Published
Weekend Reading — Claim denied
The Mighty Git "One of the curious upsides to discovering you have ADHD as an older man is that suddenly other people have an easier time finding presents for you..."
Tech Stuff
Mantine DataTable When you need an all powerful data table in your UI that can do everything and more: control cell styling (ellipsis, wrapping, etc), summary footers, filtering, sorting, pagination, column/row dragging, checkbox selection, action cells, etc.
better-auth All batteries included library for managing authentication. Supports email & password, OTP/TOTP, social sign-on, magic link, phone number, passkey, JWT, and much more. Includes client and server-side code, database schema, typescript, etc.
How I ship projects at big tech companies So true:
The most common error I see is to assume that shipping is easy. The default state of a project is to not ship: to be delayed indefinitely, cancelled, or to go out half-baked and burst into flames. Projects do not ship automatically once all the code has been written or all the Jira tickets closed. They ship because someone takes up the difficult and delicate job of shipping them.
ElectricSQL A Postgres sync engine so you can sync data changes instead of constantly querying. I'm using Trigger.dev which uses ElectricSQL to sync state between my client and jobs they run on their platform. And it works quite well.
Pgroll Zero-downtime, reversible, schema changes for PostgreSQL.
you have to complain about javascript or alan turing died for nothing
name-fixer When you need the name properly capitalized. The app I’m working on is used by shop people entering data, and so names are never properly capitalized, emails are mostly all capital, and some other quite logical and reasonable shenanigans. This is one of the fixes I'm using.
Craft I'm a Craft convert. V3 is really good and I just signed up for Craft to replace other apps I've been using before — Apple Notes, Notion, Google Docs, etc. It's not perfect, some of the editing is weird and it has too many settings and UIs to manage them. But it’s not impossibly difficult to use, and worth the subscription price.
MarkItDown Converts PDF, PPTX, DOCX, XSLX, images, audio, and more into Markdown. Because Markdown is easily editable and fully searchable and other good things.
“Kris, are you nervous being responsible for this release?”
I’ve screwed up so many things so many times that it doesn’t bother me anymore.
(That was maybe not the answer they wanted.)
Laura “Now this brings back memories.”
Productivity Blocker Finally! a Chrome extension that blocks 80+ productivity apps so you can do less, more.
Oof. I know how you feel validator…I know how you feel. I give up sometimes too.
Apparently 940 is the limit for the w3c html validator. New record. In a bad way.
Gresham's law of programming Bad code drives out good code:
To reformulate Gresham's law for source code: bad code drives out good. In the financial context, bad and good is about relative intrinsic values. Software doesn't have intrinsic value. At least not in the way that currency and commodities do. With software, bad and good is about relative measures of quality.
Otto It's like a spreadsheet and AI came together and the AI can do quite a lot of powerful stuff with the tables: scrape web sites, enrich data, categorize, summarize, etc.
error “For the bus enthusiasts 🚌”
Eye for Design
TimeyWimey This is an utterly brilliant design for determining the right time for your next cross-timezone meeting. This UI is so simple yet so effective.
Amer-Jabar/khoshnus Animate SVG text with a beautiful, handwritten effect.
Peoples
Funny how I was never admonished at work for an “unprofessional tone” when they thought I was a guy.
we had hot desking at my previous workplace, and they even explicitly stated that any unoccupied office could be claimed if you needed. So I took the CEO office when she was out of town. When management got upset I showed them the email she wrote and quoted the "any office" line. They installed a lock on that office after this, but didn't change the policy. I quit shortly after.
Business Side
Young people are returning to their rightful stomping grounds: The mall The kids … they’re doing just fine:
Nearly 63% of Gen Zers plan to shop at physical stores this holiday season, per CNBC, while only ~50% plan to use retailers’ apps and websites.
Nearly 50% of Gen Z shoppers try to actively avoid Amazon, compared to 20% of boomers and 40% of millennials.
