderful. I can control my entire workspace. 🖥️
In some military circles and among many who consider themselves aficionados of Confederate history. The Ruckers have a history of military service going back generations. They’ve also had deep roots in America’s shameful Confederate past. That includes my distant cousin, Col. Edmund Rucker.
It’s really nice to see the Confedercy being dismantled. Now, if we could get rid of the white supremacists and bigots that would be amazing. One step at a time, I suppose.
Tesla laid off at least 10 percent of its workforce earlier this month, and in typical Tesla fashion, the Texas-based automaker made sure the layoffs were done in an organized fashion with plenty of communication and a clearly defined strategy. Just kidding. The layoffs were so poorly executed that security was forced to scan employees’ badges at the door to figure out who had been laid off. And, apparently, that included a guy who had taken to sleeping in his car and showering at the factory so he could work longer hours.
Musk is such a nice, standup, fella, isn’t he? 🤬
Nothing sticks to this guy. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a narcissistic sociopath.
Google’s latest round of layoffs have hit engineers working on its Flutter and Python teams.
And… more layoffs. Tech has had a rough couple years.
In my quest to implement a full app written for SwiftUI on macOS, my next tasks concern the app’s Settings, how to set those as User Defaults, how to implement some of their more common controls, and how to customise the About window. In these, SwiftUI starts to come into its own, in comparison with AppKit, although it does have a couple of surprising shortcomings.
I love it when folks share their code and experience! I’m not brave enough to do that! Thanks for the code! 👨🏽💻
David Merritt Johns • The Atlantic
Back in 2018, a Harvard doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat was presenting his research on the relationship between dairy foods and chronic disease to his thesis committee. One of his studies had led him to an unusual conclusion: Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems.
This is weird to read. Ice Cream for diabetics? I mean, anything for ice cream. Amirite? 🍦
Chance Miller, Ben Lovejoy, and Filipe Espósito • 9to5Mac
A little over a year ago, General Motors made what may well turn out to be one of its biggest gambles in many years: dropping support for CarPlay for all future EVs.
The author thinks this was a mistake. I don’t.
I’m hoping this will turn out well for GM. Just don’t serve up a bunch of ads for new features and other products.
Brian Ramian • Los Angeles Times
Opinion: I once lived in my car and can’t fathom criminalizing homelessness
When I worked at LEVEL Studios in 2010 I had trouble finding a place I could stay fairly cheaply after my sub-lease ran out. I lived in my car for a week. It wasn’t horrible, but its wasn’t ideal.
It’s time to do some camping! Kim and I picked up a new to us camping trailer.
We have a list of places we’d like to visit. Now we just need to pick one and go!
It looks like I’m headed to the bench at work. That honestly terrifies me.
I will make the best of it and dive into SwiftUI and async-await. I haven’t done much with either on a real project.
I could also study JavaScript and React. 🤔
I thought it was allergies. Nope, it’s a cold. NyQuil and DayQuil have once again become my best friends. 🤧
Avila Beach
I saw a picture someone posted of the beach and I thought of Avila Beach, California.
Kim and I lived not far from it and would go to the beach at least once a week. We’d load up Maggie — our Yorkie — grab a coffee, and dive to the beach.
We’d throw the ball for Maggie and she’d run up and down the beach until she was worn out.
If we could live there for the remainder of our lives together we would. It’s our little paradise.
I miss our beach dates. I miss California.
Kim’s flowers are pretty darned happy. There are a few new flowers in the mix but the purple and yellow flowers and her mini roses have been around for years.
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Welcome to this Special Sunday Edition of Saturday Morning Coffee. What makes it special you ask? Nothing! 😆
Kim, my lovely bride, let me sleep in yesterday. It was glorious! And since we had plans to be out of the house by around 10AM, well, that meant I couldn’t put things together yesterday. Now you know why you’re seeing this on Sunday.
Grab some coffee and enjoy the links!
Last Saturday, as 39 million Californians went about their daily lives—taking showers, doing laundry, or charging their electric cars—the whole state ran on 100% clean electricity for more than nine hours.
I find this very encouraging and I believe it’s only going to get better.
Down the hill from where we live one of our power providers is installing a large field of solar panels. I don’t know how large it is or how much power it’ll generate, but I’m here for it.
Naomi Hartono • blogs.nasa.gov
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems.
Engineers this smart blow my mind.
“Oh, the thing I need to repair is millions of miles away? No problem.” 😳
Rick Perlstein • The American Prospect
And that’s when the man in the castle with the seven fireplaces said it.
“I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.”
Andreessen is another piece of Silicon Valley garbage. Even if he said he was joking there’s always a nugget of truth in there. I’d say he really believes what he said.
Jesse Wegman • New York Times 🎁
Trump’s Immunity Case Was Settled More Than 200 Years Ago
That seems about right. We’ve managed to have 240+ years of Presidencies without one committing crimes against the nation that I doubt our founding fathers expected it to happen like this.
Trump is a rapist and a mob boss looking to use the Presidency as his own personal piggy bank.
I hope the Supremes do the right thing and declare the President isn’t above the law.
