Yay, my arXiv preprint on Mapping the Stochastic Penal Colony is finally live. Find out how social media content moderation may just have prepared us for the fascist take-over in Trum'erica.
arxiv.org/abs/2602.00033
I'm happy to announce Shantay v0.6, my #Python tool for analyzing the European Union's #DSA #Transparency Database. Full DB coverage, better configurability, and less memory usage are the main improvements. Check it out at github.com/apparebit/sh...
When did 18.4 come out? I’ve been using initial-letter and webfonts since 2019. Though I did have to create a fallback because initial-letter and a nested span (for small caps at section start) don’t play well together. See apparebit.com/features/do-...
Grı̆̈mm needn't be grim, but Grı̑̈mm certaininly is.
Shantay v0.4, my #Python tool for analyzing the EU’s #DSA #transparency database, adds polish and prepares for future features. Check out its report covering almost 2 years of #ContentModeration with highlights for Meta, TikTok, X, YouTube, and more.
apparebit.github.io/shantay/db.h...
In my latest blog post, I explore how to take pictures of a dying friend who is an actor and, more generally, likes to put on a show.
apparebit.com/blog/2025/de...
I just released v0.3 of Shantay, my tool for analyzing the European Union’s #DSA #transparency database and producing extensive reports. Unlike the EU’s tool, Shantay is designed to run on consumer hardware, no cluster needed. github.com/apparebit/sh...
In preparation of #Unicode 17, I've updated demicode, my tool for exploring the fixed-width rendering of Unicode for terminals.
demicode 1.7 💕 Unicode 17.0
github.com/apparebit/de...
I just released Shantay 0.2, my #Python library and command line tool for analyzing the EU DSA transparency database. Unlike the EU's own tool, shantay is being developed in the open and designed to process said database, wich is a hefty 1.5 TB, on a laptop or desktop.
github.com/apparebit/sh...
Now with handsome typography and a better layout, here's my blog post about the EU's DSA transparency database. Brussels, we have, uhm, problems (plural)!
apparebit.com/blog/2025/sa...
I just released Shantay 0.1, my #Python tool for analyzing the #EU #DSA transparency database. The project readme doubles as a blog post about my experience so far. Let's just say that "transparency theater," "So sad!" and five pretty time series make an appearance. github.com/apparebit/sh...
// Open connection to terminal device let options = Options::default(); let tty = Connection::with_options(options)?; let (mut input, mut output) = tty.io(); // Execute commands, ie, write display & flush output.exec(MoveToColumn::<17>)?; output.exec(RequestCursorPosition)?; // Scan response as (control, payload) token let payload = input.read_sequence( RequestCursorPosition.control())?; // Parse payload into position let position = RequestCursorPosition.parse(payload)?; assert_eq!(position.1, 17);
As with other #Rust #terminal crates, you write zero-sized structs to execute #prettytty commands. But it goes further: To perform a query, the same struct also knows how to parse a response from an ANSI escape sequence. And the runtime knows how to recognize those. 💥 80+ builtin commands! 🎉 (3/3)
The "pretty 🌸 tty" logo with a cherry blossom emoji between the two words.
Prettypretty's #Rust version optionally uses the new #prettytty crate for interacting with the #terminal. Prettytty distinguishes itself from other terminal crates by being cross-platform while also lightweight, with no dependency other than libc/windows-sys. (2/3)
crates.io/crates/prett...
After seven months of adding new features and performing a complete refactoring into submodules, I'm happy to announce prettypretty 0.11.0, my #Rust and #Python library bringing 2020s color science to 1970s terminals.💥 (1/3)
github.com/apparebit/pr...
Hey @jensimmons.bsky.social, I just ran into my #1 Safari gripe again: When browsing history view, opening a link in a new tab makes the view go blank for +/-1s and then reset to start of timeline. Hence I lose my position and can't just open another close-by link. If only Safari stayed put... 🧞♂️🍾
Normalized traffic for apparebit.com over the years, showing that about 50% of all traffic is mostly useless.
Look at the normalized chart: Half of traffic continues to be mostly useless because either known bot or "security" scans. On top of that, the growing fraction of page views vs other resources (styles, images,...) suggests that most of those page views are useless too. Anyone else seeing this trend?
Graph showing HTTPS traffic for apparebit.com broken down by known bots, status codes for remaining requests, and actual successful page views
My personal website apparebit.com doesn't have intrusive analytics. But I do collect and (occasionally) analyze the server logs. At first glance, it looks like traffic was growing substantially (and slowing down again) over the last year. Alas, much of that traffic is suspect... 1/2
You'd think that a continuous integration environment is fail-fast and doesn't ignore test failures. Not @github.com Actions with the Windows runner and the default shell (pwsh). The corresponding bug report was opened in 2022 and closed by GitHub, yet the atrocious behavior persists. WTF?!
As future dungeon keeper, I concur.
The logo for pretty-dash-tty but with a cherry blossom emoji instead of the "dash."
Configuring prettypretty, my #Rust & #Python library for better terminal styles, requires querying a #terminal for its color theme. But existing Rust crates seemed too much & too little. So I wrote a new, lightweight terminal library for Unix & Windows. v0.1.0 is out now!
crates.io/crates/prett...
I'm happy to announce v1.5 of demicode, my tool for exploring the fixed-width rendering of Unicode. It improves the output of the test scripts and updates the Unicode version oracle to for the recently released Unicode 16.0.0.
github.com/apparebit/de...
A screenshot showing a red warning label: COVID-19 e-print — Important: e-prints posted on arXiv are not peer-reviewed by arXiv; they should not be relied upon without context to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information without consulting multiple experts in the field.
I conduct a study that, amongst its findings, shows that the Covid-19 pandemic did NOT cause a substantial increase in child sexual exploitation, thereby disproving claims in peer-reviewed papers and Europol/Interpol reports. Whose paper gets the big red content warning? 😜
arxiv.org/abs/2402.14625