The Case Against Google’s Claims of “Quantum Supremacy”: A Very Short Introduction. Just a friendly reminder that quantum computers are not the future of computing. And Google is not making tremendous progress here (neither is IBM). It’s all just bad math that journalists won’t even investigate:
Google Quantum AI’s claims (including published ones) should be approached with caution, particularly those of an extraordinary nature. These claims may stem from significant methodological errors and, as such, may reflect the researchers’ expectations more than objective scientific reality. I do not recommend treating Google’s past or future claims as a solid basis for policy-making decisions.
Kevin Beaumont “cyberpunk 2077 real life update just dropped”
Machine Intelligence
BlenderGPT When you need AI to generate 3D models from text or image prompts.
Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2: A Deep Dive into Working with Siri and ChatGPT, Together Things Apple Intelligence is good at:
There were no proper section headings, the formatting was inconsistent between paragraphs, and the monetary amounts had been entered with different currency symbols for EUR. I wanted to make the note look prettier with consistent formatting, so I opened the ‘Compose’ field of Writing Tools and sent ChatGPT the following request …
BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline And things Apple Intelligence is just not good at.
How Claude Became Tech Insiders’ Chatbot of Choice Because Claude is better!
With Claude, she said, the goal was to create an A.I. character that would be helpful with most requests, but would also challenge users when necessary.
Almost 65,000 Job Cuts Were Announced In April—And AI Was Blamed For The Most Losses Ever That sounds really really really bad — 65K is a lot of jobs to lose in one month. And AI is to blame for most of these losses? Let me run the numbers here. It says “800 lost jobs were blamed on AI” and 800 out of 65,000 is approximately 1.23%. So … not even a drop in the bucket. But if you don’t find some obscure way to blame AI, would people even click to read the rest of this article?
Killing CEOs: The USAmerican Way? This is not a real Mad magazine cover, but very believable nonetheless.
Healthsystem is Sick
Rick Altherr “You can't make this shit up”
Florida Woman Charged With Terrorism Ironically the Florida woman’s last name is Boston. Also ironically, she “attacked” Blue Cross Blue Shield by mentioning their policy to them at the end of the phone call: delay, deny, depose.
how come brian health insurance didnt just wear a bulletproof backpack like my kid was told to do
Imagine being the prosecutor who is going to have to find 12 people who haven't had a bad experience with health insurance
Worldwide, Policies Leave Health Care Inaccessible for Too Many Two days ago, December 12:
This year’s International Health Coverage Day comes amid global failures to dedicate adequate public resources to health care, undermining the right to health for people around the world.
Global Healthspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 World Health Organization Member States The problem in the US is the enormous gap between lifespan and healthspan — how long Americans live and how much of that time is spent in good health — is 12.4 years:
The study, which looked at global health data between 2000 and 2019—prior to the COVID-19 pandemic—found the US stood out for its years of suffering. By 2019, Americans had a gap between their lifespan and their healthspan of 12.4 years, the largest gap of any of the 183 countries included in the study. The second largest gap was Australia's, at 12.1 years, followed by New Zealand at 11.8 years and the UK at 11.3 years.
Find Out Why Health Insurance Denied Your Claim 💪
You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s free tool to generate a letter requesting your claim file from your health insurance company.
Everything Else
Grantscherm “Warum es manchmal echt schwierig ist.” (Why it’s really hard sometimes)
Minnesota suggests the existence of a far larger Meggasota
Me: Why does “fridge” have a “d” in it, but refrigerator doesn’t?
Interviewer: I meant questions about the job.
Me: Oh, no, I’m good then.
Old Maps Online An interactive map of world history — move through the timeline to see the world as we know it at any point in the past.
TIL I learned (from the side of a truck parked outside my office) that the French term for "blind spots" (as in the places where a truck driver can't see you in their mirrors) is "angles mort", "death angles", which I will probably now have to use in English too 😃
Isn't it weird how South Koreans were able to stare down and defeat a tyrant while having strict gun control laws?