In my previous post, I just scratched the surface of iOS development in Neovim. Since then I discovered many new things that allowed me to move my development almost completely to Neovim.
If you’re really good with keyboard commands this could be the editor for you. I’ll stick with Xcode and BBEdit. 😄
I just don’t get Taylor Swift. There, I said it. (DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT DISLIKE HER. I WISH HER ALL OF THE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS IN THE WORLD. PLEASE, I HAVE A FAMILY.)
Better be careful! The Swifties won’t be happy!
Remember the hubbub caused by Tool releasing their first album in 13 years keeping Ms. Swift’s new album out of the top spot? I do. It was kind of funny.
She’s a cultural phenomenon and apparently a very kind, caring, human being. What’s not to like?
A few weeks ago, I got a bit miffed reading yet another article that was too dismissive about memory safety, basically being mostly dismissive about the need for change. The following weekend, I started seeing flippant responses from security luminaries, saying essentially that you’re irresponsible and dangerous unless you drop C and C++ faster than I dropped my 8 am classes my first year in college.
I’m an old curmudgeon and I still love C++ as a development language, especially if you’re doing something that needs to be cross platform. But, I certainly understand the trend and the desire to move to memory safe languages. Swift and Rust are both great choices. Swift has made development on Apple OS’es easier and safer. I love it! Rust is on my to learn list but given my latest project is React Native it makes more sense for me to learn JavaScript. Rust will have to wait.
Jonathan M. Gitlin • Ars Technica
Honda announced today that it will spend $11 billion to expand its electric vehicle manufacturing presence in North America. The Japanese automaker already has a number of factories in the US, Mexico, and Canada, and it’s this last one that will benefit from the expansion, with four EV-related plants planned for Ontario.
That’s a lot of money and it’s interesting it’s happening in Canada instead of the US.
Here’s to Honda building better, more affordable, EV’s than Tesla.
Gary Bernhard • Destroy All Software
This science fiction / comedy / completely serious talk traces the history of JavaScript, and programming in general, from 1995 until 2035. It’s not pro- or anti-JavaScript; the language’s flaws are discussed frankly, but its ultimate impact on the industry is tremendously positive. For Gary’s more serious (and less futuristic) thoughts on programming, try some Destroy All Software screencasts.
It’s easy to poke fun a JavaScript but equally as important to understand how important it’s become to our industry.
Archeologists have made a remarkable find at George Washington’s Mount Vernon in the ground beneath the cellar — two sealed bottles containing plump cherries.
Very cool! Now what? Who wants to open a jar and eat one? I kind of do, but there’s no way that’s gonna happen. 🤣
Did you know that while George Washington was away fighting the American Revolutionary War he was also writing home to instruct his brother how he wanted his home renovation to proceed. Then he’d go off and fight some redcoats.
Porting a cross-platform GUI application to Rust
This is something my cross platform loving brain could get behind. The Mozilla team rewrote — not something I recommend — their crash reporting tool in 100% Rust. Nifty!
That included writing four abstractions for different UI toolkits; Mac, Windows, Linux, and one for testing. So three plus. 😄 Love it!
The possibility of a TikTok ban is inching closer to becoming a reality at this point. On Tuesday, the Senate passed the bill that would bar the social media platform from operating in the U.S. unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, sells its stake.
So this was earlier in the week. The President signed it. Now ByteDance has nine months to get the deal done or pull out of the United States.
I still feel like this could’ve been handled differently but I have no idea what that would entail.
So let me re-iterate: the three-and-a-half features listed at the top are the only forms of run-time polymorphism in Swift. Now when someone asks “how can I allow arbitrary different argument types to result in different behavior”, you know the answer: make a protocol.
You heard the man! Make a protocol! That will cause the compiler to enforce the contract between your implementation and the definition. You’re obliged to implement it.
If you only need to know an object “is-a” thing that protocol doesn’t actually need to define any properties or methods. Yes, it can be that simple.
Ghost has announced they are working on ActivityPub support
Manton has been on the open standards software train for years and years. That’s why Micro.blog implements ActivityPub, BlueSky’s AT Protocol, and Micropub.
Micro.blog is a great blogging tool for $5/month. I use it to post here.
Don’t ignore AI because it’s dumb. Figure out how to create patterns and processes where you can use it as the useful tool it’s becoming.
Keep in mind that AI is just another tool, created by humans, full of flaws. Yes, it’s extremely useful, yes it can get things wrong. But, it’s still growing and changing. Hopefully it’ll will get better over time.
Will Democracy Survive?
Former President Donald Trump’s attorney on Thursday argued that a president could order the assassination of his political rival and stage a military coup without being prosecuted for it.
How have we arrived here? One man is single handedly doing his damnedest to unravel American Democracy to placate his narcissism and for some reason nobody wants to tell him he can’t do it.
I just don’t get it.
For 240+ years we’ve managed to exist as a nation without having a President use the Office as his own corrupt money making scheme.
Now, here we are, at the Supreme Court waiting for a tiny group of people to make a decision that could destroy everything we have, all for one man.
There is an upside to this, I suppose? If the Supreme Court decides the President has full immunity and President Biden is willing Trump could be stopped.
