Tool: Mermaid to Unicode box art (grok-mermaid)
While exploring the codebase for the newly open-sourced Grok CLI coding agent I came across xai-grok-markdown/src/mermaid.rs, a "self-contained terminal renderer for Mermaid diagrams" written in Rust.
I figured it would be fun to try that out in a browser via WebAssembly. Here's the prompt I ran in Claude Code for web (Fable 5), and this is what the resulting tool looks like:
![Screenshot of a Mermaid diagram editor showing source code and rendered flowchart. The code reads: graph TD Start[Request received] --> Auth{Authenticated?} Auth -->|yes| Rate{Rate limit OK?} Auth -->|no| R401[401 Unauthorized] Rate -->|yes| H(Handle request) Rate -->|no| R429[429 Too Many Requests] H -.-> Log[Audit log] H ==> Resp[200 OK]. Below the code are controls labeled Max width: Fit output panel, Copy as text, and Copy link to this diagram. The rendered flowchart on a dark background flows top-down: Request received leads to Authenticated?, which branches yes to Rate limit OK? and no to 401 Unauthorized. Rate limit OK? branches yes to Handle request and no to 429 Too Many Requests. Handle request connects with a dotted arrow to Audit log and a thick arrow to 200 OK.](https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/grok-mermaid-wasm.png)
A few highlights from a collection of lovely woodblock-printed sugoroku game boards from Japan. “The gameboards use stories and maps to teach children history and geography.”
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
mobiledevmemo.com/did-apple-just-signal-a-third-party-expansion-of-apple-ads/
Eric Seufert, Mobile Dev Memo:
The new language could simply accommodate the availability of Apple-owned services on the web and through third-party devices and operating systems; the Apple TV app, for instance, is available on smart TVs, streaming devices, and game consoles. But the addition of “other properties” is conspicuously broad and appears to give Apple the contractual latitude to distribute ads beyond its own services entirely. This would allow for a material expansion of the company’s advertising surface area.
Further, if Apple does indeed plan to expand Apple Ads to third-party surfaces, it would explain why the company did not reveal an update to its AdAttributionKit (AAK, formerly SKAdNetwork, or SKAN) attribution framework at this year’s WWDC.
That would be one way to go.
Link: mobiledevmemo.com/did-apple-just-signal-a-third-party…
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
techcrunch.com/2026/07/15/apple-quietly-reveals-how-its-maps-ads-will-differ-from-googles/
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Dan Werb on the understated intelligence of the animals that share our cities.
Legibility of effort in the LLM age. “What software (and writing, to an extent) is missing now is legibility of effort - the ability to tell at a glance whether something took a human meaningful work.”
Colossal
• Kate Mothes
Between 2010 and 2011, Marlow documented all 42 Anglican cathedrals across the breadth and length of England.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article See Peter Marlow’s ‘The English Cathedral’ at London’s Oldest Gothic Church appeared first on Colossal.
Ted Gioia: “Works like the Odyssey are ritualistic and trance-inducing. They are propelled by music and driven by rhythm. They cross a border beyond literature, and enter something more transcendent and metaphysical.”
Good interview with Craig Mod about how he uses LLMs: “using AI as a research assistant, why he keeps a tech-free zone in the mornings for deep thinking, and why he’s resisting the pull of the ‘mainlining’ AI era”.
The Moist Towelette Online Museum. Live moist and prosper. 🖖💦
