FeedCity

A few weeks ago, in a post primarily complaining about Google’s disingenuous claims about their Messages app’s support for encryption (they suggest, heavily, that it encrypts every message or most messages, but in fact only supports encryption for RCS messages sent between u...

Excellent five-minute short video from the ever-insightful Kirby Ferguson for The New York Times, exploring why everything looks the same, sounds the same, and seemingly is the same in today’s pop culture. The short answer: that sameness is only pervasive when you only look at what’s promoted by our three-headed social media hegemony (Meta, YouTube, and TikTok).

Update: The store is now closed. My sincere thanks to everyone who’s bought one (or in many cases, more than one).

Original post: Unsurprisingly given that I went a few years without selling DF-branded shirts, while I procrastinated on launching a modernized new store (long story short: Shopify is a killer platform — the new store now supports everything from Apple Pay to order tracking), response to this round of classic logo apparel has been great. Orders from last week started going out over the weekend, and hundreds more are shipping today.

It’s too late now to get an order in for Christmas, no matter where you live, but it’s not too late to place an order from this batch of shirts and hoodies. But, we’ll probably close the store to new orders tomorrow (Tuesday), so don’t wait.

Martin Luther King Day is January 20 in 2025, also is Inauguration Day.

Deep in the thread: "I want to give a huge volume of writing to ChatGPT or something much like it, and then ask it to give me an outline of what I wrote, and allow me to massage the outline, churn out a synopsis. I'd like to see what's there, and there's far too much writing for me to do that."

What if you had a twitter-like system that was embedded in a ChatGPT-like app. What would you do with that?

The journalism I pay attention is labeling itself as truth-based -- but it most definitely is not. When it comes to topics I am expert in, they tell a mushed up version of extreme points of view, that (surprise!) favor the continued existence of their jobs. The choice of the truth-based label is kind of a clue. 😄

This post spawned quite a thread on Bluesky: "The AI industry could give us easy tools to build our own models, from our own archived writing, for private use. This may be a blind spot. It's as if when personal computers started, instead of spreadsheet editors, we were offered great sets of tabulated recalc'ing data. Fun to watch, maybe useful for researchers, but nothing compared to the utility of playing 'what if' on our own models."

Another week with another outstanding indie developer whom I’m delighted to thank for sponsoring DF. This week, it’s Sophiestication Software promoting the return of CoverSutra — a previous hit from the “delicious” era of Mac apps that is now back and better than ever. Afte...

After being sold out for months, the upcoming sponsorship schedule at DF is wide open at the moment — including the final week of the year. I know sponsors are sometimes hesitant to book weeks around major holidays, but, well, Daring Fireball is never “closed”. And traffic t...

This is why it’s more than vanity to put your name on your work, whatever your work is — it shows you take responsibility for its validity.

A piece in today's NYT said all networks flame out, but that's actually too crude a statement. If you want your network not to flame out, give the users the tools to keep things moderated. One of the best features of Facebook is it gives the author of a post the power to de...

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors: Apple plans to stop selling the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, and third-generation iPhone SE in European Union countries later this month, to comply with a regulation that will soon require newly-sold smartphones with wired charging to be equipped ...

Nifty new convert-to-Markdown library from a small indie development shop named Microsoft: The MarkItDown library is a utility tool for converting various files to Markdown (e.g., for indexing, text analysis, etc.) It presently supports: PDF (.pdf) PowerPoint (.pptx) ...

Ryan Christoffel, also at 9to5Mac: There are two key features that are part of iOS 18.2, but aren’t yet ready for the Mac: Genmoji Mail app redesign Genmoji are an especially unfortunate omission, as they’re available on both iPhone and iPad with iOS and iPadOS 18.2....

Chance Miller has a good rundown for 9to5Mac:

The update includes major new Apple Intelligence features, upgrades to the Camera Control on iPhone 16, a redesign for the Mail app, and much more.

The new Apple Intelligence features lead the list, and certainly lead Apple’s marketing, but there’s quite a bit else new in 18.2 too.

Like Viticci, I remain largely skeptical and uncomfortable with AI for purposes of generating original new stuff — writing, imagery, whatever. But as an assistive agent, it’s quite remarkable today and improving at a fast clip.

ChatGPT gets projects. Haven't had a chance to explore, but I desperately need this. I organize all my work as projects, and need to have my ChatGPT work be part of that.

Katie Robinson, reporting for The New York Times: After President-elect Donald J. Trump announced a cascade of cabinet picks last month, the editorial board of The Los Angeles Times decided it would weigh in. One writer prepared an editorial arguing that the Senate shoul...

There was a moment a couple of years ago when Mastodon was gaining traction in a serious way when I thought that Automattic should do something publicly to demonstrate support for it because I felt that WordPress and Mastodon were two sides of the same important coin. As yo...