Friday Links 25-12

Today is apparently the Urbanism YouTube edition.

I also really liked the podcast about Hindenburg, and the video about the bikepacking trip (in Germany, sadly). 

Engineering

Annotation Mono v0.2 - a pretty new mono font 

Libxml2's "no security embargoes" policy [LWN] - It is a pretty drastic move, and I wonder if anything will change after this. 

Setting Up MCP Servers in Claude Code: A Tech Ritual for the Quietly Desperate - I have to give some of these a go. 

Environment 

Batteries are so cheap now, solar power doesn’t sleep - "In 2024 alone, global battery prices dropped 40%" 

Transporting a DYNAPAC Electric Road Paver with my Iveco S-eWay Electric Truck  [YouTube] - the future is already here. 

Urbanism

When Building a Brand-New City Doesn’t Go as Planned  [YouTube] - OK, maybe South Korea isn't so great after all. 

The Life-Sized City - Calgary - S04E03 - Full Episode [YouTube]  - a rare view on North America. 

Why U.S. Cities Don't Build Metro Systems [YouTube] - no political will. 

Fighting air pollution: Cars no longer welcome in French city of Lyon • FRANCE 24 English  [YouTube] - I love the boat to cargo bike transfer.

paper "Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls’ Lives with Bicycles" - improving girls' education and wellbeing.

Nearly two-thirds of Catalans exposed to air pollution above 2030 EU limits - that what happens if cities don't change. 

What Makes a City a Cycling City? [Podcast] - including research into African cities.

Random Bikepacking

Ein Bikepacking Trip als Abenteurer ohne Navi & Smartphone [German] - fun cycling trip with Rick Zabel and André Greipel, where they are not allowed to use digital tools.

railfinder - new rail travel planner for Europe.  

Catalonia's wildfire strategy - Insights from a world-class brigade [Podcast] - OK, compared to the 90s we are doing pretty good. 

Paul von Hindenburg [Podcast] - he seems like a bit of a dick.

Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models  - that's one way to do it. 

S Rower Turns Your Smart Trainer Into Smart Rower: First Look!  [YouTube] - nice hack. 

 

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 25-11

My YouTube links got lost because of my new workflow. It is working now.

This week I enjoyed the Podcast about copyright and the video about cycling couriers in Seoul.  

Leadership

The Heart of Innovation: Why Most Startups Fail - long read about demand. 

Your Manager Is Not Your Best Friend - your manager should be thinking about the company and the team, then the individuals. 

Engineering

TDD, AI agents and coding with Kent Beck [Podcast] - I appreciate Kent's perspective here. 

Work 

On How Long it Takes to Know if a Job is Right for You or Not - probably shorter than you think.

Breaking down the infinite workday - interesting numbers from their work report. 

Environment 

How the threat of extreme heat is starting to change our holiday plans - I think this has been happening already. 

Urbanism

Thousands of cyclists take to the streets of Berlin to demonstrate | DW News   [YouTube] - I never managed to take part in one of these. 

TfL drivers play Train Sim World 5 | Transport for London [YouTube] - no a game for me, but fun watching the pros playing. 

Així és el parc de les Glòries des de l’aire  [YouTube] - redevelopment of Glories in Barcelona, which used to be a massive elevated round about. 

From Scratch: the only bike messengers in Seoul // Eui Ho Kim at Gig Courier 무(無)에서와 다른 이야기들 [YouTube] - that is such a pretty town.  

Verkehrsberuhigung im Neuköllner Reuterkiez: Poller-Gegner scheitern in letzter Instanz [German] - two locals and a random person try to get a Kiezblock removed, and fail before court. 

Barcelona rents down 8.9% a year after cap introduced - interesting that this works in Barcelona, but not in Germany. 

Random Headphones

Sony’s WH-1000XM6 Gets a Repair-Friendly Upgrade - nice to see this. I am still on the MX4's, but these are tempting. 

