Simon Wood
Lecturer in Medical Education at Cardiff University, lapsed mathematician, garden railway builder & Doctor Who appreciator.
Lecturer in Medical Education at Cardiff University, lapsed mathematician, garden railway builder & Doctor Who appreciator.
I give too much credit to Apple. I didn't even realise the pairing limitations for 3rd party headphones were due to Apple's restrictions until the EC busted them for it. https://www.theverge.com/news/633493/apple-ios-eu-dma-iphone-interoperability-requirements
This is a fascinating reflection on the difficulties and mistakes in try to cover the current US administration honestly. Huge respect to The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/policy/633397/ftc-bedoya-slaughter-democrat-media
I love this blog post about fun / silly / niche apps built on the #MastodonAPI https://halcy.de/blog/2025/03/18/silly-mastodon-apps/
On the inevitability of returning to the office: https://werd.io/2025/forcing-people-back-to-the-office-was-a-choice-im
Researchers at Harvard Business School and University of Toronto used unique data to quantify the value of open source.
Takeways:
* Supply-side (cost to recreate) is ~$4.15B, but demand-side (value to firms) is $8.8T. Shows massive cost savings & productivity boost from OSS.
* If OSS didn't exist, firms would need to spend an estimated 3.5 times more on software than they currently do. OSS provides a massive, often invisible, productivity boost.
* A tiny fraction of OSS developers create the vast majority of value. Only 5% of developers are responsible for over 96% of the demand-side value
* Firms should not just "free ride" on OSS but actively contribute to the ecosystem, as this is far cheaper than recreating the software themselves.
Source:
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-502c-4139-8bf2-56eb4b65c58a.pdf
This is genius.
Original thread on bsky https://bsky.app/profile/seamas.bsky.social/post/3lkigjm7sk222
WOW - The French government announced a new OSS project simply called Docs:
“A collaborative note taking, wiki and documentation that scales. Built with Django and React. Opensource alternative to Notion or Outline."
It’s even offline-first, using the CRDTs under the hood (Y.js).
LOL, does this mean I get to roll out the
"Liberté, Egalité, CRDTé”
Dad joke?
I think it does. Link below:
https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/
V interesting joint project between DINUM (🇫🇷) and Zendis (🇩🇪)
This week, Simon and Eugene look at the final episode of the first series of Real Humans, episode 10, The Code.
They discuss the source of HuBot morality, how HuBot’s having an old USB-A port is at least better than a Lightning port, why HuBots don’t have laser eyes, and what the Swedish Actors Union might have to say about using digital clones to enable recasting.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:10 — 96.4MB) | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
https://fusionpatrol.com/2025/03/15/727-real-humans-the-code/
@danielholt @CultureDesk Yes. Same on s3. Maybe this is a chance to redeem it? Or maybe I should just rewatch the first two…
@CultureDesk @Flipboard @THR "I'll probably watch it" and "They should leave it be" aren't mutually exclusive...
Ted Lasso Renewed for a Fourth Season on Apple TV+ https://www.macstories.net/news/ted-lasso-renewed-for-a-fourth-season-on-apple-tv/
π in the sky
He'd think about her
constantly – well, 22/7 –
never completing.
He even stopped eating.
Then, one day – at 3.14 –
a chance meeting.
But, sadly,
not repeating.
It is embarrassing that the UK needs a lecture about authoritarianism from the US right now https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/14/us-lawmakers-urge-uk-spy-court-to-hold-apple-backdoor-secret-hearing-in-public/
★ Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino
https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino
Not sure about Macfadyen as #Smiley. The problem for anyone is that Guiness is impossible to surpass in the role, but he's also going to have to make his Smiley sufficiently distinct from Tom Quinn... https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/14/matthew-macfadyen-george-smiley-legacy-of-spies-john-le-carre-tv-show
This is pretty huge news for Mastodon users: Once this feature is up and running comments to a post will not be limited to whatever is federated to your server through indirect means. The whole platform should feel a lot more vibrant after this, and it addresses what has been one of the main complaints about Mastodon.
It is summarized like this by @FediTips@social.growyourown.services:
Some good news about #Mastodon, there has been a very significant bit of code added which will automatically fetch all the replies in a thread. This means everyone will be able to see a thread's whole conversation no matter which server they are on! 🥳
The code has just been "merged" which means it should become available in the next update to Mastodon, hopefully within the next few months.
(Those who want the technical details can see the Pull Request at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/32615)
While it is exciting, Mastodon CTO @renchap@oisaur.com points out that we maybe shouldn't expect too much too soon, although it is a big step in the right direction:
it is important to point out that this is very experimental, behind a feature flag, and there will be a need for more changes to get it in front of people.
Also we don’t recommend activating it yet, this may have significant performance implications or bugs.
@LoneLocust I wondered if I needed to pay for the plus thing (£39.99/year, that's a steeper exchange rate even than usual!) But it doesn't tell me I need that, or explain that it's a premium feature, so no guarantee it would work if I stumped up.
Meanwhile I seem to have solved my syncing problem with Overcast by creating an email/password account. And its queue is actually working.
@LoneLocust I've created an account, as far as I could see, no syncing was happening without.
Now I'm trying to auto add podcasts to 'up next'. I can select multiple, but it always results in '1 podcast chosen'. No error messages, no entreaties to give them money, it just doesn't work.
I'm starting to see how Apple gets away with their train wreck of a podcast client.
@LoneLocust Ok, giving it a try. Do I need to create a Pocket Casts account for the sync to work? Apple/Overcast seemed to do this via iCloud, and Pocket Casts seems to want you to create an account - but will let you skip the step, although not clear what the consequences are!