SFO has just banned bottled water. Why not Coke?

In need of a simple tool to de-duplicate and sort photos and videos into year and month folders on Windows? Check out PhotoSorter.

Rebuttal of an op-ed in the NYT on the simulation hypothesis.

More on simulation. Have we proved this isn't true? No. Also - what does analyzing the physics of Conway's Game of Life tell us?

New project: generate a timelapse of a kid growing up from a set of any photos (uses machine learning to spot and align faces). Check it out at kidlapse.com.

Previously:

• 2018: Draw the rest of the Hummingbird
• 2017: Why Microsoft is Likely Doomed Based on one Email Folder
• 2016: Slow Camera for Android

Timelapse of the night sky over Pinnacles National Park.

Google just broke automatic backup of Google Photos to Google Drive. Here's an apps script to get it working again.

Could Google do one or two things to fix phone spam already?

Compilation timelapse from a road trip - features Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier and Humboldt Redwoods.

Previously:

• 2018: What if the Senate Voted Proportionally to Population
• 2017: Email Alerts for new Referers in Google Analytics using Apps Script
• 2016: Methyl L-α-aspartyl-L-fucking-phenylalaninate

Timelapse of Pacifica State Beach.

Cory Doctorow argues for adversarial interoperability as a tool to weaken tech monopolies. I've reached the same conclusion: Facebook shouldn't own your social graph.

Dead Ringers S19E04 (available very briefly) has a halfway decent Brexit / Douglas Adams joke. Here's a better one.

A longer hike at China Camp State Park.

Previously:

• 2018: Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
• 2017: Reading and Writing Office 365 Excel from a Console app using the Microsoft.Graph C# Client API
• 2016: West Portal Timelapse of Timelapses

Nevada is close to joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Why this is important and how you can help.

Should there be a constitutional amendment for tire chalking?

Limantour Spit hike.

Previously:

• 2018: I just want to get rid of Windows 10 Notifications with one click
• 2017: Real Time
• 2016: GGNRA Dog Management Round 3

Conway's Game of Death.

The site I had been using for global cloud cover images in Catfood Earth abruptly shut down recently so I've had to scramble to build a replacement service. This is live now and updates are available to download for Windows and Android.

More details about putting together the best possible clouds image for Catfood Earth here.

Previously:

• 2018: How does the Nest Learning Thermostat work?
• 2017: The Harvard Business Review Fallacy
• 2016: The real reason Americans don't have passports

Catfood Earth 3.44 is available to download. This version updates the timezone database to 2018i, moves to a new source for timezone mapping an fixes a bug in the volcanoes layer.

Golden Gate Bridge timelapse - shot from the Marin headlands, the Golden Gate Overlook and near Fort Point.

Colorado looks set to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. What you can do to help.

Could we solve the youth turnout problem with age weighted voting?

Previously:

• 2018: Facebook shouldn't own your social graph
• 2017: Book reviews for February 2017
• 2016: Chromecast won't connect to wifi - finally found the fix

If the atmosphere was the population of the United States...

A Tarsier.

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times today: "Could we have our first four-party election in 2020 — with candidates from the Donald Trump far right, the old G.O.P. center right, the Joe Biden center left and the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez far left all squaring off, as the deepening divides within our two big parties simply can’t be papered over any longer?". Here's my daisyworld analogy from 2010, and a write-up of an Intelligence Squared debate on the same topic from 2011.

The scoop on Material Design 3.

Previously:

• 2018: Export Google Fit Daily Steps, Weight and Distance to a Google Sheet
• 2017: #Resist
• 2016: Get an email when your security camera sees something new (Apps Script + Cloud Vision)

The Echo Clock has one job, and it's not great at it.

I made an animation of maximum temperature anomalies by decade from the 1850s to the 2010s.

Is 2019 the year that Trump gets impeached? I wrote to my representative. Why not do the same?

Some surfing dolphins.

Farhad Manjoo calls for open borders in the New York Times for many of the same reasons I had back in 2015, before this was less unpopular ;)

Previously:

• 2018: I'm not afraid of Google
• 2017: I didn't think I'd ever fall for fake news of Facebook
• 2016: San Bruno Mountain

It turns out I'm not great at getting a monthly newsletter out. Starting with the January 2019 newsletter I've put in place a new system - I'm storing summaries of new articles when I write them and also collecting a few links that might be of interest to ITHCWY readers. These should be sent out automatically on the first of the month so I should only skip the newsletter if nothing happened. Apologies in advance if there are any teething issues with the new format.