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A Negroni Tasting and History

We’ve reached Hump Day for Negroni Week, which runs September 21–27. For me, the week kicked off early—and quite coincidentally—with a Negroni tasting and history lesson on Sunday, hosted by my friend and former colleague Matt and presented by Richard Powers, dance historian turned cocktail historian (and ably bartended by our friend Ryan).

We tasted our way through 11 variations of the Negroni—starting with the classic recipe of equal parts (Beefeater) gin, Campari, and (Carpano Antica) sweet vermouth as a baseline—while learning the origins and history of the cocktail. The most surprising fact I learned was that while the Negroni was “invented” in 1919 or 1920, it wasn’t mentioned in print until 1947, and was largely unknown outside of Italy until 1962.

(The second most surprising fact was that my favorite variation, the Boulevardier—Bourbon instead of gin—is not technically a variation on the Negroni: it was created independently by American-born writer Erskine Gwynne while living in Paris, sometime around 1927. There’s no indication that Gwynne was familiar with the Negroni at the time.)

I wrote of the Negroni:

Its classic form of equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth is delightful, of course, but what I truly love is that you can use the Negroni as a template for building a variety of drinks that (more or less) follow its equal parts base spirit, bitter, and aromatic modifier structure.

Wait… a template?

Indeed. Each of the ingredients in a classic Negroni can be swapped for something else. The Boulevardier, as noted, swaps the gin for Bourbon. The Contessa trades the Campari for Aperol. A Pandan Negroni subs in pandan liqueur for sweet vermouth. Some variations adjust the standard equal parts to restore balance or foreground (or background) a specific flavor profile. The specific gin, bourbon, bitter, or aromatic can make a massive difference (a juniper-forward gin would give a very different cocktail from a gin that is cucumber-infused). In short, the Negroni has a virtually infinite number of variations.

All but one of the 11 variations we tried were (according to my notes) equal parts cocktails. If you wish to make one (or all) of these cocktails, first, pre-chill a coupe or rocks glass (these work equally well up or on the rocks). Add the ingredients to a mixing glass or tin, add ice, stir to chill and combine (about 30 seconds), then strain into your vessel of choice.

🥃
If you forget to chill the glass ahead of time, fill it with ice, then add water. The glass will quickly chill while you make your cocktail. Dump the water and ice, pour your drink, and enjoy.

Unless otherwise noted, we used Beefeater gin, Carpano Antica Formula sweet vermouth, and Campari. I’ve shorthanded this below to simply gin and vermouth.

  1. Negroni: Gin, vermouth, Campari. This was our “control,” which we went back to throughout the course of the afternoon as a comparison.
  • Americano: Sparkling water, Campari, vermouth. The original basis for the Negroni, from which the credited inventor—Count Negroni—asked for gin instead of sparkling water. Quite refreshing.
  • Red Light: Bols Genever, Campari, vermouth. Genever is a Dutch spirit, from which the British were inspired to make gin (much to our great good fortune). A sweeter variation.
  • Contessa: Aperol, gin, vermouth. A less-bitter variant, almost syrupy. The gin almost disappears here; a 1½:1:1 ratio—or a strongly flavored gin—might tame the sweetness if it’s not to your liking.
  • Zenger Negroni: Gran Classico Bitter, gin, vermouth. A less sweet, quite tasty version.
  • Barr Hill Negroni: Barr Hill Tom Cat Barrel Aged gin, Campari, vermouth. Light smokiness, oaky. One of my favorites of the afternoon.
  • Boulevardier: Four Roses Barrel Strength bourbon, Campari, vermouth. As tasty as I expected.
  • The Night Is Young: Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Aperol, vermouth. A lighter, less bitter Boulevardier.
  • Sake Negroni: Hirai Junmai Sake, Dolin Blanc vermouth, Campari, Aperol. This is the one departure from the typical 1:1:1 ratio: 1½ sake, 1½ Dolin Blanc, ⅔ Campari, ⅔ Aperol. It was unique in many ways. A light, fruity variant. I want to try this one again, and with different sakes.
  • Agavoni: El Conquistador Tequila Blanco, vermouth, Campari, bitters. The nose was strongly vermouth and Campari; the palate was strongly tequila. A favorite.
  • Kingston Negroni: Smith & Cross Rum, Campari, vermouth. If you enjoy funky rum, you’ll love this funky cocktail. The rum is quite forward, especially on the nose.

Cheers!

⚙︎

Ichiro Suzuki, a 52-Year-Old Former Professional Baseball Player, Throws a 127-Pitch Shutout Against a High School All-Star Girls’ Team ⚙︎

Jared Greenspan, MLB:

Ichiro [Suzuki] was on the mound in an annual All-Star Game against the best high school girls baseball players in Japan. And he dominated. Ichiro pitched a complete game shutout on 127 pitches with a whopping 17 strikeouts to steer his team to victory.

Ichiro has participated in similar exhibitions since at least 2021, helping to spotlight girls’ and women’s baseball in Japan. That’s fantastic, and a laudable goal.

Less fantastic are the predictably misogynistic responses to his appearances; see, for example, the comments on X/Twitter to the original (paywalled) Seattle Times article. Apparently some SportsBros are epically excited about an aging former professional baseball player dominating high school girls in a sport he played at the highest level for longer than most of his opponents have been alive.

What I’m seeing surprisingly little of from these SportsBros in this age of virulent transphobia is pushback against a “biological man” playing in “women’s sports.” I’ve been told this is the reason why we must ban transgender people from participating in sports.

This lack of pushback might lead one to believe that banning transgender players is about something other than “protecting our vulnerable girls.”