007 First Light - Announcement Trailer | PS5 Games  [YouTube] - I am mostly interested in how much of Hitman mechanics are left. 

Fixing the AMIGA 1200 with a cheap meter!  [YouTube] - That is quite a dedicated repair. 

TePhOS - alternative OS for the TI99/4A

Start your own Internet Resiliency Club - I never heard of LoRa before, this could be fun.

Spanish minister rules out cyber-attack as cause of April blackout, after expert report - it is just a complex system. It is surprising that this doesn't happen more often.

&udm=14 - Google search without the rubbish. 

ACARS Drama - random messages from aeroplanes. 

Copyright [Podcast] - Great show, but not enough about computers and copyleft. 

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 25-10

This week I enjoyed the podcasts about Lise Meitner and Korea. 

OpenRailwayMap is also nice to play around with, if you are interested in railways all over the world. 

Engineering

The Work of Building for Other Engineers: Platform & SRE Mindset 

Anatomy of a Recruitment Phish - the things jobseekers have to deal with nowadays. 

Environment

Climate action literacy interventions increase commitments to more effective mitigation behaviors [Paper] - people don't know which individual actions are useful. I should get rid of my pets. 

Revealed: More than 24,000 factory farms have opened across Europe - those are some depressing maps. 

Urbanism 

A desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by being a man and higher scores on psychopathy and sadism [Paper] - this is an older paper, and the result is maybe not quite unexpected. 

20mph limits in London linked to sharp fall in road injuries and deaths, new report finds - let's just leave this here: "Child casualties dropped by 46%, and children killed by 75%" 

‘Cleaner, greener and absolute reliability’: trams make UK comeback - nice. 

OpenRailwayMap - lovely way to visualise train lines worldwide. 

El carril bus de la B-23 estarà llest al juliol: 7 quilòmetres per afavorir l'accés a Barcelona [Catalan] - new bus lanes into Barcelona

Europe was promised a new golden age of the night train. Why are we still waiting? - exactly!

Ever-higher: the rise of bonnet height, and the case to cap it - our classic Defender is probably around 100 cm, while our Berlingo is possibly 65 cm? 

Random Morocco 

Morocco's new cross-country cycling route - sadly gravel :-) 

Terms of Service; Didn't Read - helpful terms of services summaries 

Talking Heads Celebrate 50th Anniversary With ‘Psycho Killer’ Video Starring Saoirse Ronan - I am not sure if I like the video. The song is still great. 

Lise Meitner [Podcast] - new to me, scientist working on nuclear fission around early in the last century.   

The Korean Empire [Podcast] - overview of the history.

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 25-09

First post curated via Readwise Reader. I am creating some scripts to help replicate what I did with Pocket. 

I enjoyed the Komoot goodbye video this week. It is lovely and a bit sad.  

Leadership

Stuff I learned at Carta. - lots of good stuff, maybe not applicable in all organisations. 

Early Days of Agile Development & Is Design Dead? • Martin Fowler & James Lewis • GOTO 2024  [YouTube] - nice chat.

The secrets of a great apology [Podcast] - An important step is to accept that you were in the wrong.

Urbanism

Transport Fever 3 - Cinematic Announcement Trailer [YouTube] - I see trains, trams, bus lanes, but no bike lanes, and also highways going through the city. 

They Tore Down a Highway and Made it a River (and traffic got better) [YouTube] - I have seen pictures before. This goes into quite a bit of detail. 

Another way electric cars clean the air: study says brake dust reduced by 83% - and they are often not much heavier than legacy cars. 

Los Angeles - The Life-Sized City - S04E01 - Full Episode [YouTube] - lots of stuff happening, but an uphill battle.

Random Raves

Be transported to an illegal Acid House rave by the Barbican's new immersive experience - not quite the same, innit?

Digg co-founder offers to save Pocket as Mozilla winds it down - I mostly learned that Digg is still around or coming back. 

Little Lamb Chilling With Cat [YouTube] - emergency-cute. 

