Python Bytes - #435 Stop with .folders in my ~/

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Michael #1: platformdirs

  • A small Python module for determining appropriate platform-specific dirs, e.g. a "user data dir".
  • Why the community moved on from appdirs to platformdirs
  • At AppDirs:
    • Note: This project has been officially deprecated. You may want to check out pypi.org/project/platformdirs/ which is a more active fork of appdirs. Thanks to everyone who has used appdirs. Shout out to ActiveState for the time they gave their employees to work on this over the years.
  • Better than AppDirs:
    • Works today, works tomorrow – new Python releases sometimes change low-level APIs (win32com, pathlib, Apple sandbox rules). platformdirs tracks those changes so your code keeps running.
    • First-class typing – no more types-appdirs stubs; editors autocomplete paths as Path objects.
    • Richer directory set – if you need a user’s Downloads folder or a per-session runtime dir, there’s a helper for it.
    • Cleaner internals – rewritten to use pathlib, caching, and extensive test coverage; all platforms are exercised in CI.
    • Community stewardship – the project lives in the PyPA orbit and gets security/compatibility patches quickly.

Brian #2: poethepoet - Poe the Poet is a batteries included task runner that works well with poetry or with uv.”

Michael #3: Python Pandas Ditches NumPy for Speedier PyArrow

  • Pandas 3.0 will significantly boost performance by replacing NumPy with PyArrow as its default engine, enabling faster loading and reading of columnar data.
  • Recently talked with Reuven Lerner about this on Talk Python too.
  • In the next version, v3.0, PyArrow will be a required dependency, with pyarrow.string being the default type inferred for string data.
  • PyArrow is 10 times faster.
  • PyArrow offers columnar storage, which eliminates all that computational back and forth that comes with NumPy.
  • PyArrow paves the way for running Pandas, by default, on Copy on Write mode, which improves memory and performance usage.

Brian #4: pointblank: Data validation made beautiful and powerful

  • “With its … chainable API, you can … validate your data against comprehensive quality checks …”

Extras

Brian:

Michael:

Joke: Does your dog bite?

NBN Book of the Day - Jeffrey P. Rogg, “The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence” (Oxford UP, 2025)

Intelligence is all around us. We read about it in the news, wonder who is spying on us through our phones or computers, and want to know what is happening in the shadows. The US Intelligence Community or IC, as insiders call it, is more powerful than ever, but also more vulnerable than it has been in decades. It is facing the threat of rival intelligence services from countries like Russia and China while fighting to keep up with new technology and the private sector. Still, the IC's greatest struggle is always with the American people, who expect it to keep them safe but not at the cost of their liberty and principles. This foundational problem is at the center of The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence (Oxford University Press, 2025). Based on original research and a new interpretation of US history, this masterful book offers a complete history of American intelligence from the Revolutionary War to the present day. Jeffrey Rogg explores the origins and evolution of intelligence in America, including its overlooked role in some of the key events that shaped the nation and the historical underpinnings of intelligence controversies that have shaken the country to its constitutional core. With the American public in mind, he introduces the concept of US civil-intelligence relations to explain the interaction between intelligence and the society it serves.While answering questions from the past, The Spy and the State poses new questions for the future that the United States must confront as intelligence gains ever greater importance in the twenty-first century.

Jeffrey P. Rogg is Senior Research Fellow at the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida. He previously held academic positions at the Joint Special Operations University at US Special Operations Command, the Department of Intelligence and Security Studies at The Citadel, and the National Security Affairs Department at the US Naval War College.

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What A Day - LA On The Front Lines Of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

People protesting against Immigration Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles and President Trump’s crackdown on immigration clashed with the National Guard over the weekend. Ruben Vives, a general assignment reporter with the LA Times, helped us break down what's happening across the city right now.

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The NewsWorthy - National Guard in LA, New Era in College Sports & Broadway’s Biggest Night – Monday, June 9, 2025

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People can build up hundreds of thousands of travel rewards points over the years — but most of the time, they can’t include those points in their estate plans. Host Julia Carpenter talks with WSJ reporter Jacob Passy about how to rethink your points strategy and hand the rewards down to your heirs. 


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WSJ Tech News Briefing - Apple’s WWDC Clouded by Worries Over AI, Tariffs, and Legal Battles

Worries about tariffs, legal battles, and the future of artificial intelligence have weighed on Apple’s stock price so far this year. WSJ Heard of the Street columnist Dan Gallagher explains what investors are looking for this week from the tech giant’s developers conference. Plus: WSJ commodities reporter Ryan Dezember takes us to America’s South to find out why the sheen is coming off the promise of solar energy.


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Short Wave - Helping Dogs and Their Pawrents Live Healthier, Longer

The Dog Aging Project is a long-term nationwide survey on the health and lifestyles of U.S. dogs that launched in 2019. Today, the project has more than 50,000 canines and counting. Today, hear what researchers have learned from one of the largest dog health data sets and what it could tell us both about increasing the lifespan of our furry friends and us.

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NPR's Book of the Day - Madeleine Thien’s new novel ‘The Book of Records’ is a story that traverses centuries

It took author Madeleine Thien nearly a decade to write her new novel The Book of Records. In the story, 7-year-old Lina and her father take refuge at an imagined place called the Sea. There, buildings serve as a waystation for people who are fleeing one place to make home in another. Thien says she wanted to set her novel in a location where centuries and histories might converge. In today's episode, Thien talks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about her personal relationship to the three historical thinkers who enter the story: Hannah Arendt, Baruch Spinoza, and Du Fu.

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