Our ‘Very Stable Genius’ Decrees We Call It ‘Super Intelligence,’ Not ‘Artificial Intelligence’ ⚙︎

Donald Trump, speaking to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday (C-SPAN):

The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now, hereinafter officially called super intelligence, changing the name, and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. It’s actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports. From this point forward, all of United States documents, and hopefully the world’s will be changed to use the much more accurate term super, as opposed to artificial. So it’s super intelligence. In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence dash SI. SI. Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it’s much more accurate. Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t. We’re gonna find out pretty soon.

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined in 1955, but tossing aside seventy years of history is nothing for someone who, in fits of pique, flouts hundreds of years of history by unilaterally renaming international bodies of water.

Trump may have been at his most self-aware there at the end, questioning whether he has any power to drive this inane rename beyond his own government’s documents.

Trump also claims that “The United States leads the world in super intelligence,” which is a completely true and accurate statement because no-one else in the world is calling it “super intelligence.” It’s easy to win a game no one else is competing in.

Which naturally makes me wonder: which of our brown-nosing AI wannabe-overlords will be the first to start referring to their product as “super intelligence”? My gut instinct is to pick the obsequious Mark Zuckerberg, but the sycophantic Elon Musk, smarmy Sam Altman, and zealously earnest Dario Amodei might each eagerly adopt it to further ingratiate themselves with the regime. (I’ll stick with my gut and pick Zuckerberg.)

A closing aside on the transcription of “dash”: In his speech, Trump said “super intelligence dash SI.” That’s what you see above, and is my transcription from listening to the video. Several other sites that report the speech (for example, The Verge, CNet, The Hill) insert a typographic dash (“—”) in place of his verbalized “dash.” This is sanewashing—cleaning up Trump’s spoken gaffes to make him sound like a competent, fluent speaker rather than a doddering old man reading a teleprompter like he’s Ron Burgundy… “Damn it, who typed a dash on the teleprompter? For the last time, anything you put on that teleprompter, Trump will read.”

Negroni Week 2026, September 21–27 ⚙︎

Today is Day 2 of Negroni Week, created by Imbibe Magazine (and sponsored by Campari):

In 2013 Imbibe Magazine launched Negroni Week as a celebration of one of the world’s great cocktails and an effort to raise money for charitable causes around the world.

Since then, Negroni Week has grown from about 120 participating venues to thousands of venues around the world, and to date, the initiative has raised over $5 million for charitable organizations.

As it’s been for the past few years, this year’s charitable organization is Slow Food, which—

… envisions a world where everyone can enjoy food and beverage that is good for them, good for the people who produce it, and good for the planet.

I’ve been celebrating Negroni Week since at least 2015 (X/Twitter link). On Sunday, I kicked it off early—and quite coincidentally—with a Negroni history lesson and a tasting of nearly a dozen variations. More on that soon. Meanwhile, here are links to previous Negroni Week celebrations:

The Negroni, as you may have surmised, is one of my favorite cocktails. Its classic form of equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth is delightful, of course, but what I truly love is that you can use the Negroni as a template for building a variety of drinks that (more or less) follow its equal parts base spirit, bitter, and aromatic modifier structure. Swap the gin for bourbon: my personal favorite, the Boulevardier. Sub out the sweet vermouth for pandan liqueur? A Southeast Asian-inspired Pandan Negroni. Aperol instead of Campari? The lighter, sweeter Contessa. The variations are endless.

Cheers to a good week and a good cause.

Classic Negroni in a square rocks glass.
Classic Negroni: Beefeater Gin, Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth, Campari.

‘How Chat-Based Large Language Models Replicate the Mechanisms of a Psychic’s Con’ ⚙︎

Baldur Bjarnason, writing at Out of the Software Crisis under the headline “The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con”:

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on an idea that I think explains the mechanism of this intelligence illusion.

I now believe that there is even less intelligence and reasoning in these LLMs than I thought before.

Many of the proposed use cases now look like borderline fraudulent pseudoscience to me.

He explains:

By using validation statements, such as sentences that use the Forer effect, the chatbot and the psychic both give the impression of being able to make extremely specific answers, but those answers are in fact statistically generic.

The psychic uses these statements to give the impression of being able to read minds and hear the secrets of the dead.

The chatbot gives the impression of an intelligence that is specifically engaging with you and your work, but that impression is nothing more than a statistical trick.

Bjarnason lays out the six steps of “The Psychic’s Con,” which a supposed psychic will use to con (or “cold read”) their marks, and then matches them with how LLMs are pulling the same trick. It’s a fascinating piece that describes how both psychics and LLMs rely on human psychology to perform their “magic.” From Step 6 of “The LLMentalist Effect”:

6. The marks become cheerleaders

The most enthusiastic believers in an imminent AI revolution are starting to sound very similar to long-time believers in psychics and mind-reading.

They come up with increasingly convoluted ideas and models to explain why the impossible is possible. They become more and more dismissive of fields of science and research that challenge their world view. Their own statements become tinged with awe and dread.

And they keep evangelising. This is real!

Often followed by: This is dangerous!

This seems especially relevant as leading AI chatbot providers call for a slowdown amid fears that AI will destroy humanity.

Oh, did I mention Bjarnason published this in July 2023?

(Via Timothy Perfitt.)

