FeedCity: Featured

The GlobaL Story: Operation Ajax: The CIA’s Iran coup

28:13

At the outset of the war in Iran, US President Donald Trump suggested that regime change was one of its goals. He later said it had been had achieved, a claim that is disputed by critics who point out that the same repressive forces in Iran still hold power. American attempt...

Daring Fireball
17 May 18:06 • John Gruber

Drata

drata.com/daring

My thanks to Drata for sponsoring last week at DF. Their message is short and sweet: Leverage autonomous AI agents to automate compliance, manage internal and third-party risk, and continuously prove your security posture.

Link: drata.com/daring

Simon Willison's Weblog
17 May 16:36

GDS weighs in on the NHS's decision to retreat from Open Source

GDS weighs in on the NHS's decision to retreat from Open Source Terence Eden continues his coverage of the NHS' poorly considered decision to close down access to their open source repositories in response to vulnerabilities reported to them as part of Project Glasswing. Now...

Global News Podcast
17 May 04:06

WHO declares an Ebola public health emergency in the DRC

25:34

Nearly ninety deaths have been recorded so far in the Democratic Republic of Congo with medical experts warning that the current strain of the Ebola virus has a very high mortality rate. The DRC's health minister said that no vaccine or specific treatment was available. Also...

Rick Beato
16 May 22:21

Per Nilsson on playing over complex tunes #guitarist #guitar #shorts

Per Nillson on playing over complex tunes #guitarist #guitar #shorts

Daring Fireball
16 May 21:27 • John Gruber

Reddit Is Blocking Some Users From Accessing Its Website From Mobile Devices

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/05/why-reddit-blocked-my-daily-visit-to-its-mobile-website/

Nate Anderson, writing at Ars Technica: But I was surprised this weekend to suddenly find myself cut off; Reddit simply would not let me visit the site on my mobile phone. Instead, a new overlay popped up, saying, “Get the app to keep using Reddit.” There was no way to ...

Daring Fireball
16 May 21:27 • John Gruber

Santa Clara County Sues Meta Over Alleged Scam Ads

sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-sues-meta-over-alleged-scam-ads/

Brandon Pho, reporting for San Jose Spotlight: The lawsuit filed Monday alleges that instead of cracking down on deceptive ads designed to trick users out of their money, Meta has hamstrung its own fraud prevention teams and helped fake companies bypass its filters to en...

Simon Willison's Weblog
16 May 20:51

Warelay -> OpenClaw

In preparation for a lightning talk I'm giving at PyCon US this afternoon I decided to figure out how many names OpenClaw has actually had since that first commit back in November. Thanks to this first_line_history.py tool (code here) the answer, according to the Git history...

Daring Fireball
16 May 20:42 • John Gruber

★ AI Is Technology, Not a Product

Steven Levy, writing for Wired last month after Apple’s CEO transition was announced, under the provocative headline “Apple’s Next CEO Needs to Launch a Killer AI Product” (News+ link to get around Wired’s miserly paywall): Much more recently, I quizzed Ternus and global...

Dan’s Polaroids
16 May 20:09

16.05.2026

A view of the Rhine from a hillside with a castle and a child in the foreground and a little town in the background. — More hiking and more views today.

Daring Fireball
16 May 19:51 • John Gruber

ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop

404media.co/new-arxiv-rules-ai-generated-papers-ban/

Samantha Cole, writing for 404 Media: Late Thursday evening, Thomas Dietterich, chair of the computer science section of ArXiv, wrote on X: “If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect reference...

Global News Podcast
16 May 19:27

The Happy Pod: My college designs on display at the Met

26:29

We meet a teacher whose college fashion designs have gone on display at the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Nadia Pinkney says she was shocked when the curator said they wanted to display her collection, which was inspired by a family history of Alzheimer's di...

Simon Willison's Weblog
16 May 17:06

Quoting Julia Evans

[...] in the last 10 years I’ve learned to really love and respect CSS as a technology.

So I decided years ago that I wanted to react to “CSS is hard” by getting better at CSS and taking it seriously as a technology, instead of devaluing it. Doing that changed everything for me: I learned that so many of my frustrations (“centering is impossible”) had been addressed in CSS a long time ago, and that also what “centering” means is not always straightforward and it makes sense that there are many ways to do it. CSS is hard because it’s solving a hard problem!

— Julia Evans, Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS

Tags: css, julia-evans

Simon Willison's Weblog
16 May 17:06

Western Gull, Rock Pigeon

Western Gull, Rock Pigeon, in Los Angeles Area (custom), CA, US I went for a bird walk in the morning before PyCon, and we spotted a local seagull enjoying a Starbucks.

Dan’s Polaroids
16 May 12:25

15.05.2026

A field with a leafless tree on top and big summer clouds in the sky. — We hiked a little.

Dan’s Polaroids
16 May 11:02

14.05.2026

Part of a roof of a hut photographed from inside through a window. — Hut view.

Global News Podcast
16 May 04:21

Israel carries out attack against a Hamas leader in Gaza

25:26

Israel says it's targeted the head of Hamas's military wing - describing him as an architect of the October 7th attacks. It's not clear if Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed in the airstrike in Gaza City but there were civilian casualties. Also: the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is ...

Daring Fireball
16 May 01:48 • John Gruber

Greg Brockman Officially Takes Control of Products at OpenAI, a Very Stable Well-Run Company

wired.com/story/openai-reorg-greg-brockman-product/

Maxwell Zeff, reporting for Wired (News+ link): OpenAI told staff on Friday that it would reorganize the company as part of an ongoing effort to unify its product offerings, Wired has learned. OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman will now lead the company’s produ...

Daring Fireball
16 May 01:18 • John Gruber

The Talk Show: ‘A Sociopathic Father’

daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/05/15/ep-447

Adam Lisagor returns to the show to talk about Hovercraft, his new virtual presentation camera app for Mac, and how he’s developing it with AI coding tools. Also, delicious Japanese spite sandwich cookies.

Sponsored by:

Parcel: Track your packages in one place, with native apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac.
Scribe: Instantly capture and optimize workflows so your teams and AI agents do their best work.
Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TALKSHOW.

Link: daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/05/15/ep-447

xkcd.com
16 May 01:12