Notes for August 4, 2026

Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible — No One's Happy

Apple requires apps to submit a privacy manifest disclosing what data they collect. The White House app declared an empty array. Zero data collection. Meanwhile, the actual binary contained ten analytics frameworks, including the full OneSignal SDK with a sub-framework specifically for location tracking. The GPS pipeline polled precise coordinates every 4.5 minutes in the foreground and every 9.5 minutes in the background, syncing everything to OneSignal’s commercial servers. A boolean flag in OneSignal’s server responses could remotely enable or disable GPS tracking without an app update and without Apple review.

I didn't know this was even possible if the dev didn't list what data was collected in the App Store. Like I thought there was actually some kind of review process besides "trust me bro" but I guess not. Pretty scary stuff:

Governments are some of the biggest buyers. Military and intelligence agencies purchase location data from prayer apps, dating apps, and fitness trackers. Immigration enforcement uses it to locate and detain people. Police departments buy it to surveil suspects, protesters, and entire neighborhoods — sidestepping warrant requirements entirely. Courts have issued “geofence” orders demanding records on every device near a location at a given time, sweeping up everyone at a political rally, a school board meeting, or a gun show alongside any actual suspects. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, law enforcement used location data to track trips to abortion clinics. None of this required a court order, because the data was commercially available.

I've always said the web is my favorite OS. Beyond the privacy angle, most apps are usually trash anyway. Miniflux is more functional and to the point than any native RSS reader I've ever installed on my phone.

Social media apps are the worst. Tumblr is unusable in app form if you don't pay $7 a month to disable ads every other post. Same with Reddit, only the ads are posing as real posts these days, so I guess it's mostly useless whichever way you access it. I quit TikTok entirely because it still kept running in the background, showing me targeted ads about something I mentioned 20 minutes ago, even with Background App Refresh disabled. There is no web version, so I moved on. Fuck em. If there's a mobile web version of something, that's what I'm using.

Also worth mentioning, half of the places I spend my time online are web-based anyway; Atmosphere apps, Fark.com, Lemmy... Just use the website.

I know I'm rambling at this point, but even back in the day when smartphones first started coming out, the thing I was most hyped about was that you could carry around a web browser in your pocket wherever you go. Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if Firefox OS didn't violently crash and burn.

Jonah Hill's Jiu-Jitsu Training Means He'd 'Annihilate' Anyone Calling Him Fat Guy From 'Superbad'

"My favorite thing is people are like, 'Oh, Jonah Hill, fucking fat guy from Superbad,'" Hill said. "And I'm like, 'I would fucking annihilate you, dude. I'm not kidding you. Try it. If you see me, try it, dude. Bring it. Who's got it?'"

What a tool lol I guess I'll just remember him as the crack smoking business guy from Wolf of Wall Street who thinks he's invincible.

NASA Backs Wild Plan for a Laser-Powered Drone to Explore Giant Caves Below the Moon's Surface

The U.S. space agency announced that it will fund research by Austin-based Stone Aerospace, Inc. to develop a tethered lunar-spelunking drone—powered via laser light that will be beamed through a system of fiber optic cables conjoining it to a lunar rover on the Moon’s surface.

Love this. Maybe the caves will be full of mole people. Who, hopefully, aren't too pissed off about Elon's rocket crash landing there tonight.

New AI Chatbot Turns Out to Be One Overworked Guy Answering All the Messages by Hand

“My answers will be slow. They probably won’t be correct, or maybe they could be, but they’ll be very cryptic,” said Bryant. “You will have a bad experience with ChatTJB.”

This is cute! And it only takes roughly eight glasses of water per day to run.

Pokémon Red/Blue 3D Mod Gets New Features Including Third-Person Camera

Dramatic Shape's Voxel Mod is a game changer. So many people on social media are raving about this mod, and rightfully so. It's easy to set up, runs on a number of devices including your Mac, and makes the original Pokémon adventure feel like a brand new game.

The OG Pokémon games are, what, like 30 years old? And they're still absolutely legendary. Idk how many times I've played through Yellow... but it's a lot. One of the first games I ever got for my Gameboy Pocket when I was a kid 🥲

This mod looks sick! I wish it was a traditional ROM patch so I could play it on my Anbernic handheld, but there's a lot going on here so I get why it's not. And it probably wouldn't run too great on an underpowered emulator console anyway. Definitely going to check this out when I get home tonight.