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This week’s Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is a stretch to the word “Lite”. I’d call it a crossover episode of Lite and Programming By Stealth. Helma van der Linden joins me to tell the story of how she has successfully started the new version of Bart’s fabulous xkpasswd password generation service. xkpasswd.net was written in perl ages ago and depends on very old and outdated libraries. Bart spent many months teaching the Programming By Stealth students the tools we (and he) would need to port the code over to JavaScript. His plan all along was to have students help him make the new version of XKPASSWD a reality. It turns out that Helma is an extraordinary student and has done most of the work to make it a minimal viable product, all without Bart’s help. In this conversation, we’ll talk about how she did this without getting _too_ nerdy. Some nerdy but not too nerdy. If you’d like to give the very beta version of the new tool a try (without knowing any coding), check it out at bartificer.github.io/xkpasswd-js/. In a few days, Bart will have it up as the beta version of the _real_ xkpasswd at beta.xkpasswd.net. This beta version is not feature-complete, but it allows you to create 1-10 passwords that use the default preset from the original xkpasswd. You can’t choose different presets, and you can’t make customized passwords, but at least it does create long, strong, memorable, and typable passwords. And it’s REALLY pretty! We end with the call for others to come help work on the code. The GitHub repo is at github.com/bartificer/xkpasswd-js. (https://github.com/bartificer/xkpasswd-js) If you have or create a GitHub account, you can contribute to the project. If you don’t have programming skills but you have feature requests, it counts as contributing if you use the “issues” tab for the GitHub project to post your feature request. Helma is great fun and we had a blast talking about what she’s accomplished so I think you’ll enjoy the conversation no matter how nerdy you might be. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2024_02_03 (https://podfeet.com/transcripts/CCATP_2024_02_03.html)

In this week’s episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Jason Howell, podcaster and producer for the TWiT network (https://twit.tv), and musician (https://open.spotify.com/artist/5bgXcI3jGHMp8N97Ib08ZK?nd=1&dlsi=50d38517395a4ea9) joins me to talk about what it’s like to use an Android phone with a Mac. I live in an Apple-centric bubble, so I am very curious about how he works with these two operating systems. We talk about his origin story on the Mac and his Android hardware of choice. We talk a lot about how he manages his photos, and what messaging is like in this mixed blue-bubble/green-bubble environment. Jason is great fun and introspective and we had an absolute blast chatting. If you’d like to find everything Jason does, go to [raygun.fun](https://raygun.fun/) - it rhymes _and_ it’s fun (as Jason pointed out). Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_12_04 (https://podfeet.com/transcripts/CCATP_2023_12_04.html)

One of the great joys of Mastodon is that I’m meeting new people with a cross-section of interests that overlap with my own. By following hashtags like #programming and #technology and #knitting and #crocheting, I can find fellow nerds who are also into the crafts I enjoy. I discovered this week’s guest, Angela Preston through these hashtags. She’s a knitter and she created a website by hand that explains how she built a font for knitting at [sites.google.com/…](https://sites.google.com/site/kauriknitsfont/kauris-knitting-font). The best part is she created the font with an open source tool called [FontStruct](https://fontstruct.com/). The conversation bounces back and forth between explaining what knitting is, how traditional text-based patterns are written, how diagram-based knitting works, and then flipping over to how a font is created in FontStruct. Angela is fun and interesting and I think you’ll really enjoy the conversation even if you’re not a programmer or a knitter. Angela’s font is called Kauri Knits, where Kauri is a name from the book series “Dancing Gods” by Jack L Chalker (https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Gods-Part-River-Demons/dp/0345402464/?crid=1E7QQ19TIYYZU&sprefix=dancing+gods,aps,157). (It’s also the Māori name for a cool tree in New Zealand.) If people want to follow Angela on Mastodon, you find her at @[email protected] (https://toot.site/@AngelaPreston).

