Patrick George, writing for The Atlantic under the very pessimistic headline “Enjoy CarPlay While You Still Can,” explains why GM and other short-sighted carmakers are ditching CarPlay, despite its popularity among car buyers (Apple News+ link):

Because GM’s software isn’t tied to a phone like CarPlay is, access to the full suite of software requires its own data plan—through GM, of course. (The cheapest plan costs $10 a month.) Get used to these kinds of subscriptions, regardless of what kind of car you drive. In recent years, automakers have realized how much money they can make from in-car technology: Maybe they charge a subscription fee for hands-free highway cruise control (GM has already had considerable success with that). Maybe they charge for apps that let you control aspects of the car from your phone. Or maybe they sell data that your navigation system collects about where you go and what you do.

Whatever the case, car companies are moving beyond making money only when they sell you a car. For GM, eliminating Apple as a middleman provides more opportunities to charge for things.

Just like I’ll never buy a car without CarPlay, subscriptions for driving my car are a non-starter—the idea of buying something and then paying more to use it is probably anathema to most car buyers. Imagine being unable to open your car door, start your car, or use the radio because your credit card payment lapsed.

I’m not nearly as pessimistic as George when it comes to CarPlay, though: I think we’ll see consumers voting with their wallets, and I’m willing to bet GM and other manufacturers will quietly start supporting CarPlay again.

Probably via a subscription.

Anthony Castrovince, MLB:

The Dodgers are MLB’s first repeat champs since the 1998–2000 Yankees, and the four-hour, seven-minute, extra-innings affair it took to decide that was a fitting end to a true Fall Classic in which these two clubs exhausted each other – not just in the 18-inning epic at Dodger Stadium in Game 3 but throughout a Series in which they both had to empty the tank.

This might be the best World Series—and Game 7—in recent memory, arguably ever. It may also be the most heartbreaking loss in World Series history: the Blue Jays had several chances to win it—including a bottom-of-the-ninth play at the plate and a game-saving outfield catch for the ages, both of which were an inch or two from giving the Jays their first franchise championship title.

Congratulations to both teams for an amazing Series—but damn, Dodgers fans are going to be even more insufferable than usual.

Match Game was one of my favorite game shows growing up in the 80s, and remains so even today. A recent conversation with a friend who worked with its creator, Mark Goodson, reminded me to link up this 2006 Game Show Network documentary, The Real Match Game Story: Behind the Blank. It’s a little lacking in depth, and focuses on Gene Rayburn more than I expected, but it was fun and enlightening. For example, I learned that Richard Dawson’s popularity with contestants during the head-to-head portion led to several rules changes—and eventually his departure from the show. I also enjoyed hearing from several of my favorite celebrities, like Brett Somers, Betty White, and Charles Nelson Reilly, and the hijinks they got into on and off the set. A fun diversion for fans of Match Game.

Canva:

When Affinity joined the Canva family last year, we made a promise to preserve its power while expanding what’s possible. Today, that vision comes to life with the all-new Affinity: a studio-grade creative app that brings vector, photo, and layout tools together in one high-performance platform. Fully featured. Lightning-fast. And completely free.

Affinity previously sold three separate apps: Designer (vector design), Photo (photo editing), and Publisher (page layout), all available on Mac, iPad, and PC. The new, combined app offers the full functionality of all three apps, for free:

Affinity is now completely free, forever. The full, professional-grade Affinity experience, available to everyone.

There’s no catch, no stripped-back version, and no gotchas. The same precise, high-performance tools that professionals rely on every day are now open to all, because creative freedom shouldn’t come with a cost.

From the FAQ:

Is Affinity really free?

Yes, Affinity really is free. That doesn’t mean you’re getting a watered-down version of the app though. You can use every tool in the Pixel, Vector, and Layout studios, plus all of the customization and export features, as much as you want, with no restrictions or payment needed. The app will also receive free updates with new features and improvements added.

The only thing that seems to require a (paid) Canva account is (optional) AI functionality:

For everyone with a Canva premium account, Canva AI’s tools are now included directly inside Affinity through the new Canva AI Studio. This includes familiar favorites like Generative Fill, Expand & Edit, and Remove Background – powerful features that speed up repetitive steps while keeping designers in full control of every detail.

When I paid $115 for an Affinity universal license in 2024, I thought it was a screaming good deal: three terrific apps, three platforms, and no subscriptions. I balked slightly at the Canva acquisition because these kinds of deals often go south, either via price increases or crappier apps.

