When I think about what has happened with camera technology over the past quarter-century, I can't get my head around how it's possible to shoot a chestnut-backed chickadee at twilight at 1/100th second with a handheld 800mm lens.

[#birdwatching](https://fediscience.org/tags/birdwatching) [#birdphotography](https://fediscience.org/tags/birdphotography)

This cutesy feature popover in Slack is easy to dismiss until you discover that “precise customization" is the ability to disable the fricken’ gradients that make the navigation area such an unreadable mess.

Settings > Themes > Custom Theme > Window gradient — and you have to do it for every Slack you're in because of course you do.

Golden hour is for rabbits too.

Bought some Italian butter cookies this morning. Asked for an assortment.

Clerk: Any allergies?

Me (being silly): Just cats.

Clerk nods and made a show of putting back one of the cookies.

School tuck shop (aka canteen, cafeteria) menu from 1978, at the [#Australian](https://mastodon.social/tags/Australian) [#school](https://mastodon.social/tags/school) I attended as a kid. Older Aussies might find this interesting.

“Of course I like to read nontechnical books, although I read very slowly. Here are some that I heartily recommend.”—Don Knuth

😳

<https:www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/retd.html>

Another great tool is skhd (<https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd>), which is a hotkey daemon for Mac. It's especially great for controlling things like yabai. Here's my keybinds for moving focus to different spaces, and also moving applications between spaces.

I’m never really a fan of covers, but Royel Otis' cover of Linger by The Cranberries is incredible. Feels like going back to the 90s/00s. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGUVB19e13s>

For once this bushtit held still long enough for me to squeeze off a couple of frames.

[#birding](https://fediscience.org/tags/birding) [#birdphotography](https://fediscience.org/tags/birdphotography)

I upgraded the llm-gpt4all plugin to support running Llama 3 8B Instruct (thanks, Nomic AI):

llm install --upgrade llm-gpt4all  
llm -m Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct 'Write Python code to print 5 great names for a pet pelican'  

The quantized model is a 4.34GB download and should run on machine with 8GB RAM - works great on my M2 MacBook Pro

<https:github.com/simonw/llm-gpt4all/releases/tag/0.4>

I'm losing my mind watching this. The people involved need to either be given a massive Netflix contract or institutionalised <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jky5ZXI0axc>

Today I found a TUI frontend for curl! 🔥

🌀**cute**: TUI HTTP client with API/auth key management and request history/storage.

🌐 Supports importing Postman collections!

🦀 Written in Rust & built with [@ratatui_rs](https://fosstodon.org/@ratatui_rs)

⭐ GitHub: <https://github.com/PThorpe92/CuTE>

[#rustlang](https://fosstodon.org/tags/rustlang) [#ratatui](https://fosstodon.org/tags/ratatui) [#tui](https://fosstodon.org/tags/tui) [#curl](https://fosstodon.org/tags/curl) [#http](https://fosstodon.org/tags/http) [#request](https://fosstodon.org/tags/request) [#api](https://fosstodon.org/tags/api) [#auth](https://fosstodon.org/tags/auth)

Trying out the new Gemini 1.5 Pro model <https://developers.googleblog.com/2024/04/gemini-15-pro-in-public-preview-with-new-features.html>

Can run it online in Google AI Studio, but very easy to use it on the command line on a linux server with python modules llm & llm-gemini by [@simon](https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon) after getting the free API key in AI Studio. Took me 5 minutes to set up.

<https:github.com/simonw/llm-gemini>

Datasette Extract is a new Datasette plugin that uses GPT-4 (and the new GPT-4 Vision) to extract structured data from unstructured text and images and insert it into a SQLite database table. Here's a video demonstrating the plugin:

<https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NtJatmQR0>

yall ever seen a shaved alpaca before?

Ever wondered about UK place names? My new web app lets you search place names (starting with 'south', ending with 'burgh', containing 'sea' etc) and plot them on a map - and then share those maps with friends.

