Author | Lightnews

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 3d

OK Internet, what are the best Spotify alternatives? I’m currently looking at Apple Music and Tidal. What pays musicians the best? Has the best apps?

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 5d

I showed up to class all prepared for a review day to help students prepare for their midterm this week. Nothing worked. The projector controls were unresponsive. The Socrative practice exam site wouldn't load. I wound up just riffing from a PDF review sheet I will share when Slack accepts uploads.

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 5d

AWS outages are the modern snowday

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 10d

Open Source friends, do you work on or have close ties to an open source project that would like help? Get it here! @uwmadison.bsky.social's Open Source Programming Office will provide paid interns to help you triage issues, verify bugs, and submit pull requests.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Call for Proposal - OSPO Internship Program

The Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is looking to connect interns with meaningful open-source projects as part of our internship program. The program would match projects with interns. The OSPO faci...

docs.google.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 16d

This isn’t going to end well.

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · 16d

Big news in the @react.dev community this week. I think this is a great thing, and addresses some of the tension and fracturing we’ve seen in the community over the past few years.
react.dev/blog/2025/10...

Introducing the React Foundation – React

The library for web and native user interfaces

react.dev

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Sep 9

This new translation feature with AirPods Pro is a good example of how Apple can turn an existing technology into a must-have feature by improving the UX

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Aug 30

I think I will buy some champagne today, just to have on hand

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Reposted by Perry Govier

Brad Frost @bradfrost.com · Aug 28

📙 📗 📘 📕 The History of Themeable User Interfaces: bradfrost.com/blog/post/th...

It was an incredible experience to write this piece. It blurs together the history of computers, video games, the web, design systems, and my own existence on this planet.

The History of Themeable User Interfaces

A full-ish history of user interfaces that can be themed to meet the opportunities and constraints of the time

bradfrost.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Aug 27

This makes a lot more sense to me than MCP servers to help an AI interact with third party data. Rather than create a new proxy that sits between an AI and your API, just create a universal way to describe your API to an AI, and let it interact with the API directly.

github.com/universal-to...

Universal Tool Calling Protocol

Universal Tool Calling Protocol has 10 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

github.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Aug 26

TIL: you can copy and paste a table from Notion into a markdown file and it will have the correct formatting. Well done! It’s the little things.

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Aug 26

Mini disk was the peak of early 2000’s data storage mediums.

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Aug 5

Programming instructors, want students to be able to use GitHub Copilot as an agent to ask questions but not let students have Copilot write the code for them? You can do so with this:

A settings.json file, in a .vscode folder, containing rules that prevent AI code completion, but still allow Agentic chats

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jul 31

Anyone know of a way to allow @github.com Copilot’s chat functionality, but disable code generation? This is for a class assignment. I want students to be able to ask the AI questions as a sort of tutor, but not write the code for them. At least, not in the intro course.

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jul 8

Huge improvement. The first beta was far from the level of design quality I expect from Apple.

9to5mac.com/2025/07/07/l...

Liquid Glass in iOS 26 beta 3 less dramatic as Apple optimizes redesign for usability - 9to5Mac

Sorry or you’re welcome? Apple’s new Liquid Glass visual element is getting any icy design change in some places before...

9to5mac.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jun 30

My main thought when reading Project Hail Mary was “I hope they make this into a movie.” When they announced the movie my main thought was “I hope they don’t screw this up.” So far, it doesn’t disappoint. youtu.be/m08TxIsFTRI

Project Hail Mary - Official Trailer

YouTube video by Amazon MGM Studios

youtu.be

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jun 19

I love @apnews.com, but every once and a while, I get a new alert that really doesn’t fit in with the rest

A new alert about a historical duck farm rebuilding after a bird-flu related culling

A series of news alerts about serious events in the Middle East, hurricanes, and global warming-related weather events

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Reposted by Perry Govier

ProPublica @propublica.org · Jun 14

We obtained records showing how an ex-DOGE staffer with no medical experience used AI to identify which VA contracts to kill.

“I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says,” he said.

Read more: propub.li/4emGV69

"I’m sure mistakes were made... I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake.“ -Sahil Lavingia, an ex-DOGE programmer who built an AI tool to identify VA contracts to cut

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jun 13

God I love the internet outside the US. Suddenly all my feeds are sane again. American social media algorithms are a different world.

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jun 10

@smashingmagazine.com looks like @kagi.com has indexed your production server and your edge node. Might want to make a tweak to your indexing rules.

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Jun 3

As an oldschool Digg and Diggnation fan, I’m pretty excited to see this. I am a bit concerned that it will wind up just another manipulated and/or bot-filled site, but I’m hopeful.

reboot.digg.com

Digg Reboot

Digg - The front page of the internet, now with superpowers

reboot.digg.com

Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · May 23

Woah, Moby released a massive library of open licensed music you can use in video and other creative work.

mobygratis.com

mobygratis - Free Moby music to empower your creative projects

Free music resource designed to empower creative projects by students, non-profits, indie filmmakers, musicians and more.

mobygratis.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Apr 19

The great thing about living through political chaos is the music.
open.spotify.com/album/66esRf...

Middle

Jesse Welles · Album · 2025 · 12 songs

open.spotify.com

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Apr 16

PSA for K12 teachers: You no longer have an excuse to Comic Sans.

microsoft.design/articles/int...

Introducing Kermit: A typeface for kids - Microsoft Design

Using design to empower children by making reading easier, improving comprehension, and helping dyslexics.

microsoft.design

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Perry Govier @perrygovier.com · Apr 11

@figma.com, I love you but automatically adding a service that loads when my computer starts, and then doing it again, and again, and again is shady AF. No means no.

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