Kevin Powell, at Newsweek, reflects on Afrika Bambaataa’s death and legacy:

But, alas, here I am, dazed and confused by the sad and tragic fall of Afrika Bambaataa, a preeminent pioneer of hip-hop.[…]

But as my wife always says, two things can be true at the same time. There is no hip-hop as we know it without ambassadors like Afrika Bambaataa […]

But the other vicious reality is that a long line of people in the circle and community of Afrika Bambaataa knew something, and no one ever said anything, tried to stop it, help him, help the alleged victims. The vicious reality is there is a long line of people, mostly males, in sports, in entertainment, lurking in our neighborhoods, who have been accused of very ugly things: rape, domestic violence, sex with underaged people, marrying underaged people, grooming, kidnapping, even murder, and heads are casually turned toward indifference. Too often, the victims get blamed again and again.

Michael Saponara, Billboard:

Hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa (born Lance Taylor) has died at age 68. According to TMZ, which first reported the news, the “Planet Rock” artist died Thursday (April 9) from complications due to cancer.

Truly, Fuck Cancer.

Carly Thomas, The Hollywood Reporter:

Bambaataa became one of the leading artists to blend electronic sounds inspired by Kraftwerk within the hip-hop genre. His breakthrough song “Planet Rock,” released in 1982 with Soulsonic Force, helped put him on the map and was a seminal record in defining electro-funk.

Planet Rock is my earliest American musical memory.

Tom Tapp, Deadline:

In 2016, Bambaataa was faced with multiple allegations of child sexual abuse and trafficking from young men in the Bronx. At the time, he reportedly denied the accusations, saying they “are baseless and are a cowardly attempt to tarnish my reputation and legacy in hip-hop at this time.”

He was not criminally charged, but lost a civil case by default in 2025 that was brought by an accuser after he failed to appear in court.

I was, regretfully, unaware of these accusations.

Kurtis Blow, early rapper and Executive Director of The Hip-Hop Alliance, on Instagram (via Variety):

Today, we acknowledge the transition of a foundational architect of Hip Hop culture, Afrika Bambaataa. As the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, Afrika Bambaataa helped shape the early identity of Hip Hop as a global movement rooted in peace, unity, love, and having fun. His vision transformed the Bronx into the birthplace of a culture that now reaches every corner of the world. Through his music, leadership, and influence, he contributed to the foundation of Hip Hop’s core principles, inspiring generations of MCs, DJs, breakers, and cultural leaders. His imprint on Hip Hop history is undeniable and will forever remain part of the culture’s origin story. At the same time, we recognize that his legacy is complex and has been the subject of serious conversations within our community. As an organization committed to truth, accountability, and the preservation of Hip Hop culture, we believe it is important to hold space for all voices while continuing to uplift what empowers and protects the people.

Afrika Bambaataa’s undeniable influence is forever marred by these disturbing abuse accusations. A disquieting coda to a pioneering life.

Kenyatta Thomas, on the EFF blog:

After almost twenty years on the platform, EFF is logging off of X. This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue. The math hasn’t worked out for a while now.

Their reason for leaving is reduced reach: their posts aren’t getting the same number of impressions they used to. I’m happy to see them leave the shithole, and any reason to do so is commendable, but it would have been nice if the reason was to avoid being in a Nazi bar, rather than fewer people are hanging out with us at the Nazi bar.

Mike Masnick at Techdirt shreds The New York Times’ breathless puffpiece on telehealth startup Medvi:

It’s a hell of a story. The problem is that almost none of it holds up to even the most basic scrutiny, and the fact that the New York Times — the New York Times — fell for it (or worse, didn’t care) is an embarrassment. As much as I’ve made fun of the NYT for its bad reporting over the years, this is (by far) the worst I’ve seen. They didn’t just misunderstand something, or try to push a misleading narrative, they got fully played on a bullshit story that any competent reporter or editor should have realized from the jump. This one stinks from top to bottom.

AI, misleading valuations, fake doctors, class-action lawsuits, an FDA investigation, and false weight-loss claims. It appears the writer, Erin Griffith, and Times editors and fact-checkers did zero actual reporting for this story.

