macOS Sequoia + xOS 18 Betas + Understanding Apple’s On-Device and Server Foundation Models release; htmd; Geochron

The Drop returns from the all-too-brief holiday! For the first time in a long while, I spent almost no time on the laptop screen during the week, which made for a fairly intense “catch-up” over the weekend. So, we’ll go theme-less today with some of the more interesting bits plucked from that massive trawl.

macOS Sequoia + xOS 18 Betas + Understanding Apple’s On-Device and Server Foundation Models release

Quick note to all that I’ve done the daft deed of upgrading my personal kit to the latest Apple betas. If you need/want anything tested on macOS 15 beta or the iOS (et al.) 18 betas, just let me know.

I’ll be testing “work” apps this week, but all the non-work apps I use daily are performing well.

There’s no “AI” in these releases (save for audio transcripts on xOS 18), yet, but I’ll drop notes on them when they arrive.

Until then, please head on over to this Trail of Bits blog post which has a deep-dive on what is Apple releasing, and how it compares to the current open-source ecosystem.

htmd

If you’re familiar with turndown, or are just looking for a more lightweight (than pandoc) too for converting HTML to markdown, there’s a new kid on the block named htmd.

It’s a Rust crate that does a bang-up job speedily converting HTML to markdown. It offers a variety of options similar to turndown, giving us tons of flexibility.

This Rust converter engine passes all test cases of turndown, so it’s literally a drop-in replacement. You’re also free of dependency Hades since htmd just leans heavily on

Minimal Dependencies: HTMD relies solely on the spiffy html5ever crate (which you should also check out).

It doesn’t ship with a CLI, but you can make one that takes input from stdin pretty quickly:

Cargo.toml:

[package]
name = "htmdcli"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

[dependencies]
htmd = "0.1"

main.rs:

use std::io::{self, Read};
use htmd::HtmlToMarkdown;

fn main() -> io::Result<()> {
  let mut input = String::new();
  io::stdin().read_to_string(&mut input)?;
  let converter = HtmlToMarkdown::builder()
    .skip_tags(vec!["script", "style"])
    .build();
  println!("{}", converter.convert(&input).unwrap());
  Ok(())
}

Geochron

I’m filing this under the “super cool gizmo I’ll likely never buy, but wouldn’t say ‘no’ to if it happend to fall off a truck near the compound”.

As the site, itself, notes, “Since 1964 — and before the internet — the Geochron World Clock was the only way to see the Sunrise and Sunset on Earth in real-time, in sync with the Earth’s 23.4 degree axial tilt against the Sun. President Reagan presented as a gift to Mikhail Gorbachev as an example of American Engineering, and these photogenic world clocks have appeared in motion pictures like the The Hunt for Red October.”

The mechanical version of this world clock is a combination of art and engineering. Physically, it resembles a framed world map, approximately 2×3 feet in size, with over 300 moving parts. The map is an endless belt driven by an electric clock motor, synchronized with the Earth’s rotation. This intricate mechanism shows:

• Legal time zones
• Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
• Local Apparent Time
• Sunrise and sunset moments
• Duration of daylight
• Sun’s meridian passage
• Degrees of latitude and longitude

The digital version is a modern adaptation and is designed to be paired with a high-resolution digital display. Because it’s digital, it also has some unique features:

• Real-time sunrise-sunset greyline terminator
• Live satellite weather overlays (precipitation, wind speed, temperature, cloud cover)
• Live tracking of the International Space Station and over 400 satellites
• Earthquake and volcano activity updates within 10 minutes of the event
• Air quality data (carbon monoxide, sulfur, tropospheric ozone)
• Ham Radio data (DX Cluster spots, FT8 and WSPR signal pathways, solar and ionospheric conditions)
• Customizable markers and time zone adjustments

I’m pretty sure one could avoid the cost of the digital one and gin up something similar for almost free on a Raspberry Pi.

FIN

Remember, you can follow and interact with the full text of The Daily Drop’s free posts on Mastodon via @dailydrop.hrbrmstr.dev@dailydrop.hrbrmstr.dev ☮️