The Mute City 1 (track 1) music from F-Zero was stuck in my head yesterday. A quick search on YouTube later, and I was scratching that earworm itch while reliving a beloved SNES game soundtrack from one of my most-played Super Nintendo games, without having to hunt down my console.

I love Harrison Ford and single malt scotch, and this six-part (plus teaser) campaign is a cinematic delight. I’m hoping for more installments. I shall pour myself a dram tonight. (I’ve been meaning to link it up since I found it while searching for his Jeep Super Bowl commercial. A recent “How do you pronounce it?” query reminded me—thanks, Tammy!)

This New York Times piece, from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, purportedly about serious disagreement inside Trump’s Cabinet over which of his sycophants are in charge, reads more like a Television Without Pity recap of an episode of The Apprentice, only with less clever writing.

It’s filled with weird quotes-that-aren’t (reading like a lightly altered transcript of a surreptitious recording), and contains some truly awful New York Times-isms, like this one:

Cabinet officials almost uniformly like the concept of what Mr. Musk set out to do — reducing waste, fraud and abuse in government — but have been frustrated by the chain saw approach to upending the government and the lack of consistent coordination.

One: There is zero reason to believe this “concept” is Musk’s goal (and plenty of evidence to believe otherwise). It’s unadulterated mendacity.

Two: It admits these cabinet officials want to bring about the destruction the US government and the pain it inflicts on the American people, just slower and with more meetings.

It’s an infuriating passage—a demonstrably false premise, paired with a disingenuous conclusion—and sanitized through the antiseptic language of propriety.

This exchange really struck me, though:

At another point, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under diversity, equity and inclusion programs were working in control towers. Mr. Duffy pushed back and Mr. Musk did not add details […].

The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be “geniuses,” he said.

Many of us have known about Musk’s racism for almost a decade, and about Trump’s for far longer, so we understand that when they say “diversity, equity and inclusion” they mean “not white men.”

The additional “tell” is the suggestion to hire from MIT, because in Trump’s mind, “geniuses” = “MIT” = “white”.

Just 7.6% of MIT’s student population is Black.

In addition to yesterday’s MacBook Air announcement, Apple dropped a two-fer: A new Mac Studio with an M4 Max and an unexpected M3 Ultra configuration.

First, the new chip. A new M3 variant is a surprise in itself; I assumed—as I think most people did—that any new chip configurations would be based on the M4. It appears, though, that there won’t be an “M4 Ultra”: Apple told Ars Technica “not every chip generation will get an ‘Ultra’ tier,” and French technology website Numerama (via Mac Rumors) was told “there are no UltraFusion connectors on the M4 Max chip” (Safari-translated from the original French), making an Ultra M4 physically impossible.

That’s a bummer (and makes me wonder about the future of an M4-based Mac Pro), but the M3 Ultra is a beast of a chip:

Apple today announced M3 Ultra, the highest-performing chip it has ever created, offering the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac, double the Neural Engine cores, and the most unified memory ever in a personal computer. M3 Ultra also features Thunderbolt 5 with more than 2x the bandwidth per port for faster connectivity and robust expansion. M3 Ultra is built using Apple's innovative UltraFusion packaging architecture, which links two M3 Max dies over 10,000 high-speed connections that offer low latency and high bandwidth. This allows the system to treat the combined dies as a single, unified chip for massive performance while maintaining Apple's industry-leading power efficiency. UltraFusion brings together a total of 184 billion transistors to take the industry-leading capabilities of the new Mac Studio to new heights.

And:

In fact, M3 Ultra is built for AI, including ML accelerators in the CPU, Apple’s most powerful GPU, the Neural Engine, and over 800GB/s of memory bandwidth. AI professionals can use Mac Studio with M3 Ultra to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on device, making it the ultimate desktop for AI development.

The AI power in this chip makes me wonder if it (or something like it) powers the Private Cloud Compute servers scheduled to be built in Houston, TX.

On to the new Mac Studio itself:

Apple today announced the new Mac Studio, the most powerful Mac ever made, featuring M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chip. The ultimate pro desktop delivers groundbreaking pro performance, extensive connectivity now with Thunderbolt 5, and new capabilities in its compact and quiet design that can live right on a desk. Mac Studio can tackle the most intense workloads with its powerful CPU, Apple’s advanced graphics architecture, higher unified memory capacity, ultrafast SSD storage, and a faster and more efficient Neural Engine.

The M4 Max Mac Studio is a significant upgrade and readily induces lust, but the M3 Ultra Mac Studio is just off the charts:

It delivers nearly 2x faster performance than M4 Max in workloads that take advantage of high CPU and GPU core counts, and massive amounts of unified memory.

That “massive amounts of unified memory”?

Mac Studio with M3 Ultra starts with 96GB of unified memory, which can be configured up to 512GB — the most unified memory ever in a personal computer — and up to 16TB of ultrafast SSD storage, so content and data can be kept locally.

I’ve been trying—and failing—to recall the last time Apple introduced a computer where the highest configuration was powered by a faster version of a previous-generation chip. It may well be unprecedented.

The M3 Ultra allows the Mac Studio to accomplish some mind-blowing feats, including driving up to eight Pro Display XDRs, and playing back up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video.

I would love to see that rig!

With great power comes great responsibility… for your credit card. The base M3 Ultra starts at $3,999 (compared to a paltry $1,999 for the M4 Max) and maxes out (ultras out?) at $14,099. Whew.

Pre-orders have already started, with availability beginning March 12.

Apple’s “Air” releases continued today, with the long anticipated M4 MacBook Air. The highlights:

• “The blazing-fast performance” of an M4 chip.
• New 12MP Center Stage camera.
• New sky blue finish, “a metallic light blue,” which, from website photos, just looks like silver to my eyes. I’m curious how it plays in person.
• Lower starting price of $999 ($899 for education).

A solid update (especially for anyone on an M1, or especially an Intel, MacBook), with a fantastic starting price. But, as with yesterday’s iPad no-modifier, very few people are walking out the door with a sub-$1000 M4 MacBook Air—the base storage is 256GB, which I consider miserly to the point of malice—even pre-ghost Ebenezer would wince. I usually recommend at least 512GB storage for most people—1TB would be better for future-proofing—but the cost of those upgrades is bananas: $200 and $400, respectively. For some, it may be better to pick up an external SSD or two (I have a bag full of them) and deal with that (minor) hassle.

