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Scripting News Valid

As all our former allies pay homage to Xi in Beijing, I was thinking well at the least the whole world speaks our language, and that'll take a few generations to change, but then I realized I bet the Chinese have been preparing for this, and of course they have.

Scripting News Valid

You know you're on the right track when all the questions have answers.

Scripting News Valid

More important than code is the right place for the code.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Box Office Expectations for ‘Melania’

thewrap.com/industry-news/box-office/melania-box-office-prediction/

Jeremy Fuster, reporting for TheWrap: But save for some theaters in Republican-heavy states, the film is unlikely to leave much of an impact at a slumping box office, with theatrical sources telling TheWrap that “Melania” is projected for an opening of around $3 million ...

Scripting News Valid

I've learned a new self-management strategy. At the beginning of a day's programming work I set a specific goal that I feel I should be able to accomplish very quickly, in an hour, perhaps -- but probably less. If I get it done by the end of the day I will feel like I really ...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Amazon’s Spending on ‘Melania’ Is a Barely Concealed Bribe

nytimes.com/2026/01/28/business/media/amazon-melania-trump-film-critics.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IFA.R85v.5ZtNe8FttfaD

Nicole Sperling and Brooks Barnes, reporting for The New York Times: Amazon paid Ms. Trump’s production company $40 million for the rights to “Melania,” about $26 million more than the next closest bidder, Disney. The fee includes a related docuseries that is scheduled t...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Kickstarter for Ollie’s Arcade Expansion

blog.iconfactory.com/2026/01/bringing-more-fun-free-retro-gaming-to-ios/

Ged Maheux, The Iconfactory: This week we announced a new Kickstarter that’s aimed at expanding the game offerings of Ollie’s Arcade, the fun, ad-free retro gaming app we introduced back in 2023. Ollie’s Arcade has always been a great way to escape doomscrolling, even if...

Scripting News Valid

Zeldman found the Google and HTTP post I wrote many years ago. Thankfully they haven't completely broken HTTP yet. I like to think they can't because so much of the web would break if they did. People might not notice the Not Secure message they post in Chrome for sites that...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Comparing the Classic and Unified Views in iOS 26’s Phone App

tidbits.com/2025/11/10/comparing-the-classic-and-unified-views-in-ios-26s-phone-app/

Adam Engst, back in November, at TidBITS: Did you know that, regardless of view, you can now swipe left on any call to reveal a blue clock icon that lets you create a reminder to call back in 1 hour, tonight, tomorrow, or at any custom time (below left, slightly doctored...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Aeronaut 1.0

aeronautapp.com/

New Mac app by Mikey Clarke, and it’s just what it says on the tin: a “lovingly crafted Bluesky app designed and built just for the Mac”. I’ve been beta testing Aeronaut for months, and it’s the only interface to Bluesky I actually like. It’s a real Mac app — written mostly in AppKit, supporting all the right UI idioms and platform integrations. It’s not just the best Bluesky client I’ve seen, for any platform, but maybe the best new Mac app I’ve seen in years, period. Certainly the one whose very existence has made me happiest. Next time someone tells me no one makes good new native apps for the Mac anymore, I’m going to tell them Mikey Fucking Clarke does.

$2/month or $15/year. A veritable bargain for an app so nice.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Streets of Minneapolis’

brucespringsteen.net/news/2026/streets-of-minneapolis/

Bruce Springsteen:

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Best line from the lyrics:

Their claim was self-defense,
Just don’t believe your eyes.
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.

Whistles, phones, and birds.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

★ Politics and the English Language, January 2026 Edition

Tim Cook’s call for “deescalation” is meaningless without specifying which side he’s calling upon to change course, and there’s no weaker sauce than the weak sauce of “both sides”.

Scripting News Valid

"There is no advantage that I can discern for creating a new format that only works in Bluesky." I put that at the end of a post the other day and as they say in journalism, he buried the lede. "Only works in" means silo. And it always results in stagnation because big organizations suck at shipping new ideas. For that you need a lot of people with laptops and a net connection and lot sof spare time to be able to replace small pieces, and join them up to the network, try out new ideas. When you're in a silo the owners place severe limits on what you can do. If you think you found a benevolent one, the exception -- there is no such thing. You're waiting for a "some day" that will never come.

blog - aows Valid
• Adrian Vila

Rhyolite, II

California, November 2025.

From the video I let AI plan my 2,200-mile photography road trip across the country.

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

Fixing iPhone Disconnects From Image Capture

Wade Tregaskis: It appears that each time tethering is enabled or disabled on the iPhone, it disconnects Image Capture. […] Thankfully the workaround is simple – disable tethering, or enable Airplane mode, while you’re using Image Capture. Previously: Remaining Issues in Big Sur Remaining Issues New in Catalina Update (2026-02-02): Jamie Cuevas: This is not […]

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

Irish Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill

Connor Jones (Hacker News): The Irish government is planning to bolster its police’s ability to intercept communications, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use. […] The Bill will bring communications from IoT devices, email services, and electronic messaging platforms into scope, “whether encrypted or not.” In a similar way to how […]

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

Cloudflare Matrix Homeserver

Jade (Hacker News): Cloudflare just published a vibe coded blog post claiming they implemented Matrix on cloudflare workers. They didn’t, their post and README is AI generated and the code doesn’t do any of the core parts of matrix that make it secure and interoperable. Instead it’s littered with ‘TODO: Check authorisation’ and similar. […] […]

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

Deploying Moltbot (Formerly Clawdbot)

Connor Jones: Would you be comfortable handing the keys to your identity kingdom over to a bot, one that might be exposed to the open internet? […] Jamieson O’Reilly, founder of red-teaming company Dvuln, was among the first to draw attention to the issue, saying that he saw hundreds of Clawdbot instances exposed to the […]

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Tim Cook Wrote a Memo on the ‘Events in Minneapolis’

macrumors.com/2026/01/27/tim-cook-responds-after-minneapolis-shootings/

Tim Cook, in a company-wide memo (first published by Mark Gurman): Team, I’m heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, and my prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families, with the communities, and with everyone that’s been affected. This is a time for deescala...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Meta’s Response to Reuters Report on ‘Romance AI Chatbots’ for Teenagers

x.com/andymstone/status/2016242174447223049

Andy Stone, VP of communications at Meta, responding, in a series of tweets on Twitter/X, to Jeff Horwitz’s report at Reuters yesterday, linked here last night, which claimed that “Zuckerberg blocked curbs on sex-talking chatbots for minors”: Never let the facts get in t...