I’ll leave it there. Let your mind wander on what that solution might be.
If Trump isn’t stopped now he’ll use that unchecked power in unimaginable ways. Political rivals will mysteriously fall from high rise buildings, die of poisoning, or be thrown in prison.
He’ll rule until he’s hauled out of the White House in a body bag and pass the reins to Bevis or Butthead or some other crony.
Vote for Democracy. Vote Joe Biden 2024.
UPDATE: Apparently Craig Hockenberry is thinking along the same lines as I am. Yeah, the Supreme Court needs to be very careful.
They really should just say “The law applies to everyone."
Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Life is just flying by. Another week in the books.
I’ll be helping Kim paint the kitchen today. Should be an adventure. 👨🎨
Sure, watches that tell you when you’re walking unsteadily and pocket computer phones that show you the closest pizzeria are swell, but were you around for ResEdit?
Unfortunately I wasn’t a Mac user during the ResEdit days but I do know a lot of folks who had fun with it, does that count? 😃
Elon Musk’s X is a thriving hub for Nazi support and propaganda, with paid subscribers sharing speeches by Adolf Hitler or content praising his genocidal regime.
Shocked! Surprised! Said no one hearing this. I really don’t know what else to say. He’s a garbage human.
An ex-Apple designer who went on to startup success once told me, “I wish I could give a workshop for Apple jumping into startups, to help them un-learn The Apple Way.” I think Apple makes some of the best products in the world, and I strive to build products with their level of craft and quality, so it pains me to admit that The Apple Way can destroy a lot of startups. Which brings us to Humane.
I have yet to read anything positive about the Humane Pin. It’s not such a bad idea to be able to talk to a device you’re wearing. I’ve had an Apple Watch for years and years, that’s the device to talk to. Siri could use some work but I have a feeling that’s already happening.
Sell Trump Media Stock (DJT) Now - An Implosion Is Likely
I feel bad for all the folks who believe so much in Trump that they invested their entire life savings in a company poised to fail. There’s a sucker born every day and if Trump is good at anything it’s grifting.
A React Native app is made up of two sides, the JavaScript side and the native side. The native side could be Objective-C/Swift for iOS or Java/Kotlin for Android (not to mention the other platforms for React Native like web and desktop). The React Native Bridge allows the native code and the javascript code to talk to each other. Without the bridge, there is no way for the native code to send any information to the JavaScript code and vise versa.
I’ve been working on a React Native project that integrates into an existing iOS and Android app. We’ve created ways for our React Native developers to use the native iOS and Android code to do work for them and allow them to navigate between React Native views and Native views. There’s definitely more work we could do to improve on what we’ve started but it’s in a decent position.
We’ve already released some React Native based work and will be rolling out more soon.
I’m having a blast!
Jaws' Most Famous Improvised Line Was A Not-So-Sneaky Dig At Studio Producers
This is a fun little read. Make sure you take the time to visit. It’ll only take a minute of your life.
Ellis Karran,Richard Madden • BBC
When they removed the wooden panel, it revealed a large slab of stone featuring a carving of the Lincoln Imp.
How cool is that!
I hope they find more interesting relics around their home. Let’s hope they’re not cursed. 😆
Alexandra Sternlicht • Fortune via News+
But with the House voting in March to force ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok, 11 former employees interviewed by Fortune tell a vastly different story. Many of those ex-workers, four of whom were employed as recently as last year, say at least some of TikTok’s operations were intertwined with its parent during their tenures, and that the company’s independence from China was largely cosmetic.
This gets more and more interesting by the day. I was against forcing them to sell and I still think it’s a bit heavy handed.
Is there a way to regulate them to make sure American citizens data remains on servers here in the States?
We know Apple had to hand over the keys to iCloud in China. Could that be done here?
It’s above my pay grade and I’m sure someone much smarter than me could give me the lowdown. In the meantime I’ll keep watching from the cheap seats. 🍿
Maynard James Keenan may be a 60-year-old man ranting against cell phones, but he actually might have a point on this one, at least somewhat.
I like that he does this. When I went to Aftershock in 2019, and Tool closed out the festival, there didn’t seem to be any rules around cell phones. As soon as their set opened it was cell phones up from front to back. I was so tempted to take one away from the dude in front of me blocking my view. Yeah, I was pissed off but managed to keep my cool. It sucked looking around that thing all evening but in the end I got to hear some amazing music.
Our magnolia is just starting to show signs of spring happiness. Beautiful blossoms are just around the corner.
I thought I’d sticker up my work MacBook Pro and after adding the centerpiece WillowTree sticker I stopped. It just looks so nice.
Looking up
Good Morning Mukilteo Chetzemoka
This deliciousness just arrived. 😋
My favorite coffee from Mukilteo Coffee Roasters. It was called Monorail Espresso because it was created for Monorail in downtown Seattle — I used to have a mocha every morning at 5th and Pike — but the name changed to Chetzemoka at some point. I need to go figure out the story behind that. ☕️
It’s a beautiful morning here at the Fahrni Homestead. We have two Dogwoods in our yard and they’re in full bloom. Such beautiful trees.