The real issue now is what the New York Times plans to do about this. A standard correction noting a few missing details won’t cut it. The entire premise of the article — that this company represents the exciting realization of AI’s business potential — is nonsense. Every element of the narrative is tainted: the growth story is built on deceptive marketing, the product claims are contradicted by the FDA and the manufacturers of the actual drugs, the “$1.8 billion” figure is a projection with no valuation to back it up, and the company is currently facing legal action on multiple fronts. The entire article should be retracted.

A week later and the Times has yet to issue a correction or retraction.

Another fantastic visualization from the folks behind the previously linked Pixar Cry Chart. Especially impressive: “The Collection”—“Every model. Every spec. Click any two to compare.”

One glaring error: In both “The Moments That Mattered” and “The Collection” sections, the current OS is listed as “iOS 19.” There was (and is) no iOS 19: in 2025, Apple aligned OS numbering, jumping from iOS 18 to iOS 26.

Andrew Day, writing at The American Conservative, contemplates one conclusion to Donald Trump’s Easter threat (and presumably today’s followup):

Maybe these statements were just bluster, maybe not. Regardless, if Tehran doesn’t budge, Trump will feel pressure to follow through and turn Iran into an apocalyptic hellscape before tomorrow morning.

Trump might even be tempted to accomplish this monstrous objective with the use of nuclear weapons. Amid muddled messaging from the White House, one of the most consistent themes has been the declared intention to “obliterate” Iran—and nuclear weapons offer the surest way to do that.

Yes, I’m actually linking to a site called “The American Conservative.” Wars make for strange bedfellows.

The president of the United States threatens genocide (original):

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!

Posted on “Truth” Social at 5:06 am, because the president of the United States has nothing better to do at that hour.

JD Vance followed up later (in a press conference with Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán):

We have tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. Trump can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course.

The White House found it necessary to deny that was a threat to use nuclear weapons.

I won’t purport to know which mechanism the president of the United States plans to use to kill millions of people, but it seems to me the method matters less than the act itself.

There is absolutely nothing—I mean zilch—in this extensive profile of Sam Altman (and OpenAI), by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz in The New Yorker, that paints Altman in a good light. The profile is based on “more than a hundred people with firsthand knowledge of how Altman conducts business: current and former OpenAI employees and board members; guests and staffers at Altman’s various houses; his colleagues and competitors; his friends and enemies and several people who, given the mercenary culture of Silicon Valley, have been both.”

(I suspect this 17,0000-word story is effectively the pitch for a tell-all book on the history of OpenAI and Altman.)

A couple of choice quotes:

As the technology became increasingly powerful, we learned, about a dozen of OpenAI’s top engineers held a series of secret meetings to discuss whether OpenAI’s founders, including Brockman and Altman, could be trusted. At one, an employee was reminded of a sketch by the British comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, in which a Nazi soldier on the Eastern Front, in a moment of clarity, asks, “Are we the baddies?”

And:

The senior executive at Microsoft said, of Altman, “I think there’s a small but real chance he’s eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer.”

I don’t know about you, but being compared, unfavorably, to Nazis, Madoff, and Bankman-Fried is pretty fucking damning.

This may be one of the finest applications of Betteridge’s law of headlines. It's an absolute must-read.

Howard Yu, writing at Inc. on the culture of BYD, China’s largest EV maker, as set by its founder and CEO, Wang Chuanfu:

When defective cells appeared, Wang asked: “Have you found the root cause?” If yes: “Can you reproduce it?” Then the demand: “Make one hundred cells with exactly the same defect. If you can reproduce the failure one hundred times, identically, then and only then have you understood the mechanism.”

That practice, reproducing failure on purpose until the physics revealed itself, became the bedrock of BYD’s entire operation.

Most companies operationalize their successes. How many operationalize their failures? I can’t help but recognize some Apple DNA in BYD.

BYD did not decide one morning to build the fastest car on Earth. First, it built phone batteries. Then E-bike packs. Bus systems. Delivery vans. Passenger cars. Hypercars. Each rung taught something the previous rung could not. There was no quantum leap. Only the next rung.

And Wang’s deepest insight had nothing to do with batteries. It was about knowledge. If you cannot reproduce a defect one hundred times, identically, you do not understand the mechanism. Do not settle for a plausible explanation. Demand a reproducible one. The difference between the two is the difference between an organization that keeps making the same mistake and one that never makes the same mistake twice.

