Skechers is making a line of kid’s shoes with a hidden compartment for an AirTag.

Sometimes kids need something they can do on their own — while you’re on a work call, cooking dinner, or just taking a breath. Here’s a list of solo activities you can try with your child, grouped by age. Some are linked to full activity guides on Offline.Kids, and others are simple ideas you can…

View post

Adblock test (Why?)

When you vibe code, you are incurring tech debt as fast as the LLM can spit it out. Which is why vibe coding is perfect for prototypes and throwaway projects: It's only legacy code if you have to maintain it! [...]

The worst possible situation is to have a non-programmer vibe code a large project that they intend to maintain. This would be the equivalent of giving a credit card to a child without first explaining the concept of debt. [...]

If you don't understand the code, your only recourse is to ask AI to fix it for you, which is like paying off credit card debt with another credit card.

— Steve Krouse, Vibe code is legacy code

Tags: vibe-coding, ai-assisted-programming, generative-ai, steve-krouse, ai, llms, technical-debt

Hover Text: Hollywood, call me. I can have this script done on a weekend.

ProPublica is reporting:

Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems—with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel—leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.

But these workers, known as “digital escorts,” often lack the technical expertise to police foreign engineers with far more advanced skills, ProPublica found. Some are former military personnel with little coding experience who are paid barely more than minimum wage for the work.

This sounds bad, but it’s the way the digital world works. Everything we do is international, deeply international. Making anything US-only is hard, and often infeasible.

EDITED TO ADD: Microsoft has stopped the practice.

Have you wondered what a medieval king did on a typical day? Thanks to Christine de Pizan, we have an account of what daily life was like for King Charles V of France.

Around the year 1404, Christine de Pizan completed her work, Livre des faits et bonnes mœurs du sage roy Charles V. It was both a biography of the French king who reigned from 1364 to 1380 and a guide to how an ideal monarch should live and rule.

Christine had a good vantage point to tell this story. Her father, Tommaso di Pizano, was a personal physician and astrologer at Charles’s court, so one can assume she was sometimes present at court herself. Moreover, in later years she was able to consult other men and women who had served the king, including his chamberlain and valet. Their insights, combined with her observations, offered Christine a unique view into the habits and routines of the monarch.

Morning Routine and Royal Justice

Christine’s account of Charles’s daily life begins with him rising from bed in the morning, typically between six and seven o’clock. After saying a prayer, the king would chat and joke with his servants. She writes:

When he had been combed, dressed, and outfitted according to the demands of the day’s programme, his chaplain, a distinguished person and honourable priest, brought him his breviary and helped him to say his hours, according to the canonical day of the calendar. Around eight o’clock he would go to mass, which was celebrated each day with glorious, solemn singing.

After mass had finished, Charles would step outside the chapel and into his courtyard, where members of the public gathered to seek his help. Christine notes:

As he came out of the chapel, all sorts of people, rich or poor, ladies or maidens, widows or others who had problems, could make their petitions to him and he very kindly would pause to listen to their supplications, responding charitably to those that were reasonable or piteous. More doubtful cases he turned over to some master of requests to examine.

This image of the king listening personally to his subjects was a powerful one — it communicated his accessibility and sense of justice.

Charles’s next appointment was with his Royal Council, where he would handle matters of governance:

After this, on appointed days, he would meet with his council, and then with some nobleman of his own blood or some clergymen who happened to be present. If some particular lengthy business did not prevent him, he would go to the table around ten o’clock.

Some historians have expressed surprise that these council meetings lasted little more than an hour. It is widely believed that Charles’s fragile health may have been the reason these sessions were kept short.

Following the council, Christine describes the king’s late-morning meal, which was simple and deliberate:

His meal was not long, for he did not favour elaborate food, saying that such food bothered his stomach and disturbed his memory. He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, well cut, and not much quantity nor great variety. Like David, to rejoice his spirits, he listened willingly at the end of his meal to stringed instruments playing the sweetest possible music.

Even in moments of leisure, the king carefully balanced enjoyment with moderation and reflection — something Christine presents as evidence of his wisdom.

