I had not realized that exoplanetary geology was an option when I was in college.
The team is creating a "library of composition" of possible exoplanet surfaces based on the James Webb Space Telescope date. And the are creating Lava with it!
https://www.popsci.com/science/synthetic-alien-lava-exoplanets/
Ps. Apple spell checker choked on "exoplanetary". Shame on it!
Satan: Welcome to hell, the WiFi password is…
Me: Wait! You have Wifi?
Satan: Of course.
Me: Well, that not so bad then.
Satan: As I was saying, the WiFi password is Pi.
Alex "Foxicorn" Nekrasov provides good reasons to use Cocoapoad over Swift Package Manager.
Even now, CocoaPods does seem to be more customizable. And it does not require stable Internet.
https://blog.foxicorn.com/why-cocoapods-is-still-a-thing-in-2022-b1478f03852
Folks who are used to subclass objects and calling super.init() first, will learn things may be different with Swift.
Dinesh Kumar gives us a good breakdown of how it works.
https://medium.com/@dineshk1389/swift-why-super-init-is-called-after-setting-all-self-properties-d6827e9f4eb2
Thanks to John Sundell for his article on using SwiftUI stack views.
I like John’s idea of “a DynamicStack view that dynamically switches between an HStack and a VStack depending on the current context.”
https://www.swiftbysundell.com/articles/switching-between-swiftui-hstack-vstack/
When will I grow tired of looking at the Stars? The day I die.
The James Webb Space telescope is giving us essential complex scientific data. Along with some simply beautiful images.
https://www.popsci.com/science/skeleton-galaxy-james-webb-space-telescope/
40%-60% of Naval aviation may soon become unmanned, according to this Popular Science article.
The success of the Navy's Stingray tanker drone seems to have sped up development and deployment.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/navy-carriers-robot-planes/
Personal Side note:
A few friends know that I was a Navy Midshipman at UC Berkeley, intending to become a Navy Pilot with expertise in Computers. During these years, the officers and the students often talked about future development, including the possibility of entirely computer-controlled planes. The advantages were staggering. Most aircraft performance is limited by the endurance of the Pilot, both in G-factors in turns and length of time in the plane. Removing the cockpit, with its life support, visual avionics, ejector seat, and other human-required equipment would radically change the aircraft's weight. We could even bring back single jet planes for some missions since the Pilot's life is no longer an issue (the duel-engined plane is the policy when flying over water). While we agreed there were significant advantages, we thought that an AI pilot would be significantly limiting in a combat environment. In a perfect mission, they might work great, but when the mission goes sideways, the AI would have difficulty adapting. Adapting is one of the most human abilities.
We completely missed the idea of remotely controlled drones being possible in combat scenarios. The concept of the perfect radio remote control being worldwide, unjammable, and not being detectable by the enemy was outside our imaginations. Boy, did we miss the boat on that one.
Being young midshipmen, we possibly also missed the idea of remote drones being used for non-combat missions. Yeah, we were all going into fighters. In reality, drones are perfect for supply delivery, refueling, surveyance, and more.
Not precisely human speed records, but the 100-yard dash in 26 seconds is a new high mark for robots.
Bit by bit, the robot bipedal locomotion problem is being solved. This will have a big impact is general robot use.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/robot-new-guinness-world-record-100m-dash/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdojWYOK0Nc
Alex "Foxicorn" Nekrasov admits most Swift developers are already using some of these Swift features, but are they using them all?
This is a good list for new Swift programmers and to keep experienced developers up to date.
https://betterprogramming.pub/cool-swift-features-that-rarely-used-ea8eee870f16
Last week was the 11th anniversary of Steve Jobs's passing.
Jean-Louis Gassée shared what that means to some.
This article is an interesting Intellectual Property case with obvious applications in the Computer Industry.
How much do you have to change an original work into a new media & style for it to be Fair Use?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/politics/andy-warhol-prince-supreme-court/index.html
In case you missed the Meta Connect event, here are the major announcements.
Obviously, Quest Pro is the primary product, but there are some software items in the future.
https://tech.fb.com/ar-vr/2022/10/meta-connect-2022-keynote-recap-quest-pro/
I now work for a Terrorist Group? According to Russia, I am.