On a trip last year to Mexico City, BYD cars and dealerships were everywhere. The company has about a 70% market share in Mexico. Globally, it’s almost 20%—and zero percent of that is in the U.S.

The high quality and low pricing of BYD vehicles put U.S. and European cars to shame. If they were to ever come to our shores, the American EV market would just shrivel up. Good thing the Trump and Biden administrations put the kibosh on that.

Donald Trump on Easter Sunday, on his personal “Truth” Social platform (original):

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP

When I first saw a reference to this, I assumed it was a parody of his previous day’s “Glory be to God!” But no, this is a real post from the sitting president of the United States, using expletives and calling for war crimes. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling it “insane” and “evil.”

(Can you imagine the outrage if Barack Obama had posted “Open the Fuckin’ Strait” or “Praise be to Allah” on social media? He would have been pilloried and articles of impeachment would have been drawn up in record time—and Trump himself would have been leading the charge.)

The mainstream media continues to sanewash Trump, reporting his post as if it were merely a provocative proclamation, while refusing to use his actual language. AP News, for example, writes “Trump issues fiery new threat against Iran as details of US aviator’s rescue emerge” and that he “made expletive-laden new threats to escalate strikes on Iran and its infrastructure.”

The New York Times used similar language: “Trump Escalates Rhetoric Over Iranian Power Plants” and “used an expletive-laden social media post to taunt Iranian leaders.” Taunt. As if this was a pickup basketball game.

Trump is deeply unhinged and becoming more and more desperate as his control over the war and the narrative crumbles. As he’s incapable of backing down or admitting error, he will instead continue his escalations. We are well beyond “25th Amendment” territory. He needs to be impeached and removed, for the sake of the country and the world.

Jane Migliara Brigham reporting for The Needle News (“Head of Trans Liberty uses Kansas Capitol bathroom in defiance of new law”):

On Trans Day of Visibility, Samantha Boucher traveled to Kansas with one purpose: to piss in a public bathroom.

It wasn’t just any bathroom. This was at the state capital, where only a few weeks ago, the legislature voted to ban trans people like her from using the correct bathrooms.

The Kansas law is one of the most regressive transgender bathroom laws in the country, criminalizing the use of bathrooms consistent with one’s gender identity, with “bounty-style lawsuits” that can be filed by anyone who believes “they’ve shared a bathroom with a transgender person.” (Similar laws exist in Idaho, Utah, and Florida.) It also retroactively voids all corrected driver’s license and birth certificates, affecting a transgender person’s ability to legally drive, fly, and vote.

Her organization, Trans Liberty, put out an evacuation order for trans people in the state last month, telling them to leave as soon as possible. The reason is that SB 244 effectively rendered trans Kansans undocumented, with no means to prove their identity.

To that end, they are putting their money where their mouth is. To assist in this, the organization has started Operation Lifeboat, a program to evacuate trans people from Kansas.

Words fail me. Absolutely appalling.

Kalley Huang and Tripp Mickle, reporting for The New York Times (gift link):

Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, is retiring this summer after a nearly 13-year tenure marred by accusations that he created a toxic workplace culture and sexually harassed an employee.

Mickle reported those accusations against Blahnik last August.

Apple confirmed Mr. Blahnik’s retirement. The company declined to comment further, including on who would succeed him.

My bet is Julz Arney, Apple’s Sr. Director of Fitness Technologies and Fitness+. She was promoted to her current role in 2024 and is the next most externally visible leader on the Fitness+ team.

In an email to employees this week, Apple said Mr. Blahnik, 57, will retire in July “to spend time with his family and make an exciting move to New York City.”

“Time with his family” is funny enough, but it’s the “exciting move to New York City” that collapsed me into uncontrollable laughter.

Terrence O’Brien, writing at The Verge, on veteran MLB Umpire C.B. Bucknor’s brutal early-season mishaps:

During Saturday’s game between the Red Sox and the Reds, Eugenio Suárez challenged Bucknor on back-to-back strike three calls and successfully had them overturned by the robo ump.

