# media center (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 4 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover media center. Page: Feed: --- ## [Kenya: Rethink Mortgages for Informal Workers](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/kenya-rethink-mortgages-for-informal-workers/) _2026-08-21 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Milliam Murigi Kenya needs to overhaul its traditional mortgage lending model to make home ownership accessible to millions of informal workers who earn regular incomes but lack formal employment records. The call comes as Kenya faces a housing deficit of more than two million units, with demand for an additional 200,000 homes every year, \[…\] ## [Free Press Saves Lives – UN Report](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/free-press-saves-lives-un-report/) _2026-08-20 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Martina Amelia A free press is critical to saving lives, mitigating the impacts of humanitarian disasters and strengthening other disaster preparedness and risk reduction. This is according to a new UN report titled The Value of Journalism: Global Evidence on Why Media Matters to Economies, National Security and Crises, which links greater press freedom \[…\] ## [Urgent Global Action Needed to Shield Children from Online Risks](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/urgent-global-action-needed-to-shield-children-from-online-risks/) _2026-08-19 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Martina Amelia With more than eight in 10 young people aged 15 to 24years online worldwide, there is need for urgent, coordinated action from governments, tech companies, advertisers and researchers to protect children and young people from a growing wave of risks. These include disinformation, harassment, algorithmic bias and the misuse of artificial intelligence \[…\] ## [Shifting Weather Patterns Overwhelming Kenya’s Health Facilities](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/shifting-weather-patterns-overwhelming-kenyas-health-facilities/) _2026-08-18 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Hope Pheliane Global narratives on East Africa’s climate crisis have been dominated by images of cracked earth, withered crops and swelling heat waves. Yet an invisible, under-reported public health crisis is brewing in Kenya’s high-altitude regions. Increasingly unpredictable weather patterns are exposing communities to severe cold and sudden shifts in temperature. For residents accustomed \[…\] ## [Prolonged Drought Reshaping Health in Northern Kenya](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/prolonged-drought-reshaping-health-in-northern-kenya/) _2026-08-18 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Joy Mutanu Wambua For Mzee Lekula, a man in his mid-60s, life in Ng’ari village, Samburu County, has long been guided by the rhythm of the seasons. The rains came, the grass returned, livestock grazed, milk flowed into households, and the cycle began again. People knew the land and its rhythms- where to find \[…\] ## [World Off Track in Achieving Biodiversity Targets](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/world-off-track-in-achieving-biodiversity-targets/) _2026-08-13 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Sharon Atieno Onyango Despite increased momentum, the world is not on track to achieve the biodiversity targets set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) by 2030. This is according to Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) following three weeks (27th July- 12th August) of negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya. \[…\] ## [Kenya to Host Fifth Affordable Housing Conference](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/kenya-to-host-fifth-affordable-housing-conference/) _2026-08-13 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Milliam Murigi Kenya will host a major affordable housing conference next week as stakeholders turn their attention to a challenge that continues to keep millions of Kenyans out of homeownership—access to affordable housing finance. The fifth Kenya Affordable Housing Conference, organised by the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC), will take place from August 20 \[…\] ## [Keeping Cattles Linked to Increased Malaria Risk in Coastal Kenya](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/keeping-cattles-linked-to-increased-malaria-risk-in-coastal-kenya/) _2026-08-11 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Milliam Murigi Cattles may be doing more than providing food and income for families in coastal Kenya. They could also be contributing to malaria risk in surrounding communities. This is according to a new study published on the BMJ Global health journal by 21 researchers drawn from KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Oxford University’s Centre \[…\] ## [Detours: When the Best Way