https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-organize-safely-in-the-age-of-surveillance/

I go for complete transparency myself, but a useful primer

https://inessential.com/2026/02/18/why-not-objective-c.html

Fun read for a non-dev.

“in my next post I’m going to talk about how I wrote some new code in Objective-C and loved it”

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/17/ios-27-rave-update-to-clean-up-code/

Several books could be written about how Apple lost the ability to code

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/17/ios-26-4-stolen-device-protection-enabled-by-default/

Yikes! I would also prefer a passwords passphrase option. I will not touch this before 26.5 even though I will install 26 when .4 is out

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/18/searching-for-apps-with-spotlight/

I may skip Tahoe completely

https://eclecticlight.co/2026/02/19/how-to-erase-your-apple-silicon-mac/

More ways to erase than I knew

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/opinion/ai-software.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NFA.UkLv.r-XczfzYRdXJ&smid=url-share

A valuable take on the shift ahead

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-16-2026

DJT is basically Washington’s nightmare.

“In September 2025 the IRS granted tax-exempt status to the Donald Trump Mount Rushmore Memorial Legacy, making it a charity that can accept tax-free donations.”

https://www.jalopnik.com/2097868/automakers-love-in-car-subscriptions-drivers-dont/

My yearly cost of car ownership is down because vehicles last so long now. That’s a problem for manufacturers

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-worst-president-ever

“focus on three surpassing abuses: His violation of his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution; his use of the power of the federal government to threaten and punish his critics; and his gobsmacking corruption.”

Survival is not guaranteed, but I think more likely than not.

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/15/deep-blue/#atom-everything

It’s different from the post-Apollo aerospace crash. More like the abrupt end of the 1960s clerks who made up a transactional database of humans.

A skillset for which demand has plummeted.

https://toosimple.substack.com/p/rural-life

“The house has five floors. As do many in the village. It’s a mini-Manhattan, concrete and glass, rising up from rice paddies.”

https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-the-mysteries-of-quantum-mechanics-beginning-to-dissolve-20260213/

“For a dust grain floating in the air, collisions with photons and surrounding gas molecules will produce decoherence in … a millionth of the time it takes for light to traverse a single proton”

“quantum Darwinism”

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/get-early-start

Astonishing! Thought to be circadian T cell variation but absolutely nobody expected an effect this size. Lots of studies coming on this.

https://eclecticlight.co/2026/02/15/last-week-on-my-mac-repair-assistant-has-replaced-diagnostics/

My theory on the docs is that different parts of apple dev don’t talk to one another

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/opinion/jeff-bezos-washington-post.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MFA.t6PN.jgHmdnFvxkq4&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Woke.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-12-2026

Gabbard and Wiles were covering up something involving Jared around May 2025

“may or may not be related that in early April 2025, the administration abruptly fired National Security Agency director General Timothy Haugh and his deputy, hours after dismissing several staffers at the National Security Council”

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/politics/trump-racist-video-gop-blowback?cid=ios_app

“The White House argued that Trump remains “the unequivocal leader” of the GOP”

Trans: Trump sees powerful rivals overtaking him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/well/mind/narcissist-narcissism-myths-facts.html

A few things I didn’t know. It seems a prerequisite for working for Trump.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-thoughts-on-the-authoritarian-international

Wealth taxes a hot topic now.

https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening

A reason for people to live closer to family. Seriously.

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/steve-yegge-on-ai-agents-and-the

Humans can’t keep up. The LLMs do not tire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/magazine/dissociative-identity-disorder-mental-health.html

May be as common as schizophrenia but can respond to treatment.

I suspect “identity” in humans is much more variable than most imagine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/ostarine-olympics-doping.html

I’d love 3lbs of muscle! It may be bundled with GLP1 if approved.

The sports problem is that it’s TOO easy to detect and its widespread use makes accidental exposure a real possibility.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-10-2026

It is possible that the walls are crumbling.

“Brad Karp, senior partner for Paul Weiss … plotted with Epstein to get a woman they disliked charged with a crime and deported.”

https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-tulsi-gabbard-and

Only a few have credibility now. You cannot run a democracy like this.

https://toosimple.substack.com/p/china-return

Treading water, not too unhappy yet.

https://archive.ph/20260202190431/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/climate/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-drilling.html

Not every big reach grabs the brass ring. A sympathetic story of failure at the extremes of science.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/health/gender-surgery-malpractice-varian.html

Patient who had mastectomy as teenager wins lawsuit for surgery that did not meet “standard of practice”. If insurance companies stop coverage that will be the end of adolescent gender affirming surgery in America.

https://www.apricitas.io/p/americas-1t-ai-gamble

There is an incomprehensible amount of money in the world seeking investment opportunities.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-9-2026

Explainer on the curious status of America’s Puerto Rico colony.

https://webkit.org/blog/17808/interop-2025-review/

This is counter to the 2026 narrative and must be ignored.

Seriously – much better than expected

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/management-as-ai-superpower

Very advanced students with exceptional skills. Compatible with thesis that current ai helps most those who have the most (skills).

Most extraordinary acceleration may come with loose specification and a wide tolerance for variable output.

(Anecdotal reports that the enhanced productivity is surprisingly fatiguing for today’s human component.)

https://www.platformer.news/social-media-screen-time-manchester-study-haidt/

It is very hard to study, but it’s reassuring. Correlation may be that teens with mental health vulnerability spend more time on social media. They may do better off social media.

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/25/the-browser-is-the-sandbox/#atom-everything

Seems likely

https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/05/how-to-use-macos-high-performance-screen-sharing-for-lower-latency-and-better-color-video/

Only silicon macs can do it.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-5-2026

I hadn’t thought of that but, yeah, definitely.

“FBI has “summoned state election officials from across the country for an unusual briefing on ‘preparations’ for the midterms” on February 25”

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/llms-are-getting-a-lot-better-and-faster-at-finding-and-exploiting-zero-days.html

I wonder if the cost of zero days will fall.

https://followmehere.com/2026/02/08/human-hair-grows-through-pulling-not-pushing-study-shows/

“pulled upward by a force associated with a hidden network of moving cells”

https://eclecticlight.co/2026/02/06/apple-silicon-macs-have-2-types-of-thunderbolt-ports/

“can’t be used to install or update macOS on a bootable external disk”

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-7-2026

To do mass purge of non-credentialed US residents in a manner consistent with US law and basic decency would take decades and cost at least 10-20x the current ICE budget.

https://jacobin.com/2026/02/mann-doctor-faustus-fascism-far-right

So good

“A Socratic error that has long persisted in our culture is that intelligence, education, and moral insight at least reinforce one another where they aren’t causally related”

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/profiles-in-cowardice-tariff-edition

The crooked six face doom.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/american-decency-still-lives

Policy is debatable but evil is evil. You know it when you see it.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/06/llms-and-software-development-roundup/

Illustrative because reactions range from “great stuff” to “waste of time”.

From those I trust I think is closer to “great stuff” but it’s a somewhat different skillset form pre-ai coding.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/06/apple-news-scam-ads/

Apple turned into 1970s IBM

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/02/05/time-machine-in-tahoe/

I may never install Tahoe. Just skip macOS 26.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-4-2026

You would think someone would have noticed.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-darkness-descends

He is a fabulous cartoonist.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-dangerous-spectacle-of-ice-at

The people have learned from Minneapolis…

“More than 150,000 people signed petitions to bar federal agents and rapid-response legal networks are mobilizing in Santa Clara”