∞PermalinkThe most common and controversial question asked about Skittles seems to be whether all five flavors are indeed uniformly distributed, or whether some flavors are more common than others. The following figure shows the distribution observed in this sample of 468 packs.
Cambridge spin-out starts producing graphene at commercial scale →
∞PermalinkParagraf is producing graphene ‘wafers’ and graphene-based electronic devices, which could be used in transistors, where graphene-based chips could deliver speeds more than ten times faster than silicon chips; and in chemical and electrical sensors, where graphene could increase sensitivity by a factor of more than 30. The company’s first device will be available in the next few months.
Why Strategic Planning is Not →
Bill Barnett:
∞Permalink[…]the real lesson of the Soviet experiment has been lost on us, and the corporations of the world should take note: Planning doesn’t work.
Corporations must and do plan, of course. Their leaders call these plans “strategic” to give them gravitas. But typically strategic plans are just budgets and goals. Budgets and goals are important, but they are not “strategy” if by strategy we mean the logic that drives action.
ARM processors like the A12X Bionic are nearing performance parity with high-end desktop processors, but the old truth of x86 superiority still lives strong →
Xavier Tobin:
…after working through common arguments and misconceptions, such as that the RISC (ARM) instruction set architecture is inherently inferior to CISC (x86), that the benchmarks spruiking excellent ARM performance are inaccurate, that the performance gap is explained by different operating systems, and more, I’ve found that the central claim of these articles largely holds true: ARM processors, particularly those produced by Apple, have caught up to high-end x86 processors in most perspectives of performance.
I am looking forward to two things from Apple this year: ARM based Macs with desktop optimized CPUs and iOS 13 optimizations for iPad, that allows all that processor power to be fully utilized.
∞PermalinkTime to change all those .dev local environments
Web developers typically use the .dev extension as a TDL for local development environments. Thus when developing a web app, instead of needing to use “localhost” with a specific port, they’d set up the host files to recognize example.dev as the domain for easier testing.
That has worked fine until now, since Google just released the .dev TDL.
It might be time to switch that to a different local TDL, otherwise your local setting could potentially override an actual functioning app or website with your local configuration.
Granted, its unlikely to happen, unless your website uses the .dev extension, yet, conventions are an important part of a healthy development environment.
With an increasing list of TDLs the best option might be to just start using .development or .local until those get snapped up as well.
NetNewsWire Almost Ready to Ship →
Brent Simmons:
There are three big things that remain before the first feature-complete build (which will be 5.0a1): searching, the app icon, and syncing with FeedBin.
NetNewsWire got me hooked on RSS over 12 years ago. Now it’s open source and rewritem from scratch in Swift. I have been using the alphas for a while and it’s the same great app from all those years ago. Can’t wait to get the Feedbin sync feature, it’s my preferred sync service.
∞PermalinkHow to activate Apple ID 2fa when you have two accounts
Apple just sent this email to developers:
Two-factor authentication is an additional layer of security designed to ensure that you’re the only person who can access your account, even if someone knows your password. This significantly improves the security of your Apple ID and helps protect the photos, documents, and other data you store with Apple. For more information read Two-Factor Authentication for Apple ID.
If you didn’t enable two-factor authentication and believe someone else has access to your account, you can return to your previous security settings . This link and your Apple ID security questions will expire on February 27, 2019.
If you are like me and have a main personal account for all your Apple ID related stuff and a separate one for your work email or developer account, you are probably trying to figure out what do if said account isn’t permanently registered on any of the devices you use.
Here’s the simple work around:
- Set up a new user account on your Mac
- Login into your iCloud account tied to the developer account under the new macOS user.
- Activate two-factor authentication and add your preferred phone number s a backup.
- Verify you are able to login into your account via another device or via browser at appleid.apple.com.
- Logout of iCloud account on the temp macOS user and switch back to your main macOS user.
- Delete the temp account and now, you should be able to use the 2fa via the phone validation every time.
Hopefully Apple will soon allow dual Work/Personal accounts within a single device or iOS 13 and/or macOS 10.15. Until then, this work around should help.
Bad Words for Describing Software Products →
Greg KoganM
∞PermalinkYou’ve probably seen them used to describe software products. Maybe you use them to describe your own product. They seem like great descriptors, because you know they’re truthful, and what’s true must be convincing, right?
Out-of-Office Messages are a Security Risk →
∞PermalinkSometimes I’m really out of the office, though, crawling around in the backcountry wilderness or on an island somewhere. I’ll do it if I have to, but even then I don’t like setting an automatic response. There’s no way to do it that doesn’t leak information to a would-be attacker.
Hilbert’s List →
Seth Godin:
As we enter a new year, one in which technology promises to move faster than ever, it’s worth considering what our 23 problems might be.
Good starting point for what we need to work on as a species.
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