Forward Isn’t Forward](https://ryanbritton.com/2026/08/detours-when-the-best-way-forward-isnt-forward/) _2026-08-09 · rbritton · Projects_ Scope creep is Nemesis to software development, yet it is also responsible for some of the best tools and features I’ve built. The danger, though, is not taking detours but failing to recognize the difference between a distraction and an investment. Every once in a while, you run into a problem that isn't really part of your project, but solving... Read More ## [Climate Finance Crucial for Resilient Health Systems](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/climate-finance-crucial-for-resilient-health-systems/) _2026-08-07 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Grace Awuor Otieno Climate change is no longer only an environmental crisis. Across Africa, it is driving the spread of infectious diseases, worsening food insecurity, exposing millions to extreme heat and placing growing pressure on already overstretched health systems. Yet despite the increasing health burden, less than five percent of climate finance from multilateral \[…\] ## [Zero-Persistence E2EE (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/UjbaiFZ2QPGA) _2026-08-07 · **Sponsored**_ End-to-end encryption with client-side WebCrypto and volatile memory. ## [Kenya Strengthens Climate-Health Response amid Rising Threats](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/kenya-strengthens-climate-health-response-amid-rising-health-threats/) _2026-08-07 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Grace Awuor Otieno Climate change is reshaping Kenya’s public health landscape, with rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, devastating floods and shifting disease patterns exposing millions of people to new and intensifying health risks. As climate-related emergencies become more frequent, the government is moving to strengthen the country’s health system, cautioning that climate change can… ## [Hidden Charges Making Sanitary Pads Expensive](https://news.scienceafrica.co.ke/hidden-charges-making-sanitary-pads-expensive/) _2026-08-07 · Science Africa · Science Africa_ By Milliam Murigi Despite years of tax reforms intended to make menstrual products more affordable in Kenya, a new report reveals that hidden taxes, levies and regulatory charges continue to keep prices high. The report dubbed “The Price of Dignity,” by Network for Adolescent and Youth of Africa (NAYA) Kenya reveals that while the government \[…\] ## [Media Center File Naming](https://ryanbritton.com/2026/07/media-center-file-naming/) _2026-07-25 · rbritton · Projects_ Last updated: July 2026. Organizing a media library seems simple until your media manager identifies the wrong movie, separates episodes incorrectly, or ignores artwork and subtitles that are sitting right beside the video. Most of these problems aren't caused by bugs but ambiguity. Media managers can only identify content based on the information they're given, and filenames and folder… ## [Sun & Moon 2.0: A Fresh Look at Every Rise and Set](https://ryanbritton.com/2026/07/sun-moon-2-0/) _2026-07-12 · rbritton · Projects_ Sun & Moon 2.0 is a major refresh focused on modernizing the app and making conditions easier to read at a glance. Nearly every part of the experience has been revisited, from the daily dashboard and widgets to the artwork, location management, and support for unusual astronomical events around the world. NEW A Cleaner Dashboard The Today view puts the... Read More ## [Off-Road Ride Video Production](https://ryanbritton.com/2026/06/off-road-ride-video-production/) _2026-06-28 · rbritton · Projects_ For the last 15 years or so, we’ve been going on offroad UTV rides with friends and family. Over the past few years of that, I’ve experimented with recording and editing those rides into action short films for all of us. The end result is usually a video somewhere around 90-120 seconds long per hour of riding (longer is usually... Read More [Listen](https://ryanbritton.com/assets/utv-video-gyroflow-comparison.mp4) ## [Announcing Ruckus](https://defn.io/2026/03/31/ann-ruckus) _2026-03-31 · defn.io_ I'm happy to announce the public release of Ruckus , a Racket IDE for iPhone and iPad. Check it out and let me know what you think! Ruckus is open source and based on Noise . The frontend was coded almost entirely by Claude Code, with a lot of architecture guidance and code review from me. The project was on the back of my mind for a while, but I probably would never have started it were it not… ## [“Fair Use” Download of Large Vector Maps](https://projects.webvoss.de/2025/09/27/fair-use-download-of-large-vector-maps/) _2025-09-27 · Hauke · Hauke’s Projects_ With my switch to vector maps, the dramatically reduced storage requirements now allow to have maps for whole countries on my Smartphone. Getting such maps still requires tile downloads, which sum up to millions of web requests and gigabytes of data downloaded. To