Newsletter - January 26th 2025
My newsletters are a handful of articles I’ve read that I think are interesting enough to share. Enjoy!
Doctrine
Against the dark forest - Erin Kissane
https://www.wrecka.ge/against-the-dark-forest/
Erin Kissane looks at how the big social networks have become hostile to human interaction and what we can do going forward.
Interview with Marianne Bellotti - No Starch Press
https://nostarch.com/blog/womens-history-month-spotlight-deal-3
Marianne Bellotti, the author of Kill It With Fire, a book I recommend to anyone, talks about her career.
Data and Reality, 2nd Edition - Hillel Wayne
https://buttondown.com/hillelwayne/archive/data-and-reality-2nd-edition/
A hard to find digital edition appears in the wild.
Code
Hacking yourself a satellite - recovering BEESAT-1 - PistonMiner
https://cfp.cccv.de/38c3/talk/DSQ9FN/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdTcd94pVlY
One of the coolest projects I’ve seen in a while. A great walkthrough from PistonMiner at 38C3.
JavaScript dos and donts - Mu-An Chiou
https://muan.co/posts/javascript
Lessons learned from building frontends at GitHub.
Open Source
Ghostty
Mitchell Hashimoto has launched Ghostty after years in beta. It’s the snappiest terminal I’ve used. You can really feel the difference. It’s also super easy to configure, to the point I have it exactly how I want it with three lines of config (theme, tmux init, and fullscreen).
bpytop
https://github.com/aristocratos/bpytop
A drop-in replacement for top/htop. I’ve been running this for a few weeks now and it’s a welcome upgrade to htop.
Fediverse
RIP botsin.space
https://muffinlabs.com/posts/2024/10/29/10-29-rip-botsin-space/
botsin.space has been shut down by it’s admin. It raises important questions about how the Fediverse needs to be financed if it’s to be sustainable and avoid the encroachment of buyouts and VC cash.
ActivityPub Academy
A protocol playground for ActivityPub. Great for kicking the tyres.
Best Of The Web
European Night Train Map
https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/
I’m a sucker for a good visualisation and I’ve used this network a couple of times and it’s the best way to travel. You board at Paris at 9pm, hang out in the restaurant car for a couple of hours and then wake up in Barcelona ready to go.
LaTex Coffee Stains
https://www.overleaf.com/latex/examples/latex-coffee-stains/qsjjwwsrmwnc
For when you need that authentic academic look for your work.