Instead, we get what looks like a massively improved app for Mac and PC (an iPad version is “coming soon,” with a beta expected “next year,” promises CEO Ash Hewson). Making it free was a truly unexpected bonus—I was fully anticipating the apps would be locked behind a $120-a-year Canva Pro account. I couldn’t be happier my concerns were misplaced.

I hope Adobe is quaking in its overpriced subscription boots.

Apple:

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $102.5 billion, up 8 percent year over year.

“Today, Apple is very proud to report a September quarter revenue record of $102.5 billion, including a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record for Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

And:

“Our September quarter results capped off a record fiscal year, with revenue reaching $416 billion, as well as double-digit EPS growth,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO.

The market loved the results, briefly pushing Apple’s after-hours stock price over $284 (from a $271.40 close), before settling in just under $278.

There were two notable and related “forward-looking statements” in the earnings call. First, from Tim Cook:

We expect the December quarter to be the best ever for the company, and the best ever for iPhone.

Then, from Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO:

We expect our December quarter total company revenue to grow by 10 to 12 percent year over year, which would be our best quarter ever. We expect iPhone revenue to grow double digits year-over-year, which would be our best iPhone quarter ever.

If these “statements” prove accurate, that would translate to:

• $136.73 to $139.216 billion in total revenue (December 2024 revenue: $124.3 billion)
• $76.051 billion in iPhone sales (December 2024 iPhone sales: $69.138 billion)

That alone might justify Bank of America’s $320 price target, which is now looking almost conservative.

As usual, Jason Snell at Six Colors offers additional details, as well as his always helpful transcript and multi-color charts.

Sam Boughedda, Yahoo Finance:

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan raised the bank’s price target on Apple to $320 from $270 in a note on Wednesday, reiterating a Buy rating on the stock.

The move comes after BofA provided a new five-year outlook for the company that projects sustained growth across products and services, underpinned by the ecosystem, brand, and installed base.

And:

The bank now forecasts fiscal 2025 revenue and earnings per share of $418 billion and $7.41, respectively.

This comes out a day ahead of Apple’s earnings announcement.

A $320 price would value Apple at about $4.5 trillion, which is still well below Nvidia, which reached the $5 trillion mark on Wednesday.)

Clare Duffy, CNN:

Nvidia just became the world’s first $5 trillion company.

Yours truly, in June, 2024:

Nvidia is now worth over $3 Trillion, briefly surpassing Apple and Microsoft.

And in July 2025:

It’s been a week since Nvidia topped, then closed above the $4 trillion market cap mark, and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around “a graphics card company” becoming the first to achieve this milestone. Some analysts are already anticipating a $5 trillion market cap. […]

No doubt I’ll be writing a “$5 trillion valuation” piece within the year.

Well, here we are: those analysts were right. I suppose “three months later” is indeed “within the year.”

Now the question becomes: Does Nvidia hit $6 trillion before Microsoft or Apple reach $5 trillion?

A short video demonstrating consistent typing errors when using the iOS keyboard is making the rounds in the Apple tech community. A lot of YouTube and social media comments are of the “OMG, so validating!” nature—a lot of people are reporting similar issues. I’ve certainly noticed an increase in typos over the years (which, for whatever reason, I attribute to Apple’s introduction of “differential privacy” in iOS 10). Alas (or perhaps, fortunately), while others can reproduce the specific issue shown the video, where typing “thumbs up” gives (for example) “thjmbs up,” I cannot.

Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle (syndicated via Yahoo News):

Burning firewood does not produce oxygen.

That is an incontrovertible scientific fact, one of several a Fremont family spent six months fighting for, a battle they never thought they’d have to wage against their own school district.

The dispute stems from half-a-dozen test answers a teacher at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, CA marked as wrong:

One, which asked about the products and type of reaction related to firewood combustion, immediately stood out:

30. Which of the following statements is correct?

a. The cellulose and oxygen products indicate that this combustion reaction is endothermic.

b. The heat and light products indicate that this combustion reaction is exothermic.

c. The cellulose and oxygen products indicate that this combustion reaction is exothermic.

d. The heat and light products indicate that this combustion reaction is endothermic.

The teacher identified statement C as the correct answer, which would likely surprise anyone who has ever blown into a campfire to stoke the flames. Viswanathan’s son chose statement B. (Endothermic indicates a process that absorbs heat from its surroundings while exothermic is one that releases heat. However, that was not part of the dispute.)

The teacher argued in an email to the parents shared with the Chronicle that light is not always a product of the combustion process. While true, oxygen and cellulose never are. And notably, statement B does not state that light is always present.