This is the first year Major League Baseball is using the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System (ABS), and it’s already successful at two things: allowing egregious calls to be corrected, and exposing the strike zone inconsistencies among umpires. No doubt many umpires will be frustrated (and embarrassed) seeing their calls overturned—especially close ones that are mere tenths of inches off the strike zone. Good umpires will adapt. Bad umpires will hasten their retirement. I’ll wager Bucknor will be gone by the All-Star Break.

In addition to the hero animation on Apple’s homepage today, there’s an easter egg I discovered accidentally when using Downie to grab that animation. Quite appropriate for April Fool’s Day. The element (a VHS-style double-left-arrow REW button) has a CSS class (apple-50-link) with display: none—hidden by design. I won’t spoil the video behind the hidden button, just go watch it.

(I tried to Shazam the music, and it was unable to identify the track. If you know it, please get in touch.)

Update: Two of them, in fact.

First, the “hidden video” is only hidden on Macs; if you visit on iPhone (or iPad), the REW button is visible. (Interestingly, it still doesn’t show up even if you change your Mac Safari user agent string to iPhone in Develop > User Agent > Safari — iOS 26 — iPhone.) Here’s a direct link to the actual video file on Apple’s site. Tim Cook also posted it to X/Twitter (which I would have never seen because, well, you know.)

Second, the music Shazam was unable to identify is actually the music from the Think Different ad, played in reverse and pitched up, as noted by Lex Friedman. I had indeed watched the video in reverse, fully expecting that I (or Shazam) would recognize the music, but nope. Considering the number of times I’ve watched that ad, I’m extremely disappointed that I missed it. It’s an Easter egg inside of an Easter egg.

Apple has another fantastic homepage animation today, its 50th birthday, featuring hand-drawn outlines of its most iconic products—and I do mean iconic: each one is unmistakable even when reduced to its most elemental form. Just gorgeous. (Primary link to Internet Archive for posterity, plusYouTube. See on apple.com, while it lasts.)

Nancy Friedman, writing at Fritinancy (on Substack, alas):

Stop naming things after people, living or dead. No schools. No streets. No courthouses. No fountains. Just quit it.

Friedman first wrote this in 2021 and updated it following recent reports accusing labor leader César Chávez of sexual assault and abuse. I was reminded to link to it after my friend Ron read Brian J. Johnson’s aforelinked piece on birthright citizenship, which included a damning paragraph describing California gubernatorial candidate Henry H. Haight’s anti-Chinese platform, and wondered if he was the “Haight” after whom the street in San Francisco is named.

(The answer to Ron’s question is complicated, but it’s now believed to be named after Weltha Haight, wife of banker Henry W. Haight, not the (eventual) governor. Perhaps a case of revisionist history, or another example of a woman’s erasure from history.)

Friedman, again:

Here is the point: Once we attach a human being’s name to an institution, we’re stuck with that human’s whole messy story. While it’s instructive to read about and learn from that story, we can (and should) do it without turning the person’s name into an object of civic reverence. […]

Public institutions should honor the public, not one inconsistently admirable individual.

Brian J. Johnson, writing for CalMatters on the upcoming oral arguments at the Supreme Court “on whether the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees ‘birthright citizenship,’” and the “original public meaning” of the Amendment:

During an 1866 debate in Congress, Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan complained about “Gypsies” who “acknowledge no allegiance” and “settle as trespassers where ever they go.” He also argued that California should be able to protect itself from “a flood of immigration of the Mongol race.” He proposed changing the amendment text to exclude both groups.

“Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen?” he asked.

California Sen. John Conness agreed with Cowan’s interpretation of the proposal but argued to keep it as is. He stood by “the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.”

Congress adopted the bill without Cowan’s proposed exceptions.

In the wake of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and growing anti-Chinese sentiment:

Immigration services detained a man named Wong Kim Ark after a trip to visit his parents, who’d moved back to China. Wong, who was in his 20s at the time, produced proof of his San Francisco birth and demanded his release.

The government argued that, because Wong’s parents were subjects of the Emperor of China, owed their allegiance to that country and were ineligible for U.S. citizenship, their son could not be a natural born American.

The Supreme Court disagreed. It quoted Cowan and Conness on the amendment, for “the legal meaning of the words themselves,” and noted that no one at the 1866 debate contradicted them.