Allowing people to condemn a Russian invasion of another country is a Terrorist act in Russia. Enough said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63218095
Ok, this is not tech, but I had to post it. The History Guy gives us a great talk on Captain Kangaroo!
Good Morning, Captain, AKA Bob Kesshan, was my morning show growing up. And he is still beloved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDUEEqJer9k
Talk about unforeseen ramifications. Apple’s safety feature to provide Emergency services during an accident goes off on Amusement park rides.
You can see why, but still, it is funny.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/9/23395222/iphone-14-calling-911-rollercoasters-apple-crash-detection
I can’t get enough of these crazy Help Desk tickets.
When I call the Help Desk, I sometimes wonder if they are laughing at me. I wouldn’t blame them.
https://www.spiceworks.com/it-articles/funny-help-desk-tickets-part-2/
Side note: Ages ago, I spent a couple of years working for Apple in Chicago for Field Service. Among other tasks, we provided tech support to Apple Certified Dealers. Yes, Apple Stores did not exist then. We tried very hard not to have it happen, but once in a while, a customer would bypass the dealers, the people who were supposed to support the customer and get through to our hotline. Then we had the joy of dealing with someone the Dealers usually had given up on. One day, I was stuck on the phone with one such end user. I forget his problem, but I remember I was stuck on the phone with him for over an hour. I finally completed the call, slammed the phone down, and yelled loudly, “The Only Good End User Is A Dead End User”. Unluckily, or luckily, my boss was walking past my cubical when I said this, looked at me and told me to take the rest of the afternoon off. He was an intelligent boss.
Combine one of the most impressive Halloween-decorated houses with an illuminated drone swarm, and you get this show.
I am tempted to travel to California just to see it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0eHQe2KY3U
“The Story of the Colecovision, What Could Have Been!”
How did a Leather company became such a computer game pioneer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkKKBgBXYSI
Visualizing software structure as a graph has become easier with this tool.
Thanks to the author i.vikas, for explaining SwiftPlantUMLApp.
https://medium.com/@i.vikas/understanding-swift-code-using-diagrams-2da538240034
SwiftPlantUML Repository: https://github.com/MarcoEidinger/SwiftPlantUML-Xcode-Extension
SwiftPlantUML Home-brew: https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/swiftplantumlapp
The best way I know to understand Swift’s keywords SOME & ANY is to look at good examples.
John Sundell's article has some great examples.
https://www.swiftbysundell.com/articles/referencing-generic-protocols-with-some-and-any-keywords/
Two robots, the Bumble C and Optimus, take stage at Tesla AI Day.
Elon Musk predicts that similar robots coast will be around $20,000. Less than most cars.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/teslas-ai-day-optimus/
You have heard the phrase “her outfit looked sprayed on”; in this case, it was true.
Some facinating technology at the Paris Fashion Week has people talking.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/bella-hadid-coperni-spray-on-dress/index.html
Two cases before the Supreme Court will significantly impact the use of Social Media and Free Speech.
There is a reason a Computer Science Degree at GMU requires a Computer Law class.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/3/23385019/supreme-court-grants-petitions-google-twitter-section-230-terrorism
Thanks to Emanuel Trandafir for this peek into the early days of computer art.
“convert an image into ASCII characters with Python” says it all!
https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-to-convert-an-image-to-ascii-art-with-python-in-5-steps-efbac8996d5e
“We had someone ask us if we could ‘download the internet’ so that we could still use it just in case there was an outage.”
Here are other TRUE stories from the Help Desk.
https://www.spiceworks.com/it-articles/funny-help-desk-tickets/
Apple // Forever was an Event in SF during pre-Mac days, highlighting the introduction of the Apple //c.
I remember most about the event: I crashed it (long story), and there was an Earthquake while in the recently finished underground Moscone Center.
https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Apple_II_Forever
Here is an interesting argument against total Unit Tests coverage by Luigi Kapaj.
I agree that Unit Tests are not always needed or appropriate, but the rest will require some debating.
https://medium.com/avenue-8/the-case-against-unit-tests-b4239b5c4074
