Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 14d

This is the silliest thing I've made in a bit. It's going into a presentation tomorrow for giggles.

A still from Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" video. Orange text is superimposed that reads "It's now safe to wake up your Green Day."

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 17d

As October fast approaches, we really should consider that Lou Bega was, in fact, creating a woman.

“A little bit of” Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica? Even Victor Frankenstein is questioning dude’s motivation.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 22d

We never really addressed the content moderation issue on social media, we just let the folks accountable get too powerful to hold accountable.

If they can't even handle a conversation about content moderation, what ever gave us the idea they'd implement safeguards on what a model produces?

AI-Generated YouTube Channel Uploaded Nothing But Videos of Women Being Shot

YouTube removed a channel that posted nothing but graphic Veo-generated videos of women being shot after 404 Media reached out for comment.

www.404media.co

Reposted by Zach Tarvin

molly ✨ @brat.fm · 23d

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 26d

It’s a Malört ice cream kinda night. That’s the vibe.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 28d

…both?

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · 29d

Life the universe and everything also says: 42. Sometimes you need both Threads and Bluesky. 😉

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Sep 12

Skee-ball image in the preview is from a Saturday night in a kick-ass arcade bar near me.

Felt good to sit down and do the thing again, even if just for my blog.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Sep 12

Writing in a PR agency full-time made it difficult for me to feel energized to write for myself for longer than I'll admit.

Even as I've shifted to more iOS dev and creative tech, I've struggled to find time and energy. Tonight, finally did a short *and* said something about social algos.

The Arcade at the Menlo Park Mall — Zach Tarvin

Social media algorithms are feeling a little unbearable. So I processed it with some fiction.

www.zachtarvin.com

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Sep 11

…there’s a stack of paw-perbacks pun here somewhere but my headache won’t do it.

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Reposted by Zach Tarvin

dan sinker @dansinker.com · Sep 5

With the Trump Administration about to roll its ugly occupation into Chicago, I wanted to write a little lyrical love letter to the city. dansinker.com/posts/202…

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Sep 1

Omg I’ve been looking for that!

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Reposted by Zach Tarvin

Fatbobman (东坡肘子) @fatbobman.com · Aug 25

Fatbobman’s Swift Weekly #099 is out!
The Future is Coming: Humanoid Robot Games

✨ Corner concentricity on iOS 26
🖌️ Vapor on Raspberry Pi
🔍 Liquid Glass. Why?
📲 Open Intent

and more...

weekly.fatbobman.com/p/fatbobmans...

Fatbobman's Swift Weekly #099

The Future is Coming: Humanoid Robot Games

weekly.fatbobman.com

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Aug 24

Oops. Stayed up until 3:30 playing Spider-Man 2….

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Aug 20

We lost so much amazing art and graphic design when they said “no printed manual,” “no printed strategy guides.”

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Reposted by Zach Tarvin

Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · Aug 19

Some of the world's smartest people are deeply invested in the idea that LLMs are actually creative forces. They are not. They are vacuum cleaners attached to a firehose.

Tweet from William MacAskill explaining that he likes to allow Gemini to write its own short story and he was really impressed with it, and then an excerpt from the story itself, called "The Architect and the Gardener."

A quote from George R.R. Martin where he says there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners, which is very clearly the source of Gemini's "story"

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Reposted by Zach Tarvin

Corey “🎃Managed NAT Gateway👻” Quinn @quinnypig.com · Aug 18

Trying to hide the breach announcement from search engines is a bad, bad look.

Techmeme @techmeme.com · Aug 18

HR giant Workday says hackers stole an unspecified amount of personal information, like names and email addresses, from one of its third-party CRM platforms (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Reposted by Zach Tarvin

Chris Wu 🪐 @chriswu.com · Aug 14

TIL this SF Symbol is not necessarily the letter "A".

It changes based on what language is in use.

Examples of the SF Symbol textformat.size on top. Middle is it used in a picker and it is the letter "A". Bottom has the same picker but it is Chinese characters now.

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Aug 7

Wait, what is this? This looks fun.

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Aug 4

I've been looking forward to this! I've caught myself humming the Upgrade earnings jingle about twice a day since reading the Six Colors coverage.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Aug 1

Stayed up way too late working on what’s going to be my #ShipATon project. I’m quite a bit away from being able to ship, but uh…good session tonight.

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Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Jul 19

With the disclaimer that I might say something very different at the end of the weekend, I think I landed on my #Shipaton idea. I’m even talking myself into supporting both iOS 18 and iOS 26 even though I’m definitely thinking of some ‘26 stuff as the real MVP.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Jul 14

I appreciate the movie recs in an email, but *damn* the subject line "Bad Actor Alert" is aggressive from our chief information officer. 😉

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Jul 11

Been supporting the return of the Snack Wrap for our McDonald's client. Finally got to have mine for lunch today. Check out what we've been up to at snackwrapfiles.com.

A ranch and a spicy Snack Wrap arranged on a McDonald's tray.

Zach Tarvin @zachtarvin.com · Jul 7

Our English department office had these in college. I regret not swinging by there more and being like "Can I just look at it?" They were swapped out for iMac G5/early Intel iMacs before long.