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Checklists are hard, but still a good thing

You're using a tool with a too-generic User-Agent You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace, the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately whatever you're using to do so has a HTTP User-Agent header value that is too generic or otherwise excessively suspicious. Unfortunately, as of early 2025 there's a plague of high volume crawlers (apparently in part to gather data for LLM training) that behave like this. To reduce th

This Experimental Weight Loss Drug Works Without the Nausea or Vomiting

What if you could lose weight with a drug that won’t make you lose your lunch at the same time? New research shows it might be possible. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Kentucky, and other institutions say they’ve found a potentially novel way to suppress people’s appetite and treat obesity—without causing the nausea or vomiting commonly experienced with semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy). In early animal experiments, the team’s experimenta

Checklists are hard (but still a good thing)

You're using a tool with a too-generic User-Agent You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace, the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately whatever you're using to do so has a HTTP User-Agent header value that is too generic or otherwise excessively suspicious. Unfortunately, as of early 2025 there's a plague of high volume crawlers (apparently in part to gather data for LLM training) that behave like this. To reduce th

Lightning Kills Way More Trees Than Anyone Thought, New Research Suggests

We’ve all seen dramatic footage of lightning striking a mighty tree, its branches going up in flames. But how often does this actually happen? Researchers didn’t know how much lightning impacted forests—until now. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a computer model to provide what they claim to be the first estimate of lightning’s impact on forest ecosystems around the world. According to their study, lightning affects forests more than previously thought. Sp

I tested two new Govee indoor lights and turned my place into an enchanting light show

Govee Table Lamp 2 Pro x Sound by JBL The Govee Table Lamp 2 Pro x Sound by JBL offers gorgeous lighting effects and Bluetooth speaker functionality. It sounds great and will look even better. While there are better speakers at its price point, none of them look as good as this one. You can never have enough RGB lighting, right? Not only does it definitely improve fps while gaming (this is scientifically proven), but these lights can set the mood and turn any space into a mesmerizing light show

Manticore Search: Fast, efficient, drop-in replacement for Elasticsearch

Easy to use open source fast database for search Manticore Search is an easy-to-use, open-source, and fast database designed for search. It is a great alternative to Elasticsearch. Introduction ❗Read recent blog post about Manticore vs Elasticsearch❗ What distinguishes it from other solutions is: It's very fast and therefore more cost-efficient than alternatives, for example Manticore is: 182x faster than MySQL for small data (reproducible❗) 29x faster than Elasticsearch for log analytics (

Apple Watch sleep score looks set to replicate these two smart ring features

Earlier today we saw iOS 26 code suggesting that an Apple Watch sleep score feature is in development, with a percentage score indicating your readiness to tackle the day ahead. The feature also provides a more condensed graphical representation of your sleep stages than is currently available. What is shown and described looks like a very close match for two features provided by the Oura smart ring, so here’s a look at how those work … The Oura Ring readiness and sleep scores Each morning, w

Why you can't color calibrate deep space photos

Why you can't color calibrate (deep) space photos: Jul 21, 2025 Color is the most disputed part of astrophotography. It seems like no two images have the same colors, and the internet is full of disputes over what colors are correct or natural. Human vision and perception are very complex. This description is hugely simplified as to fit in a blog post. If you want details, consult a textbook. Roughly speaking, our eyes have four types of photoreceptors. The most abundant, rods, provide a bla

A media company demanded a license fee for an Open Graph image I used

22nd July 2025 I displayed an open graph image and had to pay how much?! A media company demanded a license fee for an Open Graph image used on my twitter archive. I gave in and paid it, but what does that mean for open graph images and copyright? In April 2025, I received an email from an image licensing company (hereby "licensor") regarding an image used on my twitter archive. That image was owned by them, but used as the Open Graph image for a news article. They demanded I purchase a licen

Hegel Dust

SO MUCH DEPENDS UPON La Vache qui rit, which you know as the Laughing Cow, the individually wrapped wedges of spreadable cheese from your childhood. Founded in 1921 by a French veteran of the First World War, the company’s name is based on a pun on Wagner’s Valkyries and an anti-German slur. The product’s package—a circular box with a jolly red-faced cow wearing ear tags that have jolly red-faced cows on them—has gone down in advertising history as an early instance of successful branding. In th