After a long hiatus for which I have no excuse, Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite is back with a fabulous interview with Adam Engst, publisher of the long-running Internet-based email newsletter, TidBITS (https://tidbits.com). Adam’s been on the show a few times and he’s always a delight. This episode focussed on an article he published in TidBits entitled, iPhone Recommendations for Senior Citizens (https://tidbits.com/2023/10/12/iphone-recommendations-for-senior-citizens/). My audience knows that I’m an advocate for the accessibility of technology in all forms, and they also know that I bristle at the suggestion that people past a certain age aren’t good at technology. If you throw in gender along with that, such as a phrase I hear all too often, “It’s so easy your mother could use it”, the top of my head blows off. I read Adam’s article with a desire to learn any tips he could provide to making the iPhone more accessible to seniors _and_ at the same time I was ready to jump down his throat if you implied that elderly people can’t be technically competent. I was delighted to find that he pushed none of my hot buttons and gave terrific advice. In our conversation we talk about how to approach senior citizens on what their needs are, and to understand where their limitations might be. Do they lave low vision? Arthritis? Cognitive issues? Dry fingers? We talk about the pros and cons of Face ID vs. Touch ID as it relates to the different challenges each person might be facing. Adam even gives some cool suggestions on how to rearrange their home screen on the iPhone including a Shortcut he created that might make communicating with just a few people easier.

I’m on a roll with scientists on Chit Chat Across the Pond. This week my guest is Professor Jason Briner from the University of Buffalo. Dr. Briner joins us to tell us tales of adventure as he and his team go to Greenland to study the polar ice sheet. I never thought of geology as a sexy, exciting field of science, but after learning about Dr. Briner’s work and the incredible importance of that work to climate science, my view of geology has been turned upside down. Dr. Briner is serious and funny and engaging and fascinating and I really enjoyed talking to him on the show. I’m really glad we got to know Dr. Briner on our trip to Antarctica where he was one of the brilliant scientists lecturing on the university alumni trip. You can find photos and videos from Dr. Briner’s very recent research trip to Greenland at [www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/…](http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/2023nwgreenland/2023nwgreenland.html). Might be fun to follow along with the images while listening to him describe the work.

ave you always figured that astrophysics was a subject beyond your grasp? In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Andrea Ghez from UCLA joins me to explain how she and her team proved there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and she does it in _human friendly_ terms! In 2020 she became only the fourth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. Steve and I were lucky enough to become friends with Andrea on our circumnavigation around Iceland and also on our trip to Antarctica. To be perfectly honest, we signed up for Antarctica _because_ we knew Andrea was going to be lecturing. Since this was such a momentous interview, we have audio _and_ video embedded of the interview with Dr. Ghez. Many thanks to Steve for putting the video together. If you'd like to learn more about Andrea and her team's work, and to see photos and video animations of their discoveries, follow the link to the UCLA Galactic Center Group. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_06_22

This week our guest is Bart Busschots but this is not a Programming By Stealth episode, it's a Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite. At least within my personal definition of Lite! Bart joined the show this week to talk about visionOS, the new operating system that will power the Vision Pro headset Apple announced at their World Wide Developer's Conference. We talked about how we can see the future now in spatial computing as a big shift. Bart tells us about what he learned about visionOS from the Platforms State of the Union, as well as two sessions: Principles of Spatial Design and Design for Spatial Input. He gave us links to the chapterized videos so you can jump right to the parts he talks about if you like. As a bonus, my granddaughter Siena made her debut appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond (she's an old hand at coming on the live show). It was a bit of a surprise and she didn't stay long but she did want to say hi. I made it a chapter mark just for fun! * Keynote - jump to the Vision Pro chapter: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/101/ * Platforms State of the Union: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/ * Principles of spatial design: developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10072/ * Design for spatial input: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10073/ Join the Conversation: [email protected] podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle Podfeet 15-Year Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Setapp - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us

This week our guest is your favorite psychological scientist, Dr. Maryanne Garry of the University of Waikato in New Zealand and [www.garrylab.com/…](https://www.garrylab.com/) Dr. Garry and four of her colleagues published a paper recently in the Royal Society Open Science called “Trivially informative semantic context inflates people’s confidence they can perform a highly complex skill” (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211977). The experiments built on previous studies which demonstrated that people have highly inflated beliefs of their capabilities doing highly complex tasks for which they are entirely unqualified. In particular, a high percentage of people have high confidence that they could land a commercial plane with no help from the tower. In this study, they tested whether watching a short, trivially informative video of two pilots landing a plane would influence that confidence level. As always with Dr. Garry, you’ll learn a lot, you’ll laugh along with us, and your dreams will be crushed as only she can. If you want to listen to more interviews with Dr. Garry, check out these episodes of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite: * CCATP #727 – Dr. Maryanne Garry on How Everything You Remember is Wrong (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=25969) * CCATP #629 - Dr. Garry on Study of Language Skills vs Numeracy In Learning to Program (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=20560) * CCATP #576 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Grammar Pet Peeves (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=17094) * CCATP #554 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Persuasion with Facts and Data (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=15657) * CCATP #510 - Dr. Maryanne Garry on Many Memory Questions (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=13503) * CCATP #452 Dr. Garry Asks “Compared to What?” (www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=9579) * CCATP #441 Dr. Maryanne Garry on Cognitive Biases, Learning and Aging (www.podfeet.com/blog/?p=8983)

