[@gla](https://mastodon.social/@gla) A couple of months ago, someone told me they allow the LLM to create its own file and use a diff tool to jump quickly from typo to typo. I think if I switch to a new system, that’s what I’ll go with.

But I would like to see your system if you have it posted somewhere.

the UNIX v4 tape reminded me of this story by Ali Akurgal about Turkish bureaucracy:

Do you know what the unit of software is? A meter! Do you know why? In 1992, we did our first software export at Netaş. We wrote the software, pressed a button, and via the satellite dish on the roof, at the incredible speed of 128 kb/s, we sent it to England. We sent the invoice by postal mail. $2M arrived at the bank. 3-4 months passed, and tax inspectors came. They said, “You sent an invoice for $2M?” “Yes,” we said. “This money has been paid?” they asked. “Yes,” we said. “But there is no goods export; this is fictitious export,” they said! So we took the tax inspectors to R&D and sat them in front of a computer. “Would you press this ‘Enter’ key?” we asked. One of them pressed it, then asked, “What happened?” “You just made a $300k export, and we’ll send its invoice too, and that will be paid as well,” we said. The man felt terrible because he had become an accomplice! Then we explained how software is written, what a satellite connection is, and how much this is worth. They said, “We understand, but there has to be a physical goods export; that’s what the regulations require.” So we said: “Let’s record this software onto tape (there were no CDs back then—nor cassettes; we used ½-inch tapes) and send that.” Happy to have found a solution, they said, “Okay, record it and send it.” The software filled two reels, which were handed to a customs broker, who took them to customs and started the export procedure. The customs officer processed things and at one point asked, “Where are the trucks?” The broker said, “There are no trucks—this is all there is,” and pointed to the tape reels on the desk. The customs officer said, “These two envelopes can’t be worth $2M; I can’t process this.” We went to court, an expert committee examined whether the two reels were worth $2M. Fortunately, they ruled that they were, and we were saved from the charge of fictitious export. The same broker took the same two reels to the same customs officer, with the court ruling, and restarted the procedure. However, during the process, the unit price, quantity, and total price of the exported goods had to be entered—as per the regulations. To avoid dragging things out further, they looked at the envelope, saw that it contained tape, estimated how many meters of tape there are on one reel, and concluded that we had exported 1k to 2k meters of software. So the unit of software became the meter.

Guide to exposing [#SilverBullet](https://fosstodon.org/tags/SilverBullet) to the Internet securely using [#Cloudflare](https://fosstodon.org/tags/Cloudflare) [#ZeroTrust](https://fosstodon.org/tags/ZeroTrust). A pretty nice setup giving you access to [#SilverBullet](https://fosstodon.org/tags/SilverBullet) from anywhere.

<https:community.silverbullet.md/t/use-silverbullet-with-cloudflare-zero-trust/3618>

Introducing Slop Detective!

An interactive game where you'll become fraud investigators, learning to spot AI-generated fakes and improve fact-checking skills.

Perfect for kids learning to investigate suspicious stories, images, and audio clips:

https://slopdetective.kagi.com/

Available as apps as well!

- App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/slop-detective/id6752807487
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kagi.slopdetective

#Kagi #AISlop #AI #Apps

The Uncertainty Calculator enables users to perform calculations using precise numbers and ranges (e.g., 4 or 4 ± 6) to express uncertainty. It simplifies statistical reasoning for everyday decisions, helping users gauge potential financial outcomes in uncertain situations.

Key Features

• Input both exact numbers and ranges with a tilde (~) to denote uncertainty.

• Operates on basic mathematical operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and supports functions like exponentiation, square roots, and trigonometric functions.

• Utilizes a Monte Carlo method for computations, providing a probabilistic range of results.

• Design is basic and intentionally user-friendly, aiming to empower those without deep statistical knowledge.

Limitations

• Calculation speed is slower due to Monte Carlo simulations, and the formula parser may show errors.

• Only normal distributions are assumed for ranges, providing a simplified model for uncertainty.

Practical Applications

• Estimate financial viability of business ideas, calculate potential investment returns, assess risks, and more, all accounting for uncertainty in key variables.

New InStock!

ElChibre: <https://keeb.supply/products/el-chibre>

There's a piece of monologue in a Czech theatrical comedy that I'm quite fond of, and it goes something like this: “According to our carbon dating analysis, this letter was written on January 21, 1842, plus-minus two thousand years.”

Took me a second but by god that's good

<https:filiph.github.io/unsure/>

[@filiph](https://mastodon.social/@filiph)

h/t [#TheCrux](https://eigenmagic.net/tags/TheCrux)

[#Helix](https://mastodon.social/tags/Helix) users, this is by far the best workaround for missing autoreload in helix. <https://crates.io/crates/fs_watcher_lsp>

one in four animals on the planet earth is a beetle. think of your three closest friends. if none of them are beetles, statistically speaking you are probably a beetle.

Karts. Nitro. Action! SuperTuxKart is a 3D open-source arcade racer with a variety of characters, tracks, and modes to play. Our aim is to create a game that is more fun than realistic, and provide an enjoyable experience for all ages.

pdfly is a CLI tool to manipulate PDF files, written in Python and based on the fpdf2 & pypdf libraries. It can:

- display PDF metadata using pdfly meta and pdfly pagemeta commands
- combine files into new PDF documents: it can extract specific pages & merge documents (pdfly cat); selectively remove pages (pdfly rm); convert images to PDF documents (pdfly x2pdf); and even compress documents (pdfly compress) or build booklets (pdfly 2-up & pdfly booklet).
- pull out specific content from PDF files: pdfly extract-images & pdfly extract-annotated-text.
- fix manually-edited PDF documents, so that they can be opened in a PDF viewer again!

