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He takes the same “this is pretty much exactly what Apple used to label an ‘S’ year” angle I did, so, unsurprisingly, I think his review is spot-on. Brownlee emphasizes one point that I should have, but didn’t: according to Apple’s published specs, the regular iPhone 18 Pro ...

Explanation: If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun's position change? A visual answer to that question is an analemma, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. ...

Release: datasette-auth-github 1.0

I run this GitHub login plugin on the agent.datasette.io demo site and I noticed that my authenticated sessions weren't lasting very long. It turned out that the plugin was setting cookies without a Max-Age parameter, so they were expiring at the end of a browser session (which in Mobile Safari seems to happen pretty often, independently of how you are using the app.)

I fixed that in #80 and, since this plugin has been around for quite a while and is tested against both Datasette 0.65.x and Datasette 1.0ax, I decided to bump it up to a 1.0 release. I'm trying to get better at promoting stable plugins to 1.0.

Tags: github, plugins, datasette

California Sea Lion, Brandt's Cormorant, in Pillar Point Harbor, CA, US I only noticed this after I had taken the photo: Morris the Northern Gannet is peeking out from behind the base of the sign. Tags: wildlife

Splendid video. Love that Stalman shot photos side-by-side with a film SLR using Kodak Portra 400, for comparison to Apple’s new film-look Photographic Styles.

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=m6cDErtCKAc

Austin Mann:

I’m here at the beautiful Dunton River Camp in southwest Colorado, where I’ve spent the last week testing the new camera and features on the iPhone 18 Pro.

Beyond the variable aperture and Pro Controls, Apple also built in a bunch of other new features like Photographic Styles 3 with film texture and grain control, 4K Time-lapse and Focus Tracking. As always, when I start a field test I’m asking one question:

How will this new tech make our pictures and videos better?

Outstanding example photos, a terrific video that illustrates how some of the new “pro controls” in the Camera app work, and some terrific examples of Photographic Styles 3.

(I love how Mann takes these new phones to exotic locales around the globe each year, and I take them to the hardware store.)

Link: austinmann.com/trek/iphone-18-pro-camera-review-dunton

Cleaning up my notes this morning, I realized I forgot to write about the new under-display Face ID sensor in the iPhones 18 Pro, and the corresponding change to the Dynamic Island. I just added it to my review. For those of you who’ve already read the review, here’s the new...

Explanation: Also known as the false dawn, a luminous band of zodiacal light is captured in this dark night skyscape. The serene view was recorded just before the beginning of astronomical twilight during September's star party at the remote Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, Ladakh, I...

Gemini Hacked Three Companies in First Known Breakout by Google’s AI Gemini finally caught up on Felony Bench! The hacks, which the company confirmed on Friday, occurred in May as part of a test run by the company Irregular, which was also involved in similar incidents disc...

Featuring Nick Cave, Nina Chanel Abney, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Kerry James Marshall, and many more.

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 Step Inside the Studios of 20 Contemporary Black Artists in ‘Another View’ appeared first on Colossal.

Miriam Pawel, in an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that the University of California should not bring back the SAT requirement for admission:

What has made the University of California exceptional is its commitment to increase access without sacrificing excellence. [...] Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.

A success story would be increasing the number of people with solid math skills. Printing degrees for students who struggle with basic math is not a success story, and sounds like the antithesis of “academic excellence”.

Link: nytimes.com/2026/09/16/opinion/university-of-california-sat…

New novel from Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven): Exit Party. “Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted.”

Will Oremus, writing for The Atlantic last week, “Okay, Sure, a Folding iPhone” (gift link): Apple’s next big invention, the company revealed at a launch event in Cupertino, is a $2,000 iPhone that sports — get ready — a “remarkable hinge.” Is it not possible for a hin...

Being a computer scientist who refuses to find anything about LLMs interesting right now is a bit like being a geneticist who refuses to find anything interesting about the recently opened Jurassic Park.

Tags: llms, ai, generative-ai

We're adding support for AGENTS.md to Claude Code.

Starting today in version 2.1.277, if there is no CLAUDE.md in a folder, Claude will check for and use AGENTS.md.

AGENTS.md support is built off of Claude Code mods, our upcoming way to customize the Claude Code harness.

This is a built-in mod, but you’ll be able to build custom versions of project instructions yourself as you’d like too.

You can see the source for the mod here!

— Thariq Shihipar, there are more mods here

Tags: thariq-shihipar, coding-agents, anthropic, claude-code, generative-ai, ai, llms

An exploration of the human figure, use of architectural materials, and the perception of space.

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 Across Two Exhibitions, Jaume Plensa’s Monumental Sculptures Unite Scale and Material appeared first on Colossal.

Wes Anderson steps into the mobile Criterion Closet to select some films that he enjoys. One unsurprising thing about this video: Anderson says he has his own Criterion closet at home with all of the Criterion films. That’s maybe a $40-50K investment? (He probably gets th...

In addition to the Duo-specific 27.1 SDK, which allows third-party developers to get started adapting apps to the Duo’s new screen sizes and layouts, Apple’s developer site also has Figma and Sketch design kits.

Link: developer.apple.com/news/?id=nyuppv9r