Ultimately, though, the high court declared the outcome to be controlled by something simpler: “the broad and clear words of the Constitution.”

The meaning of the 14th Amendment was so clear at its implementation that racists of the day argued for exclusions in hopes of narrowing its scope.

Eliminating or restricting birthright citizenship will require today’s Supreme Court to tie itself into knots to ignore history and precedent. Again. (And again, and again.)

The (ever-changing) Top 10 products in The Verge’s poll are about what you’d expect: Mac OS X; the original iPhone, Macintosh, iPod, AirPods, and iPad; iconic hardware (like the Bondi Blue iMac and Wedge MacBook Air); and true game changers (like the M1 chip).

Via John Gruber, who laments the low ranking of his beloved Apple Extended Keyboard II. Meanwhile, the LaserWriter and ImageWriter consistently rank in the bottom three (despite igniting the desktop publishing revolution), and the Apple //c—my beloved first computer—isn’t even available as a voting option. I’m calling shenanigans.

A lovely little data visualization from Sheets.Works (“One interactive visual essay, every week.”):

Pixar has spent three decades perfecting a formula: make you laugh, make you care, make you cry. This is a map of the exact minute each film breaks you –painted in each movie’s own colors.

I remember watching Coco for the first time and recognized that the moment of maximum cryitude was coming, knew exactly how they would do it, prepared myself for it… and still blubbered like a child.

If you love Pixar movies, as I do, I suspect you’ll find yourself choking up as you relieve these moments, as I did.

(Other interesting visualizations: The Anatomy of a Scam, Simpsons Predictions, and a timely one explaining The Strait of Hormuz: 21 Miles, “The world’s most dangerous chokepoint”).

This surprisingly fun game popped up on the socials a couple of weeks ago. The concept, as described by its creator, Keith Cirkel:

You see two colours. Click on the line between them. That’s it. It starts easy. It does not stay easy.

Each round the colours get closer together until we find your Just Noticeable Difference - the smallest colour change you can actually see. It takes about 40 rounds. Most people land around 0.02.

My first attempt, on an iPhone, was acceptable—0.0123—especially for someone who’s colorblind. My second attempt—using a computer, with the screen brightness turned up, and bobbing and weaving my head around to find the color edge, was notably better: 0.0046.

Naturally, the color perception of the individual, the lighting conditions, and the screen used have as much of an impact as the color delta itself.

The science explaining all of this and was equally fascinating (and I managed to follow a good chunk of it!).

I love that these beautiful notebooks (from the creators of iA Writer) are lovingly handcrafted, despite the many machines and mechanical aids. I was especially delighted by the corner-rounding tool. So simple, yet remarkably effective. Cah-chunk! I understand why they’re $79—beyond my notebook budget, but increasingly tempting.

Long-time iOS developer Clément Sauvage is back on Kickstarter with his 2026 collection of enamel pins that celebrate the Apple developer community:

For decades, WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) has been more than just a conference…

…it’s a pilgrimage — a community of builders, thinkers, makers, and friends who share a passion for Apple technologies.

Every keynote spark. Every late-night breakthrough. Every handshake that turns into a collaboration.

Those moments deserve something memorable.

So… I made pins. Not badges. Not rubber keychains. Enamel pins — collectible, wearable, emotional. 

The campaign has already met its funding goal with 20 days to go, but is well shy of its first stretch goal of 200 backers (it’s at 59 as I write this). I’m sure you and I can help it reach that milestone.

I’m in for the Collector set, plus the Apple 50 pin.

Matt Mullenweg, of WordPress fame (and infamy), was almost phished in a sophisticated scheme that used Apple’s own support structure to enable the diabolical attack:

What made the attack impressive was the next move: The scammers actually contacted Apple Support themselves, pretending to be me, and opened a real case claiming I’d lost my phone and needed to update my number. That generated a real case ID, and triggered real Apple emails to my inbox, properly signed, from Apple’s actual servers. These were legitimate; no filter on earth could have caught them.

Then “Alexander from Apple Support” called. He was calm, knowledgeable, and careful. His first moves were solid security advice: check your account, verify nothing’s changed, consider updating your password. He was so good that I actually thanked him for being excellent at his job.

