Matt Edwards

This is a rather long (at 53 minutes) video, but it has some fascinating bits of information about the heat shield deployed by the James Webb Space Telescope. This video focuses on how to precisely measure the dimensions of the heat shield, so that other scientists could model the properties of the shield in diffusing heat away from the delicate instruments in and on the telescope. Really cool tech used to take these measurements, including a laser with a spinning mirror that could blind you fairly quick....

Reporting from The Verge: In a joint effort, tech giants Apple, Google, and Microsoft announced Thursday morning that they have committed to building support for passwordless sign-in across all of the mobile, desktop, and browser platforms that they control in the coming year. … A passwordless login process will let users choose their phones as the main authentication device for apps, websites, and other digital services… … “For example, users can sign-in on a Google Chrome browser that’s running on Microsoft Windows—using a passkey on an Apple device....

One solid weekend of biking in there. The rest…eh. For the long weekend of riding in April, I’ve embedded a YouTube video I cut together of the two days of riding. Scroll past the VeloViewer image to check that out. This was our first attempt at strapping the GoPro onto our bikes and capturing the adventure. Shot using a GoPro Hero 10. On the “do again” list I’ve got a GoPro handlebar mount, and on the “never do that again” list I’ve got the chest mount....

I’ve seen so much confusion about who is funding what, I am compelled to publish this here for constant reference. From Matt Levine writing in Money Stuff on 21 April 2022: Elon Musk needs about $46.5 billion to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share: about $39.4 billion to pay for the 91% of Twitter’s stock that he doesn’t currently own, about $4.3 billion of debt to refinance and various miscellaneous costs....

Work on improving the sunroom continues (haven’t yet written about this here!), which means my free hours are dedicated to construction and not getting out on the bike as much. Here’s hoping by the high-summer days of June this whole sunroom project is wrapped up and I can focus more on recreation. Did get in my first long outdoor ride for the year! Beautiful weather combine with rolling along in a group of friends from the Outdoor Club of South Jersey; it feels nice to be back out on the road, breathing in that fresh air....

Yesterday, I laid out some concerns with Apple’s App Store model. Here’s a suggestion for how Apple could improve and tackle those challenges: The iOS App Store is reduced to a curated experience of 20,000 apps or less. Sideloading apps is allowed. Optional: Apple sells an “App Platform as a Service” that handles distribution, hosting of app binaries, etc. Curation for the Best By reducing Apple’s iOS App Store to ~20k apps, consumers who visit it know they are getting the best of the best....

While not a brand new story by any stretch, the idea that Apple should open up the iOS computing platform has been constantly simmering in my Twitter feed and across my RSS unread queue. I wanted to take a crack at putting down some thoughts. The impetus to my post here was this post titled “On Sideloading on iPhone — It’s OK, I’m Changing My Mind” by @numericcitizen: If the App Store was scam-free, entirely free of copycats, I would trust Apple’s review team in its abilities....

I would have said it was a valiant effort, but I am now 310 miles behind my 2021 self. Ugh. The good portion of the news is that I’m feeling good. I am either training right up and to the edge of my hamstring/groin injury, or I simply have to live with the odd tightness feeling in my leg on certain days. It is much like the knee with the ACL repair - given the same intensity workout, some days it feels fine, other days it feels like I’m on the verge of creating another injury....

The other week I had written about Pixelfed and my plans for using it. Since this is self-hosted software and I spent a fair amount of time setting it up, I wanted to write out a detailed installation guide. Hopefully, it helps someone else out there looking to create their own setup. Starting with the basics The basics of my setup are: An Intel i3 Intel NUC machine 1 Running Ubuntu Linux 20....

I’ve certainly fallen off from posting these, so here I am back in the new year trying to regain the habit. That ski weekend in Stowe was not particularly helpful in keeping me on track with my indoor bike training. Veloviewer tells me I’m 122 miles off my January 2021 biking mileage (which is 57% fewer miles)! I need to make February count if I’m going to catch up to my 2021 self in the next couple months....