Duane Kuiper Diagnosed with Throat Cancer ⚙︎

Duane Kuiper, in a statement released on the San Francisco Giants X/Twitter account:

I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer and began treatment last week with my doctors at Stanford Medicine. This cancer is unrelated to the one I experienced five years ago, and I’m optimistic that it will be successfully treated. I’II miss the broadcasts tomorrow and Wednesday as I continue treatment, but I’m looking forward to returning Tuesday and this weekend to celebrate my partner, Mike Krukow, and his remarkable career as he calls his final game before retirement. I’m incredibly grateful for the care I’m receiving and for the tremendous support, from my family, the Giants organization, my broadcast partners and so many others.

Awful news. Throat cancer for a broadcaster is especially cruel. Truly, fuck cancer.

I hope Kuip recovers and is able to grace us with his wonderful voice during the 2027 season and beyond.

David Pogue’s 125 Siri AI Tests—And 50 of My Own

David Pogue catalogs (on Substack, alas) 125 Siri AI tests he tried on the just-released OS 27:

This Siri can see into your Apple apps: Mail, Messages, Notes, Files, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Photos, Music, and so on. (Of course, all of this data is locked on the phone. Nobody, not even Apple, has access to it.)

As a result, you can ChatGPT your own life. You can say things like, “What did my wife say I was supposed to do with the plants?” Or, “What was the show that Casey said I should watch?” Or, “What’s my flight number to Austin?” And it pops right up.

You may not even care where that information actually lives--some text message, some email, some note. All you know is that you didn’t have to go scrolling your messages back to A.D. 700 to find the answer.

The hardest part will be getting out of the habit of opening apps, and remembering that you have Siri. Give it a few tries. Learn to trust it. You’ll save incredible amounts of time and fumbling.

I used the beta-test version all summer, growing more and more excited. Now that the final version is out, I wanted to see how often it gets things right. It is AI, after all. So I ran it through 125 tests.

115 of Pogue’s 125 tests were successful (some more than others). Only ten were outright failures (and most of those are likely to work with future app or OS updates).

Like Pogue, I’ve also been using Siri AI throughout the beta, and I, too, found myself impressed by what Siri is now capable of. Here are 50 (undifferentiated) examples from my own usage:

  1. ✅ Today is Ciara’s birthday, draft a message for her and let me review it before we send it. It found the right person and drafted a “happy birthday” message, but I needed to rewrite it.
  2. ✅ How many photos and videos do I have from my trip to Tokyo Japan this year? “You have at least 40 photos and videos from your trip to Tokyo, Japan this year. These include memories from locations like Tokyo Disney Resort, various museums, and dining spots around the city.” I have over 300 photos from Tokyo, so I suppose “at least 40” is a technically accurate statement.
  3. ✅ What is my driver’s license number? Finds a photo of my license and reports the number.
  4. ✅ What are the Known Travel Numbers for me and my wife? Finds and displays the two KTNs.
  5. ✅ What were the names of the people handling my mom’s healthcare? Provides the names and lists their responsibilities.
  6. ❌ What time is my wife’s flight tomorrow? Couldn’t find any flight information in my “emails, messages, or calendar events.” The information is in TripIt, which doesn’t (yet) expose its data to Siri AI.
  7. ❌ What was the earliest time that I was in Hawaii? “Based on your records, the earliest time you were in Hawaii was in July 2010, according to a car rental reservation in Kauai.” I was in Kauai in 2010 (and did rent a car), but my earliest Hawaii trip was to Maui in 2005. That information is also locked away in TripIt.
  8. ✅ When was the first time I was in New York after 2001? Identified three trips from 2004 in my calendar.
  9. ✅ What time is today’s Giants game? Provides start time and opponent.
  10. ✅ What was the final score of yesterday’s Giants game? Provides the score. In neither this nor the previous example did I specify “baseball” or “San Francisco.”
  11. ✅ How many more home games do the San Francisco Giants have this season? Gives the number of remaining games (6) and the teams, dates, and times they’re playing.
  12. ✅ Which of those games are day games? Gives the three dates and times.
  13. ✅❌ Donnafugata? (Yes, just the one-word question.) Gives a paragraph summary of the Italian wine company founded in 1983, a list of its estates, and a paragraph on its “Art and Sustainability.” But what I was really looking for was a photo of a wine bottle. I feel bad about giving it an ❌.
  14. ✅ Can you identify the TV show where a father and his son are doctors and they solved murder mysteries? “The television show you are thinking of is Diagnosis: Murder. The series stars Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes with the help of his son Steve, a homicide detective played by Van Dyke’s real-life son Barry.” This answer came as a great relief to my wife.
  15. ✅ What documentary was Sally Field nominated for an Emmy this year? “Sally Field was nominated for a 2026 Emmy for her role in the Netflix film Remarkably Bright Creatures, not a documentary.”
  16. ❌ How long will it take for me to get to my next appointment? Tells me it will take 7 minutes to drive to an appointment in February 2027.
  17. ❌✅ Why do you think that’s my next appointment? “I apologize. I previously looked too far ahead and missed an event on your calendar for today. You have “Lunch w/Dawn” scheduled for 12:30 PM at The Grind Cafe.” It does not tell me how long it’ll take to get there.
  18. ✅ How old was Barack Obama when he became president? “Barack Obama was 47 years old when he became president.”
  19. ✅ (While looking at a website) Add this page to my to-do list. I’ve added “Designation of Beneficiary Brokerage Nonretirement Account” to your reminders.
  20. ✅ (While stuck in traffic in San Francisco) What’s going on at the Chase Center today? “Today at the Chase Center, you can catch the Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live: Glow-N-Fire show. The event starts at 2:30 PM. Would you like me to look up more details or find tickets for this event?” No thank you.
  21. ✅ (While driving past a busy park in San Francisco) What’s going on at Stern Grove today? “Today at the Stern Grove Festival, it’s the second day of The Big Picnic Weekend. The lineup features Al Green along with Goapele and the Glide Ensemble.” It also provides details on the event and links to the performers.
  22. ✅ (While running behind schedule for a flight) How long before a domestic flight do I need to check in my bags? Gives a brief general answer, asks which airline, then provides airline-specific cutoff times. (I just barely made my flight.)
  23. ✅ How long was Mary married to Joseph before she was pregnant? “According to biblical accounts, Mary became pregnant during her betrothal period to Joseph, before they had “come together” or consummated their marriage. This betrothal typically lasted about a year, but the exact duration before her pregnancy is not specified.” (My wife wanted to know.)
  24. ✅ (Driving past a park) Make a note of my current location. Creates a new note with the location.
  25. ✅ What is the park that is near this neighborhood? “Robert V. Godbold Park is about 2,500 feet away on Northwest Maynard Road. North Cary Park and Fred G. Bond Metro Park are also nearby.”
  26. ✅ Add those to the note. Adds the parks to my “Current Location” note.
  27. ✅ (Pasted in a crash report) What caused this crash? The crash was caused by an unhandled Objective-C exception in the ChatGPT application, triggered when the system attempted to display a lightweight text input affordance (likely related to Writing Tools or a contextual menu). The application tried to order a window on screen, which resulted in an exception being thrown from _CFBundleGetValueForInfoKey, ultimately causing the app to terminate with a SIGTRAP breakpoint.
  28. ✅ Explain how Apple Pay works from the perspective of a merchant looking to implement it. Provides an accurate and coherent explanation.
  29. ✅ What time does the stock market open? “While I’m not a financial advisor, the U.S. stock market opens at 9:30 AM Eastern Time. Consult a financial professional for personalized advice.” I chortled.
  30. ✅ What year was Lincoln shot? “Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865.”
  31. ✅ What year was the cassette recorder introduced? “The first cassette recorder was introduced by Philips in 1963.”
  32. ✅ How much are tickets to the San Francisco Pen Show? It first heard this as “Pinto” and asked, “Sorry, did you say tickets to the San Francisco Pinto, Penso, Pincho, or Penzo?” After clarifying, it provided the date, time, location, and price.
  33. ✅ When did I last attend the San Francisco Pen Show? “You attended the SF pen show on Saturday, August 30, 2025.”
  34. ✅ Do I have a car rental for my Raleigh trip? “Yes, you have a confirmed SIXT car rental booking at Raleigh Durham International Airport.”
  35. ✅ What is my car rental situation for my next Maui trip? Finds a 13-day car rental and messages about comparing costs between two rental companies.
  36. ✅ Please remind me to check and compare prices for my Maui trip after I wake up. Creates a reminder in the default list.
  37. ✅ That should be on personal. “I’ve moved the reminder to your Personal list.”
  38. ✅ Also remind me to call Marriott about my arrival time. “I’ve moved your reminder to check and compare prices for your Maui trip to the Maui list, and I’ve added a new reminder to call Marriott about your arrival time to your Personal list.” A demerit for moving the previous reminder.
  39. ✅ Both of those are for the personal list. “I’ve moved your reminder to check and compare prices for your Maui trip back to your Personal list.”
  40. ❌✅ Change my default reminders list to my Personal list. Tells me it can’t change it, instead describing how to do it myself.
  41. ❌ Find my résumé. Finds two résumés of people who aren’t me, plus “some older notes and Twitter threads related to resume advice and critiques.” It never found “jasonguy2018.pages.”
  42. ❌ Open jasonguy2018.pages. “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to open ‘JasonGuy2018.pages’ directly.”
  43. ✅ What’s my FedEx package? Tells me I have a package coming from Fontana, CA, the tracking number, and the estimated delivery time.
  44. ✅ (With directions to a Vuori store running in Maps in CarPlay) What time does the Vuori store close? “There are a few different Vuori stores, so the closing time depends on which one you mean.” The one that I am currently driving to. “The Vuori store you are driving to closes at 7:00 PM today.” This one blew my mind.
  45. ✅❌ Hey Siri what time is my next flight? “Your next flight is United Airlines 2080 from San Francisco to Raleigh/Durham, departing on Friday, July 24, 2026, at 11:59 PM.” This was indeed the next flight on my calendar, but it wasn’t my next flight.
  46. ✅ What’s my hotel situation? You have an upcoming stay at the Residence Inn by Marriott Raleigh-Durham Airport/Brier Creek starting Saturday, July 18, 2026, and a stay at The Westin Nanea Ocean Villas, Ka’anapali starting Saturday, August 1, 2026.
  47. ✅ How long to get to my Whisky Tastings event today? “It will take about 37 minutes to drive to your event, ‘Ticket: Enjoy Whisky in the Woods!’, in Portola Valley.” It included directions.
  48. ✅ When is the next tech beach in Jamaica? “The next Tech Beach Retreat in Jamaica, known as TBRX, is scheduled for December 2–5, 2026. It will be held at the Princess Resort and Spa in celebration of the event’s 10th anniversary.”
  49. ❌ (While looking at a message in Mail) Add this to my reminders list for today. Tells me the location of my parked car, because “your parked car location was active on your screen when you asked me to ‘add this’ to your reminders.” Friend, it wasn’t.
  50. ✅ (After taking a screenshot of that receipt) Add this to my to-do list. Adds the image to Reminders with the title “Return Athleta Jetset Bomber.” I’m still pondering how it knew it was a “return.”

The most exciting examples are the follow-ups that build on a previous query. That was impossible before Siri AI, and when it works, it feels like I’m talking to a real live assistant who understands context.