Public Appearances and Private Gardens

After eating, Charles returned to court, where his presence drew a crowd of visitors, dignitaries, and officials. Christine writes:

There one might find several kinds of foreign ambassadors, noblemen, and knights, of whom there was often such a crowd, both foreign and from his own realm, that one could scarcely turn around… There he received news from all sorts of places, perhaps incidents and details of his wars, or the battles of others, and all such matters; there he arranged what should be done according to what was proposed to him, or promised to solve some matter in council, forbade what was unreasonable, accorded favours, signed letters with his own hand, gave reasonable gifts, promised vacant offices, or answered reasonable requests. He occupied himself with such details as these for perhaps two hours, after which he withdrew and retired to rest for about an hour.

This period was not merely for show. It was when real business was conducted — decisions made, letters signed, and rewards or judgments dispensed. After this, the king rested briefly before moving into a more relaxed part of the day.

Christine describes how Charles spent his mid-to-late afternoon:

After this rest period, he spent a time with his most intimate companions in pleasant diversions, perhaps looking at his jewels or other treasures. He took recreation so that the excessive demands on him would not damage his health, because of his delicate constitution, in view of the fact that he spent most of his time busy with demanding affairs. Then he went to vespers, after which, if it was summertime, he sometimes went into the gardens where, if he was in his Hôtel of Saint Paul, sometimes the queen would join him with their children. There he spoke with the women of the court, asking after their children. Sometimes he received curious gifts from various places, perhaps artillery or other armaments and a variety of other things, or merchants would come bringing velvet, cloth of gold, and all sorts of beautiful, exotic objects or jewels, which he had them show to the connoisseurs of such things among members of his family.

Here, Christine blends glimpses of courtly elegance with the daily rhythms of a monarch keen to combine responsibility with refined pleasures.

In his article, “Politics or Leisure? A Day in the Life of King Charles V of France (1364–80)”, Michael Brauer closely examines Christine’s account and draws from the architecture of Charles’s palaces to further understand how his day functioned. He notes that in residences like the Louvre, the king could move via semi-secret corridors and staircases, avoiding public sight when necessary.

Brauer explains that Charles’s life unfolded in three main social settings: public appearances before the people, interactions with family and courtiers, and time spent alone (though servants were always nearby). Each had its purpose — particularly the moments when Charles was seen and accessible, reinforcing the impression of a wise and just monarch.

Brauer comments:

The reason behind this procedure was not so much to correct the deficiencies of a pre-modern society — from the point of view of the modern administrative state, only a fraction of the problems can be solved if the head of the state handles them in person — but to communicate justice to the subjects. The message would be as follows: Justice is possible, the king is acting ad hoc like the wise King Solomon; he is the highest judge of the kingdom and yet still takes the matters of his lowest subjects into his own hands.

While Christine’s depiction may reflect memories and idealisations, it was also a deliberate portrait of kingship meant to inspire. As Brauer notes:

Christine de Pizan wanted her readers to envision the daily routine of Charles V as being divided into three parts: prayer and study, affairs of the kingdom, leisure and recreation. In her view, the different elements must have formed a unity. A guiding idea of this daily routine is the balance of opposites which reminds one of the assumptions of dietetics, an important strain of thought during the later Middle Ages… By conducting his life following a rigid order, Charles V not only stimulated his health, but gave an example for a — in a wide sense — political life. While single elements (such as rest and leisure) can hardly be called political, taken together they form an order of life. By way of analogy, Christine de Pizan explains that an ordered life is an essential condition for any form of ruling: ‘Political science, supreme among the arts, teaches man to govern himself, his family and subjects and all other matters according to a just and appropriate order. Likewise, it is to be the discipline and the instruction to govern kingdoms and empires’.

You can read parts of Livre des faits et bonnes mœurs du sage roy Charles V in English translation in The Writings of Christine de Pizan, edited by Charity Cannon Willard (Persea Books, 1994).

The article, “Politics or Leisure? A Day in the Life of King Charles V of France (1364–80)”, by Michael Brauer, appears in The Medieval History Journal, Vol. 18:1 (2015).

Adblock test (Why?)