Bookmarks

In 2025, I wrote that software engineers ought to be assessed by “value over replacement”: not how much money they made for their company, but how much they…

What is up with calling the first app menu item "File" even though the items do nothing related to actual files?

Things 3.23 brings new flexibility to repeating to-dos: complete them early when you’re ahead, or reschedule them to a new date if plans change.

A brief history of geodesy, from the 1700s to WGS84.

Scientists have found that people are being exposed to more toxins than previously known.

AI makes projects with weak engineering culture fail much faster.

I’m coming down from spending a few days at Usenix Security, right here in my hometown of Baltimore. This means that my days have been taken up with two kinds of conversation: first, explaini…

On image tiling through the ages.

General Dynamics opened a Texas factory to churn out artillery shells for Ukraine, but the machines kept breaking. Robot arms smashed into things. Hunks of metal crashed to the floor. There was even a real-life dumpster fire.

Working with and living in spatially complex environments may help delay cognitive decline, though more research is needed.

Whether you’re focusing on a task, creating a calm moment in the middle of the day, or winding down at night, Ambient Music can help set the right tone. With just a single tap on a widget on your Home Screen (or in Today View), you can play music from one of four moods: Sleep, Chill, Productivity, or Wellbeing.

Yesterday Anthropic published two new cryptanalysis results, both outputs of Claude Mythos, their (still) unreleased advanced model. The first of these results attacks a signature scheme called HAW…

I recently finished up a first draft of a piece for a client, a map that gave me a chance to try some new things and also exercise some cartographic muscles that I haven’t for a while. So, to…

From our modern perspective of the telephone as "consumer electronics," it's hard to picture paying rent on one. There were a number of reasons for leasing, which varied in prominence over time. Some of the uglier parts of the early 1980s involved disputes over which of these motives really mattered. Phones, we will see, were leased to consumers for many of the same reasons that early computers were mostly leased to businesses. This reflects a parallel shift in the computer industry, from "computer centers" to "personal computing," that happened around the same time and in a similar context. Before we get there, though, we need to understand how it came to be that telephones were "Bell System Property—Not For Sale."

“Life here in the Midwest is very good, at the material and spiritual level, and I’m surprised more people haven’t figured that out. Maybe it’s the harsh winters, maybe the stigma of the de-industrialized past, but whatever the reason, it still feels as if moving to the Midwest, or staying here for your life, is seen as consolation prize, a lesser thing that you have to explain. That is silly, because as I keep discovering, it’s a great place to build a fulfilling life, with good jobs, cities with a plethora of the diversions citizens now expect, while not being too taxing, or stressful, and so I would bet on its image rebounding. And, as I’m embarrassed to say I only just realized, it also has great beaches!”

“I don’t merely want things done; I want to do them.”

San Francisco scene report; early Disney; lots of links.

How America’s golden age of aviation safety came to an end

“Slippery slope” is a perfect term. But I wanted to add something here. In my experience, in the realm of UI, there is no middle notch. I’ve seen it time and time again… the moment you open the door to One, Infinity starts exerting its pull…

Since macOS 26.4, there’s been an issue with the keychain hiding in plain sight and that issue is it’ll take ANY password. Say what? The…