Toy company may regret coming for “Sylvanian Drama” TikToker, experts say

A popular account on TikTok and Instagram stopped posting suddenly at the end of last year, hit by a lawsuit after garnering millions of views on funny videos using adorable Calico Critter dolls made for preschoolers to act out dark, cringe-y adult storylines. While millions of followers mourn the so-called "Sylvanian Drama" account's demise, experts told Ars that the creator may have a decent chance at beating the lawsuit. The "Sylvanian Drama" account derived its name from "Sylvanian Familie

Fun with gzip bombs and email clients

Gzip/Zip bombs have been a thing for decades. Lets create a 10MB gzip file which decompresses to 10GB: dd if =/dev/zero bs =1G count =10 | gzip > 10gb.gz This is called a Gzip bomb, because when it is decompressed, it blows up to a much larger size (~1000 larger). Add it your website document root and configure Nginx to serve it up as an image, with gzip Content-Encoding: location /10gb.png { default_type image/png; add_header Content-Encoding gzip; try_files /10gb.gz = 404 ; } An HTTP clien

Topics: 10gb https img png src

iOS 26 beta 4 adds (and removes) CarPlay wallpaper options

Apple has changed up the wallpaper collection on CarPlay in iOS 26 beta 4. Several new options have been added. The update also removes many of the existing wallpaper options that were still hanging around from older iOS versions. CarPlay in iOS 26 developer beta 4 includes nine wallpaper choices. Each wallpaper changes its appearance for light and dark mode, creating 18 possible options. CarPlay previously featured a variety of wallpaper styles, including versions based on iPhone default wall

Don't animate height

Our app was mysteriously using 60% CPU and 25% GPU on my M2 MacBook. It turned out this was due to a tiny CSS animation! In this post, I show how to find expensive animations, why some are so expensive, and how to make many animations much cheaper. Along the way, we'll learn how the browser renders CSS animations and how to use Chrome's dev tools for performance profiling. The problem While building Granola, a note-taking app, I noticed it was using 60% CPU and 25% GPU on my M2 MacBook: Activ

Don't Animate Height

Our app was mysteriously using 60% CPU and 25% GPU on my M2 MacBook. It turned out this was due to a tiny CSS animation! In this post, I show how to find expensive animations, why some are so expensive, and how to make many animations much cheaper. Along the way, we'll learn how the browser renders CSS animations and how to use Chrome's dev tools for performance profiling. The problem While building Granola, a note-taking app, I noticed it was using 60% CPU and 25% GPU on my M2 MacBook: Activ

Show HN: A word of the day that doesn't suck

I’ve long thought that the Word of the Day was a wasted genre. The goal should be to give you words you can use; to enrich your understanding of words you already know; or at least to use words to tell you something neat about the world. Instead, what you usually get is words that will never be used in conversation, held up as curios. Some examples from Dictionary.com’s daily email: thewless, balladmonger, vagility, contextomy. These words are... not useful. I’ve always thought I could do bett

Reverse Proxy Deep Dive: Why HTTP Parsing at the Edge Is Harder Than It Looks

In Part 1 of this series, we explored a high-level overview of reverse proxies and dived deep into connection management. This post shifts our focus to the intricate world of HTTP handling within a reverse proxy. Deep Dive into HTTP Handling At a high level, the HTTP workflow from a proxy’s perspective might seem straightforward: Receive the request from the client Parse and sanitize the request Uses different requst metadata (path, headers, cookies) to select an upstream host Manipulates the

The Download: how to melt rocks, and what you need to know about AI

Geothermal startup Quaise certainly has an unconventional approach when it comes to destroying rocks: it uses a new form of drilling technology to melt holes through them. The company hopes it’s the key to unlocking geothermal energy and making it feasible anywhere. Quaise’s technology could theoretically be used to tap into the Earth’s heat from anywhere on the globe. But some experts caution that reinventing drilling won’t be as simple, or as fast, as Quaise’s leadership hopes. Read the ful

Topics: ai know quaise right talk

Amazon backs programmable optics startup Lumotive

Programmable optics startup Lumotive has added a few more strategic backers to its recent Series B round. Redmond, Washington-based Lumotive reopened its recent Series B funding round to bring in Amazon, through its Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and ITHCA Group, the technology investment arm of Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, as investors. These fresh funds bring the company’s Series B round to $59 million, up from the $45 million Lumotive initially closed in February. The startup has raise

