Abhorrent CEO or not, a lot of really incredible people at SpaceX achieved a really incredible thing with the Starship launch/Super Heavy catch, and it was awesome to show my kids and see the excitement in their eyes.
youtu.be/b28zbsnk-…
https://youtu.be/b28zbsnk-48
Amazon killed API access for one of my favorite apps, price tracker DropScout. Its developer, Daniel Kramer, writes on Mastodon:
"Amazon has pulled my API access and the app is non-functional as a result. I’m looking for find a solution but the future doesn’t look good."
"Apparently it’s against terms of service to track prices. There are other apps that do this so it’s a bit surprising. Apparently they’ve given other services permission and I’m trying to see if they will allow DropScout to do this."
DropScout is my favorite in its class of apps and I hope Daniel gets his API access back.
https://mastodon.social/@_danielkramer/113264142218037075
😑 Sometimes, when I've really had it with my kids, I just look them right in the eyes and tell them, with the most stern and serious expression I can muster, "There will be no fourth chances!"
Matt Mullenweg is a litigator’s worst nightmare — please stop talking in public about the subject matter of the litigation — but presumably Wordpress' lawyer Neal Katyal knows what he’s doing and doesn’t expect the PR blitz to cause problems.
https://ma.tt/2024/09/t3/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Katyal
⌚ Dear watchOS 11,
I didn't stand when you suggested I should, so why did you tell me I did a great job getting closer to my stand goal?
Confusedly,
Joe
Sometimes I’m writing a Very Serious Blog Post™️ and then I have an intrusive ‘90s thought.
For example, I love and hate the fact that, probably for the rest of my life, every time someone says “I don’t wanna wait” I have no choice or free will at all and I just sing
🎤 for our lives to be OH-ver 🎤
Matt Webb wrote about his open source in-page chat tool, cursor party:
"“If you’ve visited my actual website, rather than reading by email or whatever, such as reading this very post, you may notice somebody else’s cursor pass by as you’re reading.”"
It’s a wonderful, playful, well-executed idea.
https://interconnected.org/home/2024/09/05/cursor-party
Today there was a cybertruck parked at the daycare where parents park to drop off their kids.
I’m wondering if I should put my tie on after drop-off because, like, how self-important do ties seem these days, right?
But then there’s a literal human person driving a cybertruck to drop off their kids.
Finished reading: The Fellowship Of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 📚
By the end you know all the players, some have already been lost, others have played out their parts, and still more have shown the true good in their hearts, and the depths of evil the Ring may inspire them to should they come to possess it... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/08/31/finished-reading-the.html
Bluesky’s Trust & Safety decisions may not please everyone, but they’re clearly thinking them through in good faith.
While nothing is perfect, a primarily public data store subject to moderation by obfuscation (requiring API work to get at certain moderated data) strikes a thoughtful balance.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-28-2024-anti-toxicity-features
I’m no employment lawyer, but an (allegedly) inconsistently applied policy of ominous non-compete reminder meetings when your best creatives post stuff to their personal accounts sounds…problematic.
It’s also an efficient way to inspire them to leave, and that’s exactly what Becca Farsace did.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hjer379ONJo&t=280s
Jelly Roll was a compelling interviewee on the New York Times Interview , and while I haven’t listened to his music yet, I intend to.
But I’m posting to warn anyone who turned the interview off after Jelly Roll inveighed against voting: he walked that back in the final minutes of the podcast episode, whic... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/08/18/jelly-roll-was.html
This 1956 promotional video is a time capsule of New Jersey when my parents were kids.
"This Technicolor color film was produced in 1956 for the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, and based on a 1953 John T. Cunningham book This is New Jersey."
It’s surprisingly light on corporate propaganda. However, the mention that one third of the state was below the Mason-Dixon Line was a little too… wistful, especially given the paucity of people of color in the film.
https://youtu.be/pF6TPvxs95w
Can anyone make an argument that the VP should be anyone but Buttigieg?
And I mean an argument that would make sense to someone who doesn’t listen to the Politico Playbook Daily Briefing every morning.
