Links for Jan 5 - 11, 2025
Interesting links and articles I’ve found for the week of January 5 - 11, 2025.
Culture and Society
The wonderful Apple news site MacStories has sworn off of Meta (Facebook, Threads, Instagram) now. Good for them.
The creator of the phrase “Delay, Deny, Defend” goes into some depth about why for-profit health insurance is absolutely horrible.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/pacific-palisades-fire-20027678.php
It’s been a very tough week for California fires. One homeowner went to extraordinary lengths to keep his house safe. It almost didn’t work.
https://www.404media.co/candy-crush-tinder-myfitnesspal-see-the-thousands-of-apps-hijacked-to-spy-on-your-location/ https://www.wired.com/story/gravy-location-data-app-leak-rtb/
Wired and 404 Media look into the data from a hack of a firm that provides data to (among other things) real-time-bidding for online ad placement. Bottom line- many apps are selling your data w/o consent. Use ad and privacy blocking VPNs.
https://nzmj.org.nz/media/pages/journal/vol-126-no-1369/flatulence-on-airplanes-just-let-it-go/a733a4d8be-1696477952/flatulence-on-airplanes-just-let-it-go.pdf (via)
Finally a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, scientific study as to why we fart more one airplanes.
Technology
https://jvns.ca/blog/2025/01/11/getting-a-modern-terminal-setup/
Julia Evans goes into some depth on a modern terminal / shell setup.
https://github.com/malmeloo/FindMy.py
I haven’t tried this yet, but it looks promising. Tap into the “Find My” network with open-source code.
https://astral.sh/blog/ruff-v0.9.0
A major update to the indispensable “Ruff” Python tool.
https://crawshaw.io/blog/programming-with-llms
I love these kinds of blog posts. Here, the author discusses in depth how they use LLMs as a tool while programming.
https://beeware.org/news/buzz/december-2024-status-update/
Beeware - an open source, Python-based, cross-platform GUI framework, is not only interesting in and of itself, but also as an example of a well-run open-source project.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/funnel-quick-capture/id6466168248
I recently found this app - “Funnel” and really like it. Capture any thought instantly (text, audio, video, etc), then decide where to send it (Notes, Bear, Things, Reminders, and so on) - with templates.
Amateur Radio
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt-x-improved/
I have not had a chance to play with this yet.
“An independent newsletter about technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promoting Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology” I read this the moment it lands in my inbox.