John Russell
@max-webster.bsky.social
Tech writer in California. Opinions all mine, not my employer's.
Greatest first line of a song ever.
The lyrics contain a lot of what I think of as "teased rhymes" even if that's not strictly what they are. Every time I hear it, I'm thinking
...a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's, and his hair was purple.
Huh! I'd like to meet James Taylor.
The lyrics contain a lot of what I think of as "teased rhymes" even if that's not strictly what they are. Every time I hear it, I'm thinking
...a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's, and his hair was purple.
Huh! I'd like to meet James Taylor.
Warren Zevon always brings out something special in me. toddalcottgraphics.etsy.com
November 15, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Greatest first line of a song ever.
The lyrics contain a lot of what I think of as "teased rhymes" even if that's not strictly what they are. Every time I hear it, I'm thinking
...a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's, and his hair was purple.
Huh! I'd like to meet James Taylor.
The lyrics contain a lot of what I think of as "teased rhymes" even if that's not strictly what they are. Every time I hear it, I'm thinking
...a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's, and his hair was purple.
Huh! I'd like to meet James Taylor.
The most accessible explanation of quantum physics I ever heard was from @robertjsawyer.com at his science fiction writing course at Ryerson. Of course, he's since explored that area further in Quantum Night. Interested to hear what his latest thinking is!
Come join me and #scifi author/futurist/fascinating fellow @robertjsawyer.com, as I interview him about Human Consciousness, Quantum Entanglements, Panpsychism, writing and other cool stuff. On my new Substack; free to read, listen and comment.
sallywienergrotta.substack.com/p/robert-saw...
sallywienergrotta.substack.com/p/robert-saw...
November 9, 2025 at 5:10 PM
The most accessible explanation of quantum physics I ever heard was from @robertjsawyer.com at his science fiction writing course at Ryerson. Of course, he's since explored that area further in Quantum Night. Interested to hear what his latest thinking is!
Reposted by John Russell
Happy 48th Anniversary to the greatest outtake in television history.
Tim Conway's Elephant Story from The Carol Burnett Show.
Tim Conway's Elephant Story from The Carol Burnett Show.
November 5, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Happy 48th Anniversary to the greatest outtake in television history.
Tim Conway's Elephant Story from The Carol Burnett Show.
Tim Conway's Elephant Story from The Carol Burnett Show.
There are a bazillion Unicode codepoints where if an email contains one of them, it's 100% guaranteed a phishing attempt or spam trying to evade filters. You would think the anti-spam folks could do more with this knowledge. (E.g. render suspicious characters as boxes or question marks like BITD.)
October 5, 2025 at 6:11 PM
There are a bazillion Unicode codepoints where if an email contains one of them, it's 100% guaranteed a phishing attempt or spam trying to evade filters. You would think the anti-spam folks could do more with this knowledge. (E.g. render suspicious characters as boxes or question marks like BITD.)
Reposted by John Russell
🟡 M4.8 #earthquake detected 3 km ESE of Berkeley, California at 9/22/2025 2:56:12 AM PDT
This reflects data from the U.S. Geological Survey that is subject to change. Visit the USGS page linked below for the latest #quake information
This reflects data from the U.S. Geological Survey that is subject to change. Visit the USGS page linked below for the latest #quake information
M4.8 - 3 km ESE of Berkeley, California
A magnitude 4.8 earthquake located 3 km ESE of Berkeley, California was detected at 9/22/2025 2:56:12 AM PDT. This information is subject to change. Please visit the USGS event page for up-to-date details.
earthquake.usgs.gov
September 22, 2025 at 9:56 AM
🟡 M4.8 #earthquake detected 3 km ESE of Berkeley, California at 9/22/2025 2:56:12 AM PDT
This reflects data from the U.S. Geological Survey that is subject to change. Visit the USGS page linked below for the latest #quake information
This reflects data from the U.S. Geological Survey that is subject to change. Visit the USGS page linked below for the latest #quake information
I can level a continent. But Where. Are. My. PANTS! (I'm just teasing Galactus. I thought he would have been a better Big Bad than Thanos in the Avengers.)
September 8, 2025 at 2:06 AM
I can level a continent. But Where. Are. My. PANTS! (I'm just teasing Galactus. I thought he would have been a better Big Bad than Thanos in the Avengers.)
Reposted by John Russell
Come hear the first-ever reading of my next novel at Dragon Con! Sunday at 11:30 a.m., Learning Center Hyatt [Lower Level 1, Atrium Tower — see map below]:
August 28, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Come hear the first-ever reading of my next novel at Dragon Con! Sunday at 11:30 a.m., Learning Center Hyatt [Lower Level 1, Atrium Tower — see map below]:
Reposted by John Russell
Today is the new semester for @db.cs.cmu.edu's Intro to Database Systems! We're going harder into material than before. More challenging projects but you can use LLMs to help. We also have 10min talks each Wed from leading DB companies: 15445.courses.cs.cmu.edu/fall2025
CMU 15-445/645 :: Intro to Database Systems (Fall 2025)
You want to know whether this is the premier course at Carnegie Mellon University on the design and implementation of database management systems? Well, it is. This course rips through data models (re...
