News from the Planet

Rhombus version 1.0 is now available! Install: https://rhombus-lang.org/download.html More information: https://rhombus-lang.org/ Why a new language? https://rhombus-lang.org/goal.html (copied below) Frequently Asked Questions: https://rhombus-lang.org/faq.html (copied below) …

Over the years, I've worked for organisations with various levels of risk tolerance for business travellers. Some have been (rightly) paranoid and others have been (wrongly) placid about the threats their employees face. The fact is, individuals are often targeted for espionage, blackmail, or other…

Table of Contents Basic points of style More points of style Ordering your text Code examples Metaphors English usage Based largely on comments by: Ron Hale-Evans, Robert J. Chassell, and Richard M. Stallman. Basic points of style  # Show, don’t just tell. Use plenty of…

The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format is amazing. It allows you to precisely define how an image should look. Written in XML, it uses various mathematical operations to display an image which looks crisp and clear at any size. Here's a trivial example: <svg height="100" viewBox="0 0 100 100"…

The Software Freedom Conservancy has yesterday published recommendations for using large language models / generative AI for free and open source contributions. It's better than I thought it was, based on initial reactions from my peers, but I am disappointed. They make 14 recommendations. I have…

This is the most overwritten book I've ever read. Unfortunately, Alan Moore knows exactly how much polysyllabic pressure it takes to transmogrify base coal into precious gems. With lines like "his shaved suede skull made him look like a wilted thistle" and "There was a rumour of pink lipstick…

This month in Radicle CI, June 2026 This is a monthly newsletter about the current state of Radicle CI, what has happened recently, and near future plans. Current status Radicle CI is in production use. There are several CI nodes, and Lars runs a public one for open source Rust projects…

Back in the late 1990s, I did a brief stint of work experience at the BBC. One of the most memorable moments was sitting in on a meeting about early forms of Interactive TV. I saw a demo of "Two Way TV". A flimsy grey box which (somehow) integrated with your OnDigital TV Box and connected to a…

SRFI 275 is now in draft status.This SRFI proposes a programming interface for working with RFC 3986 universal resource identifiers (URIs), as well as RFC 3987's generalisation to internationalised resource identifiers (IRIs). This document defines record types, normalisation procedures, and…

Welcome to RSS Club! These posts are only available to RSS and Atom subscribers. You can read more about the idea at Dave Rupert's site. I recently received an email from a distraught reader: I was going through my recent bookmarks and I found…

There is a recent blog post about Nix Flakes vs Guix: https://coopi.neocities.org/posts/nix-flakes-vs-guix

Apple FINALLY lets you turn on your Mac remotely, without having to press the power button. In the media, articles suggest it's a reaction to Mac mini power button complaints. While I agree the M4 mini's power button is in a really dumb spot, that's not why I care about this feature. The two…

Introducing GeoLibre 1.0, a free and open-source, lightweight, cloud-native GIS platform that runs in your browser, as a desktop app, on your phone, and inside Jupyter notebooks.

By: Priya Sharma As a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) organization admin representing the Apache Software Foundation, I had the privilege of attending the GSoC Mentor Summit 2025, and it was an incredible experience! The Mentor Summit is a unique opportunity to connect with amazing mentors and discuss…

Since the PiKVM came out in 2017, there's been an explosion of IP KVMs. I've tested almost every one. But what are they good for? You can use Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing, or VNC to remote control a computer from anywhere on a LAN. And if you don't have a private VPN, you could use RealVNC,…

Apache® Livy, a REST service for Apache Spark™, becomes a Top-Level Project Wilmington, DE –&#160; June 4, 2026 – The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the global home of open source software the world relies on, today announced that Apachy Livy has become a Top-Level Project (TLP).  Apache Livy is…

My nephew just graduated high school, and wants a laptop. When he decides what computer to buy, price (or more precisely, value) is the most important attribute. Apple's MacBook Neo upended the 'value laptop' equation—Apple's not supposed to be both the cheapest option <nd the best value... but it…

From the rise of Apache Iceberg and the modernization of Apache Geode, to a behind-the-scenes look at the rebuild of Apache STeVe v3, this month’s Plus One highlights how open collaboration continues driving innovation across the ASF ecosystem. We’re also gearing up for Community Over Code Glasgow…

Pooch from Repkord dropped by my studio while he was in St. Louis, and asked a simple question: Can a 3D printer's heatbed act as an antenna? A fair question, as many an antenna is embedded in a PCB these days... and the traces on a PCB heatbed like the one used in Prusa's Core One look kinda like…

A tutorial on accessing, streaming, downloading, and analyzing Planet Tanager 426-band hyperspectral imagery in QGIS using the HyperCoast plugin, including footprint browsing, HDF5 downloads, custom band composites, and spectral signature inspection.

A tutorial on accessing, visualizing, and analyzing NASA Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) imagery in QGIS using the NASA Earthdata, GEE Data Catalogs, and OpenGeoAgent plugins, including RGB composites, NDVI, monthly time series, pixel extraction, and voice-driven workflows.

On Thursday, three of the lead Raspberry Pi engineers hosted an AMA on the r/engineering subreddit. Raspberry Pi 6 One of the most interesting tidbits was on the Pi 6. Looking back at previous launches: 2012: Raspberry Pi 2015: Raspberry Pi 2 (+3 years) 2016: Raspberry Pi 3 (+1 year) 2019:…

This month in Radicle CI, May 2026 This is a monthly newsletter about the current state of Radicle CI, what has happened recently, and near future plans. Current status Radicle CI is in production use. There are several CI nodes, and Lars runs a public one for open source Rust projects…

At NAB, I found a demo of Wi-Wi STAMP, a wireless time synchronization protocol that came out of Japan's NICT. Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry, and it uses the 900 MHz band for picosecond-level time sync, and mm-level distance accuracy, in a tiny box, currently the size of a…

Last year I went through a self-hosting spree during which I deployed some services (e.g. Nextcloud, Mattermost, and Prosody) to a bunch of VPSes, while documenting the process on this blog. This post is a follow-up on that series, detailing the deployment of GoToSocial, a lightweight ActivityPub…