Only 116 days until Towel Day

I have mixed feeling about this one. I'm on the newsletter as a Kagi + Linux user, but I'm not sure I'll make this my daily driver once it's ready.

I have diversified my tech, using self-hosted and/or open source where possible. Orion is closed-source, and from the same company I use for my search, translation, etc. I trust Kagi far more than I trust Google, but I still don't want all my eggs in one basket.

It's obviously good that we're getting alternatives in the browser market, but I don't know how much work they've done outside of the UI - is this effectively a reskin of Apple Safari in the same way we have the Chromium-based browsers that are dependent on Google's developers?

I like that they have "native support for both Chrome and Firefox extensions", which means I should be able to replicate my Firefox setup in Orion. I guess I'll need to try it.

Sad because the UK's quite small/unsunny and that means most other countries aren't doing much?

I thought that the UK was quite strong in wind, so it'd be interesting to see that charted.

This is gloriously insane and I love it.

And then to casually drop in that

ELI-95

Their spelling was moulded by the US

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2957

I've just had a quick poke around, and you can load up other people's work - there's a massive variety which shows just how much is in this simulation program.

You can load up simulations with the bottom-left icon, then hit the pause button that's bottom right to start them off. If any talk about "sparking" they mean use the SPRK tool to put electricity in the thing they're talking about - you can search for SPRK using the search tool above the pause button, or find it under the Electronics menu (second one in that right-hand side with the plug icon).

I missed the news that K-9 was becoming Thunderbird for Android. I used to use it before switching to FairEmail, I think because development had stalled. It's a solid choice, hopefully they don't add too much in like they have with the desktop version.

I only do the cryptics myself - I like that you can be confident you have the right answer without waiting for the crossers to check your guess.

I think they're more concerned with keeping Russia happy, especially since

2024 would be the year of cultural and tourism exchanges between Thailand and Russia

-- https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2666988

Er, Bing Chat is AI-assisted search, not analytics.