Curious Are you a curious person and love reading non-fiction books? Once a month this club delivers you a book and then holds a Zoom meeting with author/expert to discuss it.
I'm gay, married and have had a good relationship with my neighbour since we moved in, in 2006. She found out we're gay recently and now won't speak to us. But we work from home, so her Amazon parcels now take an extra day or two to reach her. We're gay, not monsters Sandra.
Why do people become homeless in Oakland and Alameda County?
The new report dispels a persistent myth that homeless people flock to the East Bay, seeking laissez-faire policies and warmer weather. Instead, 80% of Oakland homeless residents surveyed said they had a permanent residence in Alameda County before becoming homeless.
90% of unsheltered people — a subset of the overall homeless population — do not have jobs. Yet only 3% of them said they don’t want to work. Many said they can’t because of health problems.
"60% of respondents reported having a disability, 35% reported a serious mental illness, and 29% reported having a substance use disorder.
Velofuso This is a remarkably beautifully designed espresso maker and bean grinder. If you’re buying a special gift for a coffee lover, check this out. $650 — $750 is on the pricey side but it looks like a work of art, and can you put a price on art? Oh and it’s 0.01% plastic and fully adjustable power because they also care about the environment.
Ever wondered why walking around museums is weirdly tiring? At normal speed our legs act like pendulums, swinging forward from the hip & saving us a huge amount of energy. In "museum shuffle" our muscles must do ALL the work of constant readjustment. So cake in the cafe is scientifically justified 🥳
Designer Babies Are Teenagers Now—and Some of Them Need Therapy Because of It 🤯
I don’t know if anyone’s making sure parents understand that they can’t test-drive a child and then return it.
Nostalgie Two things about this. One, it's a brand new but old-style coffee grinder, that's why it's called Nostalgie, so you can grind coffee the traditional way. Two, it's made by Peugeot which is the oldest car company in the world, which is also known for making bicycles, and also stuff for your kitchen. Which I guess is a double entendre 🤷
Arizona Sues Saudi-Owned Farm Draining Groundwater in the Desert So the Saudi opened a farm in Arizona, so they can take advantage of the underground water because Arizona is a desert but also not particularly good at preserving its reserves. And the reason Saudi needs water in the Arizona desert is … I’m not making this up:
The farm owned by Fondomonte uses billions of gallons of groundwater in La Paz County each year to irrigate the desert to grow hay, which it then ships back to the Middle East to feed dairy cows.
Specific Suggestions Click the button to get random advise on how to be as unproductive as possible. This is the CIA Simple Sabotage Field Manual done for the 21st century.
Low-proof bars are making hangovers a thing of SF’s past I cut off alcohol in 2023, which I’m not complaining about, but I did miss my daily ritual of drinking an IPA. I always claimed that I drink IPA for the flavor, not the alcohol. Anyways, someone introduced me to Athletic N/A IPA and I love it. And because it’s non-alcoholic I can drink as often as I want. Another one I really enjoy is Fieldwork N/A IPA. So I am digging the new sober-curious trend that’s growing strong and making delicious non-alcoholic beers a reality.
Comedy Wildlife They don’t look like they’re happy to see me.
Everything my doctor told me was basically right (or lessons from using Stelo for 3 months) BTW I learned about Stelo just a month ago. I bought one and used it for two weeks and just yesterday showed the Apple Health charts to my doctor. I love that I could just do that since Stelo doesn’t require a prescription. It works really well. And being needle-phobic it’s very important to know that I felt no pain putting it on.
Websites help protesters find prepaid meals, drinks, bathrooms This is how you do a protest 101! And yes, the president was just impeached, and also they just released a documentary about his wife’s shenanigans. US should take notes:
As thousands of protesters gather to demand President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, dedicated websites are popping up with information on where to find rest areas, bathrooms and even meals paid for by supporters in the general public.
Chad “So excited to break out this sweater for another year”
