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Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

★ ‘Hot Tub’, a Hardcore Porn App for iOS, Hits AltStore in the E.U.

So, no, Apple neither approves of Hot Tub in particular, nor the ability to distribute native porn apps in general. Everyone involved with both AltStore and Hot Tub knows this, but they also know that framing it as though notarization conveys approval is a good way to get headlines.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Dithering

dithering.fm/

February 2025 cover art for Dithering, depicting a couple embracing at sunset, staring at the open ocean, in front of their car on the deck of a ferry (or perhaps a pier?).

If you enjoy podcasts, you should subscribe to Dithering, the twice-weekly 15-minutes-on-the-button podcast I do with Ben Thompson. Dithering as a standalone subscription costs just $7/month or $70/year. (It’s also included in Ben’s excellent Stratechery Plus bundle.) People who try Dithering seem to love it, too — we have remarkably little churn.

If you’re on the fence, subscribe for a month and you’re only out $7 — but I bet you’ll stick around. Trust me. And thanks to everyone who’s already subscribed.

 ★ 

Scripting News Valid

Freaky warning. As easily as Musk can turn off government websites, he can turn off our sites. He could turn off all .com or .org sites. He'll probably do it just that way. Only one domain will work in the future, x.com. Goodbye Google, Amazon, your drug store. Bubye. Not sure if moving your DNS to Europe or Asia will make a difference. He's taking advantage of centralization, and will try to make it more centralized. Totally centralized. A journalist couldn't report this, because what proof do I have? It's because there's a pattern here. And it's pretty obvious the tools he's using.

Scripting News Valid

devs.feediverse.org on Bluesky. An interesting experiment.

Scripting News Valid

I was just setting up an account for another Feed Reader experiment on Bluesky and found that they have a Suggested User List that recommended the usual people who get in the way of telling the story that's really happening. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, really felt ...

Scripting News Valid

I would love to manage individual DNS domains using GitHub. I already have great tools for updating stuff over there. And everything on my current DNS system is manual and laborious.

Scripting News Valid

Jesse Stay who I have known from early blogging days proposes to build the billionaire-proof social network using the AT Protocol. I'm going to help if I can. I'm developing apps that run on AT Proto, so at least I should be able to test my apps with his service.

Scripting News Valid

It's as if we have cancer

What's happening in the US is like when a person who is a lifetime cigarette smoker gets cancer and stops smoking. You hope the cancer doesn't kill you, and then swear to never smoke again if you're lucky enough to survive it.

We didn't appreciate how good we had it with our representative form of government. We could have stopped the erosion of our power at any time, when our reps would have more or less had to listen. Now, when we start trying to get their attention, which hasn't happened yet, it's going to be a competition between the rule of law, which is undermined, and the forces that keep our would-be rulers in line.

The prognosis isn't good. But we should get our shit together asap because it's our only hope.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

LBJ on the Difference between Republicans and Democrats

lbjlibrary.org/life-and-legacy/the-lbj-the-nation-seldom-saw

The LBJ Presidential Library, regarding a largely ad-libbed address Lyndon Johnson gave to a group of 150 non-incumbent Democratic candidates for Congress in 1966: He talked about the difference between Republicans and Democrats: “We’re for something, and they are agains...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

‘Apple in China’ — New Book by Patrick McGee, Coming in May

appleinchina.com/

Speaking of books, Simon & Schuster announced a new one: Apple isn’t just a brand; it’s the world’s most valuable company and creator of the twenty-first century’s defining product. The iPhone has revolutionized the way we live, work and connect. But Apple is now a v...

Scripting News Valid

Anyone who says competent white men should be in charge probably has never actually run anything. Women are better in general at seeing the big picture and managing accordingly. A man is more likely to hone in on one aspect of the problem and if they're good, do something brilliant, but misses out on pretty much everything else. I, as a man, have had to severely discipline myself to get anything done, because that's how I'm built. Given a chance I will always put my head down and focus on one thing until its done, then the next and the next and so on.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Rick Reilly’s ‘Commander in Cheat’

amzn.to/3Q8UJWd

Speaking of cheating, my favorite book from Trump’s first term was Rick Reilly’s Commander in Cheat, which I linked to, with an excerpt still available at The Guardian, when it came out in 2019. I’ve been a fan of Reilly’s writing since I was a teenager and he was the back-page columnist for Sports Illustrated; this is the book Reilly was born to write. I just picked my copy off my shelf and started to re-read it, and got sucked right back in. Posting this link is my way of forcing myself to put it down until tonight.

(Main link here is an Amazon affiliate one, which will make me rich if you purchase through it. If you prefer not to buy books from Amazon, here’s a link to Bookshop.org.)

 ★ 

Scripting News Valid

Wouldn't it be something if the WordPress community were mobilized to get shit done right now?

Scripting News Valid

We need to change who reps us as much as we need to get the ones who current do rep us off their butts and actually do some representing.

Scripting News Valid

Imho it would be smart for Musk to stop shutting things down and just do his work, whatever it is. By creating constant shitstorms he's making it impossible for anyone to defend him, and you can be sure some would be if what he was doing wasn't so blatantly outrageous. We never voted for that mofo. And every American alive, whatever their preference, thinks their own vote should count. That's going to be a massive hurdle for them to get over.

Jason Fried Valid
• Jason Fried

We increased conversion ~30% and we don't know exactly how

Not too long ago, we dedicated a 6-week cycle to improving Basecamp's onboarding flows.The aim was to increase conversion from trial to paid by smoothing out the initial experience of getting going, doing a better job of quick-teaching the basics, and making a few things a...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Elon Musk Cheats at Video Games

washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/29/elon-musk-video-games-diablo-path-exile/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzM4MTI2ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzM5NTA5MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MzgxMjY4MDAsImp0aSI6ImE5NzNiNzFmLWZhY2ItNDM1OC04MzVjLTgxMDllYzRlOTRmZiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjUvMDEvMjkvZWxvbi1tdXNrLXZpZGVvLWdhbWVzLWRpYWJsby1wYXRoLWV4aWxlLyJ9.6bhaQaNRUCuNxmd60eJAcRSeK6MxHzLlHhzT1E7HbZ4

Drew Harwell, at The Washington Post (gift link, via Harwell himself on Bluesky — which seemingly uses a ludicrously long 397-character token in the URL): But after poring over his live-streamed gameplay, online sleuths recently made a shocking accusation: Musk had cheat...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

‘Don’t Believe Him’

nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-trump-column-read.html

Ezra Klein in an audio essay/transcribed column at The New York Times: That is the tension at the heart of Trump’s whole strategy: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hopi...

Scripting News Valid

A bit of advice for Dems in Congress. Go home and have town halls, and listen. And stop listening to the consultants and each other. Find out what the people want, and bring that back to DC. And let the press attend the town halls so they can report. Make our own Tea Party.

Scripting News Valid

BTW, it turns out that Pip's, a restaurant in Severance, my favorite show in a while, was hot at the Phoenicia Diner, which is one of my favorite places to eat in the area. Funny thing I didn't recognize it until I saw an article about it in a local magazine.