The principal defended the teacher:

Principal Amy Perez stepped into the fray on Aug. 13, backing the teacher.

“After reviewing the matter, I can confirm that (the teacher’s) test questions and answer key align with the CA State Standards and the curriculum used in her classroom,” she wrote in a note to the parents.

As did the district:

“In regards to the exam question, the students observed a demonstration lab during class, accompanied by a lecture that clearly explained that combustion does not always produce light,” [district spokesman Barth] Paine said in an email to the Chronicle. “Our staff affirm that combustion does not always produce light.”

The district failed to acknowledge that the teacher’s answer violated scientific fact as well as the publisher’s answer key, which confirmed the correct answer was heat and light, since “combustion is a chemical reaction that typically releases energy in the form of heat and light, which makes it an exothermic process.”

You can’t even argue that “there’s not always light” makes the correct answer appear ambiguous, because it’s the only answer that could be right: the process is exothermic, releases heat, could produce light, and consumes oxygen and cellulose.

That the answer key has the correct answer, but the teacher, principal, and school district ignored it—and science—makes this even more outrageous.

Principal Perez again:

“While alternative perspectives (that) may be found online are respected, our grading reflects the instructional materials, standards, and assessment criteria provided to all students in (the teacher’s) class.”

“Alternative perspectives” on science is right up there on the Orwellian scale with “alternative facts.”

Via a friend whose daughter attends the school and knows this teacher. The daughter’s reaction to the teacher’s incompetence?

“Not surprised.”

J. Michael Luttig, a former Court of Appeals judge appointed by George H. W. Bush, writing in the December issue of The Atlantic (paywalled; Apple News+, Archive.ph links):

With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution. It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.

The Founders of our nation foresaw a figure like Trump, a demagogue who would ascend to the presidency and refuse to relinquish power to a successor chosen by the American people in a free and fair election. Writing to James Madison from Paris in 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned that such an incumbent, if narrowly defeated, would “pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government.” Were that moment ever to come, the Founders believed, it would mark the demise of the nation that they had conceived, bringing to a calamitous end the greatest experiment in self-government ever attempted by man.

The Founders anticipated the problem but failed to provide a solution: there’s no way, short of force, to remove a sitting president who refuses to leave and who exercises personal control over a military force—such as ICE—and has the support of nearly 50% of the voting population.

It was strange to wake up to multiple news stories about Trump’s outrageous and unceasing ploy to subvert the Constitution and remain in office after 2028. For example, from Bernd Debusmann in the BBC:

US President Donald Trump has not ruled out the possibility of seeking a third term for the White House, saying he would “love to do it”.

But Trump rejected the possibility of running for vice-president in 2028 - an idea floated by some supporters as a way for him to circumvent the US constitution that bars the president from running for a third term.

Speaking to reporters during his trip to Asia, Trump described the idea as “too cute” and said it “wouldn’t be right”.

That same piece also noted the likely genesis of this latest round of nonsense:

Last week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon - who remains a vocal supporter - claimed there was a “plan” to secure a third term for Trump.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon told The Economist. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”

(Worth noting: Yes, Trump will still be in office in 2028; his term ends at Noon on January 20, 2029. This is, of course, not what Bannon meant, and I’m sure that ambiguity is by design.)

Then there was Speaker Mike Johnson, who, when asked about this ludicrous idea, tried to soft-pedal, if barely:

“I don’t see a way to amend the Constitution because it takes about 10 years to do that,” Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said. “As you all know, to allow all the states to ratify what two-thirds of the House and three-fourths of the states would approve. So I don’t, I don’t see the path for that, but I can tell you that we are not going to take our foot off the gas pedal.”

Johnson didn’t say “Trump can’t run,” or that he won’t try to stay beyond his term via force or coercion, only a very legalese statement on the constitutionality of the issue.

This constant drip-drip-drip of “third Trump term” stories is a clear effort to burrow the purported inevitability of such an outcome deep into the American consciousness. It’s the same propaganda technique on display in Trump’s feces-dumping video, where he openly winked at “bombing Americans.”

It’s clear that Trump will try to stay in office beyond 2029, constitutionality be damned.