Siri AI will only get better, especially as third-party developers integrate their apps with Apple Intelligence. (They may be reluctant to do so, but as more people witness the potential of Siri AI, customer pressure will eventually encourage even the most recalcitrant developer to adopt it.)

With the foldable iPhone Duo coming, and rapid improvements to AI, we’re slowly edging closer and closer to a modern-day Knowledge Navigator.

⚙︎

Tyler Stalman’s iPhone 18 Pro Camera Review ⚙︎

Tyler Stalman compares the new camera against the iPhone 15 Pro, because he’s heard “that the average upgrade cycle for iPhone Pro […] is about three years.” I imagine that’s true for the general iPhone Pro customer, but I’d bet that the people buying an iPhone Pro for the camera—and thus watching Stalman’s review (hi!)—upgrade more often.

Links’ iPhone 18 Pro Camera Review ⚙︎

Links’ video review (in Mandarin with English subtitles) is very human—polished, but less “produced,” for lack of a better descriptor. Links is a talented travel photographer, and that perspective comes through in his review. Several stunning photos and many comparisons between iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro provide a great feel for the hardware and software improvements in the new camera system.

PetaPixel’s iPhone 18 Pro Camera Review ⚙︎

Jaron Schneider’s written review at PetaPixel—and especially the companion video featuring Schneider, Jordan Drake, and Jason Vong—provides more of the technical details professional (or at least professionally minded) photographers crave. The wealth of example photos, and comparisons between iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro, are especially valuable.

Apple Scores 28 Emmy Wins ⚙︎

Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter:

Apple TV had its best ever showing at the Emmy Awards on Monday, topping its previous high mark … from a year ago.

For the first time since it launched in 2019, Apple TV led all outlets at the Emmys with 28 awards (Apple, the parent company, also won for best commercial). A record-setting haul for first-year comedy Widow’s Bay accounted for half of the streamer’s total. The horror-comedy won 14 total awards, breaking the prior record of 13 for a comedy — also set last year by another Apple series, The Studio.

Widow’s Bay won six Emmys during Monday’s telecast, including best comedy series, to go with eight Creative Arts honors. Another first-year show, Pluribus, won six total awards, including drama lead actress (Rhea Seehorn) and best writing for a drama (Vince Gilligan). Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Palm Royale, Slow Horses and Mr. Scorsese accounted for Apple TV’s remaining eight Emmys.

Apple’s closest competitors? HBO, with 21 wins, and Netflix, with 16. Apple TV has truly become “prestige TV.”

I’ll have to give Widow’s Bay a go, despite it being a “horror-comedy.”

See Also: The complete list of winners on the Emmys site.

Samuel Alito’s ‘Unhinged’ Dissent In USPS v. California ⚙︎

Jay Willis, writing at Balls and Strikes on the stridently “unhinged” dissent from Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Clarence Thomas) in USPS v. California:

Alito and Thomas could not let this conclusion go unanswered. Alito began his opinion by recasting the rule not as an attempt by Trump to regulate elections per se, but as a coincidentally election-adjacent exercise of the Postal Service’s “broad authority to regulate the mail,” which is, for technical reasons I won’t bore you with here, ostensibly harder to challenge in court. Strangely, the facts that the rule is titled “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,” and applies to the activities of state “chief election officials,” and says that its primary purpose is protecting the “integrity of federal elections,” and does not implicate any class of mail other than mail-in ballots do not appear anywhere in Alito’s trenchant analysis.

Somehow, the second chunk of Alito’s dissent is even less serious. First, he asserted that the injunction would cause the Trump administration to suffer “irreparable harm” because leaving it in place would “deal a serious setback to the Executive’s goals.” As Alito has done with unsettling frequency over the last several years, he also claimed that the government has a “strong interest” in enforcing the rule in order to “better detect election fraud.”

These claims are equal parts nonsensical and detached from reality.

Justice Alito wrote 2,000 words to basically say “nuh-uh.”

Celebrate the Supreme Court Not Outright Rigging the 2026 Election ⚙︎

Richard L. Hansen, Slate:

There are two ways of looking at the Supreme Court’s three-sentence ruling in USPS v. California Monday evening, which put an end to Donald Trump’s attempt to disenfranchise millions of elderly, disabled, military, rural, Native American, and other voters in the 2026 midterm elections who depend upon vote by mail to cast a ballot. The first is to lament that the government pushed this case to its limits—going not once, not twice, but three times to the high court—and that two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, were willing to simply ignore mass disenfranchisement and side with Trump’s bogus voter-fraud crusade. The second is to note that the court’s conservatives and liberals came to the brink, saw that ruling the other way risked serious election subversion, and said no. For the time being, let’s celebrate that the center of the court did hold, even as dangers remain ahead in both 2026 and 2028.

I suppose we should be grateful the Supreme Court performed the absolute bare minimum of its duty to the Constitution, but I’m betting this ruling merely delays the disenfranchisement until a less inopportune time.

San Francisco Giants Avoid 100-Loss Season ⚙︎

Justice delos Santos, Mercury News:

The 1985 San Francisco Giants will not have company.

With a 10–3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night at Busch Stadium, the Giants won their 63rd game under rookie manager Tony Vitello, guaranteeing that they will not lose 100 games in a single season for the second time in franchise history. San Francisco, at 63–89, had far greater expectations, but given all that’s gone wrong, the Giants can take some minor solace in avoiding the wrong type of history.

Nick San Miguel at Around the Foghorn calls avoiding triple digit losses “borderline miraculous.” I was afraid I’d jinxed things when I mentioned the ignominious milestone on Friday, after which they lost four in a row. The team’s next goal: do better than the 2017 Giants, which went 64–98.