Have a look at <https://placenames.rtwilson.com/>, or try one of the examples, like this map of different suffixes: <https://placenames.rtwilson.com/#W3sidGV4dCI6ImJ1cmdoIiwiY29sb3IiOiIjZTMxYTFjIiwiY2hlY2tlZCI6dHJ1ZSwibWF0Y2hUeXBlIjoiZW5kc3dpdGgifSx7InRleHQiOiJoYW1wdG9uIiwiY29sb3IiOiIjMWY3OGI0IiwiY2hlY2tlZCI6dHJ1ZSwibWF0Y2hUeXBlIjoiZW5kc3dpdGgifSx7InRleHQiOiJiYWNoIiwiY29sb3IiOiIjMzNhMDJjIiwiY2hlY2tlZCI6dHJ1ZSwibWF0Y2hUeXBlIjoiZW5kc3dpdGgifV0>=

[#GIS](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/GIS) [#geospatial](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/geospatial) [#UK](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/UK) [#placenames](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/placenames) [#mapping](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/mapping) [#gischat](https://mastodon.me.uk/tags/gischat)

I've been writing serverside SQLite applications for several years now and I still picked things up from this article, which is extremely good. <https://kerkour.com/sqlite-for-servers>

Gorgeous dark-eyed junco at Santa Fe Ski Basin in New Mexico. So very different than the dark-eyed juncos here in Seattle. [#birdphotography](https://fediscience.org/tags/birdphotography) [#birdwatching](https://fediscience.org/tags/birdwatching)

OWC has an actually decent looking USB4 enclosure. I'll probably get one whenever the M3 mini comes out, you know cause no way in hell I’m paying $400 for 1TB of storage.
<https:www.owc.com/solutions/express-1m2>

[@asciinema](https://fosstodon.org/@asciinema) Awesome fix of the double-width characters!

To anyone using this with the [#Hugo](https://fosstodon.org/tags/Hugo) static site generator, I’ve updated my module to this new version: <https://github.com/cljoly/gohugo-asciinema/releases/tag/v3.7.1>

[@simon](https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon) Copilot is funny. If you can convince it that it's about programming, it'll tell you all sorts of things...

Another [#HelixEditor](https://fosstodon.org/tags/HelixEditor) change I made which is changing my life.

Pressing x will highlight whole lines. But if you accidentally hit x too many times, there is no way to go back up. So I made shift+x do exactly that.

X = ["extend_line_up", "extend_to_line_bounds"]

Aragorn and Éomer meet, ‘though all the hosts of Mordor lay between us. Did I not say so at the Hornburg?’

‘So you spoke, but hope oft deceives. I knew not then that you were a man foresighted. Yet twice blessed is help unlooked for. Never was a meeting of friends more joyful.’

The Python version of "Software Design by Example" will be out Real Soon: you can read the content at <https://third-bit.com/sdxpy/> or order a hard copy at <https://www.routledge.com/9781032725215> - please use the code "SMA22" to get 20% off. All royalties will go to support the Red Door Family Shelter in Toronto (<https://www.reddoorshelter.ca/>).

My teenager has introduced me to the band Wind Rose and it's awesome. It's like they asked themselves, "What if there was a band from Azeroth or Middle Earth?" Start here: <https://music.apple.com/us/album/diggy-diggy-hole/1472250263?i=1472251230>

[@rob](https://gts.cupcakerob.nl/@rob)

If you use poetry to manage your venv for each repo, you can also do: poetry shell to use start the virtualenv, and then run nvim . to start coding.

Provided that your dap is setup like this:

local dap = require("dap")  
dap.configurations.python = {  
 {  
 type = "python",  
 request = "launch",  
 name = "Launch file",  
 program = "${file}",  
 pythonPath = "python",  
 },  
}  

[#nvim](https://mastodon.world/tags/nvim) [#neovim](https://mastodon.world/tags/neovim) [#python](https://mastodon.world/tags/python)

TIL: if I want to debug [#python](https://gts.cupcakerob.nl/tags/python) :python: in [#neovim](https://gts.cupcakerob.nl/tags/neovim) :nvim:
your imported packages need to be in the same python env that debugpy is.

Now in [#LazyVim](https://gts.cupcakerob.nl/tags/lazyvim) , [#mason](https://gts.cupcakerob.nl/tags/mason) installs debugpy in it's own venv and the debug adapter can't find the other packages

so: install debugpy in your venv and run

:lua require('dap-python').setup('./venv/bin/python')

or use vscode/pycharm or something if you have a life ;-)

Here's the list of features you should disable on every installation of Windows 11.

[#microsoft](https://mastodon.social/tags/microsoft) [#windows11](https://mastodon.social/tags/windows11) [#features](https://mastodon.social/tags/features)
<https:tchlp.com/3SXEQEi>

Numbat (<https://numbat.dev/>) is a calculator thing that understands units. They recently added some date and time support, which I'm hoping will satisfy my need for easy to use date math. [#Rust](https://mastodon.decentralised.social/tags/Rust) [#cli](https://mastodon.decentralised.social/tags/cli)

I’ve never been more excited to do a blog post.

