Blog

Longer-form posts and essays.

Writing helps me think more clearly. This archive is longer posts; quick updates now live in notes.

Topics: AI, blogging, photography, programming, projects, Signboard

Wishes for Apple’s Fall Media Event

On Tuesday Apple is holding its Fall Media Event. Thanks to a rogue Apple employee, who I can only imagine is packing their personal affects as I type this, the rumor mill has been working overtime and it appears as though we “know” just about every detail one could imagine prior to this event short of Eddy Cue’s…

Python is blowing up

David Robinson, not The Admiral, for Stack Overflow: We recently explored how wealthy countries (those defined as high-income by the World Bank) tend to visit a different set of technologies than the rest of the world. Among the largest differences we saw was in the programming language Python. When we focus on high-income countries, the growth of Python…

CNN lite

Remarkable find by Jack Baty, CNN Lite: I could not love this more. Can we get all of the news sites to do this? I can't tell if this is official or not. Either way, bookmarked.

Add favicons to tabs in Safari

Faviconographer: Faviconographer is a little utility that displays Favicons for the tabs you have opened in the current Safari window, just like almost every other browser does it. Magic. /via Daring Fireball.

Mobile blogging goals (audio)

Recorded September 10, 2017 Starting with this audio bit I'm making a few changes. I'm ditching the episode numbers. My audio bits are not a podcast, they aren't really episodes, and keeping track of the numbers is just more work. I will, however, denote in the title that this is an audio post. I'm also switching to the…

Jack Baty: “Please just start a blog”

Jack Baty on his rather handsome looking new blog: Would you all please just start a blog? I don’t care which platform you choose. Pick one and publish. Cross-post or don’t. Implement Webmentions or don’t. Allow comments or don’t. Tweak the design to within an inch of its life or don’t. Publish long posts or short, it doesn’t…

Repost: Emily Lakdawalla on Voyager’s 40th Anniversary

👉 Emily Lakdawalla on The Planetary Society blog: The fact that both Voyager spacecraft are still functioning and doing science, 40 years after their launches, is reason for optimism. We can build robust, adaptable machines capable of surviving unpredicted storms and responding to new discoveries. We can build them, launch them, and stably operate them for four decades, and…

David Nield: \”RSS still beats Facebook and Twitter\”

David Nield on Gizmodo: Whether you’ve never heard of it before or you’ve abandoned it for pastures new, here’s why you should be using RSS for your news instead of social media. I've used RSS since it was released and feed readers began to appear and I don't see a future of the web without RSS. So if…

Chris Lovie-Tyler on supporting different building blocks of the IndieWeb

Chris Lovie-Tyler, from the other side of our planet: After reading a handful of Colin Devroe’s posts (links at the bottom), I’ve made a few decisions. I'm glad my posts, in which I was just thinking out loud and forming my own opinions on these matters, helped him to form his. I believe everyone should do whatever is…

A unique color for every address in the world

A recent, yet-to-be-announced client project had me designing a mobile app interface that dealt a lot with showing locations and events that are happening at certain locations (how is that for vague? sorry). While I utilized the brand's colors to represent certain sections of the app I wanted the app to have tons of colors in order to…

Rian Johnson: \”Luke is The Last Jedi\”

Rian Johnson in The New York Times: It’s in the opening crawl of “The Force Awakens.” Luke Skywalker, right now, is the last Jedi. There’s always wiggle room in these movies — everything is from a certain point of view — but coming into our story, he is the actual last of the Jedi. And he’s removed himself…

Repost: Noah Read on Trevorrow’s exit

👉 Noah Read: Heard the news about SW IX director. After seeing how Disney handled Rogue One’s director and the results I’m optimistic. They seem to be good stewards, with the humility to make changes when necessary. See also.

Florence’s two moons

Center for NEO Studies PR on Astronomy Now: Radar images of asteroid 3122 Florence obtained at the 70-metre antenna at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex between August 29 and September 1 have revealed that the asteroid has two small moons, and also confirmed that main asteroid Florence is about 4.5 km (2.8 miles) in size. Florence is…

Microsoft holding Surface Keynote in October

Tom Warren for The Verge: Microsoft’s Surface chief will hold a keynote speech in London at the end of October. The software giant is holding its annual Future Decoded event in London from October 31st to November 1st, and Microsoft revealed to The Verge today that Panos Panay will be speaking. Microsoft typically launches new Surface devices in…

Luke Skywalker is The Last Jedi

Earlier this week I rewatched Star Wars Episode VII. It is really great. Most of the criticisms of the film do not hold up well. It is fun, engaging the entire time, and the actors are perfect. And the film fits in perfectly with the other 3 originals. One thing I'm surprised about, and was reminded of while…

Colin Trevorrow out as Star Wars Episode IX Director

Bryan Bishop reporting for The Verge: Lucasfilm’s creative process has been a bit of a mess lately. Rogue One had to undergo extensive reshoots before release, and earlier this year producer Kathleen Kennedy took the extraordinary step of firing directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller of the standalone Han Solo film just two weeks before the end of…

Colin Walker opens up comments

Hooray! Colin Walker: Colin Devroe's post was the tipping point (I told you his points were compelling) and I decided it was time to get over myself and look at opening things up again. This is the post Walker is referring to. You can read his follow-up as well. Like me, Walker has opened up comments on his…