A lovely paean to TextEdit and its unassuming minimalism, from Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker (paywalled, alas; Apple News+ and Archive.ph links):

Amid the accelerating automation of our computers—and the proliferation of assistants and companions and agents designed to execute tasks for us—I’ve been thinking more about the desktop that’s hidden in the background of the laptop I use every day. Mine is strewn with screenshots and Word documents and e-books. What I’ve accrued the most of by far, though, are TextEdit files, from the bare-bones Mac app that just lets you type stuff into a blank window. Apple computers have come with text-editing software since the original Mac was released, in 1984; the current iteration of the program launched in the mid-nineties and has survived relatively unchanged. Over the past few years, I’ve found myself relying on TextEdit more as every other app has grown more complicated, adding cloud uploads, collaborative editing, and now generative A.I. TextEdit is not connected to the internet, like Google Docs. It is not part of a larger suite of workplace software, like Microsoft Word. You can write in TextEdit, and you can format your writing with a bare minimum of fonts and styling. Those files are stored as RTFs (short for rich-text format), one step up from the most basic TXT file. TextEdit now functions as my to-do-list app, my e-mail drafting window, my personal calendar, and my stash of notes to self, which act like digital Post-its.

I trust in TextEdit. It doesn’t redesign its interface without warning, the way Spotify does; it doesn’t hawk new features, and it doesn’t demand I update the app every other week, as Google Chrome does. I’ve tried out other software for keeping track of my random thoughts and ideas in progress—the personal note-storage app Evernote; the task-management board Trello; the collaborative digital workspace Notion, which can store and share company information. Each encourages you to adapt to a certain philosophy of organization, with its own formats and filing systems. But nothing has served me better than the brute simplicity of TextEdit, which doesn’t try to help you at all with the process of thinking. Using the app is the closest you can get to writing longhand on a screen. I could make lists on actual paper, of course, but I’ve also found that my brain has been so irredeemably warped by keyboards that I can only really get my thoughts down by typing. (Apparently my internal monologue takes place in Arial typeface, fourteen-point font.)

Other than that final font faux pas—TextEdit’s default font is Helvetica—it’s a wonderful ode to an underappreciated app and a beautiful bit of writing.

(Via @michaelsteeber by way of @jeff.)

When I saw Chinese Trump impersonator Ryan Chen (Chinese: Chen Rui) on TikTok, I thought it was dubbed—the speech patterns, the mannerisms, the occasional malapropisms were just that good. He has hundreds of videos. In addition to that first link, here are a few favorites:

• Let’s Make Content Creating Great Again
• “Interviewing” Dutch sci-fi author Roderick Leeuwenhart
• I’m Back, Let’s Celebrate, with dancing
• Soup

Lastly, here’s Chen in his “natural” English voice.

Via a write-up about Chen by Andrew Higgins in The New York Times (gift link), who notes:

Ryan Chen has never set foot in the United States. He learned English at high school in the western Chinese city of Chongqing and from watching pirated versions of “Friends,” “Two and a Half Men” and other sitcoms in college.

This bit caught my attention:

Chinese law bans the commercial use of the names and images of party leaders, a rule that landed a Mao Zedong impersonator in trouble in 2018.

No doubt the real Donald Trump would approve.

OpenAI:

AI progress isn’t only about advancing intelligence—it’s about unlocking it through interfaces that understand context, adapt to your intent, and work seamlessly. That’s why we’re excited to share that OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated, makers of Sky. […]

We will bring Sky’s deep macOS integration and product craft into ChatGPT, and all members of the team will join OpenAI.

I hope the product is called OpenSky.

This also means OpenAI now owns the wonderful—and wonderfully named—“software.inc” domain.

Software Applications Incorporated was founded by three former Apple alums— Ari Weinstein, Conrad Kramer, and Kim Beverett. Weinstein and Kramer were the team behind Workflow, which Apple acquired and turned into Shortcuts. When Sky was announced back in May, I wondered why Weinstein and team couldn’t build it while at Apple, and suggested it was pitched and received a cool reception—leading to their departure. I speculated:

Regardless, I’m guessing some executive inside Apple is kicking themself now—and possibly plotting how to acquire Weinstein and team, for the second time.

(They may have competition: The app relies on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman is an investor in Weinstein’s company.)

My congratulations to the team.

Nick Statt, The Verge:

GM plans to drop support for phone projection on all new vehicles in the near future, and not just its electric car lineup, according to GM CEO Mary Barra.

In a Decoder interview with The Verge’s Nilay Patel, published Wednesday, Barra confirmed GM will eventually end support of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on both gas-powered and electric cars. The timing is unclear, but Barra pointed to a major rollout of what the company is calling a new centralized computing platform, set to launch in 2028, that will involve eventually transitioning its entire lineup to a unified in-car experience.

