Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Snowflake reports Q3 product revenue up 29% YoY to $1.16B, and forecasts Q4 adjusted operating income margin below estimates; SNOW drops 7%+ after hours (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Snowflake reports Q3 product revenue up 29% YoY to $1.16B, and forecasts Q4 adjusted operating income margin below estimates; SNOW drops 7%+ after hours  —  Snowflake Inc. gave an outlook for operating margin that fell short of analysts' estimates, raising concerns among investors about the profitability of new AI-based tools.

Alan.app

Tyler Hall, just one week ago:

Maybe it’s because my eyes are getting old or maybe it’s because the contrast between windows on macOS keeps getting worse. Either way, I built a tiny Mac app last night that draws a border around the active window. I named it “Alan”.

In Alan’s preferences, you can choose a preferred border width and colors for both light and dark mode.

That’s it. That’s the app.

The timing of this is remarkably serendipitous — releasing an app named “Alan” to fix an obvious glaring design shortcoming in recent versions of MacOS just one week before Alan Dye left Apple. (See Michael Tsai for more on the app’s name, including a callback to Greg Landweber’s classic Mac OS extension Aaron.)

It’s worth following Hall’s “the contrast between windows” link, which points to his own post from five years ago lamenting the decline in contrast between active and inactive windows in MacOS. That 2020 post of Hall’s refers back to Steve Jobs’s introduction of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in 2007:

As I was preparing the above video for this post, I completely forgot there was a final feature about the new Leopard Desktop that was highlighted in that keynote.

Jobs took time out of a keynote to callout that it was now easier to tell which window is focused. At 1:29 in that clip, you’ll hear an outsized “Wooo!” from some of the audience just for this one improvement.

Jobs even prepared a slide, highlighting “Prominent active window” as a noteworthy new feature. In 2007, the increase of visual prominence for the active window, going from 10.4 Tiger to 10.5 Leopard, drew applause from the audience. But the level of visual prominence indicating active/inactive windows was much higher in 10.4 Tiger than in any version of MacOS in the last decade under Alan Dye’s leadership.

Nick Heer on Alan (the app, and, indirectly, the man):

I wish it did not feel understandable for there to be an app that draws a big border around the currently active window. That should be something made sufficiently obvious by the system. Unfortunately, this is a problem plaguing the latest versions of MacOS and Windows alike, which is baffling to me. The bar for what constitutes acceptable user interface design seems to have fallen low enough that it is tripping everyone at the two major desktop operating system vendors.

Satellites keep photobombing the Hubble telescope, and it’s getting worse

It’s getting harder and harder for the Hubble and other telescopes orbiting Earth to capture pristine images thanks to the sudden surge in satellite launches. Satellite trails could mess up nearly 40 percent of images the Hubble takes and up to 96 percent of those taken by three other telescopes over the next decade, according […]

Salesforce reports Q3 revenue up 8.6% YoY to $10.26B, vs. $10.27B est., and forecasts Q4 revenue above estimates; CRM jumps 5%+ after hours (Jordan Novet/CNBC)

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Salesforce reports Q3 revenue up 8.6% YoY to $10.26B, vs. $10.27B est., and forecasts Q4 revenue above estimates; CRM jumps 5%+ after hours  —  Salesforce reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday and topped Wall Street estimates with its revenue guidance for the fourth quarter.

Trump Appears To Doze During Stroke

The post Trump Appears To Doze During Stroke appeared first on The Onion.