He has: ✅ name recognition, ✅ policy chops, ✅ resume, ✅ sparring experience, and ✅ a thick skin.
Today, after a typical barrage of dad jokes during a break from playing with my kids, my niece told me I am saved in her phone as “Joe Ross Cringe Uncle.”
She even showed me the contact card to prove it.
She and my wife both thought I would, and should, take it as an insult.
I did not.
🤪
Linked Links: Google Docs Can Import and Export Markdown by Michael Tsai
Maybe I’ll use Google Docs more often now that it can copy/paste and import/export Markdown.
I still remember using it for hours at a time throughout law school, most firms maintain their vise grip on Microsoft Word.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/07/19/google-docs-can-import-and-export-markdown/
Everyone who has ever traveled by airplane has at least one infuriating story, including me. But when I missed a scheduled flight on American Airlines last week, the customer service person put me on the next flight with none of the fees, up-charges or judgment that I was expecting, and it was nice.
Laurens Hof, writing in Episode 73 of his Last Week in Fediverse newsletter:
"What makes the situation with rumours of Mastodon leaking private messages so interesting to me is that the original posts that contained the rumours got significantly more engagement than the corrections. So it seems to me that the structural feature of decentralised networks that ‘significantly limits the reach of fake news’ can also work to limit the reach of corrections to fake news as well."
This is a good point, but the structural aspect of decentralized networks that makes it as difficult to circulate corrections a... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/06/21/laurens-hof-writing.html
🦎 What are some good dinosaur apps and games to learn and play with your kids on iOS?
I’m happy to pay for good apps, I just want to avoid scams and low-effort nonsense.
🔗 Rich Idiot Tweets
Nick Heer has a great post about the vapid coverage of vapid Elon Musk, but this bit from the end of Heer’s post struck me as the perfect Twitter bio for Musk:
"words from the fingers of a dipshit"
https://pxlnv.com/linklog/rich-idiot-tweets/
Now that Spotify’s family plan costs $20/month now I don’t have much incentive not to switch to YouTube Music, which comes with the YouTube Premium I’m already paying for. I’m also giving the Tidal 30-day trial a shot, but that would be $22/month for a family plan.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24170301/spotify-us-price-increase-plans
⌨️ A quick MS Word tip: Press control + shift + F9 to remove all hyperlinks in a selection of text. You may need to include the Fn or equivalent key if you're a keyboard nerd using several layers.
This is handy for work because while I'm writing briefs I like to keep the citations hyperlinked for easy ref... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/06/03/a-quick-ms.html
TenBlueLinks.org shows you how to make Google’s old school, AI-free search filter, called, and this is true, Google Web, the default.
I’m not a fan of Chrome on iOS, or anywhere really, so I added the &udm=14 suffix to the Google action I use in Drafts and shared it to the Drafts directory.
https://tenbluelinks.org/https://directory.getdrafts.com/a/2S3
🔗 Apple Will Revamp Siri to Catch Up to Its Chatbot Competitors
Tripp Mickle, Brian X. Chen and Cade Metz report at The New York Times that:
"The decision came after the executives Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea spent weeks testing OpenAI’s new chatbot, ChatGPT. The product’s use of generative artificial intelligence, which can write poetry, create computer code and answer complex questions, made Siri look antiquated, said two people familiar with the company’s work, who didn’t have permission to speak publicly."
Apple can’t be serious here. My earliest IFTTT recipes made Siri look antiquate... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/05/12/apple-will-revamp.html
I wore transitions (™️?) lenses for a year and half in my late thirties and no one close to me loved me enough to punch me in the face and force me to replace them. I’m not saying I don’t take responsibility, or that I’m not loved at all, just maybe not enough.
😠 Google’s connected speakers and hubs are actually useful (unlike Alexa and Siri…), but it’s really hard when you’re super angry about something and have to mumble “Hey Google …” through gritted teeth. Just let us change the wake phrase.
(Yes I know some devices/command combinations don’t require a wake... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/04/29/googles-connected-speakers.html
🔗 Trump VP contender Kristi Noem writes of killing dog – and goat – in new book | Books | The Guardian
I’m not quoting from the review or her memoir because Noem is deplorable, and because, somehow, it’s worse than the headline suggests.
