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Reposted by Ben Fry

Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 22h

Major media outlet falling down on the job of explaining that political influencers are the new propagandists in a take that could illustrate a class on Manufacturing Consent.

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 1d

Should the New York Times be sold to Pennysaver and its editors sent to work in Amazon warehouses? It depends on who you ask.

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 2d

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

MIT rejects Trump administration deal for priority federal funding

MIT is one of the nine schools that were asked to agree to adopt conservative priorities and policies in exchange for funding perks.

www.washingtonpost.com

Ben Fry @benfry.com · 2d

Relieved to read that MIT has rejected the “Compact for Higher Education” proposed by the Trump administration

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

“The document includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression & our independence as an institution.”

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

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Reposted by Ben Fry

Nat Torkington @gnat.bsky.social · 2d

New music video just dropped! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKfM...

We had so much fun in the hall making this. Can't wait to share the album with you and tour it next year!

You, Me, Everybody - The Rest of Us - [Official Music Video]

YouTube video by You, Me, Everybody Band

www.youtube.com

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 2d

And while I did get a coffee there today, it is one of no less than five Dunkin' on my walk to work, so there's a better one that's my usual stop.

I will spare you the elaborate dissertation on how such decisions are made.

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 3d

Oh my god… our studio is the top floor of this building. Had no idea this was being filmed just downstairs, directly below my office.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED0-...

‘Another Failed Heist’ starring Matt Damon & Casey Affleck

YouTube video by Dunkin'

www.youtube.com

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 4d

Reading a bedtime story to my 8yo and was not expecting to find @djpatil.bsky.social as one of the characters in his Wayside School book… 💜

Photo of an open book, the text reads:

They walked to the far comer of the play-ground, where they were alone.

"What's up, D.J.?" Louis asked.

D.J. just smiled.

"Come on, D.J. You can tell me. Why are you so happy?"

D.J. looked up at him. He said, "You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy."

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 4d

can confirm :-/

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 5d

Yikes.

www.pcmag.com/news/qualcom...

Qualcomm Buys Arduino, Will Bring AI Tools to Your DIY Tech Projects

The Arduino brand will remain for future products as it becomes part of the Qualcomm business. Plus, there's a brand-new Arduino Uno Q single-board computer.

www.pcmag.com

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 5d

The “you're holding it wrong” fiasco was partly fueled by using poorly chosen ranges for the bars that show signal, causing slight shifts to make the phone drop from 5 bars to 2.

Neat thread on disassembling the iOS source to figure it out…

sam henri gold @samhenrigold.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 5d

hey wanna see something kinda interesting? this was the entire fix to the iPhone Antennagate in 2010. 20 bytes.

(this is going to be a very long thread 🧵)

Assembly code between iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1. It's basically the same except one instruction points to a different address.

A lookup table tweaked between 4.0 and 4.0.1.

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 11d

very cool! 📈

Lars @webpro.nl · 11d

📊 Fixed a few bugs in Venz this morning ☕

New to Venz? It's the easiest way to create SVG charts from all sorts of data, such as hyperfine or mitata test results or just lists of numbers (and optionally labels). Create shareable URLs. Check out the examples at try.venz.dev/about

→ try.venz.dev

Venz

Easy and accessible dataviz

try.venz.dev

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Reposted by Ben Fry

dave @beesandbombs.bsky.social · 11d

:)

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Reposted by Ben Fry

Terrible Maps @terriblemapshq.bsky.social · 12d

Australia and Austria side by side

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 12d

beautiful collection

kottke.org @kottke.org · 13d

Bisa Butler has a new show of her quilted portraits; it’s called Hold Me Close. “This body of work is a visual response to how I am feeling as an African American woman living in 2025.” [kottke.org]

Bisa Butler, Hold Me Close

Bisa Butler makes quilted portraits and recently debuted a show with some of her newest work called Hold Me Close. From her artist’s statement: This body of work is a visual response to how I am feeling as an Afri

kottke.org

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 13d

Latest version of Rowboat has some really nice mapping updates from Karlie:

Fathom Information Design @fathom.info · 19d

We recently made a round of visual updates to Rowboat to make it even easier to spot geographic regions where data is more highly concentrated.

To get more out of your own geographic data, head to www.rowboat.net

Explore the coordinates of major world cities and instantly see the bright hotspots of densely populated areas.

Locate regions of the world most likely to be impacted by volcanic activity.

Get quick insights into global trade by plotting shipping routes of 500+ commercial vessels.

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Reposted by Ben Fry

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 15d

The main reason I am not on X is I know enough about this stuff to know however immune one thinks they are to information ops, propaganda, and algorithmic manipulation it has an impact on the way you see the world. Even when you think you're kicking against it, you're dancing to their tune.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 16d

🤷🏿‍♂️

Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say

Doesn't that make more sense than lots of people caring about Cracker Barrel?

gizmodo.com

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 16d

Take heart, fellow creators: even Taylor F*ing Swift still has to deal with billion dollar companies suggesting she do her work for free—in exchange for “the exposure.”

www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...

NFL ‘Flatly Refused’ to Meet Taylor Swift’s Demands About Super Bowl Performance, Source Says

The speculation about Taylor Swift’s possible performance at the Super Bowl has now reportedly come to an abrupt end. Industry insiders claimed that Swift made some demands to perform for the halftime...

www.yahoo.com

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 19d

A couple others burned in my memory… the announcement of the 128K Mac, we also had a Lisa at home for a brief time, and this tiny computer on the beautiful green background, as well as this lovely orange composition…

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 19d

A few favorites…

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 19d

Happy 50th anniversary to BYTE magazine, which a young version of me happily devoured or at least stared at, trying to understand it (I was 8 or 9 or 10…)

Much of its cover art also stuck with me as interesting visions of computing. Here's all of 1977–1986, my favorite decade of the bunch.

All BYTE magazine covers for a decade-long span, shown in a grid.

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Reposted by Ben Fry

Dave Walker @davewalker.bsky.social · Aug 25

Possible causes of your problems. It’s a diagram that (sadly) still seems relevant in 2025, so reposting a year and a bit on.

Diagram titled 'Possible causes of your problems'. On the left hand side, subtitled 'Yes': Funding removed from local councils, growing gap between rich and poor, multinational companies not paying their taxes, lack of new affordable housing, government not investing sufficiently in schools and healthcare. On the right hand side, subtitled 'No': Picture of small boat, with arrow; 'People fleeing horrific situations that you and I can't imagine'.

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 20d

I love the %2F entries in there, indicating that they've done their little encoding thing to each subpath of this infernal mage URL for maximum waste of time and effort. Well done, all.

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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 22d

Yeah, I think it was submitted at the same time and is just stuck in Apple’s approval process. Soon!

Ben Fry @benfry.com · 22d

Firefox version of the extension just approved! addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-i...

Open in Rowboat – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download Open in Rowboat for Firefox. Open HTML tables, links to spreadsheets, and Google Sheets directly in Rowboat

addons.mozilla.org

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Reposted by Ben Fry

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 23d

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

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