15445.courses.cs.cmu.edu
August 25, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Today is the new semester for @db.cs.cmu.edu's Intro to Database Systems! We're going harder into material than before. More challenging projects but you can use LLMs to help. We also have 10min talks each Wed from leading DB companies: 15445.courses.cs.cmu.edu/fall2025
Oh no. Just the other day I was saying, you know, Tom Lehrer is still alive at almost 100 and living in Santa Cruz. variety.com/2025/music/n...
Tom Lehrer, Influential Satirist Whose Topical Songs Poked and Prodded America in the ’50s and ’60s, Dies at 97
Tom Lehrer, an influential musical satirist who came to fame with songs addressing topical events in the '50s and '60s, has died at age 97.
variety.com
July 27, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Oh no. Just the other day I was saying, you know, Tom Lehrer is still alive at almost 100 and living in Santa Cruz. variety.com/2025/music/n...
This happens to me so often that I've set up automation to remove such stuff. On Mac, copy the URL, then:
pbpaste | <unix command to search-replace-remove the particular cruft for that site> | pbcopy
Now what's on the clipboard is the bare URL.
pbpaste | <unix command to search-replace-remove the particular cruft for that site> | pbcopy
Now what's on the clipboard is the bare URL.
1/2 Life in our (digital) times:
-Was doing a post that included link to an excellent @wsj.com report.
-When I pasted the link, it had the URL, followed by endless crapola. So voluminous it needs to be in a separate post, #2 in this thread. ...
-Was doing a post that included link to an excellent @wsj.com report.
-When I pasted the link, it had the URL, followed by endless crapola. So voluminous it needs to be in a separate post, #2 in this thread. ...
July 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
This happens to me so often that I've set up automation to remove such stuff. On Mac, copy the URL, then:
pbpaste | <unix command to search-replace-remove the particular cruft for that site> | pbcopy
Now what's on the clipboard is the bare URL.
pbpaste | <unix command to search-replace-remove the particular cruft for that site> | pbcopy
Now what's on the clipboard is the bare URL.
TIL: vim has a :args command that opens a new buffer for every pathname passed as an argument. Say you have a script that runs 'vi file1 file2 file3'. Running ':! my_script' inside vim starts a whole new session. Better to make the script print file1 file2 file3 and run ':args `my_script`.
July 17, 2025 at 6:29 AM
TIL: vim has a :args command that opens a new buffer for every pathname passed as an argument. Say you have a script that runs 'vi file1 file2 file3'. Running ':! my_script' inside vim starts a whole new session. Better to make the script print file1 file2 file3 and run ':args `my_script`.
Basketball, huh. I am 6' 3", I live walking distance from UC Berkeley, and I'm feeling like I could use some continuing education.
Men's basketball players at Cal could make an average of $200,000 a year, football players $100,000 and women's basketball players $60,000.
UC Berkeley can now pay athletes directly
Men's basketball players at Cal could make an average of $200,000 a year, football players $100,000 and women's basketball players $60,000.
www.berkeleyside.org
July 8, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Basketball, huh. I am 6' 3", I live walking distance from UC Berkeley, and I'm feeling like I could use some continuing education.
I was reminded recently about fzf and immediately started finding uses for it. TL;DR - you choose from an interactive menu, with items defined by lines of input. Including shell integration to choose from all files in a directory tree. Here are some more use cases from b0rk. jvns.ca/til/fzf-prev...
June 25, 2025 at 4:04 PM
I was reminded recently about fzf and immediately started finding uses for it. TL;DR - you choose from an interactive menu, with items defined by lines of input. Including shell integration to choose from all files in a directory tree. Here are some more use cases from b0rk. jvns.ca/til/fzf-prev...
Reposted by John Russell
delighted to announce that my new zine "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is out today!!
You can get it for $12 USD here: wizardzines.com/zines/terminal
You can get it for $12 USD here: wizardzines.com/zines/terminal
June 24, 2025 at 4:52 PM
delighted to announce that my new zine "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is out today!!
You can get it for $12 USD here: wizardzines.com/zines/terminal
You can get it for $12 USD here: wizardzines.com/zines/terminal
Reposted by John Russell
it's happening! "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is coming out tomorrow!
here's the table of contents:
here's the table of contents:
June 23, 2025 at 7:59 PM
it's happening! "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is coming out tomorrow!
here's the table of contents:
here's the table of contents:
TIL: If there's a Mac drive that seems to be completely bricked and can't be mounted or even erased, there's a non-obvious "Show all devices" control in Disk Utility. That will show the container device of the drive and you might be able to reformat that. apple.stackexchange.com/questions/12...