When people tell you who they are, believe them.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/26/trump-kristi-noem-shot-dog-and-goat-book
⚖️ It is an uncharacteristic misstep, in terms of both litigation strategy and public relations, for Apple to poke the EU bear by terminating Epic’s developer account. Whether Apple is right about Epic's intentions is irrelevant. This move looks petty and, worse, calculated to avoid exactly the kind of co... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/03/06/it-is-an.html
😔 Yahoo is accelerating its enshittification of Engadget, in a move that really surprises absolutely no one because, well, it's Yahoo:
""Engadget, which is operated by Yahoo, will lay off 10 employees, according to people with knowledge of the situation who say staff were “blindsided” by the decision. In addition to cutting staff, the editorial team will split into two sections: 'news and features' and 'reviews and buying advice.' The news teams will focus on traffic growth, while the reviews teams will report to commerce leaders.""
This is sad. I have been an Engadget reader since the beginning, a... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/02/23/yahoo-is-accelerating.html
Chris Geidner at Law Dork has the best explanation of why the 5th Circuit’s jurisprudence has become so, to use a legal term of art, whacky:
"At the end of the day, there are essentially three groups of active judges on the Fifth Circuit: There are “mad vibes” judges, legally conservative judges, and legally moderate (or more left) judges."
Geidner is so insightful and prolific that, and I mean this as a high compliment, it irritates me a little.
https://joeross.me/uploads/2024/98be885a3b.pnghttps://www.lawdork.com/p/fifth-circuit-mad-vibes-judges
The top seven free apps in the news category of the iOS App Store are a mix of proudly user-hostile mismanagement, fear mongering, hyperlocal hate, and Nazi monetization.
https://joeross.me/uploads/2024/65e3024697.png
🔗 Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice
Bill Toulas, writing at Bleeping Computer:
"Targeting open-source software developers tends to backfire for companies, as others fork or clone the code repositories to prevent the projects from disappearing."
"At this time, the Haier home assistant plugins have been forked 228 times, many occurring since the news of the legal threats."
Now?
1,462 forks.
These were niche plugins for niche software for a niche audience before Haier let the lawyers loose.
Hey Haier, Ms. Streisand called… she wants her effect back.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/haier-hits-home-assistant-plugin-dev-with-takedown-notice/https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
☄️ I’m watching this Yaccarino interview very long after it occurred, but time has not dulled the stings of how uninformed and naive she was about Twitter and Musk.
It’s hard to believe a seasoned executive fell so far so fast, but there’s no denying the descent when you’re standing in the crater…
http... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2024/01/14/im-watching-this.html
Finished reading: Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 📚 — ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
"Skip and dance, jump and prance! Go down through the orchard and stroll in the woods! The world is a wonderful place when you’re young."
It sure is.
What a hell of an amazing book to relegate to the unjustly dismissed “children’s” shelves. This book gets five stars, no question about it.
White manages to address, in my opinion, so many of The Important Things We All Should Learn About Rather Young If Possible, including misogyny/clueless men, bullies, transactional acquaintances, competition, the joy and sorrow of freedom, the d... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2023/10/30/finished-reading-charlottes.html
📱 Someone please tell me which non-leather bifold wallet case to get for an #iPhone 14 Pro, preferably in pink. Extra points for MagSafe compatibility but it's not required.
Dear Lawyers Still Manually Numbering Paragraphs:
Stop it.
Here’s a tutorial:
Place your cursor where you intend to begin the numbered section of your pleading.
Click the numbered list button in your word processor.
Repent, and feel your soul become lighter.
Yours, scoldingly,
Joe
⌚ Audio recordings are an overlooked way of keeping memories with your kids. Mine are both under 4 and, while pointing a phone camera at them often changes their behavior, a surreptitious audio recording is easy to do. I've got some great stuff that I'm almost certain an attempt at photos or video would've... joeross.me https://joeross.me/2023/09/16/audio-recordings-are.html
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