I do legit love my refurbished, 13” 16GB/1TB M2 MacBook Air in midnight, though. I originally purchased it in mid-2023 as a “travel” laptop to reduce the weight in my backpack, but it’s become my most used computer. (I’m typing on it right now!)

(Yes, refurbished. These are some of Apple’s most screamingly good deals. For one thing, the memory and storage markups are significantly reduced, which is how I managed to pick up this 1TB MacBook Air for under $950.)

I put the M-series MacBook Air near the top of the list of best computers Apple has ever made. It’s thin, light, well-priced, and more powerful than it has any right to be. It’s my number one recommendation for almost anyone looking to buy a computer. Not laptop—computer.

My only disappointment: I really do wish Apple would finally add cellular. If they’d done so here, I would’ve bought this new one instantly (rather than trying to justify the purchase with a trade-in).

Brandi Buchman breaks this story for HuffPost: 

Commemorative bronze duplicates of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Jan. 6 police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol appear to have been removed for sale from the U.S. Mint’s website.

There’s also this apparently independent report from NBC News where the author, Ryan J. Reilly, describes the removal as:

another instance of President Donald Trump’s administration moving to take down material related to the violent episode stemming from his falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election results.

I saw this just days after I questioned if some US Mint coins this administration might deem “woke DEI” would even get minted today, so I was immediately outraged, but held off on linking to it. As tempting as it was to unleash righteous indignation on Trump for this, I didn't want my confirmation bias leading me to the wrong conclusion about a change that could have a perfectly innocuous and reasonable explanation. After all, there was only the HuffPost report (and later, the NBC one), with no indication of why or when this medal was removed. 

The why remains uncertain, but the when has a smidge more clarity: The Internet Archive’s January 9, 2025 snapshot of the US Mint’s Medals page shows an entry for “Those Who Protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.” I presume it’s the medal in question. That page has a “last updated on” date of November 26, 2024.

(The Medals page lists all medals available from the US Mint.)

A February 22, 2025 snapshot—with a “last updated on” date of February 5, 2025—does not list the medal.

I can therefore say with some confidence that this entry—and, I presume, the medal—was removed sometime between November 26, 2024 and February 5, 2025. That’s a pretty broad window, spanning the last months of the Biden administration and the first weeks of Trump’s.

I can also say with confidence that the only change to the page was, in fact, the removal of that one medal entry.

This is not dispositive. It’s possible the Biden administration or the US Mint decided—for completely practical, pragmatic, and uncontroversial reasons—to remove this medal from the site.

The alternative is to suggest that Donald Trump—who denied the insurrection, pardoned 1,500 rioters, purged Department of Justice prosecutors and FBI agents who worked the Jan. 6 cases, scrubbed the DOJ’s “comprehensive website cataloguing the largest criminal investigation in modern department history,” and has lied, repeatedly about Jan. 6—directed the US Mint to remove a commemorative medal “Honoring the service and sacrifice of those who protected the U.S. Capitol” on Jan. 6.

It’s quite the coin flip.

Jess Weatherbed with a fantastic review of some of the political history behind the UK’s recent attempt to backdoor the world, and Apple’s response of pulling Advanced Data Protection from their UK customers. This, especially, rings true:

Apple’s withdrawal of ADP can be interpreted as a call to break an intentionally curated silence around Britain’s bullish efforts to crush end-to-end encryption services. It’s a call that other encryption service providers don’t seem to be answering, however. Meta, Signal, and Telegram haven’t made any announcements about their own services that provide full encryption and haven’t responded to our requests to comment on the situation. Their silence and the ongoing availability of encryption features in the UK would suggest that nothing is amiss.

Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at the EFF, says that this is likely the case because the encryption services provided by most communications companies aren’t as broad as Apple’s ADP offering.

My working theory is the UK government doesn’t care (as much) about your text messages—iMessage, Signal, WhatsApp, etc. They will happily grab them if available, of course, but people understand text messages are viewable by others and are therefore more likely to either delete them or write obliquely if they’re hiding something.

No, what the UK (and other governments) really want is all the other data from Apple devices that people may not realize is being collected—locations, photos, search history for Maps and Safari, and so on—data that is accessible to Apple and governments on Standard data protection-enabled devices (via the keys that Apple holds) but which becomes inaccessible when Advanced Data Protection is enabled.

They’ll happily leave your text messages encrypted (but see the next section) if it allows them access to the truly valuable data the average person doesn’t even realize is exposed. Texting about robbing a bank is suggestive. A month’s worth of location data showing you hanging around with other suspected bank robbers, then being at the bank while it’s being robbed, along with photos from the area a week before, and a Maps search showing the fastest route from the bank—that’s actionable.

Kristen Bell opened her hosting duties at The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (her second time) on Netflix—its second year in a row—with this delightful tune.

I do love me some Kristen Bell. She’s a legit snack. (Potential spoiler for an almost-decade old TV show.)

Samantha Cole at 404 Media provides the background behind this absurd video:

A venture capital-backed “AI performance monitoring system for factory workers” is proposing what appears to be dehumanizing surveillance of factories, where machine vision tracks workers’ hand movements and output so a boss can look at graphs and yell at them about efficiency.

In a launch video demoing the product, Baid and Mohta put on a skit showing how Optifye.ai would be used by factory bosses.

When I first watched the video, I thought it was a bone-dry satire of the kinds of anti-worker, AI-driven systems that VCs and big tech roll out in the name of “efficiencies,” and which exist mainly to induce fear in workers by convincing them they’re disposable yet utterly dependent on the good graces of their company for their continued employment.

But nah—it’s an earnest pitch for yet another exploitative, extractive, VC-backed idea.

The demo doesn’t even purport to solve any issues beyond providing ammo for yelling at workers: no explanation of the supposed inefficiency, no actionable steps for improvement—just “numbers down, must yell now.”

It’s telling that both founders come from families that run factory lines—and it shows in the video, which is overtly owner-centric, with a “management” style that treats the workers as nothing more than cogs to be adjusted for better performance.

Robert Berkvist on the tragic death of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, for the New York Times:

Gene Hackman, who never fit the mold of a Hollywood movie star but became one all the same, playing seemingly ordinary characters with deceptive subtlety, intensity and often charm in some of the most noted films of the 1970s and '80s, has died, the authorities in New Mexico said on Thursday. He was 95.

Mr. Hackman and his wife were found dead on Wednesday afternoon at the home in Santa Fe., N.M., where they had been living, according to a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department. The cause of death was unclear and under investigation. Sheriff's deputies found the bodies of Mr. Hackman; his wife, Betsy Arakawa; and a dog, according to the statement, which said that foul play was not suspected.

