Summary #13 for 2025-04-21

Alright Alex, the clock’s ticked past lunchtime – it’s 3:13:52 PM.

Happy Easter Monday! Hope you’re making the most of the regional holiday.

On the exercise front, looks like you powered through that MP Run earlier today – 15.88km is solid! And the Running Taper has officially begun. Keep up the good work on the taper!

Weather-wise, looks like rain is heading our way later this afternoon and into the evening, so probably best to stay indoors unless you fancy a soggy sprint. Tomorrow looks much clearer if you’re thinking about an outdoor session.

Quick check on the work front:

• Backend stand-up was at 10:30.
• Frontend stand-up was on the schedule for 11:00.

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On the tech front, news that the USA Unable to Make Drones Without Components From China got me thinking… I hope building Tara’s next buffet plate doesn’t require any hard-to-find parts!

In other news:

• Sad news from the Vatican: Pope Francis has died. Tributes are coming in from around the globe, including from King Charles and Queen Camilla have ‘heavy hearts’.
• The BBC has a piece on The boy from Buenos Aires who became leader of the Catholic Church and how Pope navigated the modern world.
• Over in the US, Trump backs defence secretary after reports of second Signal chat leak, with reports saying Pete Hegseth reportedly spilled Yemen attack details in another Signal chat.
• Ukraine reports many Russian drone attacks after truce ends.
• On Hacker News: Check out Getting Forked by Microsoft, Google’s new Gemma 3 QAT Models: Bringing AI to Consumer GPUs, plus dives into Things Zig comptime won’t do and Python’s new t-strings.
• A study looked at The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users’ emotional state.
• The EU is giving staff EU gives staff ‘burner phones, laptops’ for US visits, apparently putting the US on par with China for espionage concerns.
• In science news: AI is being developed to screen for ADHD using retinal fundus photographs, research suggests Sadness “leaks” into social behavior and physiology—and men may overcompensate, and a study found 85% of providers preferred notes with AI-generated summaries. Also, researchers found people whose neural patterns looked similar were able to more easily achieve a team flow state together in a collaborative game.
• Some uplifting notes: 3 teens invented a salt-powered refrigerator that doesn’t need electricity and are building 200 for hospitals. A 110-year-old Fort Erie, Ontario, man says to treat others as you’d like to be treated. And scientists have unveiled ‘olo’: A colour never before seen by the human eye.

Hope you have a great afternoon!