Just two more wins.

Wiley Hodges: Audio Intelligence is ‘Genius, Done Right—But Still Creepy’ ⚙︎

Wiley Hodges, writing (on Substack, alas) about Apple’s new, always-listening “Audio Intelligence” features available on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4:

Audio Intelligence appears to me to be the first case of a always-on feature with some of the qualities of surveillance we’ve seen in other products—an enduring record, an uncertainty on the part of others in the room about what’s happening—that also takes care to minimize the privacy harms that seem to be essentially intrinsic to such products. By doing their homework and showing us the receipts, Apple has taken fears of audio recording or even detailed after-the-fact transcripts off the table. But what they’ve left there is a set of questions about social and even legal norms and expectations. They’ve also created a potential problem for Apple Watch users in the form of a newfound suspicion that every word is being recorded unseen. It isn’t true, but it’s difficult to shrink the whole of Apple’s extensive privacy protections surrounding these features into a pithy soundbite.

Hodges is a former Apple Product Manager, so he understands Apple marketing and motivations better than most. He acknowledges the many ways Apple is feverishly working to avoid its own “Glasshole” moment. It’s clear the product marketing and privacy teams have put a lot of thought into avoiding even a whiff of impropriety. But, to quote Nick Heer, “good luck explaining that to anyone around you after you read back an exact transcript of what they just said.”

Gloria Steinem’s Final Essay ⚙︎

I missed this essay when it was published in The New Yorker on the day Gloria Steinem died:

Whatever the name, words that stand for equality are demonized by those who benefit from inequality. Opposition will always come from people whose power rests on the group they were born into—whether that is sex, race, class, or ethnicity—rather than on what they do as individuals. This persists because they believe in hierarchy and they fear what might happen if they have no built-in advantage. And this is sad because they may never find out who they really are, and what they would really want to do in life.

Elon Musk ‘Resolves’ Antitrust Claims Against Apple ⚙︎

Mike Scarcella, Reuters:

Elon Musk’s X Corp and SpaceXAI said on Monday they have resolved their claims against Apple, in a lawsuit that ​alleged the iPhone maker conspired with OpenAI to unlawfully monopolize markets for smartphones ‌and generative AI chatbots.

In a court filing, X and SpaceXAI, a division of SpaceX, moved to dismiss the claims in a lawsuit they brought against Apple and OpenAI last year. The filing did not explain the reasons ​for dismissal or say whether a settlement had been reached.

It never made sense for Musk to sue Apple for partnering with OpenAI instead of xAI any more than it would make sense for Starbucks to sue me for choosing Blue Bottle Coffee. It’s as logical as threatening to sue advertisers for not spending money with you. Oh, right.

II’m curious what Musk secured from Apple that led to this dismissal. Access to sensitive information? A promise to feature Grok? A future integration? Or did his lawyers finally point out that claiming Apple “makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store” was severely undermined by him posting about Grok hitting #1 on the App Store?

See Also: Techmeme coverage.

XCancel and Nitter Are Down Again ⚙︎

XCancel:

Unfortunately, due to a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, we are required to suspend this service again until further notice. We can’t share more details.

No details on that “new development.”

Nitter, the software behind XCancel, is again archived and read-only on GitHub (as of September 10, 2026) and the web server at nitter.net is not accepting requests.

So much for the law and logic of fair use prevailing.

Litterbox remains a great option if you, individually, want to avoid X, but XCancel was valuable to me to avoid linking to X at all. (Litterbox is also limited to viewing a single post, while XCancel allowed for reading entire threads.)

I hope XCancel and Nitter return, but I fear a final nail has been hammered.

Missouri’s Barely Averted Redistricting Constitutional Crisis, Explained ⚙︎

David French, in an Opinion piece for The New York Times, dissects the complicated Missouri redistricting efforts and resulting lawsuits, from which “America just barely averted the first constitutional cris is of this year’s midterm election” (gift link):

I wanted to walk through this situation in detail because it’s indicative of exactly how MAGA attempts to fix elections. It uses the complexity of the law (and public ignorance of the law) to obscure the utter brazenness of its defiance. […]

Missouri Republicans crossed the line, right before they jumped back. [Missouri secretary of state, Denny] Hoskins engaged in gross legal gamesmanship by rejecting the referendum petition on specious grounds the very day of the primary election. He then tried to use that legal gamesmanship to justify using the new maps. […]

Legal gamesmanship is one thing. Outright defiance is another. It raised the nightmare scenario. What do we do when a state government defies a court, and the court has no independent means of enforcing its decision?

And consider this: All of that gamesmanship and all of that defiance was over one House district, and it occurred weeks before the election, without any overt pressure from Trump to break the law.

In other words, prepare yourself.

‘Streaks Considered Harmful’ ⚙︎

Lex Friedman on his new (annoyingly good) site, Lex on Tech:

Streaks are evil. They’re evil because they work. I do Duolingo every damn day so that I don’t lose my streak, and there are times I absolutely don’t want to do Duolingo. I hate that I’m doing it as I do it, I hate that the streak conceit is having its desired psychological effect upon me, and yet there I sit, practicing more French.

I currently have a 607-day publishing streak here on JAG’s Workshop and a 596-day Duolingo streak (including one 550-day “friend streak”). The publishing streak is legitimate; the Duolingo streak has been extended with “streak freezes” multiple times and is anything but legitimate. I am quite conscious of both, and I’m both dreading and eagerly anticipating the day they end.

