Abstractions is a podcast about technology, software, hardware, and the Internet, and the way the ever-increasing layers of these technologies permeate every aspect of our everyday lives.
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A promotional video for new AirPods appears to have been leaked, BMW shows ads to drivers on its car dashboard screens, and there is a correct orientation when putting down your case-less phone. Mario meets Pareto MacOS 26.7 Tahoe Release Candidate Contains a Video Demonstrating Camera-Equipped AirPods in Action BMW Has Put a Spider-Man Ad on the Dashboard Display of Owners’ Cars iDrive Ads You Don’t Need to Worry About Scratching Your iPhone Camera Lenses You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is
Safari has one major advantage over Chrome, Hugging Face fends off a cyberattack by a rogue language model, and OpenAI will reportedly ship a ChatGPT device replete with speaker, microphone, and camera. 🔗 Links Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” is set today (2026-08-04) There Will Come Soft Rains (PDF) Timeline of Fictional Future Events Neonomicon by Alan Moore Chrome’s glaring lack of window/tab session isolation Safari’s support for web platform features is… not great Chrome is bad Google settled a class-action lawsuit for $5 billion in which it was accused of collecting user dat
MacOS upgrade shenanigans continue, SpaceX loses billions in first “earnings” report, LLMs are surprisingly good at financial advice, and Dan describes his new high-fidelity audio system. 🔗 Links LLM2Human Clinic Iris Photos app for MacOS MacOS Safari standalone installer downloads from Apple SpaceX’s first-ever earnings report comes as stock hits new all-time low AI debt orgy can’t last forever, while hidden borrowing has exploded to $1.65 trillion AI Economics for Dummies AI financial advice is surprisingly good LLMs reward expertise Arcam A25 integrated amplifier Dali Sonik 5 floor-standin
Apple might be building servers powered by M7 Ultra processors, S&P downgrades Oracle’s debt, and open-weights large language models narrow the gap with frontier models. 🔗 Links Why Oracle’s recent credit downgrade could be a warning sign for stocks Moonshot and Alibaba unveil models they claim rival OpenAI and Anthropic You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Mac software developers find a way to get out of “squircle jail”, there is growing opposition to data center over-construction, and bankers warn about risks associated with growing debt and shrinking cash flow related to generative software infrastructure investment. 🔗 Links Train melodies on Tokyo’s Yamanote line Ride voxel Tokyo Yamanote train while studying Japanese Thaw: Mac menu item organizer, Ice fork, and alternative to Bartender Escape from Squircle Jail Resist the Squircle Jail NSDockTilePlugIn Iris Photos: A Native MacOS photo library Iris launch announcement post Data center const
Claude Fable & Mythos models are once again available, Sony kills PlayStation physical game discs, Xbox fires thousands of employees, commencement speakers are surprised by “AI” backlash, and Allbirds pivots from shoes to data centers. 🔗 Links “Bring Me to Life” cover: Gregorian “Bring Me to Life” cover: Otamatone Fable 5 & Mythos 5 are now available again ChatGPT can’t believe RAM prices Sony kills PlayStation video game discs Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles Sony announces end of PlayStation discs Xbox fires thousands of employe
Video game summer sales commence, we remember Om Malik, Apple raises prices, Apple Silicon servers could power Apple Intelligence, and Facebook and Amazon foist generative software onto their employees. 🔗 Links Free The Icons: Apple should end their prohibition on shapes in MacOS app icons Remembering Om Malik Om Malik, 1966-2026 – On my Om Matt Mullenweg: All Roads Lead to Om Daring Fireball: Om Glass: Remembering Om More Om Links Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket Apple Reportedly Building M2 Ultra and M4-Powered AI Servers Apple M5 Max vs. Nvidia DGX SPARK: Ca
SpaceX stock price plummets, Llama.cpp and LlamaBarn are now “Llama”, and Microsoft hopes to make people addicted to its software. 🔗 Links Are you in the weights? Steam Machine launches Llama Microsoft Wants to “Make People Addicted” to its New AI Assistant Original paywalled article You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Apple II retro-gaming, small wins in Apple OS 27, Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 & Mythos 5, and the SpaceX IPO. You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announces Siri AI and other improvements to its upcoming OS 27 line of operating system software. 🔗 Links WWDC26 highlights: Apple Intelligence, Siri AI, and more Apple introduces Siri AI You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Google kills its search product after 25 years and announces its Gemini-LLM-centric “Googlebook” notebook, while Plex triples its lifetime pass price to $750. 🔗 Links The Virtual OS Museum Is AI Profitable? Google kills its search product after 25 years On Google declaring war on the Web Ad Infinitum Search alternatives: Kagi DuckDuckGo Ecosia Startpage Googlebook Official Reddit announcement post Dropover: wiggle cursor to open a “shelf” (MacOS) Plex lifetime pass to jump from $250 to $750 Jellyfin Jellify music app for Jellyfin Awesome Jellyfin You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justin
Friends don’t let friends use Ollama, local software needs to be the norm, and why it’s not fun to read what LLMs write. 🔗 Links Since You Arrived Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Ollama Local AI needs to be the norm Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud Local-first Software Directory Sinceerly Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain original 404 Media link (paywalled) You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Apple has a new CEO, Mac windows still have proxy icons, and Anthropic finds a clever way to increase the price for Claude without increasing prices. 🔗 Links Pelican 4.12 released Bubbles.town Window proxy icons in Mac OS 8.5 Human Interface Guidelines (1998) Window proxy icons in Neovide Claude 4.7 increased token usage You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
