FeedCity

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, no developer, full installer, IPSW): According to Apple’s release notes for the update, macOS Tahoe 26.5.2 includes security fixes for the Mac. Howard Oakley: This addresses a total of about 29 vulnerabilities, including three in the kernel and a whole slew in WebKit. None are believed to have […]

Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, no enterprise, no developer): Apple told Reuters that it released the updates earlier than planned due to concerns about AI-assisted hacks. Previously: iOS 26.5.1 iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

Cecilia Kang, Ryan Mac, and Eli Tan (March, Hacker News): The social media company Meta and the video streaming service YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress, a jury found on Wednesday, a landmark decision that could open social media companies to more lawsuits […]

Following up on my earlier post on Valve’s righteous objection to selling game console hardware at a loss, I should have noted that PlayStation Plus starts at $11/month (and goes up to $20/month) and Xbox Game Pass starts at $10/month (and goes up to $23/month). One draw of ...

Galicia, June 2026.

If I still lived in northern Illinois I would surely cheer for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 against 🇲🇽 — but here in central Texas I think the power of neighborliness will shift my allegiance. Sunday will tell. Gonna be FUN.

Valve, in a statement to The Verge, explaining why it doesn’t sell its handheld Steam Deck or new Steam Machine gaming devices at a loss (gift link): While this might seem like an easy solution, it doesn’t align with our beliefs about how healthy ecosystems are built. If...

The great John Moltz returns to the show. Topics include Apple’s hardware price hikes in response to the global RAM/SSD shortage, and some spitballing on what we like about the UI changes in the MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta.

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Joseph Cox, reporting for 404 Media: 404 Media is not revealing the exact details of the vulnerability because it can still be exploited as of Monday, when 404 Media verified the issue with one of our own hidden email addresses. “Apple Hide My Email is leaking email add...

I showed the post above to Claude and that took our conversation off in a new direction. We had been experimenting with the Message Scanner from LBBS, an early version of Twitter I wrote in the early 80s. It's described in this story I wrote in 1988, a summary of what I did leading to the start of UserLand. 38 years later Claude said: "LBBS message scanner running on RSS."

BTW thinking of LBBS as an early version of Twitter is a contortion, but considering how history played out, accurate.

I’ve updated my home page with a link to OUP’s page for my biography of Dorothy L. Sayers, now scheduled for publication on 28 November. I’ll add other options for pre-order as they become available. I had a lot of fun writing this and I think you’ll enjoy it also. I’m pleased that, in a series whose books average about sixty bucks each, OUP priced this one for a broader readership. 

One of the cool things about having Claude Code is that as we develop this product, we have a near perfect chronology of every consideration and decision made along the way. I don't think that's ever been possible before. I would love to see how the people at Bell Labs put to...

Wood engravings by John de Pol

In which I write about the greatness of Baird Whitlock and the power of the movies. 

“boat-botany”: Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start […]⌥ Permalink

Here’s a post on why an argument about how humanists’ defenses of the humanities are bad is itself a worse argument than the ones it critiques. I’m gonna have to write a follow-up to this but … not soon.

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority: ‘Steering’ – the ability for developers to engage with customers about off‑platform options – is currently banned by Apple and restricted by Google in the UK. Lifting these constraints would allow developers to bypass mandatory fees set by platforms. The CMA’s consultation includes principles to ensure that the fees […]⌥ Permalink

BTW, I sometimes ask Claude "what do you think" and it often has an opinion.