It’s one level of grief when a celebrity with the stature of Gene Hackman dies. It’s even more tragic when a loved one dies too.

When I learned of Hackman’s death, two movies came immediately to mind: Superman^[1] and Enemy of the State. Probably not the first two films most people think of, but I came late to most of his work.

Hackman, it turns out, was a significant part of my classic films self-education—movies released “before my time”—but I didn’t realize as I watched them that they were Hackman classics; they were just classics: The French Connection, The Poseidon Adventure, even Young Frankenstein (which, until now, I never realized he was in).

(I saw The Royal Tenenbaums, but that movie occupies the “WTF did I just watch” spot in my brain, so I don’t recall most of it.)

Most of his other iconic movies—Bonnie and Clyde, Hoosiers, Mississippi Burning—remain on my “to watch” list.

That list will be getting a workout over the next few weeks.

The trailer for this new documentary film from Apple TV+ just dropped, and looks to be an inspirational journey:

With unprecedented access and candid interviews, “Number One on the Call Sheet” takes us on an intimate journey with some of Hollywood’s most extraordinary leading Black men and women as they shine a light on the joys and challenges of being a Black actor, share breakthrough moments, discuss blueprints for success and honor legends, while recognizing the next generation’s enormous potential.

It’s a two-parter, one focusing on “Black Leading Women in Hollywood” (directed by Shola Lynch), the other on “Black Leading Men in Hollywood” (directed by Reginald Hudlin) who are, in fact, number one on the call sheet—

A Hollywood term for the lead actor or actress of a film listed first on the daily schedule.

Also, a term of status.

I had no idea status was attached to the top slot of a call sheet, though I understand how rare it is for that slot—usually the lead of the movie—to be held by a Black performer.

It’s a prodigious assembly of extraordinary artists, and the trailer tells me the stories will be funny, inspiring, and unforgettable.

Number One on the Call Sheet is the culmination of four years of work and streams on March 28 on Apple TV+.

Awful news today (via Variety):

She was found unconscious and unresponsive Wednesday in her Manhattan apartment, according to the New York City police department. According to the New York Post, which first reported the news, she had recently undergone a liver transplant. Trachtenberg’s cause of death has not been confirmed, but the NYPD said criminality was not suspected.

I’m heartbroken. I loved her in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was a crucial part of what made Season 5 special. She was the perfect “annoying little sister” while remaining deeply charming and lovable. Her introduction in that season may be the most successful execution of a Cousin Oliver. Like many fans, I consider the season to be one of the show’s strongest, due in large part to her character and her ebullient performance. Perhaps because of that character, I’ve always felt she was an old soul. At 39, she’s left us far too soon.

Tributes are starting to pour in from her coworkers, and they’re agonizing.

As I explored the American Innovation $1 Coin site for my aforelinked Steve Jobs piece, I came across several interesting—even inspiring—coins:

• Arkansas: Features “Raye Montague visualizing a United States Navy Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, a ship she designed by computer.”
• South Carolina: Features “Educator and activist Septima Poinsette Clark […] called the ‘Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’” with a design depicting her “with three African American students carrying books and an American flag, representing that education and literacy are necessary for empowerment and enjoyment of civil rights.”
• Pennsylvania: “Focuses on the extraordinary work of Dr. Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh in the discovery of the polio vaccine.”
• Massachusetts: Honors Alexander Graham Bell’s “tele-phone” and “depicts the dial of an early rotary dial telephone.”

A Black female naval engineer, a Black female Civil Rights leader, a Jewish scientist who developed vaccines, and an immigrant. How many of these innovators would be decried by this regime as “woke DEI”.

Would any of these coins be minted today?

The State of California’s News (press release):

For California’s American Innovation Coin, Governor Gavin Newsom has recommended world-renowned innovator Steve Jobs. The coin, which will be minted by the U.S. Mint, highlights California’s legacy as a global hub of innovation.

The American Innovation $1 Coin Program, launched in 2018 by the U.S. Mint, celebrates the spirit of ingenuity that defines America. Each state, territory, and the District of Columbia is honored with creating a unique coin recognizing an innovation or innovator from their region.

I applaud the selection, but I wasn’t familiar with the American Innovation $1 Coin Program, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. A perusal suggests most coins depict innovations closely associated with an individual, with designs focused on the innovation, not the person.

Governor Newsom is quoted:

Innovation and California are synonymous, and Steve Jobs encapsulates the unique brand of innovation that California runs on: innovation not driven by business alone, but as a vehicle to forever change the world.

I imagined an image of Steve, surrounded by representations of his innovations: the Apple II, Macintosh, and iPhone; or perhaps a menu bar, mouse and pointer, or (dare I hope?) Clarus the Dogcow.

That does not appear to be the plan for this coin, according to The Mercury News:

The designed (sic) preferred by the governor’s office and Jobs’ family pictured a younger Jobs sitting cross-legged amid a California landscape with oak trees and rolling hills, along with the inscription “Make Something Wonderful.” Myers said that image better conveyed Jobs’ love of California nature, which was an important part of who he was. Other designs incorporated Jobs’ image with circuit designs and keyboards and one just featured his name with a tree growing circuit-like branches.

OK… more of a “California inspires innovation” vibe, with Steve as one of California’s most recognizable innovators, I guess?

But the committee opted to recommend a design with a more familiar image of Jobs — older and wearing glasses and his trademark black turtleneck. The design — which isn’t final and could be altered before the coin is minted in 2026 — is fittingly simple and elegant.

A silhouette of Steve in glasses and turtleneck makes sense; it’s probably the most recognizable version of him.

But to represent just Steve feels misguided. The press release includes this passage:

By focusing on who he was innovating for – other people – Jobs was able to use technology to connect people to each other and to the broader world, bringing people onto the same level by providing them with equal access. And that approach was built on a willingness to try new ideas and push the boundaries of what was possible – an approach that embodies the California spirit.

A singular image of Steve does not suggest using “technology to connect people.” It focuses too much on the man, not his work.

Compare this proposed design to coins from Arkansas, Pennsylvania, or the especially evocative “tele-phone” design from Massachusetts. Each celebrates the person through their innovation.

Since the design remains subject to alteration prior to minting, I hope a more compelling design is created. As it is, they chose the right man, but the wrong imagery.

Giovanni Russonello for the New York Times on Roberta Flack’s resplendent voice:

Critics often struggled to describe the understated strength of her voice, and the breadth of her stylistic range. In its poise, its interiority and conviction, its lack of sentimentality or overstatement, her singing seemed to press the reset button on any standard expectations of a pop star. She placed equal priority on passion and clear communication—like an instructor speaking to an inquisitive student, or a lover pledging devotion.

