FeedCity: Featured

This Black Fungus Might Be Healing Chernobyl By Drinking Radiation. The fungi...

This Black Fungus Might Be Healing Chernobyl By Drinking Radiation. The fungi contain melanin, which “absorbs radiation, which is then converted into usable energy, allowing it to grow in areas with intense radioactive exposure.”

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Daring Fireball
14 Nov 17:12 • John Gruber

iPhone Pockets Sold Out Within Hours

macrumors.com/2025/11/14/iphone-pocket-already-selling-out/

We have no idea how many of them they made, but seemingly, the price was not a problem for this product.

Link: macrumors.com/2025/11/14/iphone-pocket-already-selling-out/

kottke.org
14 Nov 16:03 • Jason Kottke

The Farmers’ Almanac, citing a “chaotic media environment”, will cease publication after...

The Farmers’ Almanac, citing a “chaotic media environment”, will cease publication after their 2026 edition. The almanac dates back to 1818. (The Old Farmer’s Almanac, started in 1792, is still going.)

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kottke.org
14 Nov 14:39 • Jason Kottke

This seems promising: researchers have demonstrated that a “nanoparticle-based vaccine can effectively...

This seems promising: researchers have demonstrated that a “nanoparticle-based vaccine can effectively prevent melanoma, pancreatic and triple-negative breast cancer in mice”.

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Simon Willison's Weblog
14 Nov 13:57

GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking System Card Addendum

GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking System Card Addendum I was confused about whether the new "adaptive thinking" feature of GPT-5.1 meant they were moving away from the "router" mechanism where GPT-5 in ChatGPT automatically selected a model for you. This page addresses th...

The Atlas Obscura Podcast
14 Nov 05:05 • SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Mr. Kaor’s Letters (Classic)

We visit a quaint Dutch fishing village and attempt to unravel the mystery that unfolded there… a mystery that involved strange and curious letters and a voyage to the other side of the world.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mr-kaors-portrait

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Daring Fireball
14 Nov 04:12 • John Gruber

WSJ Report on the iPhone Air Pegs It as a ‘Flop’

wsj.com/tech/apple-iphone-air-sales-response-7f0c01f1?st=JEotAi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Rolfe Winkler and Yang Jie, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link, News+ link) under the headline “Apple’s iPhone Air Is a Marketing Win and a Sales Flop” (which headline, going from the web page <title> element, was originally the less sensational “Apple’s ...

Accidental Tech Podcast
14 Nov 01:32

665: My Basement Is Beautiful

Follow-up: John has some new Vision Pro treats Flight Ready In the defense of the CD-R (via Jonathan Goforth) ATP Tier List: Storage Media Auto-generated chapters in Apple podcasts We’re dummies: ATP has a [chapter-free] bootleg Some more technical details (via ...

Daring Fireball
14 Nov 00:30 • John Gruber

Tesla Is Working on CarPlay Support

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-13/tesla-is-working-to-add-apple-carplay-in-bid-to-boost-vehicle-sales

Mark Gurman and Edward Ludlow, reporting for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas, but summarized by The Verge and Ars Technica) Tesla Inc. is developing support for Apple Inc.’s CarPlay system in its vehicles, according to people with knowledge of the matter, working to add one o...

Simon Willison's Weblog
14 Nov 00:03

Introducing GPT-5.1 for developers

Introducing GPT-5.1 for developers OpenAI announced GPT-5.1 yesterday, calling it A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT. Today they've added it to their API. We actually got four new models today: gpt-5.1 gpt-5.1-chat-latest gpt-5.1-codex gpt-5.1-codex-mini There are a lo...

Simon Willison's Weblog
13 Nov 23:39

Datasette 1.0a22

Datasette 1.0a22

New Datasette 1.0 alpha, adding some small features we needed to properly integrate the new permissions system with Datasette Cloud:

datasette serve --default-deny option for running Datasette configured to deny all permissions by default. (#2592)

datasette.is_client() method for detecting if code is executing inside a datasette.client request. (#2594)

Plus a developer experience improvement for plugin authors:

datasette.pm property can now be used to register and unregister plugins in tests. (#2595)

Tags: projects, datasette, datasette-cloud, annotated-release-notes

Simon Willison's Weblog
13 Nov 23:09

Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for extremely nuanced AI image generation

Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for extremely nuanced AI image generation Max Woolf provides an exceptional deep dive into Google's Nano Banana aka Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model, still the best available image manipulation LLM tool three months after its initial release....

Simon Willison's Weblog
13 Nov 17:06

Quoting Nov 12th letter from OpenAI to Judge Ona T. Wang

On Monday, this Court entered an order requiring OpenAI to hand over to the New York Times and its co-plaintiffs 20 million ChatGPT user conversations [...] OpenAI is unaware of any court ordering wholesale production of personal information at this scale. This sets a dange...

Simon Willison's Weblog
13 Nov 16:36

What happens if AI labs train for pelicans riding bicycles?

Almost every time I share a new example of an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle a variant of this question pops up: how do you know the labs aren't training for your benchmark? The strongest argument is that they would get caught. If a model finally comes out that produces a...

Daring Fireball
13 Nov 15:48 • John Gruber

Joy-Joy Feelings

clip.cafe/demolition-man-1993/lately-i-just-dont-feel-like-theres-anything-special-about-me/

Via a DF reader, here’s a 20-second clip from the 1993 classic^* Demolition Man that exemplifies how today’s overly effusive, ever-affirming AI chatbots were presented as elements of a profoundly dystopic future by sci-fi writers just a few decades ago.

^*OK, OK — cult classic.

Link: clip.cafe/demolition-man-1993/lately-i-just-dont-feel-like…

kottke.org
13 Nov 14:39 • Jason Kottke

After 230 years, the US Mint has ended production of new pennies....

After 230 years, the US Mint has ended production of new pennies. One of the very few things that incompetent stopped clock in the White House has gotten accidentally right.

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The Atlas Obscura Podcast
13 Nov 05:05 • SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

The Mythical Panda with Nathalia Holt

In the 1920s the world was small. This was an exciting time for scientists and explorers. And among these explorers were Ted and Kemit Roosevelt who traveled to China to find a rare animal back in those days, the giant panda.

Author Nathalia Holt joins us to tell this story from her new book: The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’ Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda.

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kottke.org
13 Nov 02:51 • Jason Kottke

The Northern Lights Put on a Show. “A powerful geomagnetic storm brought...

The Northern Lights Put on a Show. “A powerful geomagnetic storm brought spectacular light displays to night skies across the Northern Hemisphere, with sightings of pink, red, and green lights as far south as Florida and Oklahoma.”

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kottke.org
13 Nov 00:37 • Jason Kottke

Put wings on your car. “We call it a private jet for...

Put wings on your car. “We call it a private jet for tax reasons really. Private jets don’t pay duty on fuel, so by adding wings to the vehicle, we should qualify for the same exemption.”

Daring Fireball
13 Nov 00:00 • John Gruber

★ OpenAI Releases GPT-5.1, Along With Renamed and New Personalities

OpenAI today, “GPT-5.1: A Smarter, More Conversational ChatGPT”: GPT‑5.1 Instant, ChatGPT’s most used model, is now warmer by default and more conversational. Based on early testing, it often surprises people with its playfulness while remaining clear and useful. These...