Links for June 2026
Futurism: There’s Something Living Inside Fog, Scientists Find ... It's just San Francisco. #fog #karl #sanfrancisco ∞
I Thought He Came With You
Robert Ellison's Blog
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Links for May 2026
Did School Cellphone Bans Work? New Study Finds Mixed Results. No improvement in test scores from cell phone bans... I've said this for years, we need to take the phones away from the parents rather than the kids... #phone #ban #cellphone ∞ I'm following @NASA@mstdn.social . ∞ I'm following @wxwatch@wx.social . ∞ I'm following @underdarkGIS@fosstodon.org . ∞ I'm following…
Buffalo
Buffalo is a power delivery monitor for Android. It monitors charge level, watts delivered and battery temperature during charging. This is helpful if you're wondering whether your cable, power bank or charger is working as expected. Android might say 'charging rapidly,' but that covers a wide range of watts and the OS doesn't provide any more details. Buffalo shows how many watts you're getting…
GitHub and ITHCWY partner to address security incident
On August 3, 2026, approximately three billion people received a cryptic 'Hello' SMS message before the widely reported collapse of most cellular carriers. Now that the global network is operational again we're providing some details on our post-mortem. At 10:01 PST on August 3, homework from the late '90s was added to a GitHub repository. The commit consisted of an amateurish 'Hello, World'…
Get out of My Way
As an increasingly absent British person something is usually profoundly different when I visit the UK. This time... is everyone driving more slowly? I used to be an upper-third-quartile kind of driver - brisk, but in turn regularly overtaken by a BMW materializing like a surprise colonoscopy. This time I felt like Mad Max. And it's not just in my head, something has really changed: This data…
Berlin Wall
Google Pixel 8 Pro 7mm f1.7 1/25s ISO255 I knew that I had graffitied the Berlin Wall, but I had no idea that a photo existed until this surfaced while going through old family snaps for a different reason (when did I start wearing glasses... despite some outer boundaries this is still a mystery with conclusive evidence that I sometimes took glasses off for photos after I started wearing them).…
Tiny Planet Heathrow
Around 40 minutes of planes landing at Heathrow compressed into a tiny planet timelapse. Shot from the departure level at Terminal 5.
Dart
Hike down to and along the Dart River in Dartmoor National Park. Three miles but hard going. Hike starts at: 50.542973 , -3.843264 . View in Google Earth .
Final
Google Pixel 8 Pro 7mm f1.7 1/1,050s ISO21 Final approach to London Heathrow as seen from the T5 Sofitel.
Fernworthy Reservoir
Three mile loop around Fernworthy Reservoir in Dartmoor National Park. Hike starts at: 50.63957 , -3.883095 . View in Google Earth .
LHR NCL
Google Pixel 8 Pro 7mm f1.7 1/900s ISO21 BA 1334, A320-232, 06155
FCO LHR
Google Pixel 8 Pro 7mm f1.7 1/280s ISO21 BA 549, A319-131, 03049
LHR CDG
BA 306, a319-131, 01222 Concorde in the background. Updated 2026-08-04 21:39: Here's a time lapse of this flight:
Happy 250th
SONY ILCE-7C 70mm f2.8 1/30s ISO1600 Photo of fireworks launching from a foggy Golden Gate Bridge celebrating the semiquincentennial in San Francisco, California.
Fortune Cookies for Android 2.00
Fortune 2.00 is rolling out on Google Play . I've been asked to support copying the current fortune. A new menu allows you to both copy and share. I've also been asked to allow picking fortune categories. The installed list has increased from around 30,000 to almost 50,000 fortunes and there are settings to pick which cookie files to include. The notification now includes more of the fortune text…
Catfood Earth for Android 4.42
Catfood Earth 4.42 for Android is rolling out on Google Play . With this release it's now possible to set a custom cloud layer download URL, like the composite experiment linked to from this post . Clouds are also lighter by default - you can increase transparency in settings if you'd prefer them to be less prominent. Finally, the Catfood Earth launcher has been redesigned to clarify the setup…
Aurora and Wake Word Detection
Aurora is my open source Rasperry Pi voice assistant, based on the OpenAI Realtime API. I just shipped native wake word detection, including a trained model (Aurora), a training pipeline and on-device support for gathering training data from your long suffering household ("Aurora, learn how I say your name"). When I first built this project I used Porcupine from Picovoice. They had a free one seat…
Code Signing Inflation
I have been in a Windows software writing funk for the past year because my code signing certificate expired and during those happy three years of signing the industry changed beyond all recognition. Code signing, or Authenticode, proves that my software came from me and hasn't been altered (as long as I'm not careless with my private key, and some alteration is possible ). Windows is increasingly…
Catfood Earth 4.41
I just released Catfood Earth 4.41 for Windows: download here . This version includes version 2026b of the IANA time zone database . British Columbia just switched to permanent daylight savings time and you'll need this update if that impacts your locations or other settings. I also made a small change to better support high resolution displays. The font size is now automatically scaled. This…
Links for June 2026
Futurism: There’s Something Living Inside Fog, Scientists Find ... It's just San Francisco. #fog #karl #sanfrancisco
San Francisco to Russian River
Hyperlapse of the drive from San Francisco to the Russian River and back again. Shot on Rivian Drive cam, editied in DaVinci Resolve and euro-trash music generated by Gemini. Previously I've just done this with the front camera, but the Rivan has four and so I set up a multi-cam edit with 130GB of footage. I wish the side cameras were pointed a bit higher, but they are designed for parking rather…
Milky Way over Casini Ranch
A time lapse of the Milky Way over Casini Ranch campground near Duncan Mills, California.
Find your candidate in the California June 2026 governor primary with Retrieval Augmented Voting
A few years ago I fixed a Washington Post candidate quiz using a spreadsheet . The problem with WaPo's version was that you could express your position on various issues but not how much you cared, which skewed the results. I just launched a site to help with the large field of candidates for California Governor in the June primary. This is much better than the spreadsheet. Instead of binary…
Links for May 2026
Did School Cellphone Bans Work? New Study Finds Mixed Results. No improvement in test scores from cell phone bans... I've said this for years, we need to take the phones away from the parents rather than the kids... #phone #ban #cellphone I'm following @NASA@mstdn.social . I'm following @wxwatch@wx.social . I'm following @underdarkGIS@fosstodon.org . I'm following @organicmaps@fosstodon.org . I'm…
San Francisco June 2026 Ballot Measures
Measure A, Earthquake Safety and Emergency Bond Measure Measure B, Term Limits for Mayor and Board of Supervisors Charter Amendment Measure C, Gross Receipts Tax Exemption and Top Executive Pay Tax Increase Initiative Measure D, Changes to Top Executive Pay Tax Initiative Only four measures to decide on for June! I'm sure we'll be punished for this in November. Here goes: Measure A, Earthquake…
Virginia joins National Popular Vote
Virginia joins the National Popular Vote movement, bringing the total to 222 electoral college votes. Once we reach 270 presidential politics will pivot from a few hundred thousand swing voters to the needs of the entire nation. We probably wouldn't have elected Trump I and might not be suffering through Trump II today. This is getting close - do something!
Rainbow
Google Pixel 8 Pro 18mm f2.8 1/220s ISO16 A rainbow, shot from Ocean Beach in San Francisco.