Except…

Friedman references a paper published by Jackie Silverman and Alixandra Barasch:

Silverman and Barasch found that a broken streak is demotivating out of proportion to what was actually missed. Skip one day and you’ve failed twice: once at the behavior, and once at the streak. People are so attached to streaks that they’ll complain to companies when a bug wipes one out and lobby to get it restored.

I lost a 560-day Wordle streak in 2023 because of an unexpected loss of internet and power. I was so devastated, I’ve played exactly once since then.

Great. Now I’m just dreading the end of my streaks.

Baseball ‘Is Designed to Break Your Heart’ ⚙︎

A. Bartlett Giamatti, on baseball:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

This is how Bart Giamatti opened his classic baseball essay, “The Green Fields of the Mind,” first published in the November 1977 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine and Journal. It's a beautifully written piece that I was reminded of today during the Giants pregame show.

The Giants have had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season. Going into tonight’s game, they sit on 62 wins, one seemingly elusive win away from avoiding the mortifying humiliation of a 100-loss season, an outcome which has occurred just once in the franchise’s 144-year history, in 1985.

Tonight’s game against the San Diego Padres is being broadcast nationally as part of Apple’s Friday Night Baseball, and one of only four games being broadcast in Apple Immersive on Apple Vision Pro. That’s where I’ll be watching the game. I hope they win. I worry they’ll embarrass themselves.

Because baseball is designed to break your heart.

‘How Final Calls From 9/11 Became a Record of the Tragedy’ ⚙︎

Dave Roos at History.com, earlier this week:

As horrific as it is to watch the World Trade Center towers crumble to the ground, those indelible images were recorded from the relative safety of the streets below. The final phone calls and voicemails left by 9/11 victims, however, provide a raw, real-time record of what it was like to be trapped inside the towers or aboard one of the hijacked planes.

Twenty-five years later and I still find it difficult to read or watch anything related to these attacks. I couldn’t make it through this article without becoming emotional. Actually hearing these calls would shatter me.

Apple ‘Surprise and Shine‘ Event in 90 Seconds ⚙︎

Apple:

Watch a quick Apple Event recap to learn about iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, and AirPods 5.

Even Apple scrubbed right to the end for the iPhone Duo intro, and also found the “Fertile Window notification” sequence awkward.

Moof! Clarus the DogCow in iOS and macOS 27 ⚙︎

Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels:

Well, this little Easter Egg in Apple’s 27 OSes is fun. If you go into Settings → Appearance → Liquid Glass and scroll down far enough in the example content, an old friend appears […]

This is an absolute delight and I must now have a physical 3D model of Clarus the DogCow immediately.

(You need a recent iOS 27 or macOS 27 beta to see her.)

Clarus, if you don’t know, is (or at least was) the mascot (“icon” for you gear heads) of Apple Developer Technical Support (DTS), where I spent two decades of my career. I’ve always loved her history. I did my best to keep her memory alive while I was in DTS, even starting a new Technote (to go with TN31 and TN1031) to further extend her story, but I never finished it, and eventually left Apple.

DTS folks, I have time now… call me… Moof!

Via Tyler Stone.

Nick Heer: ‘Live Rewind Is a Creepy Part of Apple’s Audio Intelligence Suite’ ⚙︎

Nick Heer at Pixel Envy isn’t thrilled with Apple’s new “Live Rewind” feature coming to Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, which Apple describes thusly:

Live Rewind recalls what was just said in the last 15 seconds by showing a text snippet on your Apple Watch when you double-press the Digital Crown, so you can catch something you missed or are less familiar with. You can ask Siri about the content of the snippet or simply save it to the Siri app.

Heer:

Apple swears up and down it is doing all it can to make this private and secure, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. The audio is apparently not actually saved and is, instead, merely transcribed by a dedicated coprocessor. That text is automatically deleted unless the user takes an action to save it, too.

But good luck explaining that to anyone around you after you read back an exact transcript of what they just said. […]

This feels like a glimpse of how Apple will market its inevitable wear-anywhere glasses product. I do not think it does enough to assuage privacy concerns. I think normal people will continue to react negatively when you tell them you have been passively recording them because, outside Silicon Valley, that is considered gross and invasive.

Apple also introduced Siri Recap, which it describes this way:

Siri Recap ambiently takes notes on your conversations throughout your day and creates high-level Apple Intelligence–generated summaries that you can use later to jog your memory, so you can stay present in the moment. Your summaries auto-delete after 7 days if you choose not to save them.

There’s definitely a high creep factor when your devices are always listening. Heer concludes:

This feels like a glimpse of how Apple will market its inevitable wear-anywhere glasses product. I do not think it does enough to assuage privacy concerns. I think normal people will continue to react negatively when you tell them you have been passively recording them because, outside Silicon Valley, that is considered gross and invasive.

On the plus side, these features might help resolve spousal disagreements over who said what when.

Resolve. Cause. Six of one.

Apple Unveils iPhone Duo, Debuts iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and More

Today Apple held its annual fall event, at which new iPhones and other accessories are unveiled, debuted, or otherwise announced. A couple of things were notably different this year. One, only the Pro and Pro Max versions of the new iPhone were announced; the iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and iPhone Air 2 will have to wait (presumably for the spring). Two, the person doing the announcing was John Ternus, in his first event as Apple’s CEO. He was… fine. Certainly way more natural than Tim Cook ever was.

Cook made a brief cameo in a CEO handoff, part of an extravagant “how should we open this?” sequence (Shot on iPhone, of course, as was the entire event). And there was a legitimate “One more thing…” to introduce Apple’s newest iPhone form factor, the folding iPhone Duo (with a truly magical transition). Everything that was announced was expected (and many things that were expected were not announced). The entire event was decidedly low-key. To me, the overall vibe was “we know you know we have new stuff—let’s get this over with so you can buy them.” I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been steadily improving and releasing products like clockwork for almost two decades.