My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of the Firehouse Five Plus Two, a famous Disney-employee dixieland jazz band.

But along the way, I accidentally uncovered something incredible… a lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella, a song that hasn’t been heard in almost 75 years.

And you’re about to hear it too.

Read now: 🌟 <https://cabel.com/2024/02/13/firehouse-five-and-the-cinderella-surprise/>

This is going to be a hard one to explain tomorrow during standup.

As 2024 marks the resurgence of RSS and Atom, I decided to update my rudimentary RSS tools from 2007 to make them contemporary and works under Python 3. The release v1.0 marks this step and allow everyone to use and improve the RSS toolset.

🔗 GitHub <https://github.com/adulau/rss-tools>

[#rss](https://paperbay.org/tags/rss) [#opensource](https://paperbay.org/tags/opensource) [#atom](https://paperbay.org/tags/atom) [#open](https://paperbay.org/tags/open) [#rsstools](https://paperbay.org/tags/rsstools) [#federated](https://paperbay.org/tags/federated) [#unix](https://paperbay.org/tags/unix)

Outline of SQL tutorial has hit the "100 queries" goal <https://gvwilson.github.io/sql-tutorial/> still have at least six diagrams to draw, and would like appendices showing how to use DuckDB to do the same things (easy) and how to use permissions etc. in PostgreSQL (hard because setup and re-run). Help always welcome: please see <https://gvwilson.github.io/sql-tutorial/contributing/> for the contributors' guide.

Thanks to everyone who submitted and participated to the BEAM devroom, it was packed from start to finish and full of interesting talks!

Tonight if anyone wants to get together we will be at the Wolf Sharing Food Market from 7 PM

<https:wolf.be/>

To find us just go around looking for a bunch of people with BEAM looking faces 😄

[#erlang](https://patavium.social/tags/erlang) [#elixir](https://patavium.social/tags/elixir) [#gleam](https://patavium.social/tags/gleam) [#fosdem](https://patavium.social/tags/fosdem) [#WeBEAMTogether](https://patavium.social/tags/WeBEAMTogether)

Corners that glow.

[#streetphotography](https://sfba.social/tags/streetphotography) [#photography](https://sfba.social/tags/photography) [#newyorkcity](https://sfba.social/tags/newyorkcity) [#hithere](https://sfba.social/tags/hithere) [#yourecute](https://sfba.social/tags/yourecute) [#letsbefriends](https://sfba.social/tags/letsbefriends)

Here's some ridiculously exciting news...

One of the most useful nerdy documents on the internet is "Beej's Guide to Network Programming", a comprehensive tutorial on C socket programming that's been continually improved since 1995

I just found out Beej has a new guide (started in March 2023) called "Beej’s Guide to Networking Concepts" - which teaches networking concepts using Python!

<https:beej.us/guide/bgnet0/>

Happy 30th to [#Python](https://mastodon.social/tags/Python) 1.0.0, announced by Guido van Rossum on 27 Jan 1994 in comp.lang.misc! 🎂 🎈 3️⃣0️⃣ 🍾 🎉

---

Python 1.0.0 is out!

Guido van Rossum
27 Jan 1994

--> Tired of decyphering the Perl code you wrote last week?

--> Frustrated with Bourne shell syntax?

--> Spent too much time staring at core dumps lately?

Maybe you should try Python, the next generation object-oriented
scripting and prototyping language, with a *readable* syntax.

---

Read in full:
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.misc/c/_QUzdEGFwCo/m/KIFdu0-Dv7sJ>

I hope this email finds you well
I hope this email minds you
I hope this email brings you in
And in the darkness binds you

Finally taking the time to set up Safari Profiles properly and bind certain websites like YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to open in an ‘Undesirables' profile that I don't use for anything else. This feels like a better setup. [#Apple](https://toot.cafe/tags/Apple) [#Safari](https://toot.cafe/tags/Safari) [#privacy](https://toot.cafe/tags/privacy)

I wrote some ideas for how to actually make HTML documents a viable replacement for PDFs.

<https:willcrichton.net/notes/portable-epubs/>

[@octothorpe](https://mastodon.online/@octothorpe) [@dschaub](https://mstdn.social/@dschaub) [@atpfm](https://mastodon.social/@atpfm) [@siracusa](https://mastodon.social/@siracusa)

I love Elle Cordova and her clever, funny videos. This one is for all my writer and editor friends.

