Linked List: November 12, 2020

Thursday, 12 November 2020

Axios: ‘Trump Eyes Starting His Own Digital Media Empire to Take on Fox News’ ★

Mike Allen, writing for Axios:

President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News and undermine the conservative-friendly network, sources tell Axios. […] “He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,” said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump’s intentions.

There is not enough popcorn in the world if Trump goes to war against Fox News. Fox News’s undeniable success is built on a coalition of sane conservatives and wingnut kooks. Guess which half Trump might peel off.

The Omni Group’s Apps Are All Now Available for M1 and MacOS Big Sur ★

Ken Case, writing on The Omni Group blog:

The Omni Group creates productivity tools that are as powerful as you — designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad — and we love the Mac! We’ve been developing for the Mac since 1989 (via its NeXT lineage), and over the years we’ve gone through many CPU transitions — from the Motorola 68030 to the PowerPC to 64-bit to Intel. […]

We’re very pleased to share that our app transition has been smooth and seamless. All our apps — including our free apps OmniDiskSweeper, OmniPresence, and OmniWeb — are now available as native Universal apps on M1-powered Macs, and can be either downloaded from our website or found on the Mac App Store.

It was fun seeing Case in Apple’s keynote yesterday (along with Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser, and the other Mac developers Apple highlighted). Back at WWDC, Apple mentioned Microsoft as an early adopter of this Apple Silicon transition. It seems like The Omni Group has taken that spot at launch as Apple’s promoted provider of general productivity apps available as universal binaries on day one. Not sure if Microsoft has just fallen behind schedule or if the pissing match over Xbox Game Pass and the iOS App Store has spilled over to the Mac. Update: Seems like they’re just not ready yet — heading into beta now. To the shipper go the spoils.

Guido van Rossum Un-Retires to Join Microsoft ★

Python creator Guido van Rossum, who had been at Google for a number of years:

I decided that retirement was boring and have joined the Developer Division at Microsoft. To do what? Too many options to say! But it’ll make using Python better for sure (and not just on Windows :-). There’s lots of open source here. Watch this space.

I’ve always admired Python as an outside observer, but this year my son is taking a computer science class using it, so I’m getting first-hand experience with writing it as I help him with assignments, and my suspicions have been confirmed. Python is a fun language. It doesn’t help you be a show off, it just helps you express your ideas in code. Looking forward to what Van Rossum does next at Microsoft.

How crazy, too, is it that Microsoft, of all companies, is now a welcome home for a cross-platform open-source icon like Van Rossum? Based on recent history, Van Rossum landing there isn’t surprising at all. Historically speaking, though, it’s unimaginable. If you took a time machine back to 2000 and told a crowd of Python enthusiasts that in 2020 Guido van Rossum would be working at Microsoft, half of them wouldn’t believe you and the other half would pass out.