That, of course, was when he moved into the next phase of the attack.

It’s a harrowing tale that was thwarted primarily because Mullenweg remembered the first rule of Apple support:

Apple will never call you first.

Apple is more likely to unceremoniously shut down your account if it suspects fraud or any other shenanigans, forcing you to call them. If you get a call or text from anyone claiming to be from Apple, assume it’s a scam and call Apple support directly. The number is at the bottom of apple.com: 1–800-MY-APPLE (1–800–692–7753).

John Gruber, when linking to this at Daring Fireball, wrote:

One of the tells that alerted Mullenweg that this was a scam was that he knew he hadn’t initiated any of it, so his guard was up from the start. Another is that the scammer texted him a link pointing to the domain “audit-apple.com” (which domain is now defunct). That domain name looks obviously fake to me. But to most people? Most people have no idea that whatever-apple.com is totally different than whatever.apple.com.

Gruber is right about the (important but rarely understood) distinction between the two domain names, but it’s worth noting that Apple does use several domains in the form of whatever-apple.com. For example:

• appleid.cdn-apple.com
• icons.axm-usercontent-apple.com

There are a total of eleven “something-apple.com” domains (most of them *.cdn-apple.com), plus a couple of oddities, like apple-mapkit.com and token.safebrowsing.apple, so while “audit-apple.com” does indeed seem suspicious, it’s not entirely implausible that it could have been real.

(Apple maintains a list of its legitimate domains for network administrators. From what I can tell, Apple never uses hyphenated domains for customer-facing links.)

The truth is, you shouldn’t rely on visually inspecting domain names to determine their authenticity, as they’re easily spoofed. If you get an email from Apple and you’re at all suspicious, type apple.com into your browser and navigate to the relevant section from there.

A final suggestion: Use a password manager. If you inadvertently click a link that asks for your login credentials, and your password manager doesn’t fill them in, proceed with caution: it’s quite likely a phishing attempt. While not foolproof, a password manager is a good backstop against fraudulent domains. Get one. (Naturally I prefer the built-in Apple Passwords app, but I (still) have hundreds of accounts in 1Password, and others have recommended Bitwarden, LastPass, and more.)

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) online from June 8–12, bringing developers together from around the world for a week of connection, exploration, and innovation. In addition to the online experience, developers and students will also have the opportunity to celebrate in person during a special event at Apple Park on June 8. […]

The special in-person event at Apple Park on June 8 will offer developers and students the opportunity to watch the Keynote and the Platforms State of the Union, meet with Apple engineers and designers, take part in special labs and activities, and connect with the worldwide developer community. Space will be limited; details on how to submit a request to attend can be found on the Apple Developer website.

Congratulations to my friends and former colleagues in WWDR and throughout Apple. Let the silly season begin! (But please, do sleep before Dub-Dub… It’s healthier.)

Apple’s announcement highlights “AI advancements” among the many expected updates. Will that finally include the long-delayed “more personalized Siri” Apple first promised at WWDC24? (Honestly, I’m crossing my fingers we’ll instead see it in a forthcoming *OS 26.5 update, as I’d be hard pressed to give credence to a recorded WWDC Siri demo at this point.)

Kraft Heinz, last week:

Today, Kraft Mac & Cheese introduces PowerMac, a brand-new innovation delivering 17g of protein and 6g of fiber per serving. Kraft is known for bringing two icons – macaroni & cheese – together and making them the Best Thing Ever. Now, America’s #1 mac & cheese is uniting the benefits consumers are seeking with the same cheesiness fans know and love. PowerMac expands the blue box lineup with added nutrition while staying true to the taste, convenience and affordability that has made Kraft Mac & Cheese a trusted household favorite for nearly 90 years.

A greying Apple trademark attorney wistfully reaches for a cease-and-desist template. Power Mac… that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time.

Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter:

Chuck Norris, the martial arts champion and karate school teacher who jumped fist- and feetfirst into stardom with 1980s action movies like Missing in Action and the long-running CBS drama Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 86.

Mekka Okereke, on Mastodon:

🚨Warning Black people!🚨

Another famous white person with trash views has died! Do not use their own words against them, or moderators may be forced to ban you!🤡

Do not mention that “1000 years of darkness” is a white nationalist and great replacement dog whistle!