“I’ve been told I sound like Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson, Odetta, Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, even Mahalia Jackson,” Ms. Flack told The New York Times in 1970. “If everybody said I sounded like one person, I’d worry. But when they say I sound like them all, I know I’ve got my own style.”

Where Is the Love is a gorgeous jewel of a song, while Killing Me Softly With His Song remains an indelible part of my ’70s soundtrack. (Though I now can’t hear the opening phrasing without the Fugees’ sitar interlude^[1] popping in. Their cover is a testimonial to the song’s staying power.)

I wasn’t aware Flack was also a gifted and classically trained pianist:

Sitting on her mother Irene’s lap while Irene played piano and organ at their Methodist church, Flack began to tinker herself, then to properly play, demonstrating a prodigy-grade prowess as a young child that those around her clambered to support.

A Sunday-school teacher paid for Flack to take lessons. Flack’s father, Laron, brought home a ramshackle upright piano from a junkyard, which the family restored and painted green. By age 9, Flack was playing Chopin nocturnes, crying at the keyboard because the music moved her so powerfully. At 13, she accompanied her church’s choir on Handel’s “Messiah.” […]

At the time, America didn’t necessarily expect a Black child to master Verdi or Bach, and wasn’t always open to having its expectations upended. Flack would often recall skillfully performing a Scarlatti sonata in a statewide competition as a teenager, only to come in second in the segregated “Negro division”; Scarlatti, she gathered, wasn’t what the judges wanted from someone like her.

(From Jon Mooallem’s piece in The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+), which opens with a stunningly emotive lede.)

The New York Times piece has more on that competition:

At 13, Ms. Flack won second place in a statewide competition for Black students after performing a Scarlatti sonata; she was convinced that she had deserved the main prize and that the judges were thrown off by the sight of a Black girl playing classical music with such command. Just two years later, she entered Howard University on a full scholarship. She became the first undergraduate vocal student to give a public recital in classical vocal literature, and she conducted a student production of “Aida” that drew a standing ovation from Howard’s music faculty.

But a dean warned that the opportunities in classical orchestras would be scarce for a Black woman, advising Ms. Flack to pursue a teaching career. Upon graduating, she started working toward a master’s degree in music education.

A mixture of reactions here: delighted we were blessed with her voice; disappointed that we missed out on her classical piano virtuosity; disquieted the dean was almost certainly right in their assessment then; and disheartened that assessment may remain valid today.

Flack died of cardiac arrest, and was diagnosed with ALS in 2022. My usual donations to American Heart Association and ALS Association will be supplemented today in her honor.

Apple Newsroom:

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years

Apple today announced its largest-ever spend commitment, with plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. This new pledge builds on Apple’s long history of investing in American innovation and advanced high-skilled manufacturing, and will support a wide range of initiatives that focus on artificial intelligence, silicon engineering, and skills development for students and workers across the country.

My immediate thought upon seeing Apple’s headline: How much of this is actually new, rather than a repackaging of existing plans? 

Dan Gallagher for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

Apple’s $500 Billion U.S. Investment Is Mostly Already in the Books

Unclear, though, is how much of the planned spending is actually new. Apple has spent about $1.1 trillion over the past four fiscal years on total operating expenses and capital expenditures—and Wall Street expects nearly $1.3 trillion in total spending over the next four years, according to consensus estimates by Visible Alpha. While Apple doesn’t break out its expenses per geography, about 43% of its revenue comes from the Americas region, which it defines as North and South America. Assuming the U.S. constitutes the large bulk of that number, and if spending is about in line with revenue, then a rough figure of 40% of projected global spending through the 2028 fiscal year equates to about $505 billion.

In short, Apple’s announced figure is in line with what one might expect the company to be spending anyway, given its financials. 

I don’t know that Apple announced this only for the benefit of Trump, but Trump, of course, claimed credit:

There is also domestic politics to consider—no small matter for a U.S. consumer-electronics company that still builds the bulk of its products overseas. Indeed the announcement seems to have already paid off: “Thank you Tim Cook and Apple!!!” President Trump exclaimed on his Truth Social platform Monday morning. 

The full post reads (in all caps, naturally, complete with a typo and three exclamation marks):

APPLE HAS JUST ANNOUNCED A RECORD 500 BILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE REASON, FAITH IN WHAT WE ARE DOING, WITHOUT WHICH, THEY WOULD’NT BE INVESTING TEN CENTS. THANK YOU TIM COOK AND APPLE!!!

Also on Truth Social, Trump released a graphic touting Apple’s $500 Billion commitment as part of “Investments in the U.S. Under President Trump”.

To quote myself on Mastodon in early February: 

Everyone: We’re Doing The Thing.

Trump: I will SEEK VENGENCE upon anyone not Doing The Thing!

Everyone: After speaking with Trump, we’ve agreed to Do The Thing.

Trump: Thanks to me and me alone, everyone is now Doing The Thing. You’re welcome.

Everyone: 😶

There’s no reason to believe Apple’s announcement today had anything to do with Trump or that it would have been any different under another administration—except that this administration is deeply, corruptly transactional and rewards behavior that demonstrates fealty.

Back to Apple’s announcement:

As part of its new U.S. investments, Apple will work with manufacturing partners to begin production of servers in Houston later this year. A 250,000-square-foot server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs.

Previously manufactured outside the U.S., the servers that will soon be assembled in Houston play a key role in powering Apple Intelligence, and are the foundation of Private Cloud Compute, which combines powerful AI processing with the most advanced security architecture ever deployed at scale for AI cloud computing. The servers bring together years of R&D by Apple engineers, and deliver the industry-leading security and performance of Apple silicon to the data center.

It’s a tantalizing tidbit that the servers being built in this new facility are for Private Cloud Compute, hardware Apple doesn’t even sell. Obviously very important to Apple’s AI plans, but I’m surprised they’re important (unique?) enough to require a dedicated facility. I’m very curious to see what these servers might look like. (Honestly, a rack-mountable M4 Max relaunch of the Xserve—Apple Server?—would be dope.)