You can watch the event on YouTube or read the press releases and product pages:

  • iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max (product page): Preorders open September 12 (at the unholy-for-this-West-Coaster hour of 5am Pacific Time), with general availability starting September 18. Starting price for iPhone 18 Pro is $1,200 for 256GB storage, topping out at $2,400 for 2TB. iPhone 18 Pro Max is $100 more.
  • iPhone Duo (product page): Preorders open October 16 (also at 5am PT), with general availability October 23. $2,000 for 256GB storage up to $3,200 for 2TB.
  • AirPods 5 (product page): Preorder now, available September 18. $129 for the regular charging case or $149 with the wireless charging case (which includes swipe to change volume and “longer battery life”).
  • Apple Watch Series 12 (product page): Preorder now, available September 18. Starting prices are $400 (Aluminum), $700 (Titanium), and $900 (Ceramic) for 42mm. 46mm is $50 more. (You can spend as much as $1,250 for the Ceramic 46mm with the Link Bracelet.)
  • Apple Watch Ultra 4 (product page): Preorder now, available September 18. Pricing is $800 (most watch bands) or $900 (Titanium Milanese Loop).
  • New health and fitness capabilities.

Immediate thoughts:

  • There’s a greater than 90% chance I’ll buy a new iPhone 18 Pro, despite the astronomical, AI-fueled pricing that starts at $1,200 and escalates rapidly to $2,400. Camera improvements are my number one reason for upgrading each year, and this year looks especially compelling.
  • I grudgingly admired the iPhone Duo. I went into it curious but confident it wasn’t for me. I came out wishing it was. The clever use of the (effectively three) screens looks great. But with a form factor that’s too wide for me to comfortably hold one-handed and a $2,000 starting price (and an eye-watering $3,200 top price), I’d put my chances of buying this phone at about 5%. Still, that’s about five times higher than I would have said yesterday.
  • New health features are tempting me to buy an Apple Watch Ultra 4, but there’s nothing wrong with my one-year-old Ultra 3. Perhaps next year.
  • I may give the AirPods 5 (the version with on-stem volume control) a shot now that it has active noise cancellation, as the AirPods Pro 3 I picked up a couple of months ago don’t fit my ears well. Perhaps these will be more comfortable.
  • There were a lot of newly minted VPs presenting. For the first time in years I recognized almost no one.

I have a lot more thoughts to sort out; meanwhile, you can read what others have to say:

⚙︎

Ricky Mondello: ‘Switching Password Managers in 2026’ ⚙︎

Ricky Mondello:

Would you believe me if I told you that the best device to switch password managers on might be your iPhone or iPad? For many pairs (exporter and importer) of apps, it’s true!

Mondello offers great advice for migrating from one password manager to another. (Mondello knows a thing or two about password managers.)

Why this post, now? Because many of us are looking to abandon 1Password after the company chose to support a fascist-adjacent organization:

1Password’s recent investment in the Omarchy Linux distribution, created by the outspoken and dangerous David Heinemeier Hansson, and the subsequent industry conversation, inspired me to “fast”-track publishing updated advice on switching password managers. This investment was justifiably criticized by many, including employees of 1Password. I feel for those employees because it’s a terrible feeling when the impact of your work is diminished by actions you had no say in and can’t control.

I was already all in on Apple Passwords, with 1Password as a historic repository I (unhappily but willingly) paid to maintain, but the price ($72 a year), a forthcoming forced migration to 1Password 8, and support for fascists have finally pushed me to stop paying for and using 1Password. Fortunately, this is an easy switch to make.

It’s Electric (Boogie Woogie Woogie) ⚙︎

All it took to get Marcia Griffith’s Electric Boogie immediately and irrevocably stuck in my head for three days was seeing the title of an episode of The Pitch podcast about an electric vehicle charging company called it’s electric. Seriously, three full days. The song—and the accompanying “Electric Slide” line dance that inevitably starts halfway through any semi-decent party—are infectious and joyous and deeply embedded in my subconscious. I can’t recall the first time I heard the song or danced the Slide, but also stuck in my head is a scene from A Different World, which had Ron (I think) dressed as a caveman (I think) and other Hillman students doing the Slide. I can’t find that scene anywhere. I don’t think it’s a fever dream.

(The main link is to the official promo video. Here’s the official music video. Both are very much of the ’80s, complete with neon leotards and patterned parachute pants. I don’t know how I survived that decade.)

‘Indie Developer Simulator’ Makes My Apple Developer Relations Heart Ache ⚙︎

Indie Developer Simulator:

You have $99 and a dream. Your goal: publish an iOS app.
The dream is negotiable.

From the HTML source file:

Get rejected. Get reviewed. Get sherlocked.

You don’t need to be an Apple developer to “get” this, but if you are, steel yourself. This “simulation” hit me viscerally. Absolutely gutted. Yes, I laugh-cried my way through it, but the entire experience made me cringe in painful recognition. Years of helping developers fight past these types of rejections came flooding back instantly. No word on who created this, but they’re clearly a veteran of the Apple developer community and are deeply damaged from too many interactions with Apple.

To my friends in Developer Relations and the App Store: You’ll be tempted to dismiss this as mere hyperbolic satire, but it reflects reality—and developer sentiment—more than many of you will care to admit. Play it—cringe deeply—and then get on Slack, build a tiger team, and get to work fixing things.

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