Tech, mostly Apple, from Lex Friedman.
19 pieces tagged “Odds & Ends”
Craig Hickman built Kid Pix. (The Prime Directive) The program should be extremely easy to use. No manual should be needed and program features should “explain themselves” through use. All tasks should be able to be performed in the simplest, most…
Billions of phones run on code looked after by a handful of people. We counted them from the code itself. Incredible information, beautifully presented.
Paul Kafasis shares the story of a recent trip to Norway, and the review he wrote of the apartment he stayed at. There are just so many unnecessary emails. The booking site emailed him to prompt for a review, which he wrote. Then it emailed him to thank him…
A font recreated from photographs of classic Commodore 64 keycaps, with cleaned-up shapes and consistent proportions.
Add this to your /etc/hosts file on your old Mac running Leopard or Show Leopard (has not been tested on Tiger or Panther), and iChat should be able to make audio and video calls again. I mean, no one should do this. But I appreciate that they took the time…
Best-o-Masto is my website for finding the best stuff from your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds quickly. It’s not an algorithmic feed like you’d see on something like X or Threads. It’s a very simple thing that finds the post getting the most engagement in your…
I thought this viral TikTok thing about the dangers of bringing iced coffee to your job interview sounded stupid. I enjoyed it when Josh Gondelman mocked the whole thing on the most recent episode of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me. But Liz Gumbinner blew this whole…
Throwback vibes, the latest Bose signature sound, and renowned noise cancellation to elevate your everyday listening. Just plug, play, and get instant, effortless access to your top songs. My first thought: *WIRED earbuds? *SERIOUSLY? My second thought: Oh…
I’m writing it simply to show that coincidences happen, correlation does not equal causation, and science is not anecdotal. If you’re going to convince people that your phone is really listening to you and sharing every word you say with advertisers across…
I couldn’t pick just one part of Jeff Atwood’s post Every User Lies to quote, because it’s all so good. And it won’t take you long to read. I think about some of the points he raises here all the time. Users don’t read — not the manual, not the help text, not…
Matt Haughey shared some cool videos he’d seen recently. This one, from a YouTuber who figures out where photos were taken, instead becomes a 10-minute journey into finding when a photo was taken. I was mesmerized. This was the last photo he ever took with…
Make Some Noise is one of many fantastic improv comedy shows on Dropout. I noticed one of the ongoing themes is “tech gone bad,” so I compiled a short list below. I just find these really funny. Marcin is right. The show is great, and these are really funny…
Today, I’m proud to announce Homebrew 7.0.0. The most significant changes since 6.0.0 are faster installations and upgrades, stronger sandboxing, [and] a native macOS app. If you need Homebrew, you probably already use Homebrew. But the new “official” Mac app…
Man, I love when Jason Kottke writes. In the end, I had to throw all the spices out — no takers for half-used, decade-old containers of parsley flakes or jars of cumin — but I’ll always remember cleaning out that drawer and all of the memories it stirred up.…
My preferred RSS syncing tool can also make my feeds better. That’s cool.
I love RSS, and the rise and fall of Google Reader had nothing to do with it; I was never a user. I’ve long loved NetNewsWire, and while I dabbled with Reeder on iOS at some points in the past, I’m now NetNewsWire on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I’ve been a…
Wow. This is so incredibly spot on I can’t even stand it. Via Casey Liss.
I was going to link to this story. Then I wasn’t. Then I saw “Human Flatus Atlas,” and I thought that was pretty great, so linking won out. The smart underwear is the first wearable designed to measure human flatulence. The measuring device is a small disc…
Nick Heer points out that 9to5 Mac posts a lot of stories — including… a lot of the same story, basically, over and over again? I do not know who this is supposed to serve. Maybe this is a play for search engine traffic or A.I. chatbot citations. Whatever the…
Specifically, coin flips and dice rolls.
There are many ways to get random numbers. The way computers actually do randomization is cool, but not my point in this piece. You may know that you can ask Siri (or Alexa, and probably other chat assistants) to roll a die, flip a coin, or pick a random…
