Historian Eric Cline, author of 1177 BC, explains how the collapse of several civilizations circa 1200 BC was the result of an “overly interdependent system that had no way to absorb multiple shocks at once”.
Radiolab
• WNYC Studios
The Resistance of a Cow
There’s something rotten in the cows of Denmark. And Minnesota. And Wisconsin. And Idaho. What could cause a previously thriving herd of majestic dairy cattle to stop drinking water and start drinking … urine? A Danish farmer calls a special investigator, who takes one look ...
Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
How Our Grandmothers Made Us and Saved Us
"What evolution owes aging women."
16.04.2026
Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Leaving America
"Americans have always moved away. These days, expat Lindsey Tramuta writes, record numbers are leaving or planning to leave in search of health care, civil rights, freedoms, even safety. Does exiting the United States mean you’ve given up? Not necessarily."
Longreads
• Longreads
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: the jaws of history; war and piece(s); the last day of camp; stay a while; picture me rollin’.
datasette 1.0a28
Release: datasette 1.0a28
I was upgrading Datasette Cloud to 1.0a27 and discovered a nasty collection of accidental breakages caused by changes in that alpha. This new alpha addresses those directly:
Fixed a compatibility bug introduced in 1.0a27 where execute_wri...
Ceasefire in Lebanon begins
A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has come into effect after it was brokered by the United States. Hezbollah have indicated they will observe the truce, though Israeli troops are to remain in Lebanese areas they have occupied. Iran has welcomed the development bu...
Hollywood’s World Map of California
This is a map published in 1927 by Paramount Studios showing the areas of California & Nevada that doubled as shooting locations for far-flung locales, including Siberia, Wales, the Nile, New England, the Red Sea, and the Alps.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
App Store Reviews Are Busted
blog.terrygodier.com/2026/04/13/app-store-reviews-are-busted.html
Terry Godier:
For example, if you have a 4.1 star rating in the App Store, any 4
star review is going to decrease that average. In other words,
leaving a 4 star review is essentially leaving a negative
review. [...]
You will see a lot of 4 star reviews that say things l...
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Freecash Was More Like Scamcash
techcrunch.com/2026/04/14/how-the-rewards-app-freecash-scammed-its-way-to-the-top-of-the-app-stores/
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
If you’ve been on TikTok this year, you’ve more than likely
encountered ads for Freecash. The app has been marketed as
a way to make money just by scrolling TikTok — and jumped to the
top of the app stores in recent months, peaking at...
Simon Phillips on hitting rimshots #drums #drummer #shorts
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Colliding With Reality, Indeed
Anton Troianovski, reporting for The New York Times under the headline “Trump’s Portrayal of the War in Iran Collides With Reality”:
President Trump is trying to cast his Iran war as all but over, a
done-and-dusted success.
But after years of trying to impose his own re...
Citation Needed
• Molly White
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s old firm pumps $10 million into super PAC led by Tether executive
Cantor Fitzgerald, the Lutnick-tied financial services firm that owns a stake in and custodies reserves for the stablecoin issuer, is bankrolling a super PAC led by a Tether executive.
llm-anthropic 0.25
Release: llm-anthropic 0.25
- New model:
claude-opus-4.7, which supportsthinking_effort:xhigh. #66- New
thinking_displayandthinking_adaptiveboolean options.thinking_displaysummarized output is currently only available in JSON output or JSON logs.- Increased default
max_tokensto the maximum allowed for each model.- No longer uses obsolete
structured-outputs-2025-11-13beta header for older models.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
How to Format 10-Digit Phone Numbers
The Associated Press Stylebook, on Threads:
We updated our style for telephone numbers in 2024 to drop
parentheses. We now recommend the form: 212-621-1500.
For international numbers use 011 (from the United States), the
country code, the city code and the telephone num...
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Chance Miller: ‘Netflix Ruined Its Apple TV App by Switching to a Custom Video Player’
9to5mac.com/2026/04/15/netflix-ruined-its-apple-tv-app-by-switching-to-a-custom-video-player/
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
The change began rolling out a few weeks ago, and user frustration
is mounting. On Reddit, there’s a growing thread of Netflix
subscribers saying they are canceling their subscription
because of this change to the Apple TV app. [...]
The change a...
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Apple Pay Express Mode for Transit, When Used With a Visa Card, Is Vulnerable to Scam Tap-to-Pay Readers
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
The process requires the victim to have Express Transit Mode
enabled for payments, and a Visa card linked for those payments,
among other steps. As it turns out, it’s a Visa-related security
loophole rather than an iPhone issue, and it doesn’t wor...
687: You Can Bend This Line
Pre-show: Casey requests an app from Marco
Roon
Nugs
🗣️ ATP STORE IS LIVE! 🗣️
🗣️ New ATP Member Special: ATP Dev: Nuggets of Wisdom
Follow-up:
Suunto is… not young (via Henri Sivonen)
Garmin did beat Suunto to GPS watch though
The other neat explainer John was ...
Researchers have found that some aspects of sperm...
Researchers have found that some aspects of sperm whales’ communication are “remarkably similar” to human languages.