Adam Engst of TidBITS (https://tidbits.com) joins me on Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite to talk about the changes Apple made recently to the File Provider Extension. These changes had a fairly significant effect on how cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box work with macOS. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve very likely been upgraded to new versions of these services. While the new File Provider Extension improves several things about our interface with these cloud storage providers, there are also some serious “gotchas” that may affect you. For example, before talking to Adam, I didn’t realize that the change caused us to have local copies of our entire Google Drive and anything added there isn’t being synced to the could. Being Adam, he’s written an extremely well-researched and well-explained article on [tidbits.com/…](https://tidbits.com/2023/03/10/apples-file-provider-forces-mac-cloud-storage-changes/) where you can follow along with our conversation. [audio mp3=“https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2023_04_13.mp3”] mp3 download (https://media.blubrry.com/nosillacast/traffic.libsyn.com/nosillacast/CCATP_2023_04_13.mp3) Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_04_13 (https://podfeet.com/transcripts/CCATP_2023_04_13.html) During the conversation, Adam referenced a couple of other articles: * Adam’s TidBITS article from February 2022 predicting these problems: Cloud Storage Forecast Unsettled, with Possible Storms - TidBITS (https://tidbits.com/2022/02/04/cloud-storage-forecast-unsettled-with-possible-storms/) * LucidLink is a better alternative for people who used to use Dropbox as a cloud service provider for huge, shared video files LucidLink Offers Streaming Vision of Cloud-Based Storage (https://tidbits.com/2023/03/23/lucidlink-offers-streaming-vision-of-cloud-based-storage/) * Adam and I said at the end of the conversation that the next time we’d talk it would be about doing clean installs of macOS. He sent me this link where he talks about three levels of clean installs: Level 2 Clean Install of Ventura Solves Deep-Rooted Problems (https://tidbits.com/2023/04/10/level-2-clean-install-of-ventura-solves-deep-rooted-problems/)

In this week’s episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Rod Simmons of the SMR Podcast (https://smrpodcast.com) and BBQ and Tech (https://bbqandtech.com) joins me to talk about password managers. After the recent breaches and more importantly breaches of trust from LastPass, Rod migrated over to 1Password and changed all 400 of his passwords. We talk through what LastPass did wrong, and what Rod appreciates about 1Password and misses about LastPass. I found it a really interesting conversation about UI design, trust, and what makes an app feel right. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2023_03_01 (https://podfeet.com/transcripts/CCATP_2023_03_01.html) Rod mentioned Okta’s annual report on business tools: okta.com/… (https://www.okta.com/sites/default/files/2022-02/Businesses-at-Work-2022-Annual-Report.pdf) LastPass’s final report: blog.lastpass.com/… (https://blog.lastpass.com/2023/03/security-incident-update-recommended-actions/) 1Password forum on merging accounts into a family: 1password.community/… (https://1password.community/discussion/88303/add-existing-accounts-to-a-family-plan)

In this final Chit Chat Across the Pond of the year, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about what verification really means, how you know a website is what it says it is, and how verification is accomplished and then explains how Twitter and Mastodon do their respective verification. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript: CCATP_2022_12_17 (https://podfeet.com/transcripts/CCATP_2022_12_17.html) This episode also has full shownotes at CCATP #756 — Bart Busschots on the Meaning of Verification and Twitter/Mastodon Implementations (https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2022/12/ccatp-756/)

On this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, we're joined by developer Casey Liss of the Accidental Tech Podcast and creator of the iOS apps MaskerAid and Peek-a-View. I asked Casey to come on the show to talk about automation. In particular, we talked about Unnecessary or overly-complex automations, automations that mysteriously run but we can't remember how or why they're running, automations we're really proud of, and darn it, these just make me happy automations. You can find Casey on Mastodon @[email protected], and on Micro.blog at . View an unedited transcript of this podcast auto-generated by Auphonic Speech Recognition Engine using Whisper by OpenAI (Beta).: CCATP_2022_12_08