One final thought, on Apple’s hiring plans:

In the next four years, Apple plans to hire around 20,000 people, of which the vast majority will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning. The expanded commitment includes significant investment in Apple’s R&D hubs across the country. This includes growing teams across the U.S. focused on areas including custom silicon, hardware engineering, software development, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

This is deftly worded. It specifies how many people it plans to hire, but doesn’t state if it’s additional or replacement headcount. If 20,000 people leave, and 20,000 people are hired to replace them, will Apple claim success on its hiring plan? It does meet the letter, if not the spirit, of the statement. Likewise, it plans on “growing” specific teams, but says nothing about “shrinking” others to balance things out.

Quite the facility with language, Apple has.

Jonathan Vanian at CNBC has this vile development from Meta:

The company said in a corporate filing Thursday that it had approved "an increase in the target bonus percentage" for its annual bonus plan for executives. Meta's named executive officers could earn a bonus of 200% of their base salary under the new plan, up from the 75% they earned previously, according to the filing.

And:

The disclosure of the new executive bonus plan comes a week after Meta began laying off 5% of its overall workforce. The company had previously said this would impact its lowest performers.

Meta also slashed its annual distribution of stock options by about 10% for thousands of employees, according to a report published Thursday by the Financial Times.

The people at the top get richer, the people who do the work get screwed—or worse.

As I said, vile.

Yours truly, with some context-free snarking on Mastodon three weeks ago:

“The following app has been approved for distribution.”

changing to

“The following app has completed Notarization.”

in 3… 2…

The language was indeed changed, per Riley Testut, who sparked the controversy in the first place:

The following app is ready for distribution.

From “has been approved” to “is ready.” Damn, I should have thought of that one—Apple doesn’t waste words.

(For context, as I neglected to link to it here at the time, see TechCrunch’s story about the (EU-only) release of the first native iOS porn app, Hot Tub. The short-short version: Apple was not happy with the app being marketed as “The First Apple-Approved Porn App” because, in their mind, they had merely “approved” it in the this-has-passed-our-minimal-review-process sense, not in the we-think-this-is-acceptable sense.)

I’m sure Phil sleeps better now.

Paul Kunert for The Register, on Thursday:

HP Inc is trying to force consumer PC and print customers to use online and other digital support channels by setting a minimum 15-minute wait time for anyone that phones the call center to get answers to troublesome queries. […]

At the beginning of a call to telephone support, a message will be played stating: “We are experiencing longer waiting times and we apologize for the inconvenience. The next available representative will be with you in about 15 minutes.

“To quickly resolve your issue, please visit our website support.hp.com to check out other support options or find helpful articles and assistant to get a guided help by visiting virtualagent.hpcloud.hp.com.”

Paul Kunert for The Register, on Friday:

HP Inc today abruptly ditched the mandatory 15-minute wait time that it imposed on customers dialling up its telephone-based support team due to “initial feedback.” […]

It went down like a lead balloon internally at HP, with some staff on the front line unhappy that they were having to deal with a decision taken by management, who didn’t have to directly interact with customers left hanging on the telephone… for at least 15 minutes.

Now HP has abandoned the policy […]

Imagine being so tone-deaf as a company that you force your already frustrated customers to unnecessarily wait for help, as a way of foisting them off to online “self-solve” options (which, I’m guessing, many had already tried—and which failed to help).

Perhaps HP was trying to save a few ducats to cover their recent acquisition.

A reminder from Schoolhouse Rock, that most cherished and enduring of educational institutions, in light of recent proclamations.

Always relevant—now more than ever.

A companion piece: Know Your Rights.

Apple Newsroom (release video):

Apple today announced iPhone 16e, a new addition to the iPhone 16 lineup that offers powerful capabilities at a more affordable price.

“More affordable” compared to the existing iPhone 16 lineup, but more expensive than the iPhone SE it replaces.

$599 (128 GB) starting price. Pre-orders start Friday, February 21; available in stores Friday, February 28.

I’m an iPhone Pro guy—mainly for the cameras—so this isn’t for me. But if you need a new phone (say, for Apple Intelligence), this is the least expensive option.

iPhone 16e delivers fast, smooth performance and breakthrough battery life, thanks to the industry-leading efficiency of the A18 chip and the new Apple C1, the first cellular modem designed by Apple. iPhone 16e is also built for Apple Intelligence, the intuitive personal intelligence system that delivers helpful and relevant intelligence while taking an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.

A few observations:

• The “iPhone SE” brand is dead (although the conceit remains: an older case design with updated innards). The “SE” name always seemed problematic: Where did it sit in the progression of iPhone numbering? Apple now effectively has one iPhone brand—iPhone 16—with different sizes, features, and price points: iPhone 16e, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. This no doubt makes things easier from a marketing perspective. I am curious though: When the presumptive “iPhone 17” comes out this fall, will there be an “iPhone 17e” next year? (My guess: yes, in an attempt to push yet more people into an annual upgrade cycle.)

• The iPhone SE (3rd generation) was the smallest available iPhone, at 4.7”. iPhone 16e is 6.1”. I predict much wailing over the loss of a more compact phone option.

• Speaking of loss, for the first time since its introduction, no current iPhone has a Home button. The iPhone SE (3rd generation) was the final one to sport the iconic circle. It defined a generation. Pour one out.

• The Lightning port has also been ditched from all iPhones. It’s been a good run. (But, what the hell, Apple?).

• Using the A18 leaves just the 10th generation, no-modifiers iPad as the only device not capable of Apple Intelligence. I expect we’ll see an 11th gen iPad with an A18 soon enough—though I’ve already guessed wrong on the timing once. (Curiously, the A18 chip in the iPhone 16e is a 4-core GPU; the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have a 5-core GPU; the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max have a 6-core GPU. Which would they use for an 11th gen iPad? Also, I wonder—are the missing cores disabled or binned?)

• It makes sense to roll out the Apple C1 cellular modem in a low-volume, mid-cycle refresh. It may also show up in that just-mentioned iPad update later this year, and then perhaps in this Fall’s iPhones (but production volume could make that a 2026 thing).

From an allegedly Humane-authored press release that reads more like something HP cooked up at the last minute—even the headline, HP Accelerates AI Software Investments to Transform the Future of Work, couldn’t be bothered to mention “Humane”:

HP Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire key AI capabilities from Humane, including their AI-powered platform Cosmos, highly skilled technical talent, and intellectual property with more than 300 patents and patent applications. The acquisition advances HP’s transformation into a more experience-led company.

We’re really just buying the patents, and the rest of it was thrown in with the deal.

Also, WTF is an “experience-led company”?

“This investment will rapidly accelerate our ability to develop a new generation of devices that seamlessly orchestrate AI requests both locally and in the cloud,” said Tuan Tran, President of Technology and Innovation at HP.