My life is on my iPhone, and I’ll switch cars before I leave that ecosystem. There’s no easier way for a car company to lose my business than not supporting CarPlay. (OK, there is another.)

If I were a competing CEO that supported CarPlay (and Android Auto) I’d be ecstatically flinging up billboards.

In place of phone projection, GM is working to update its current Android-powered infotainment implementation with a Google Gemini-powered assistant and an assortment of other custom apps, built both in-house and with partners.

No car “infotainment” system will ever be as good as my iPhone when it comes to the apps I care about. My preferred podcast player, Overcast, will never be on GM’s system, nor will that system ever read me my Messages. My driving life is simply better when I can use the apps I want. For a car CEO to believe otherwise is outrageous.

Jess Weatherbed, writing at The Verge, on one absurd failure from this week’s Amazon cloud outage:

Some smart bed users were quite literally losing sleep over the massive AWS outage on Monday. Eight Sleep’s elevating, temperature-controlling mattress systems were temporarily knocked out of service by Amazon’s server issues, with users on Reddit and X reporting their smart beds were stuck at sweltering temperatures and uncomfortable incline positions.

Don’t connect your bed to the internet.

The company’s “Pod” mattress toppers — which start at $2,000 depending on the model and size, alongside a monthly Autopilot subscription (starting at $17) to use the features — rely on cloud connectivity. An active internet connection is required to control temperature and elevation settings via the Eight Sleep app, and it previously didn’t provide a way to adjust features offline.

Don’t buy “smart” beds that cost $2,000 and require a monthly subscription.

[CEO Matteo] Franceschetti said that all Eight Sleep devices are “currently working” again as of Tuesday, and said, “We will work the whole night+24/7 to build an outage mode so the problem will be fixed extremely quickly.”

Don’t buy beds that need an “outage mode.”

“During an outage, you’ll still be able to open the app, turn the Pod on/off, change temperature levels, and flatten the base,” [co-founder Alexandra] Zatarain said.

Putting aside the questionable need for such features, why wasn’t this bed designed to work offline from the start? It’s a bed.

That ubiquitous “Beat LA!” so many of us baseball fans enthusiastically chant against the detestable Dodgers didn’t originate with that team. Not even with that sport. Its origins didn’t even directly involve an LA team at all. Kyle Ramos had the story for NBA.com, back in 2015:

Instead, it began in 1982 when Boston was facing elimination against the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. With the Sixers comfortably ahead and the end of the Celtics season in sight, the Boston fans opted not to wallow in their somber defeat, but to offer some simple instruction and encouragement to the soon-to-be-victorious Philadelphia team, chanting, “Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!”

The best thing to come out of Boston since Paul Revere, New Edition, and Dunkin Donuts’ bacon and egg on a croissant.

Fredo Cervantes, The Sporting Tribune:

The 2025 World Series matchup is official—and unprecedented. For the first time, the Dodgers and Blue Jays will meet in the Fall Classic, with Game 1 set for Friday, October 24 at Rogers Centre.

Well, this is a first for me, too: I’ll be cheering for an American League team based outside the United States in the World Series.

Anyone over the LA Dodgers—them’s the rules: I don’t make ’em.

OK, I totally do. I’ve mentioned them before, but here they are again:

• Mets and Giants over anyone
• Eastern/Western Divisions over Central
• National League over American League
• Anyone over Yankees/Dodgers

Yes, that sometimes meant rooting for a Central Division or American League team if they were up against the Yankees or Dodgers, but it was always worth it. Nothing was more important than those two teams losing.

Nothing more important.

So yes, I’m rooting for the Blue Jays to Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!

Todd Spangler, Variety:

In an AI-generated video Trump shared on his Truth Social platform Saturday evening, the U.S. president is depicted as a king in a fighter jet dropping what appears to be a large amount of fecal matter on protesters below. In the 19-second video, the president is in a fighter jet marked “King Trump,” and he is shown wearing a crown sitting in the cockpit. (The oxygen mask that “King Trump” wears does not fully cover his nose and mouth.)

Jenny Gross at The New York Times chose to describe it as “dropping a brown liquid resembling feces onto the heads of protesters,” adding that “Mr. Trump regularly reposts A.I.-generated or mocked-up imagery on his Truth Social account,” as though this is a perfectly reasonable thing for a President of the United States to do. No critique or condemnation, just continued sane washing.

