I fixed a few bugs on the Rolodex yesterday — some of the feeds weren’t updating and modifying sites wasn’t working properly. (Members get the mini-feedreader view!)
“Since 1900, scientists have observed more than 20...
“Since 1900, scientists have observed more than 20 phases of ice, many of them shaped under extreme conditions. The growing list includes hot ice and even ice that conducts electricity.”
On the futility of border walls . “The Ozymandian...
On the futility of border walls. “The Ozymandian ruins of many such walls litter our ancient and modern landscapes, because for as long as humanity has built hard borders, people have inevitably found ways to cross, topple or simply bypass them.”
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
I Mean, Why Shouldn’t We All Smoke Cigarettes Again?
"We quit our bad habits for the sake of our future selves. How naïve of us."
Trump briefed on new military options for Iran
One report says the US may deploy a hypersonic missile in the Middle East for the first time, as part of efforts to put pressure on Iran to reach a deal. This comes as a deadline passed for Donald Trump to secure authorisation from the US Congress to continue the war against...
Radiolab
• WNYC Studios
What is a Pig Worth?
In 2017, Wayne Hsiung and a crew of animal rights activists from Direct Action Everywhere broke into a Utah pig farm run by Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork distributors in the world. They were there to capture video of what they say were thousands of mistreated and...
The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’ ....
The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’. “We find that in real‑world work, the more switches in attention a person makes, the lower is their end‑of‑day assessed productivity.”
Longreads
• Seyward Darby
“You Are Always Just a Kiss Away From Me My Beautiful Boy.”
"Their family members vanished near Mass. Ave. They won’t stop searching."
Longreads
• Longreads
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This edition highlights reading about messages in bottles, public benches, infinity, a series of books about everything, and pay-to-play orchestras.
30.04.2026
Myanmar's jailed ex-leader moved to house arrest
Myanmar's military government says the detained democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been moved to house arrest, and her sentence reduced to 18 years. State media have shown a picture of the Nobel laureate sitting with two uniformed men. Her son says the published image i...
Mars For The Rest of Us
• Maciej Cegłowski
What Happened With Mars Sample Return? (I)
It's not clear whether to blame Trump, Musk, NASA, or Mars itself for the collapse of a flagship mission.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
The Talk Show: ‘Food and Beverage Director’
MG Siegler returns to the show to discuss Apple’s announcement that Tim Cook is stepping aside (into the role of executive chairman) and John Ternus will become CEO.
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- Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TALKSHOW.
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Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Scientology ‘Speed Running’ Trend
theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/hollywood-church-of-scientology-speed-runs?CMP=bsky_gu
Uwa Ede-Osifo, reporting for The Guardian:
On any given day, Los Angeles’s Hollywood Boulevard teems with
tourists and street performers clustered near the area’s many
landmarks. But in recent months, the strip has been set abuzz for
a new reason.
Throngs of mostly adol...
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Apple Q2 2026 Results
apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/apple-reports-second-quarter-results/
Apple Newsroom:
“Today Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with
revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every
geographic segment,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone achieved
a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary...
Codex CLI 0.128.0 adds /goal
The latest version of OpenAI's Codex CLI coding agent adds their own version of the Ralph loop: you can now set a
/goal and Codex will keep on looping until it evaluates that the goal has been completed... or the configured token budget has been exhausted.
It looks like the feature is mainly implemented though the goals/continuation.md and goals/budget_limit.md prompts, which are automatically injected at the end of a turn.
Via @fcoury
Tags: ai, openai, prompt-engineering, generative-ai, llms, coding-agents, system-prompts, codex-cli, agentic-engineering
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
★ On the Future of Apple’s Vision Platform
Juli Clover, writing at MacRumors under the rather incendiary headline “Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop”:
Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model
failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has
learned. Apple ...
Our evaluation of OpenAI's GPT-5.5 cyber capabilities
Our evaluation of OpenAI's GPT-5.5 cyber capabilities
The UK's AI Security Institute previously evaluated Claude Mythos: now they've evaluated GPT-5.5 for finding security vulnerability and found it to be comparable to Mythos, but unlike Mythos it's generally available right now.Tags: ai, openai, generative-ai, llms, anthropic, claude, ai-security-research, gpt
🔗 NetNewsWire Now Getting Feed Images from RSS
netnewswire.blog/2026/04/28/netnewswire-now-getting-feed-images.html
Makes sense. In fact, FeedCity only uses the images and/or icons specified directly with the feed.
Eventually I should probably fetch the icons from the website as a fallback. But c’mon: just include the icons directly in the feeds, please.
In NetNewsWire 7.0.5 we made a change to get the feed image from RSS via the image element.
Next event: Forkalyst Live on May 2, 2026, 19:00 at Haus Spilles, Düsseldorf.
Makes sense. In fact FeedCity only uses the images and/or icons specified directly with the feed.
Eventually I should probably fetch the icons from the website as a fallback. But c'mon: just include the icons directly in the feeds, please.
NetNewsWire Now Getting Feed Images from RSS
In NetNewsWire 7.0.5 we made a change to get the feed image from RSS via the image element.
Weren’t we already doing this? Seems surprising that we weren’t!
It’s because, historically, these images were often rectangular — but the app wants square images. These days, probabl...