I don't like the phrase "Technical Debt". It's effectively lost all meaning.

I always need to ask, "what about it is technical debt?"

I've gotten a variety of responses:
- the abstractions are wrong
- the performance is bad
- the technology is out of date
- it's undocumented
- I don't know the tech

That last one in particular when someone told me, "It's technical debt because I don't know the tech," is when I knew the phrase had lost all meaning.

This tool lets you drag (or paste) an image onto the page and then shows a comparison of different sizes and quality settings, each of which can be downloaded

A useful image tool. Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn etc all benefit from a 2x1 aspect ratio "card" image. I built this custom tool for creating those - you can paste in an image and crop and zoom it to the right dimensions.

The iPhone 17 Pro Camera Review is here! <https://www.lux.camera/iphone-17-pro-camera-review-rule-of-three/>

I'm up to 124 little mostly-vibe-coded apps on my tools.simonwillison.net site and most of them are trivial but some of them aren't, so I wrote up this guide to the ones I think are most worth checking out <https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/4/highlighted-tools/>

Kando is an open-source cross-platform pie menu. You can use it to launch applications, execute keyboard macros, open files, and much more!

Multitouch lets you execute a custom action when you perform a specific trackpad or magic mouse gesture. Easily execute keyboard shortcuts, control your browser's tabs, perform a middle mouse click, and more.

- A powerful gesture engine
- First class window management included
- Keys & Mouse Buttons, too

Everyone’s into AI feeds in 2025. Meanwhile, I’m here polishing my RSS feed with XSLT. 😂
(Also because I’m a reader of Jamie Zawinski’s blog.)

<https:www.cedricbonhomme.org/2025/08/18/rss-xslt-styling/>

[#rss](https://fosstodon.org/tags/rss) [#atom](https://fosstodon.org/tags/atom) [#newsreader](https://fosstodon.org/tags/newsreader) [#web](https://fosstodon.org/tags/web) [#xslt](https://fosstodon.org/tags/xslt) [#indieweb](https://fosstodon.org/tags/indieweb)

Python app to work with pictures and associated metadata from Apple Photos on macOS. Also includes a package to provide programmatic access to the Photos library, pictures, and metadata.

OSXPhotos provides the ability to interact with and query Apple's Photos.app library on macOS and Linux. You can query the Photos library database — for example, file name, file path, and metadata such as keywords/tags, persons/faces, albums, etc. You can also easily export both the original and edited photos. OSXPhotos also works with iPhoto libraries, though some features are available only for Photos.

- A command-line tool to download all your iCloud photos.
- Works on Linux, Windows, and macOS; laptop, desktop, and NAS
- Available as an executable for direct downloading and through package managers/ecosystems (Docker, PyPI, AUR, npm)
- Developed and maintained by volunteers (we are always looking for help).

Parachute is a set-and-forget backup companion for iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive. It automatically syncs your memories—photos, videos, and documents—to your own storage, giving you peace of mind and full control.

1-Click Photo Library Backup

Back up your entire photo library to any storage location, including external drives and network locations like NAS devices. Supports iCloud and all media types such as videos, live photos, portraits, slo-mo, and more and preserves all non-destructive edits, albums, locations, and timestamps . Backups can be restored directly into a photo library while maintaining all metadata.

Monsters invaded your base, do you have enough time to guard it?

Save Safari website as PDF (with syncing cookies).

Swift script

Act on your Finder files with natural language, with this unique command bar.

Convert, organize and more: control your Mac and its files with natural language.

Just drop sakura.css into any webpage and go from an ugly-looking 1900s website to a pretty, modern website in literally 0 seconds.

It’s easy to customize and build on top of sakura.

Sakura supports extremely easy theming using variables for duotone color scheming. It comes with several existing themes, which can be found in the css folder of this repository.

A syntax-aware git merge driver for a growing collection of programming languages and file formats.

The Bookmark Everything app. Hoard links, notes, and images and they will get automatically tagged AI.

Quickly save links, notes, and images and karakeep will automatically tag them for you using AI for faster retrieval. Built for the data hoarders out there!

dessine-moi les personnages de l’histoire dit le petit prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry / Richard Berner, UK-based illustrator
[#drawing](https://h4.io/tags/drawing) [#art](https://h4.io/tags/art) [#history](https://h4.io/tags/history) [#illustration](https://h4.io/tags/illustration)

I just released v2 of Toney, A TUI Note-taking app for the terminal.

<https:github.com/SourcewareLab/Toney>
<https:sourcewarelab.github.io/Toney/>

PS: Actively looking for contributors! It would be great if you could star the repo, I am a student and it really helps applications. Thanks!

[#OpenSource](https://mastodon.social/tags/OpenSource) [#productivity](https://mastodon.social/tags/productivity) [#terminal](https://mastodon.social/tags/terminal) [#development](https://mastodon.social/tags/development) [#developers](https://mastodon.social/tags/developers) [#neovim](https://mastodon.social/tags/neovim)

<https:ansi.tools/> looks pretty useful

TIL about caligula, a CLI disk burning tool that automates away some of the usual steps you might take when using dd for the same task.

<https:github.com/ifd3f/caligula>

/via <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BxIpVk_xZI>

[#Rust](https://mastodon.decentralised.social/tags/Rust) [#Linux](https://mastodon.decentralised.social/tags/Linux)

if you put a webserver up on the internet. anywhere, hosting anything, you will see "the background radiation of the internet", and it looks like this:

Once again, dealing with email shenanigans and bumped into this, which someone put a lot of time into…

<https:www.learndmarc.com>

Last month I walked across Spain.
Here are some reflections from the experience.

<https:matthewrocklin.com/camino.html>