Former Republican and Navy Veteran Jack Hopkins wrote:

The world watched a so-called leader—Donald Trump—post an AI video of himself in a fighter jet… dumping shit on his own citizens. It wasn’t satire. It was a mirror.

As Jill Filipovic quipped on X/Twitter:

King Trump taking a shit on America is certainly a message.

Many of the retorts focused on the shit dumping. What really struck me wasn’t the “brown liquid,” the crown, or even the flight mask not covering Trump’s nose (lol). No, my takeaway was the bombing imagery itself. I wrote on Mastodon in response to the video:

This is a bombing fantasy: he’s acclimating us to the idea of dropping bombs on US citizens by making a “funny” shareable meme. Millions will see it and laugh or be outraged, but are one beat closer to accepting the idea of an air strike in American cities. I’m confident a version with real bombs was considered and dismissed as “too soon.”

Trump has used war imagery before, and he and his team are escalating their use of “king” motifs. Trump’s team may not have created this video, but by sharing it, they are continuing their attempts to inculcate us. They desperately want us to accept two decidedly un-American ideas: Trump as “king,” and military-style attacks on Americans.

Hopkins also wrote that this video “normalizes violence as entertainment”:

Using artificial imagery to depict harm against citizens desensitizes followers. It trains the public to see aggression as humor… rebellion… or strength rather than as moral collapse.

Every repetition moves the boundary of what’s “acceptable” political expression.

This is how authoritarian propaganda evolves…from outrageous joke to operational doctrine.

This is the nature of propaganda: to repeatedly introduce abhorrent ideas in an effort to make them seem normal—expanding the Overton window so that what was once “unthinkable” is perceived as merely “radical,” and eventually, even “acceptable.” With enough exposure, we become accustomed to the absurdities.

It’s imperative that we recognize these photos and videos for what they are. We must not dismiss them as mere “memes” or “masterful trolling.” The Trump regime is telling us who they are: autocratic wannabe dictators and military strongmen hell-bent on attacking their country’s citizens.

Also: that they’re full of shit.

France 24:

Robbers wielding power tools broke into the Louvre on Sunday and made off with priceless jewels from the world-renowned museum, taking just seven minutes for the broad-daylight heist, sources and officials said.

When I saw this story, I immediately thought about The Thomas Crown Affair, or an episode of BBC’s Hustle.

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati:

“We saw some footage: they don’t target people, they enter calmly in four minutes, smash display cases, take their loot, and leave. No violence, very professional,” she said on TF1.

Gentlemen robbers? Check.

Thomas Adamson, AP News:

A lift — which officials say the thieves brought and which was later removed — stood against the Seine-facing façade, their entry route and, observers said, a revealing weakness: that such machinery could be brought to a palace-museum unchecked. […]

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the crew entered from outside using a basket lift via the riverfront facade to reach the hall with the 23-item royal collection.

Ingenious entrance and escape? Check.

Catherine Porter and Aurelien Breeden, New York Times (gift link):

There they smashed two cases, sounding more alarms, and snatched eight precious objects, including a royal sapphire necklace, a royal emerald necklace and its matching earrings, and a diadem worn by Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, France’s 19th-century ruler.

Ariel Weil, mayor of central Paris (home of the Louvre):

Not only did it take place in broad daylight, while the museum was open, Mr. Weil pointed out, but the thieves walked off with some of the nation’s crown jewels.

“Those are the most valuable thing — not just from a material point of view, but from a symbolic one,” he said in an interview.

Liberating high value, symbolically important items? Check.

I wondered why thieves would bother to steal such well-known artifacts; surely there’s no one foolish enough to buy them—except, perhaps, a centibillionaire collector with an underground museum. But, notes French paper Le Parisien (machine-translated):

One of the questions that arises at the moment is whether the jewels have already been melted to resell the gold, as was most certainly the case a month ago with the gold nuggets stolen from the Natural History Museum. “The risk is that some diamonds can be sold at retail, which would make the reconstitution of jewelry very difficult,” explains a source close to the investigation.

Ugh. I admit, it never occurred to me that the jewelry would be decomposed and sold as “scrap.” I presumed they were stolen because they were renowned artifacts, desirable for their history and beauty, and would be secretly admired in the private collection of that hypothetical billionaire—not because they’re made of diamonds and gold.

How pedestrian.

Garrett Graff: ‘Three Reasons I Still Have Hope for America’

This optimistic piece from Garrett Graff comes as we head into this weekend’s No King’s protest:

To me — as someone who cares deeply about the future of American democracy — the rallies stand as an important expression of love for the United States and the idea and dream that the US has represented for 250 years.