The Humane device is not that next generation of devices. Nobody wanted it. Not even us.

“Humane’s AI platform Cosmos, backed by an incredible group of engineers, will help us create an intelligent ecosystem across all HP devices from AI PCs to smart printers and connected conference rooms. This will unlock new levels of functionality for our customers and deliver on the promises of AI.”

We want to continue our product enshittification, and Humane’s AI helps that.

The acquisition brings a highly skilled group of Humane engineers, architects, and product innovators to HP’s Technology and Innovation Organization. They will form HP IQ, HP’s new AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HP’s products and services for the future of work.

We’ll stick ’em in a corner and see if anything interesting or useful develops. If not, we’ll write ’em off for the tax deduction.

“We’re excited to join HP at such a pivotal moment in the industry and help shape the future of intelligent experiences,” said Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, Co-founders of Humane. “HP’s scale, global reach, and operational excellence—combined with our design-led approach, integration technology, and engineering expertise—will redefine workforce productivity.”

We smoked $241 million of our investors’ money, and, out of abject desperation, are joining the only company dumb enough to take us.

I’ll wager one can of Barq’s that we never hear about Humane or Cosmos again. Bongiorno and Chaudhri, on the other hand—they’re sure to turn up: nothing a venture capitalist loves more than a repeat founder, even one who returned less than $0.50 on the dollar.

(I wonder how much of the $116 million price tag these two will see?)

Meanwhile, current Humane customers are screwed:

We are writing to inform you that, effective immediately, we are winding down the consumer Ai Pin as our business priorities have shifted.

Our focus was selling ourselves to the highest bidder. There was just the one.

Your Ai Pin will continue to function normally until 12pm PST on February 28, 2025. After this date, it will no longer connect to Humane’s servers, and .Center access will be fully retired.

We’re leading with a statement that makes it sound like business-as-usual to hide the real truth: you bought a $700 brick. Suckers.

Your Ai Pin features will no longer include calling, messaging, Ai queries/responses, or cloud access.

Bricked.

We strongly encourage you to sync your Ai Pin over Wi-Fi and download any stored pictures, videos, and notes from .Center before February 28, 2025. If you do not do this, your data will be lost upon deletion on February 28, 2025 at 12pm PST.

So bricked.

On February 28, 2025 at 12pm PST all remaining consumer data will be permanently deleted.

So f-ing bricked.

Melissa Fernandes created a gorgeously photographed, unexpectedly moving short film on the “problematic” use of the word curry—and why she disagrees:

So rather than seeing curry as an erasure of culture, I see it as the thread that connects me to my roots. It gives me the freedom to choose for myself and carve my own path.

For her, curry is “a symbol of connection.”

I went in expecting the history lesson: that it’s derived from the Tamil word kari; that it’s a catch-all term for a stunningly broad array of dishes, spices, and flavors; and that it’s a byproduct of British colonialism. I wasn’t expecting the personal aspect. Curry is a fundamental part of my Trinidadian culture (which she and I share—her family hails from Trinidad, Goa, Tanzania, and Guyana), and it was a delight to see Fernandes embrace curry—both the word and the food—to connect with each of her cultures.

As a bonus, the two curry chicken recipes featured in the film are also available. Her Trinidadian “Grandma’s Curry Chicken” is, unsurprisingly, very similar to one I sometimes make, while her Nana’s Chicken Curry is a delectable blend of African and South Asian/South Indian flavors.

The unfortunate news was shared on his Mastodon account:

Martin passed away yesterday, peacefully in his sleep. He was a true fighter until the bitter end but he is now pain free and at peace.

Fuck—and I mean this sincerely—cancer.

I didn’t know “Pilky” personally and wasn’t aware of his battles with cancer, but he—or rather, his work—was well known to me, and within Apple. Not for his software; for his other claim-to-fame: Fix Radar or GTFO.

If you’re unfamiliar with Fix Radar or GTFO, The Next Web explained its genesis shortly after it launched in 2012. Briefly, it was a plea from Pilkington to Apple to improve its Bug Reporter tool and process, itself submitted in the form of a bug report (and online petition)—with a request to other developers to file their own copy of that bug report.

I’ll save stories of the broader impact of his petition—and my and others’ attempts to improve the bug reporting experience over the years—for another post, and note only this:

Soon after that first bug report, there were dozens, then hundreds more. Some of the bugs were actual duplicates, following Pilkington’s guidelines. Others were dupes in spirit, with unique… requests. A surprising amount were angry, vitriolic rants that challenged the team’s equanimity as they parsed out the actionable bits from the hate.

It was a veritable deluge, catching us all by surprise, and sparking hundreds of rock tumbler debates.

Some six or seven years after that first report, I inherited the WWDR bug screening team, and they were still feeling the reverberations of that bug. By the time I left Apple in 2023, I estimate it had well over a thousand duplicates, near duplicates, and related complaints. 

One visible result of Pilkington’s pleas came in 2019 when Feedback Assistant replaced Bug Reporter—an attempt to address several of the issues he’d raised, to varying degrees of success.

“Pilky” took a principled stance, and I respect him for it. He cared enough to take action and galvanized hundreds of developers to stand with him in advocating for a better developer experience. He left his mark, and his influence endures.

I wish him and his loved ones peace.

MacRumors:

Apple this month started advertising on X for the first time in more than a year. The company had stopped advertising on the social media platform in November 2023 following controversial remarks made by its owner Elon Musk.

Tim Cook “personally” donated $1,000,000 to, and attended, Donald Trump’s inauguration. Then Apple complied with the Gulf of Mexico name-change nonsense, despite no legal requirement to do so. Now, they’ve restarted advertising on Elon Musk’s toxic social media service, just weeks after Musk gave a Nazi salute.

My only conclusion is that Tim Cook and Apple support this autocratic regime and its brazen, systematic destruction of American democracy.

This latest act of acquiescence is clearly meant to curry favor with Trump and co-President Musk^[1] out of fear of retaliation—especially from Musk, who’s actively suing companies who stopped advertising on X/Twitter^[2]. No doubt Cook and Co. are hoping to avoid that, making the resumption of ads a bribe to Musk—or, if you’d like to be more generous to Apple, a payoff coerced through blackmail and extortion.

At this point, if Trump demanded that Apple create a backdoor allowing access to every customer’s device, I have very little reason to believe they’ll refuse the request.

I’ve been following Apple for over four decades, first as a customer, then as an employee for twenty-two years. While I won’t claim any unique insight from this tenure, it forged in me a belief that Apple always tries to do the right thing, even when it doesn’t appear that way from the outside. Or, in human terms, their heart was always in the right place.