I just started using n8n to automate my workflow, and I wish I had sooner - next project?

The Workload Fairy Tale - "the idea that their current commitments and obligations represent the exact amount of work they need to be doing to succeed in their position."

Unreleased Amiga Hardware Plays MP3s - I always assumed the Amiga could play these without help.

Windows Was The Problem All Along  [YouTube] - I am delighted with my SteamDeck. 

A new start after 60: I became a dog-walker – and I’ve never been happier - this is my plan. 

Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet [LWN] - we are well buggered. 

Komoot Team Says Goodbye - great video. Imagine you have a team like this and fire all of them.

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday Links 25-08

Amiga 1000 by Blake Patterson

Pocket is a big part of how I collect the links for the Friday Links. Sadly, Mozilla has decided to shut Pocket down. My plan is to migrate to Readwise Reader, which seems to be a reasonable replacement. I am now migrating some of my helper scripts to make the change easier. You will see next week if I will be successful. :-) 

Engineering

As US vuln-tracking falters, EU enters with its own security bug database - nice. 

Principal Engineer at John Deere on how extreme programming saved his startup [Podcast] - Quite a bit of XP in there, pretty interesting.

Environment

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions - This is never going to be useful. 

Top winemaker ‘may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis’ - "acquiring plots in Benabarre, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 1,100 metres, where it is still too cold to grow vines. "

Low emission zones are successful in cutting air pollution, study finds - surprising no one.

Urbanism

More Motornormativity with Marco te Brömmelstroet, aka "The Fietsprofessor" [Podcast] - reviwing the study from a Dutch perspective.

Apple's new $5 billion campus has more space for parking than offices - So much future.

Spain Responds To Exploding Tourist Demand With A Groundbreaking Approach, Prioritizing Regional Growth And Strategic Visitor Management 

Thinking of a trip to Barcelona this summer? Beware – here’s what you’ll find - I don't like opinion pieces. This one mentions many things I recognise about Barcelona, and tourism in general.

How a Highway Became San Francisco’s Newest Park - people will be looking back and wonder why you would have a highway on the seafront. 

Paris races to top of European rankings of cycling-friendly cities for children - beating Amsterdam and Copenhagen. 

Londoners are swapping cars for bicycles at a rapid pace, data shows - This is mostly about the city.

Random Amiga

Brand New ReAmiga 3000 - At some point I have to check if my ancient computers still work.

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen... - Mozilla is shutting down Pocket. I blame AI. 

Sean Penn on dining with Jack Nicholson and Putin, run-ins with the paparazzi, and his relationship with Zelenskyy [Podcast] - He seems nice, maybe a bit too much smoking?  

In the Studio: Esben Holmboe Bang [Podcast] - cooking as art. 

Trailblazer Alfonsina Strada: One Woman’s Battle at the Giro d'Italia | The Power of Sport [YouTube] - If you don't have women's races, perhaps open the men's races up to everybody? 

‘People were buying crossbows faster than I’d like’ – how prepping went mainstream in Britain - "I’m not one to body shame anybody, but if you’re preparing for an apocalypse, you have to be able to kneel." 

The Story Behind That Photo Of The Pinto In Front Of The Mt. St. Helens Eruption - run!

How Sierra Was Captured, Then Killed, by a Massive Accounting Fraud - long read.

Old Tosh - Toshiba's personal stereo radio cassette combo [YouTube] - I want this, ideally in working condition. 

'It's about the music' - DJ duo Slam celebrate 35 years - I have been listening to them for many years. They have a great podcast too.

1264. Akiko Takahashi & Hiroshi Takahashi (Workstation) /// SUM HOUSE 1996 /// Matsushige, Itano District, Tokushima, Japan /// 1995-96 - I like this boxy industrial style.

A kernel developer plays with Home Assistant: general impressions - I am playing with HA again too. I finally have some use cases.

Friday Links Disclaimer

Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.

More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.