Graff has been writing about how the United States has tipped into authoritarianism, but offers “three significant reservoirs of hope”:

1. People — There are more of us than there are of them.

It’s easy to lose sight of how weak this administration’s popular support actually is. Two-thirds of Americans are not Trump voters — and even many who did support him are beginning to question or turn against what it’s like to live in Donald Trump’s America.

2. History — America’s progress has always been imperfect.

Ironically, the second pillar of hope I have is that the history of the United States is filled with dark chapters — sometimes, even long dark chapters.

We are a country founded on a deeply imperfect premise, “all men are created equal,” that at that time excluded enslaved Blacks, women, indigenous people, and even white men who didn’t own property. America has many stories and the one that I choose to believe is the one where we are a country that strives, generation by generation, decade by decade, to be better. That viewed across 250 years, America is a country where each generation has strived to hand off a country more just, equal, and prosperous than the one they inherited from their parents and grandparents.

3. Actuarial — Trump won’t last forever, which means “Trumpism” will fall.

Trump may want to be a dictator and emulate Franco and Orban, and — who knows — maybe the ridiculous White House ballroom he’s building is an indication he doesn’t plan to leave peacefully on January 20, 2029, but time tells us that he’s never going to be Franco, the dictator who reigned in Spain from 1939 until 1975. The reality is Donald Trump is 79 and not well — and probably less well than the media is willing to dig into — and his reign as president and America’s would-be king will be measured in years, not decades.

Whenever and however Donald Trump exits the stage, there just isn’t anyone who will step into the MAGA movement’s shoes — there are plenty of people who will try, from JD Vance to Marco Rubio to Ron DeSantis to Don Jr. to Ted Cruz, but the thing we’ve seen over and over across the last decade is that no one is Donald Trump. Vice President JD Vance, an incredibly awkward and unfunny Trump-lite who is widely despised by both sides, is most certainly not Donald Trump.

It’s a welcome piece—long, but detailed. If you’re looking for nuggests of hope, you might find them here.

If you’re attending a No Kings protest on Saturday, stay safe.

Apple Newsroom:

Apple and Formula 1® today announced a five-year partnership that will bring all F1 races exclusively to Apple TV in the United States beginning next year. […]

Apple TV will deliver comprehensive coverage of Formula 1, with all practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and Grands Prix available to Apple TV subscribers. Select races and all practice sessions will also be available for free in the Apple TV app throughout the course of the season. In addition to broadcasting Formula 1 on Apple TV, Apple will amplify the sport across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+. Apple Sports — the free app for iPhone — will feature live updates for every qualifying, Sprint, and race for each Grand Prix across the season, with real-time leaderboards, season driver and constructor standings, Live Activities to follow on the Lock Screen, and a designated widget for the iPhone Home Screen.

According to emails sent to current Formula 1 TV subscribers, F1 is keeping its “F1 TV Access” (the lowest-tier option—$3.49 a month or $29.99 a year, which does not include any live video streaming) and is phasing out its “F1 TV Pro” package ($10.99 a month) while shifting its highest “F1 TV Premium” tier ($16.99 a month—the “Ultimate F1 Live Immersion” which includes multiview and 4K streaming) to Apple TV:

From January 2026, our new Formula 1 broadcast partner in the US will be Apple TV. Next season F1® TV Premium will continue to be available in the U.S., included with an Apple TV subscription only.

You will still be able to purchase F1® TV Access, which remains available in the US.

Apple TV customers pay $12.99 a month and will now get that $16.99-a-month “Premium” tier as part of their subscription. That’s a hell of a deal. A lot more people might find themselves watching F1 races out of mere curiosity. I’ve never watched a single F1 race (or Drive to Survive or F1 The Movie), but this new partnership may finally get me to check out the hype, seeing as it’s now effectively free for me to do so.

Meanwhile, “F1 TV Pro” subscribers get full access to everything Apple TV has to offer for an extra $2 a month, while “F1 TV Premium” subscribers save $4 a month.

This seems like a massive win for everyone.

Additional information — including production details, product enhancements, and all the ways fans will be able to enjoy F1 content across Apple products and services — will be announced in the coming months.

I assume this will include an immersive Apple Vision Pro experience. An app called Lapz was briefly available and was considered the best way to watch F1 races. The F1 folks put the kibosh on it last year; perhaps one of them will acquire it.

One sour note, from the aforequoted press release:

Apple will amplify the sport across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+.

