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Indie Publishing Platform ‘Substack’ to Accept Bitcoin Payments

Andrew Orr ·

Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode announced on Monday its integration with Substack, an online publishing platform. OpenNode will power both on-chain and Lightning Network Bitcoin payments.

Working together, OpenNode and Substack are starting by making instant, low cost payments available to a select group of crypto-focused publications. Readers will be able to use Bitcoin to pay for subscriptions to these select publications, and the publications will retain earnings in Bitcoin.

Cool Stuff Found

This AI Text Generator Shortcut Will Replace Our Blogger Jobs

Andrew Orr ·

Over the weekend, u/ryandeanrocks shared an AI text generator via the r/Shortcuts subreddit. It’s an open source version of GPT-3. Of course, how good the output it produces depends upon the input, but I’ve seen it spit out some decent things. Here’s an example; I pasted the first sentence of this piece, and here is part of the output: “You’ll notice that if you type something and then choose to send it to someone, that the chat box in the corner will turn green. In theory, that’s the easiest way to see if someone is typing something out and waiting to send it, but it can take awhile to see the difference. With real-time chatting, it’s almost instantaneous.“

Cool Stuff Found

Get a Refurbished M1 iMac Direct from Apple

Jeff Butts ·

If you were in the market for an M1 iMac and do not want to pay full retail price, you now have a new option. Refurbished 24 inch M1 iMac models are now available directly from Apple. The model including 512GB SSD storage will cost you $1439, while the same model with 256GB of storage is $1269. The normal retail price of these models is $1699 and $1499 respectively. Of course, Cupertino puts plenty of testing, cleaning, and necessary repair work into its refurbished products. They are backed by a one-year warranty and free delivery and returns.

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Support US National Parks by Using Apple Pay

Jeff Butts ·

The US National Park Service turns 104 on August 25, 2021. In honor of the occasion, Apple has announced a donation program, a new Apple Watch Activity Challenge, and special content collections to allow you to experience the parks and learn more about what makes them the amazing national resource that we often take for granted. From August 24 to August 27, Apple will make a $10 donation to the National Park Foundation for each purchase made with Apple Pay on its website, in the Apple Store app, or inside any Apple Store in the US. In years past, Cupertino’s offered much less of a donation per purchase, so this is pretty cool.

Our national parks strengthen our connection to nature, to one another, and to the soul of our nation. We’re excited to continue building on our four-year partnership with the National Park Foundation, and to support their work to preserve our parks for generations to come.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO

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The Secret Security Features in macOS Big Sur

Andrew Orr ·

There are security features that Apple tells us about on stage at keynotes, and then there are hidden improvements it doesn’t mention.

macOS has gradually made the UNIX security model irrelevant. For example, even the superuser is only allowed to access the private documents of a regular user with the user’s permission—permission that is given on a per-application basis, through that protector of users and bane of developers known as the Transparency, Consent & Control (TCC) framework.

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Today at Apple Session Shows How to Shoot Portait Pics with Mark Clennon

Jeff Gamet ·

Apple released a new Today at Apple video on Friday with tips on shooting portrait photos on an iPhone with professional photographer Mark Clennon. Mark is a New York-based photographer who has worked with TIME Magazine, Netflix, Esquire, Marvel, Forbes, Sony/RCA, and a long list of other companies and publications. The video has some great tips and is worth checking out.

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How Apple Lobbyists Defeated Two App Store Bills in Georgia

Andrew Orr ·

Politico published a report on Friday that examines how lobbying from Apple defeated two app store bills in Georgia and other states.

Apple’s aggressive lobbying efforts in Georgia, the extent of which were previously unreported, highlight a pattern that has played out with little national attention across the country this year: State lawmakers introduce bills that would force Apple and its fellow tech giant Google to give up some control over their mobile phone app stores.

Then Apple, in particular, exerts intense pressure on lawmakers with promises of economic investment or threats to pull its money, and the legislation stalls.

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Video Editor 'DaVinci Resolve' Now 3 Times Faster on M1 Macs

Andrew Orr ·

Blackmagic Design announced on Friday that its DaVinci Resolve video editor is now up to three times faster on M1 Macs. It also gives customers up to 30% longer battery life.

DaVinci Resolve 17.3 also supports a new option on Mac computers with M1 for H.265 hardware encoding. Customers can choose to prioritize speed vs quality when rendering, further improving render times up to 65%. Plus, DaVinci Resolve will now decode AVC Intra files using the media engine built into the Apple M1 chip, making decoding and playback faster when working with these file formats.