Don’t mention birtherism!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ud3pK5Wa90

[…]

❌Bad:
This racist dude was good at kicking people in the head.

✅Good:
This great American hero was good at kicking people in the head!

❌Bad:
Birtherism is a super racist movement that led to the alt-right, Project 2025, and where we are today.

✅Good:
I like Walker Texas Ranger!

I’m reminded of Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny:

Angels sang out in an immaculate chorus…
Down from the heavens descended Chuck Norris…
Who delivered a kick which could shatter bones…
into the crotch of Indiana Jones….

But then:

Gandalf the Gray,
and Gandalf the White,
and Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight,
and Benito Mussolini,
and the Blue Meanie,
and Cowboy Curtis,
and Jambi the Genie,
Robocop,
Terminator,
Captain Kirk,
Darth Vader,
Lopan,
Superman,
and every single Power Ranger,
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan,
Spock,
The Rock,
Doc Oc,
and Hulk Hogan,
all came out of nowhere
lighting fast,
and they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass.

That’s how I prefer to remember him.

Je-Ree, writing at The TV Cave:

After two decades of “maybe next year” and enough fan petitions to paper the entire Verse, Nathan Fillion has finally stopped teasing us on Instagram and dropped the big one: a Firefly animated series is officially in advanced development. […]

We’re talking about a full-blown return to the Serenity, with the original cast lending their voices to the characters we’ve spent twenty years mourning.

Spoiler alert for a twenty-year-old series:

The genius move here? The series is reportedly a “mid-quel.” By sliding the timeline into the gap between the original 2002 run and the 2005 film Serenity, the writers have pulled off the ultimate narrative heist. This allows Alan Tudyk to return as Wash without any messy “he’s a ghost now” hand-waving. We get the crew at their peak: desperate and perpetually one bad deal away from starvation.

I’m unreasonably excited about the return of Firefly, a show (and movie) I adored. It was my second major television heartbreak after its way-too-soon cancellation (Sports Night being my first). I still haven’t forgiven Fox for jerking the show around the schedule and then unceremoniously dropping it. It’s also the reason I choose to wait for shows to run a few years before I invest my time and emotion. Yes, television has scarred me deeply.

Javier C. Hernández, The New York Times (gift link):

At an otherwise congenial meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump invoked the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, which led the United States into World War II. He was responding to a question from a reporter about why Japan and other allies had received no advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran.

“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”

There was some laughter from the officials and journalists gathered in the room. “You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us,” he added.

As Mr. Trump spoke, Ms. Takaichi widened her eyes and appeared to take a deep breath. She kept her arms crossed in her lap and did not speak.

The remark was the latest example of Mr. Trump’s penchant for tossing aside diplomatic norms.

(You really must watch the video, and especially the reaction of the prime minister. It’s truly appalling.)

Two thoughts.

One: Donald Trump’s rapidly diminishing mental capacity—the effect of his ongoing descent into dementia, I presume—means he’s becoming less and less capable of hiding his instinctive nastiness. It would be funny if it wasn’t so embarrassing.

Two: In cracking his impudent “joke,” Trump unwittingly acknowledges that he believes his attack on Iran is as contemptible as Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Sometimes, among the nastiness, the truth slips out.

Adam Wells at Bleacher Report:

In addition to being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, Carlos Beltrán will be honored by the New York Mets in 2026.

Per Mike Puma of the New York Post, the Mets plan to retire Beltrán's No. 15 jersey during the 2026 season.

Beltrán is walking into the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap and having his Mets number retired, despite zero World Series titles with the Mets and being fired as their manager before he ever managed a single game for them (a result of his role in the Astros cheating scandal).

Perhaps they’re retiring his uniform number because everyone’s too embarrassed to wear it.

Spider-Man has remained my favorite superhero since childhood, and I’ve been dreading/anticipating this next entry for years—knowing Peter Parker’s best friends no longer remember him is heartbreaking. The slow, orchestral version of the classic “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” theme gave me goosebumps (and MJ’s related final quip made me spit-take). It looks so good, I may have to see this one in the theater.