I think I'm becoming a fan of Christopher Ward watches. They have some very nice ones at the moment.
<https:www.christopherward.com/watches/c63-sealander-automatic/C63-39ADA3-S00K1-VC.html>

[@chockenberry](https://mastodon.social/@chockenberry) this is actually how you add more electrolytes to your diet

This product image on Amazon has the mystery of a Renaissance painting.

this one is so wild, thanks Mike Lee for the “Crazy Rose” version, <https://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/3562599283>

It’s so pretty and yet I get so little information from it, perfection.

For all the [#neovim](https://mastodon.social/tags/neovim) and [#vim](https://mastodon.social/tags/vim) lovers out there that are also using [#firefox](https://mastodon.social/tags/firefox) - as we all should do - here is something to play with on this fine [#sunday](https://mastodon.social/tags/sunday)

<https:github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl> -- [#tridactyl](https://mastodon.social/tags/tridactyl)
A Vim-like interface for Firefox, inspired by Vimperator/Pentadactyl.

DIe Macht in Dosen, ich sags euch.

About 1 month ago I decided that I had slipped into some bad typing habits. So today marks to the 200th lesson of me rebuilding my typing skills.

app for the curious: <https://www.keybr.com>

Leslie Lamport, of LaTeX fame, is a very accomplished mathematician and computer scientist with a Turing award for his work on “fundamental contributions to the theory and
practice of distributed and concurrent systems”. He just published a draft of his new book:

"A science of concurrent programs"

<https:lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/science.pdf>

True to his pedagogic approach to everything he does, "The book assumes only that you know the math one learns before entering a university." Even the appendices are fantastic. Can only wish I'll remain this lucid at his 82 years old.

[#multithreading](https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/multithreading) [#maths](https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/maths) [#LesleyLamport](https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/LesleyLamport)

I still don't have Covid, but my Apple fanboi test came back positive. [@sixcolors](https://zeppelin.flights/@sixcolors)

The FLIRC Skip 1S remote looks nice.

<https:flirc.tv/products/skip1s-remote-universal-remote-control?variant=43489094729960>

This is really nice. High quality text to speech from Python:
<https:github.com/rhasspy/piper>

You can also download the models locally, so they work on your own system, and with some Bash magic, you can have a better version of Apple's "say" command.

Git is a frustratingly useful tool that has many lesser known features that really should be on by default. Today I wrote about one of them: zdiff3. It makes merge conflicts easier to work through and frees you up for more important things.

<https:ductile.systems/zdiff3>

If you'd like to soft-wrap only the current time, this [#Neovim](https://hachyderm.io/tags/Neovim) plugin implements the functionality by using floating windows and virtual text: <https://github.com/benlubas/wrapping-paper.nvim>

Giving [@zellij](https://hachyderm.io/@zellij) a try as [#tmux](https://mastodon.social/tags/tmux) replacement…
And it feels so "done right", just like when I moved on from (neo)vi(m) after decades to [#HelixEditor](https://mastodon.social/tags/HelixEditor)
The fundamental stuff just works and doesn't need a ton of tweaking, plugins and config debugging.
Getting started is made easy by the fact, that the UI doesn't hide its functionality behind a steep learning curve, but instead shows contextual hints for keyboard shortcuts, actions etc.
Something both, [#zellij](https://mastodon.social/tags/zellij) and [#HelixEditor](https://mastodon.social/tags/HelixEditor) just get right!

Liking this Italian Microsoft 1995 ad against piracy which basically threatens you with all kinds of evil and illness if you are using a pirated Windows version: viruses, "contamination", data loss, prison, nervous breakdown, etc

Made a Dutch baby! SO GOOD (and easy)!! 😋

This is cosmic-term, a very WIP project that takes the alacritty_terminal crate providing the majority of terminal code but rewrites the renderer to support additional features such as bidirectional text and ligatures. It will support both software and GPU rendering, and will have additional UI sugar provided by libcosmic as they are implemented.

<https:github.com/pop-os/cosmic-term/>

Anyone have any good wireless or wired earbud recommendations? I'm not talking high-end here. We need to be able to afford 3 of them because they'd be for the kids. We're a heavily Apple household, but there's no way we can afford AirPods x 3 so it has to be something cheaper but also something that doesn't totally suck and would hopefully last awhile.

Great complete Goose live show, free on YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvhNRj13KrQ>