We discuss a tool for comparing coding fonts, GitHub announces support for stacked pull requests, and Facebook kills its “metaverse”. 🔗 Links Abstractions episode title truncated CodingFont.com GitHub stacked PRs Native instant space switching on MacOS AeroSpace tiling window manager for MacOS Open-source design stack Facebook kills its metaverse You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Little Snitch is now available for Linux, OpenAI buys a podcast, web sites hijack the browser back button, and a bundle of 30 WordPress plugins were hacked. 🔗 Links MacOS scroll-to-zoom Little Snitch for Linux Little Snitch for Linux — Because Nothing Else Came Close OpenAI buys TBPN Om Malik and Ben Thompson’s take Sometimes powerful people just do dumb s–t A new spam policy for “back button hijacking” StopTheMadness browser plugin Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.r
Claude Code leaks its source code, GitHub uptime woes continue, people may become dependent on LLMs, and local LLMs are getting faster. 🔗 Links Idiocracy Proximity Index Claude Code Unpacked The Missing GitHub Status Page GitHub’s Historic Uptime Gemma 4 LLM — Unsloth Gemma 4 on iPhone: Google AI Edge Gallery LlamaBarn You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
CoPilot puts Microsoft ads in GitHub pull requests, Apple discontinues the Mac Pro, and Anthropic stands by its values and forgoes a government contract. 🔗 Links CBonsai Meow.camera Purrrr cat feeder Purrrr iPhone app Neko House cat desk Custom Cat Aquarium Copilot Edited an Ad Into My PR GitHub kills Copilot PR ads after backlash CoPilot training opt-out settings LinkedIn feed view settings Apple discontinues the Mac Pro Wired headphone sales on the rise You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is
Apple puts ads in Maps, ARM will fab its own CPUs, and Python darling Astral is acquired by OpenAI. 🔗 Links Unstream Flighty Airports GG desktop GUI app for Jujutsu Introducing Apple Business Apple confirms that its Maps app will begin showing ads to users Alternative map apps OpenStreetMap Organic Maps CoMaps ARM announces its own CPUs Astral acquired by OpenAI You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Human.json helps create a web of trust for human-created content, Justin builds a Pelican plugin to support it, and Nvidia DLSS 5 aims to “enhance” first-person game realism. 🔗 Links Human.json human.json Human plugin for Pelican Justin’s human.json file Nvidia DLSS 5 Nvidia CEO responds to DLSS 5 backlash Gamers are right to be disgusted by NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 39 DLSS 5 Memes That Made Gamers Fear The Beauty Filter You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
We celebrate both our one-year anniversary and 50th episode, Apple marks 50 years of thinking different, and people learn from even the least powerful of computers. 🔗 Links Kagi Translate now supports LinkedIn Speak as an output language 50 years of thinking different Apple at 50: Five Decades of Thinking Different (YouTube video) “This Is Not The Computer For You” Tailscale ZMX a-Shell a-Shell on iOS App Store a-Shell mini on iOS App Store: minimalist version, smaller app size a-Shell source repository Eternal Terminal Mosh Hugging Face llmfit Can I Run AI locally? You can find Justin Mayer
Apple announces the affordable MacBook Neo, and rising hardware component prices threaten local computing, self-hosting, and data sovereignty. 🔗 Links Muspy: Be notified when artists release new music MacBook Neo M5 MacBook Air iPhone 17e M4 iPad Air Mac Mini and Apple servers to be made in Houston 512 GB Mac Studio vanishes Control: No RAM/GPUs/drives = no local computing Hetzner prices increase 30–40% You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Bots hit Justin’s open-source repositories, and Apple announces new high-end M5 MacBook Pros and Studio Display monitors. 🔗 Links XKCD digital infrastructure comic, now interactive Stolen Gemini API key racks up $82,000 in 48 hours Apple introduces MacBook Pro with all‑new M5 Pro and M5 Max, delivering breakthrough pro performance and next-level on-device AI Apple unveils new Studio Display and all-new Studio Display XDR You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
OpenAI outgrows its original mission, generative LLM software overwhelms open source maintainers, and several projects attempt to distinguish human from bot contributors. 🔗 Links My journey to the microwave alternate timeline Mastodon is for the people “My Friends Are Not for Sale” T-shirts OpenAI’s mission statement evolution AI Agent Lands PRs in Major OSS Projects Respectful Open Source Vouch Good Egg You can find Justin Mayer on the web at justinmayer.com and on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space. Dan Jacobson’s homestead on the web is at danj.ca.
Hard drives are sold out for the year, Apple announces video podcasts, OpenClaw creator joins OpenAI, and generative software bots make open source maintainers’ jobs even harder. 🔗 Links Justin makes it into Virtualenv docs Homebrew Python Is Not for You WD & Seagate confirm hard drives are already sold out for the entire year Apple video podcasts Audiophiles can’t tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud Tiny Tool Town OpenClaw creator joins OpenAI OpenClaw Agent Published a Hit Piece on Open-Source Maintainer - Part 1 OpenClaw Agent Published
Discord will require face scan or ID for full access, Qobuz adopts human-first policy on software-generated music, and research indicates LLMs intensify work instead of reducing it. 🔗 Links Sandboxels Discord limits access if age is unverified Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month Discord admits data breach of users’ government IDs they collected How to Delete your Discord Account DiscordChatExporter: Save Discord chat logs to a file Discord Alternatives, Ranked Signal Zulip Qobuz policy on software-generated music Qobuz: Why We’re Taking a Human‑First Stand on AI‑