I can no longer confidently say I believe that.

Yes, it’s absolutely possible to take an epic, cross-country road trip in an electric vehicle (despite my skepticism!), as wonderfully captured by my friends (and former colleagues) Myke and James in their three-part travelogue.

One standout of their travelogue was The Trip in Numbers, which captures the unique experience of road-tripping with an EV (a Rivian R1T truck). They had to navigate different charging networks (they used five of them across 40 stops) and work through “EV deserts” and non-functional chargers.

And they included some nerd-bait, too! They created a meticulous spreadsheet of their entire trip—routes, hotels, charging stops, even the exact cost of and time at each one. That’s my kind of obsessive! 

Their conclusion:

It’s definitely possible to road trip cross-country in an EV! We probably spent a little longer at charging stops than we would in a gas vehicle, and there still aren’t as many chargers as there are gas stations in the country. But with just a little planning ahead, it’s definitely possible.

Seeing Myke and James complete this trip gives me more confidence, while simultaneously highlighting the importance of improved charging infrastructure. We’re moving closer to “don’t worry, just drive,” but we’re not quite there yet. Soon, I hope. Soon.

Tim Levin reports on an InsideEVs interview with Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson:

… the California-based EV startup’s CEO and CTO, thinks the future of transportation hinges on EVs with less range—way less, in fact.

I definitely didn’t expect that from the CEO of the electric vehicle company selling the only car to over 500 miles on a full charge.

Rawlinson’s argument is very forward-looking. Convincing more people to buy 180-mile EVs anticipates significant improvements to the charging infrastructure—basically, chargers everywhere you park, especially the slower, less expensive “Level 2 chargers”—which can in turn shift consumer thinking about how much range they need. If drivers can find charging stations as easily as they do gas stations (or parking meters), they may be more accepting of lower range cars, which would mean smaller batteries, which in turn would lead to cheaper electric vehicles. Of course, that puts the industry in a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Getting more 180-mile EVs works only if Level 2 chargers are ubiquitous, which no one wants to build out without enough EVs to use them, and around we go.

I’m excited for a-charger-on-every-block future, and for most of my daily driving, a reduced-range EV would be fine (as it could be for many urban dwellers)—I’ve investigated several lower-range EVs myself— but I remain skeptical about its broader appeal and practicality. In 2010 I wrote (on my now-defunct personal blog) that there was one reason I thought pure electric cars weren’t ready for the real world:

Road trips.

Call me when I can drive to Disneyland from San Francisco with nothing more than 10 minutes to top off.

We’re almost there, 15 years on—assuming the right car and the right chargers—but most EVs still require both a longer charge time and a longer route to find a charger. That 6.5-hour drive to Disneyland could take eight hours or more in a 180-mile electric car—that’s hardly progress.

Admittedly, most people might make a trip of such distance only once or twice a year, and could rent a more capable car instead, but I doubt many people would bother. Who wants the hassle and the additional expense?

We absolutely need massive improvements to our vehicle charging infrastructure, but I don’t believe the answer is a reduced range car that needs to be constantly charged, anymore than it makes sense to buy a low-MPG car that demands weekly or more top-ups at a gas station.

Less expensive EVs are an important step toward the mass marketization of electric vehicles, and 180-mile variants could be a necessary component of that evolution, but I don’t expect such vehicles represent their final form.

(Via mmalc.)

A dozen years after John Scalzi wrote this, it continues to resonate—perhaps even more so now than then:

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.

I have been sharing this concept since I first read it in 2012. It’s instantly understood and makes for great fodder for… discussion. The strongest pushback I received (and I always received pushback) was invariably some form of “Not all straight, White Males”. Which, of course, was missing the point.

The follow-ups (first, second) are also important reads, but especially Ten Years On, where Scalzi reflects on the impact of his post, and adds the very important cis identifier to his description.

This crossed my mind again because so much of America’s problems can be traced directly to Cis, Straight, White Males complaining the game has gotten harder for them, and that “DEI” makes it harder still.

This was brought into stark relief by a Mastodon post from @susankayequinn, which included this (altered) Calvin and Hobbes image:

Or, I didn’t have to compete before, now I do, and I don’t like it.

Quinn added:

Thing is, the lower-qualified white people understand this, it’s why they’re Big Mad about white dudes losing their divine right to run everything with zero consequences.

Cis, Straight, White Males want to reset the game to when they had all of the advantages. It’s a driving motivator for the Trump regime, and a significant reason why they’re in power.

Joseph Menn, writing at The Washington Post:

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

It’s extraordinary for the U.K. to demand this disastrous, privacy-wrecking access for its own citizens. It’s beyond audacious to do so for the 2.35 billion Apple devices in use in the world.

At issue is Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which, per Apple’s support document:

is an optional setting that offers Apple’s highest level of cloud data security. If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data — including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more — is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.

To simplify greatly, without Advanced Data Protection, your data is stored in an impenetrable safe with a ridiculously strong lock, and you and Apple each hold a key. If the government wants access, they approach Apple and ask them to unlock the safe with their key.

After enabling Advanced Data Protection, you are the only one who has a key. If you lose the key, you lose your data, but! no one else—Apple, governments, jilted exes—can get to your data either, even if they abscond with the safe itself.

What the U.K. is proposing is adding a tiny pinhole to every single safe, into which they can stick a paperclip and pop them open, anytime they want—no requests, no approvals, no notifications.

And Apple would be prevented from telling anyone that they’ve added the pinhole.

I would think every government official in every country in the world would raise hell over this: why would you subject your subjects to possible surveillance from a foreign power?

From The Verge’s story:

If Apple grants the UK government access to encrypted data, it’s likely that other countries, including the US and China, will see the opportunity to demand the same right. Apple will have to decide whether to comply, or remove its encryption service entirely. Other tech companies would almost certainly face similar requests next.

Indeed they would, and it’s possible—dare I suggest likely?—this is part of a coordinated effort by members of the Five Eyes to gain access to our devices.

In the past, I would have strenuously argued that Apple would defend our right to privacy. Privacy. That’s Apple.

Today, I’m less confident. Not because I believe Apple’s commitment to privacy has waned. On the contrary, I think it’s as strong as ever. Rather, it’s because governments are recognizing they can coerce Apple via threats of sales bans, catastrophic fines, or tariffs.

Apple is much more likely to comply when their bottom line is at stake.