Unable to format / erase hard drive
I have an external HD that died on me a while ago and I'm trying to see if I can format / erase it to start using it again.
The disk does not show up in Finder but I can see it in Disk Utility. Wh...
apple.stackexchange.com
June 14, 2025 at 4:58 AM
TIL: If there's a Mac drive that seems to be completely bricked and can't be mounted or even erased, there's a non-obvious "Show all devices" control in Disk Utility. That will show the container device of the drive and you might be able to reformat that. apple.stackexchange.com/questions/12...
Reposted by John Russell
I told you we’d be back
June 12, 2025 at 4:15 PM
I told you we’d be back
Reposted by John Russell
SF Bay Area residents, whether you felt this evening’s #earthquake or not, please complete the “Did you feel it?” survey
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
The Earthquake Event Page application supports most recent browsers, view supported browsers. Or, try our Real-time Notifications, Feeds, and Web Services.
earthquake.usgs.gov
June 2, 2025 at 4:05 AM
SF Bay Area residents, whether you felt this evening’s #earthquake or not, please complete the “Did you feel it?” survey
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...
TIL: there's a name for the wild-looking stratigraphic layers of rock that you see along the "gorge" sections of Rennie's River in Newfoundland: "flysch". (Must try that in Scrabble some time.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flysch
Flysch - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
June 8, 2025 at 6:01 PM
TIL: there's a name for the wild-looking stratigraphic layers of rock that you see along the "gorge" sections of Rennie's River in Newfoundland: "flysch". (Must try that in Scrabble some time.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flysch
As someone who was told this urban legend from earliest times, there's a lot I could say about this.
Propaganda we’re not falling for:
- “Cracking knuckles causes arthritis.”
The noise of cracking joints is just nitrogen bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid and is not harmful.
🧵⬇️
- “Cracking knuckles causes arthritis.”
The noise of cracking joints is just nitrogen bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid and is not harmful.
🧵⬇️
May 24, 2025 at 5:42 AM
As someone who was told this urban legend from earliest times, there's a lot I could say about this.
TIL: the $BASH_REMATCH array variable in bash lets you do the Pythonic operation: match a regex using ( ) groups, then retrieve the value of group 1, group 2, ... As Python evolves more towards numeric analysis, I'm using bash more and more for string processing use cases. medium.com/@linuxadminh...
Understanding The $BASH_REMATCH In Bash
$BASH_REMATCH is a special array variable in the Bash shell that stores the results of matching a regular expression using the =~ operator…
medium.com
May 11, 2025 at 9:59 PM
TIL: the $BASH_REMATCH array variable in bash lets you do the Pythonic operation: match a regex using ( ) groups, then retrieve the value of group 1, group 2, ... As Python evolves more towards numeric analysis, I'm using bash more and more for string processing use cases. medium.com/@linuxadminh...
Potatoes trending as fuel for athletes? About time! wapo.st/4dihulG
Powered by potatoes: Endurance athletes are chasing speed with spuds
More ultramarathoners and cyclists are turning to potatoes as a mild, carbohydrate-packed fuel option.
wapo.st
May 10, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Potatoes trending as fuel for athletes? About time! wapo.st/4dihulG
When I was growing up in eastern Canada, some people had a strong affinity for New York, others for Boston. I always wondered what the factors were. (More English ancestry = Boston, Irish = New York?) My granddad worked construction on the Empire State Building, which puts me in the New York camp.
www.russellshorto.com a magnificent book that will reorient how you think about New York and the ethos of America
Russell Shorto's Website - Russell Shorto
Taking Manhattan Available 03/04/2025 - Why is New York the archetypal modern city – brash, bold, pulsing with energy? The author of The Island at the Center of the World offers up a thrilling narrati...
www.russellshorto.com
May 8, 2025 at 2:20 AM
When I was growing up in eastern Canada, some people had a strong affinity for New York, others for Boston. I always wondered what the factors were. (More English ancestry = Boston, Irish = New York?) My granddad worked construction on the Empire State Building, which puts me in the New York camp.
TIL: Peter Weller got his PhD in Italian renaissance art history. Not that long ago either. That's in character for Buckaroo Banzai, not so much for RoboCop. escholarship.org/uc/item/0dm8...
Alberti Before Florence: Early Sources Informing Leon Battista Alberti's De Pictura
Author(s): Weller, Peter Francis | Advisor(s): Black, Charlene V | Abstract: De pictura by Leon Battista Alberti (1404?-1472) is the earliest surviving treatise on visual art written in humanist Latin...
escholarship.org
May 3, 2025 at 8:25 PM
TIL: Peter Weller got his PhD in Italian renaissance art history. Not that long ago either. That's in character for Buckaroo Banzai, not so much for RoboCop. escholarship.org/uc/item/0dm8...