avoid unfair and excessive load to the map provider web services, and \[…\] ## [SO\_KEEPALIVE Slow (?) on macOS](https://defn.io/2025/07/31/so-keepalive-slow-on-macos) _2025-07-31 · defn.io_ Update: Mystery solved! Pete Kazmier reached out over e-mail asking if I could share some packet captures of the problem. I sent them to him, and he figured out the issue. The Racket implementation was passing the wrong level to setsockopt , namely IPPROTO\_TCP instead of SOL\_SOCKET . The particular combination of the values of IPPROTO\_TCP and SO\_KEEPALIVE on macOS happens to map to a configuration… ## [What is Racket DOING???](https://defn.io/2025/05/30/racket-thread-stack-dumps) _2025-05-30 · defn.io_ A neat feature of the JVM is that, out of the box, you can send a running JVM process a SIGQUIT signal and it'll dump stack traces for all running threads to stdout . The output looks like this . It can be really handy when you're trying to debug a live system. Racket doesn't have this feature, but you can build something like it yourself by combining some of the introspection tools the runtime… ## [Sharing Data Between Widgets and iOS Apps](https://defn.io/2025/04/13/communicating-with-widgets-on-ios) _2025-04-13 · defn.io_ Following up on the previous post , another thing that's not well-documented when it comes to implementing widgets on iOS is how to share data between the widget and the main app. The widget is supposed to be small and efficient so loading all your models in there seems wrong (and the extension probably(?) can't even access the app's sandboxed database). The documentation mentions using network… ## [A Friend Gave You $30 (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/UpQ6NP4Ao1Cg) _2025-04-13 · **Sponsored**_ Sign up, deposit $5 within 30 days, and start investing with expert guidance. ## [Performing Widget Intents in-app on iOS](https://defn.io/2025/04/13/performing-widget-intents-in-ios-app) _2025-04-13 · defn.io_ I'm currently adding widgets to Podcatcher and one issue I've run into that's not very well documented is how to trigger an App Intent — for example, to start playing a Podcast — from a widget, ensuring that the intent is performed in the app. There are two problems that need to be solved: The intent has to be a part of both the main app target and the widget extension target. How do we avoid… ## [DSLs for Safe iOS/watchOS Communication](https://defn.io/2025/02/16/type-safe-watchos-communication) _2025-02-16 · defn.io_ I'm currently writing an Apple Watch counterpart app for Podcatcher . The Watch Connectivity framework that iOS apps use to communicate with watchOS apps offers a limited API for communication: you can either send untyped dictionaries or arbitrary byte strings between the two. In a large app, you want more structure than that framework offers. One approach you can take is to encode shared structs… ## [Batch Inserts in PostgreSQL](https://defn.io/2025/02/15/postgres-batch-inserts) _2025-02-15 · defn.io_ I recently added support for batch inserts to koyo and thought I'd make a quick post about it. Here's what it looks like to use this feature: (define ib (make-insert-batcher #:on-conflict '(do-nothing (ticker)) 'tickers '(\[isin "TEXT"\] \[ticker "TEXT"\] \[added\_at "TIMESTAMPTZ"\]))) (with-database-connection \[conn db\] (for (\[(isin ticker added-at) (in-sequence datasource)\]) (ib-push! ib conn isin… ## [iOS Media Center Progress Jank](https://defn.io/2025/01/26/ios-media-center-progress-jank) _2025-01-26 · defn.io_ If you listen to podcasts on iOS, chances are you've noticed an issue some apps have when displaying the playing episode's progress in the media center. For example, notice how in the video below, playback pauses at 0:39, then skips forward in real time to 0:45 when I hit resume, before the app finally resets the elapsed time back to 0:38. Pictured is one of the most popular iOS apps 1 for playing… ## [How Podcatcher Does Transcriptions](https://defn.io/2025/01/04/podcast-transcriptions-in-podcatcher) _2025-01-04 · defn.io_ About a month ago, I added transcription support to Podcatcher . For example, here's a transcript of the latest episode of the Vergecast, and another one from AppStories. Years ago, I bought an M1 Mac Mini and, in the intervening time, I haven't done much with it besides keep it on my desk. So, I figured I'd put it to work for this purpose. I initially reached for Apple's Speech Framework, but… ## [Platform-Specific Resources in SwiftPM](https://defn.io/2024/11/24/swiftpm-platform-specific-resources) _2024-11-24 · defn.io_ Noise packages Racket & Chez Scheme boot files 1 for all the platforms it supports. Originally, that was just x86-64 and arm64 macOS, but when I added iOS support, that extended to include arm64 iOS. These boot files take up about 45MB for each arch+os pair and the way I originally distributed them was placing them all in a boot folder and adding them to the resources list for the core Noise…