Nasa’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft begins taxi tests

NASA/Jacob Shaw NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft has officially begun taxi tests, marking the first time this one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft has moved under its own power. NASA test pilot Nils Larson and the X-59 team, made up of NASA and contractor Lockheed Martin personnel, completed the aircraft’s first low-speed taxi test at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on July 10, 2025. The taxiing represents the X-59’s last series of ground tests before first fligh

NASA's X-59 Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Begins Taxi Tests

NASA/Jacob Shaw NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft has officially begun taxi tests, marking the first time this one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft has moved under its own power. NASA test pilot Nils Larson and the X-59 team, made up of NASA and contractor Lockheed Martin personnel, completed the aircraft’s first low-speed taxi test at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on July 10, 2025. The taxiing represents the X-59’s last series of ground tests before first fligh

The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

A pre-K teacher in Oklahoma is making news this week after forcing a left-handed 4-year-old boy to write with his right hand. The boy was sent home from school with an article discussing left- and right-handedness. The article mentions historic attitudes toward left-handedness that associate it with evil and the devil. It's written carelessly enough that it isn't clear whether the writer believes left-handedness is still seen as evil or whether that was only the case in the past. Regardless, it

Trucking's uneasy relationship with new tech

Trucking's uneasy relationship with new tech 41 minutes ago Share Save Sam Gruet Technology Reporter Reporting from Vancouver Share Save Getty Images Digital trucking apps look to minimise trucks without cargo When Jared first started out in trucking more than two decades ago, he didn't anticipate he'd be on tour with a country music star, hauling guitars, amps, and other pieces of on-stage equipment. "It just happened, right place, right time," the Canadian driver, who prefers not to use his

Losing language features: some stories about disjoint unions

You can give users syntactically unguarded access to union members, say by using container.field syntax, in which case all you can do if the tag doesn't match that field at runtime is to raise a runtime error, which you can at least do systematically, but the ergonomics are lousy: it's inefficient (you wind up checking twice) and it doesn't help the user avoid the runtime error by statically forcing cases to be handled. You can do #1 but then also fail to even raise a runtime error when the t

Topics: case mesa right tag types

Yoni Appelbaum on the real villians behind our housing and mobility problems

Over the past few decades, an astonishing pattern has taken place: Americans no longer migrate. From a peak of roughly one third of the country moving cities in a single year, today, migration rates have declined and are now in line with the Old Continent of Europe. The dynamism of the American economy was predicated on all kinds of people seeking out work and building families, but now that mobility is gone — and we need to find out why. Yoni Appelbaum, a senior editor at The Atlantic, just pu

Jane Jacobs Got Americans Stuck

Over the past few decades, an astonishing pattern has taken place: Americans no longer migrate. From a peak of roughly one third of the country moving cities in a single year, today, migration rates have declined and are now in line with the Old Continent of Europe. The dynamism of the American economy was predicated on all kinds of people seeking out work and building families, but now that mobility is gone — and we need to find out why. Yoni Appelbaum, a senior editor at The Atlantic, just pu

Alaska Airlines Flights Resume After IT Outage. What to Do if You Were Affected

Alaska Airlines paused its operations for several hours, late on July 20. This was due to what the company called, "a significant IT outage" affecting its operations. About 3 hours later, flights resumed and the company posted on X: "Alaska Airlines has resolved its earlier IT outage and has resumed operations. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and encourage guests to check your flight status before heading to the airport." The delays affected Alaska Air and Horizon Air flights at

Dying Light: The Beast Hands-On: Brutal Survival in a Zombie-Ridden Forest

Two hours into my gaming preview of Dying Light: The Beast, I was jogging through a beautiful woodland dotted with cabins and park benches -- a spot that would make for a lovely vacation, if not for the hordes of zombies wandering all over. Despite stealthily creeping around, I was spotted by a large group and frantically fended them off with a shovel, growing more desperate and overwhelmed -- until my rage meter maxed out and I became a beast. I roared and tore the zombies limb from limb until

New colors without shooting lasers into your eyes

1. Your eyes sense color. They do this because you have three different kinds of cone cells on your retinas, which are sensitive to different wavelengths of light. For whatever reason, evolution decided those wavelengths should be overlapping. For example, M cones are most sensitive to 535 nm light, while L cones are most sensitive to 560 nm light. But M cones are still stimulated quite a lot by 560 nm light—around 80% of maximum. This means you never (normally) get to experience having just o