FeedCity

If you happen to see me this week and I am muttering to myself or laughing maniacally, this is why.

Nicholas Christakis:

Halfway through one of my lectures [at the Kyiv School of Economics], the air-raid siren went off. We relocated to this old Soviet-era building and went two or three stories underground into a bomb shelter with huge blast doors. We continued the class. And the students were beaming. It lifted me up to see their enthusiasm, their commitment. It also reinforced something very deep about our common humanity, which is that we humans like to learn, even in a time of war.

I also couldn’t help but notice that these students had a very different understanding of safety than American students. When American students want a safe space, it’s because they don’t want to hear threatening ideas. For Ukrainian students, safety means learning without bombs falling. 

Ken Case: Redesigning and rebuilding all of our toolbars, sidebars, and inspectors for Liquid Glass gave us a great opportunity to cross-pollinate features, making some familiar platform-exclusive features available across all platforms for the first time. And it was also easier than ever to build new features that work in consistent ways across those platforms. […]

Galicia, May 2026.

Typesetting Races before the Age of Linotype:

On the afternoon of Saturday, February 19, 1870, a young compositor named George Arensberg astonished the printing world when he achieved a feat few thought possible: setting more than two thousand “ems” of solid minion type in a single hour (about 760 words, or 13 words a minute).

My son is my biggest fan. 

Groundhog Day, but for book publishing.

‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart. We’re dealing with our own version of the situation here in the Waco area. The first common thread is the contempt the techbros have for any resistance. They make no attempt to win hearts and minds; they just try to trample everyone in their path. The second common thread is their ceaseless lying about water use: a new data center about 30 miles from me denies that it will be using any water from Lake Whitney. It is, we are told, pure coincidence that the data center happens to be located on the lakeshore. 

Our Monterey oak is 10 years old — seems like it was a baby just yesterday.

Apple (xip, downloads): Xcode 26.5 includes Swift 6.3 and SDKs for iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, macOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5. Xcode 26.5 supports on-device debugging in iOS 15 and later, tvOS 15 and later, watchOS 8 and later, and visionOS. Xcode 26.5 requires a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later. […] Messages […]

macOS 15.7.7 (security, full installer): This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users. macOS 14.8.7 (security, full installer): This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users. Howard Oakley. I don’t know what happened to 15.7.6 or 14.8.6, but they seem to have been skipped. Jesse Squires: I […]

Apple: This document describes the security content of iOS 18.7.9 and iPadOS 18.7.9. […] Available for: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPad 7th generation After a brief reprieve, Apple seems to have gone back to the policy of iOS 18.7.3, where you can only get iOS 18.7.9 if your phone is not capable […]

Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, developer, full installer, IPSW): macOS Tahoe 26.5 adds a Suggested Places section to the search interface in the Apple Maps app. It also lays the groundwork for ads in the Maps app, which are coming this summer. The App Store is also getting a monthly subscription option that will […]

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, developer): iOS 26.5 introduces end-to-end encryption for RCS messages exchanged between iPhone and Android users. E2EE for RCS requires both participants in the conversation to have a carrier that supports the feature, and carriers will be rolling out support over time. Encrypted RCS messages have a small lock […]

Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): watchOS 26.5 adds a new Pride Luminance watch face. It also fixes a bug with dual SIM iPhones and an issue that could cause audio alerts to fail to play in the Workout app. Previously: watchOS 26.4

Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): No new features were found in tvOS 26.5 during the beta testing period, so it likely focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements. Previously: tvOS 26.4

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, developer): Apple’s release notes say that visionOS 26.5 includes bug fixes and security improvements. Previously: visionOS 26.4

Juli Clover (release notes): According to Apple’s release notes, HomePod Software 26.5 includes performance and stability improvements. Previously: audioOS 26.4

At my 2008 NewTeeVee conference, I asked Reed Hastings, then CEO of Netflix, whether streaming video would become the first killer app of broadband. It seemed obvious: video would consume capacity. And eventually it did. Streaming became the thing that made people care about downstream speed, drove the upgrade cycle, and reshaped how operators planned …

I appreciate that X gave me back access to my account that I was locked out of, but they were apparently charging me for premium when i couldn't use the account, and had no way to turn it off. Okay they can keep the money. But now I want to turn off premium for the account I was using when I didn't have access to my real account, and can't find the commands to do that. Asked ChatGPT and it either hallucinated or X removed the command. So near as I can tell I now have two accounts on Premium.