Translation: We need to recoup our money somehow, so prepare to see a lot of unwanted F1 content. I can see it now: Your commute will take 45 minutes, but an F1® car would get you there in just ten. Subscribe to Apple TV to experience the thrill of speed.

Yours truly, back in August:

[…] bless my soul, as sure as there’s a light over at the Frankenstein place, you can bet I’ll be buying the 50th Anniversary 4K edition when it’s released in October.

It’s released, ordered, and should arrive today. It’ll make a perfect weekend watch. (As always, Amazon links can earn me a couple of pennies. Time is fleeting.)

I thoroughly enjoyed this short story by Jason Self. It’s a pitch-perfect future-tech satire that’s increasingly recognizable in our connected-everything/right-to-repair/DRM-and-subscriptions-everywhere reality:

My OmniHome™ SynapseToaster™, a sleek obsidian slab that cost more than my first car, was perfectly capable of producing golden-brown perfection. That capability was locked behind DRM. A notification would slide gracefully onto my OmniTab™ screen every morning: “Experience the Maillard reaction as our chefs intended. Upgrade to the Artisan Browning™ subscription for just 10 credits a month.”

I found it utterly delightful.

United States Mint:

The United States Mint (Mint) today released the designs for the 2026 American Innovation $1 Coin Program. The 2026 designs honor innovations and/or innovators from Iowa, Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota.

The California design features Steve Jobs:

This design presents a young Steve Jobs sitting in front of a quintessentially northern California landscape of oak-covered rolling hills. His posture and expression, as he is captured in a moment of reflection, show how this environment inspired his vision to transform complex technology into something as intuitive and organic as nature itself. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and “CALIFORNIA.” Additional inscriptions are “STEVE JOBS” and “MAKE SOMETHING WONDERFUL.”

This is the design recommended by Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this year. It doesn’t exactly scream California innovation! to me, though—perhaps it needs a Macintosh in Steve’s lap.

(This is not the design the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee preferred, which featured Steve as older and wearing glasses and a turtleneck. That design, while certainly a more familiar image, placed even greater emphasis on the man. This design at least alludes to California as a source of inspiration.)

The $1 coins will sell for $13.25 each.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Senior VP of Marketing, posting to X/Twitter (link is to xcancel.com, so you can safely click without actually visiting the hellsite):

Mmmmm… something powerful is coming.

After years of “we don’t even wink in the direction of new products,” it’s weird to see Apple executives actively teasing new products.

It doesn’t take a marketing genius to figure out five “M”s equals “M5”. The Roman-numeral-V-shaped silhouette of the included video simply rams it home:

The headphone port on the left aligns with a MacBook Pro (not Air). And this may be just the lighting, but it looks a smidge thinner. Plus—and perhaps this is merely wishful thinking—the overall coloration, and the closing Apple logo, implies the tantalizing possibility of a MacBook Pro in something other than Space Black or Silver.

Not that I’m in the market for a new MacBook Pro.

A new MacBook Air with cellular though….

Drew Taylor, The Wrap:

Drew Struzan, the poster artist behind “Star Wars,” “Blade Runner,” “The Thing,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Back to the Future” and countless others, died on Tuesday due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease, his family said on a statement. He was 78.

I didn’t know the artist, but I sure as hell knew the art. If you love movies, you most assuredly know Struzan’s work, too. For many of us, his posters are the defining image for that movie. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Coming to America, and more of Struzan’s iconic posters are all indelibly imprinted on my brain.

RIP to a legend.

(Via @andhow by way of @raganwald.)

This year, the high-flying Blue Angels were not the highlight of San Francisco Fleet Week, held this weekend, noted NBC Bay Area:

It’s official. The U.S. Navy, including the Blue Angels, will not participate in San Francisco Fleet Week this year due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.

In a statement late Tuesday night, the San Francisco Fleet Week Association said U.S. Navy ships, Sailors, and Marines would not take part in this year’s events “due to the continuing lapse in federal appropriations.”

The Republican government shutdown grounded America’s aerial acrobats. Thank goodness for the Canadian Snowbirds, eh?

Perhaps the Qatari Air Force can perform next year.

In addition to dashing away the innocent joy of watching the Blue Angels fly jet planes in precise, death-defying formation, the Republican shutdown also means furloughing 34,000 IRS employees, the closure of National Parks, an expected explosion of healthcare costs, and less safe airports as TSA agents and air traffic controllers worry about their next paycheck. Oh, and Donald Trump suggests those federal workers don’t deserve back pay.

🎶 America, America… 🎶