One of my favorite uses of AI: to create silly, fun things (and heaven knows we can use those right now). And the remix is as good as its musical influences. A year old, but new to me.

Also: Wilford Brimley’s appearance was 🤌🏽. The man’s got flow.

From the always creative Auralnauts.

Update: Perhaps not AI? In which case, how’d they do it?! And wow, impressive!

(Via @codinghorror.)

Food scientist Richard Hartel (writing for The Conversation) explains the science of making nougat, caramel, and chocolate for this top-selling candy bar:

Let’s look at the elements of a Snickers bar as an example of candy science. As with almost everything, once you get into it, each component is more complex than you might think.

See also: The process of making Snickers in this Unwrapped segment.

Nougat, caramel, chocolate, and peanuts: a delicious confectionery combination—which I much prefer in a Baby Ruth.

I love the expressiveness of the lamp in the video accompanying this research paper from the Apple Machine Learning Research team. It will seem immediately familiar to anyone who’s watched a Pixar movie.

The paper explores the benefits of expressive and human-relatable movement in non-anthropomorphic robots:

Nonverbal behaviors such as posture, gestures, and gaze are essential for conveying internal states, both consciously and unconsciously, in human interaction. For robots to interact more naturally with humans, robot movement design should likewise integrate expressive qualities—such as intention, attention, and emotions—alongside traditional functional considerations like task fulfillment, spatial constraints, and time efficiency. In this paper, we present the design and prototyping of a lamp-like robot that explores the interplay between functional and expressive objectives in movement design.

The robot lamp—I’m going to name it Elle, after its project name, ELEGNT—Elle reacts to the researcher’s voice and hand gestures, and responds with movement, sound, video, and voice. When the researcher asks Elle about the weather, Elle gazes out the window, then turns back and answers. After the researcher suggests it’s a nice day for a walk, Elle asks if it can go too, and hangs its lamp-head dejectedly when told no.

(I actually went awww!)

One of the (many) things that makes robotic characters like R2D2, Wall•E, or C1-10P so endearing is their obvious personality. They couldn’t speak words, yet we understood them, as we do Elle. (I’m hoping the name sticks!)

In the video, Elle has a less expressive, more functional counterpart—I’ll just call it Al—which performs the same tasks, but without the playfulness. Al got the job done, but was more direct and, well, robotic. The video shows them in split-screen, and I found Elle to be infinitely more delightful.

(The research suggests appreciation for the playful Elle drops with age. I may be an outlier here, though I could see myself getting frustrated if I continuously have to wait for answers while it emotes.)

One of Apple’s best designs (and one of my favorites) was the iMac G4—an all-in-one with an LCD screen atop an articulating arm that’s attached to a snow cone white dome. The ad for that iMac shows it mimicking—some might say mocking—a man on the street with very expressive movements, even sticking out its “tongue” in the form of an ejectable CD holder.

There’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple is working on robots for the home. When I saw the research video, I immediately hoped Apple would revive that iMac G4 design for Elle—I would buy one in a heartbeat.

The research highlights one of Apple’s best traits: a desire to go beyond the mere functional, and to imbue objects with personality. Whether it’s the original Macintosh (“It sure is nice to get out of that bag!”), the sad low-battery tones of AirPods, or the kinetic bounciness of the iPhone Dynamic Island, Apple’s magic is in building expressive, not just functional, products.

As my friend @Denisvengeance@sfba.social astutely noted, “this is what makes Apple Apple.”

Jeff Atwood hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit last week:

I co-founded Stack Overflow and Discourse, and made more money than a lot of folks could ever imagine. I’m worried that huge cost increases for healthcare, education, and housing are putting the opportunities I had out of reach.

I'm giving away half my wealth over 5 years - not in my will, not after I die, right now. I’ve already sent $1M to eight organizations working to help Americans. There’s a lot more to come.

Atwood writes at CodingHorror (since 2004, in fact), where he explains his goals and reasoning for donating—and for doing so now, while he’s alive. Unsurprisingly, it’s partly tied to the elections and the apparent death of the American Dream:

In November 2024, enough of us voted for people who interpret the dream in a way that I don't understand.

34% of adults in America did not exercise their right to vote. Why? Is it voter suppression, gerrymandering causing indifference, or people who felt their vote didn't matter? The 7.6% that are ineligible to vote are mostly adults living in America who have not managed to attain citizenship, or people convicted of a felony. Whatever the reasons, 42% of adults living in America had no say in the 2024 election. The vote failed to represent everyone.

The Q&A was mostly focused on his approach, mindset, and the eventual impact of his pledge. I wish it was more well-attended, but there were a handful of good questions and interesting answers.

In response to a question about what he’d like to tackle beyond his aspirations to help people Atwood said:

Mostly I want to make sure that everyone else has the same chance that I had to get ahead! I didn't want to be one of those "climb up the ladder and pull it up behind you" people.

The objective here being, I take it, to instead lift as you climb, an action too few successful people seem willing to take.

On the suggestion of making smaller, direct donations to individuals and small organizations, rather than to large charities:

I have low key done a LOT of donations and charity leading up to this, but quietly. It is no longer a time to be quiet in my opinion.

And in an unrelated followup suggesting Atwood should instead fund a media company ”to actually make news free from pressure of the rich and make news which would benefit the working class”:

I do send many, many donations to lots of independent news organizations, and have been doing so for a while. I've given a similar size donation to two independent news organizations, I just didn't talk about it. Heck, I even donated to the The Guardian (UK) recently.. doesn't get more "independent" than that ;)

I took this as a reminder: I need to redirect my news media spending away from traditional outlets and toward publications which will do the challenging work of standing up for democracy rather than capitulating to autocrats.

On maximizing the efficiency of his donations and potentially creating a charity fund:

I prefer to work with existing organizations that are already effective, and help them become more effective. I do not want to create an "Atwood Foundation" because I think the goal is more important than my family's name. I will participate and advise, and be a "hype man" to whatever extent is necessary (or excessive, pick whichever word fits), but I mostly want to lift up and empower (or combine) other organizations doing great, effective work helping people living in America.

I’ve sometimes imagined being wealthy enough to have a family foundation. Now it seems like the wrong approach.

I did have a minor quibble with one of his answers, on the high cost of education:

The cost of higher education has risen so rapidly in the last 30 years. It's not good. I personally feel that we all need to open up to the idea that a "good college" is .. any college. There need to be less exclusive, less expensive forms of college that hiring managers will accept.

I agree that any college can be a good college. My nit is with the last sentence, and the last half, especially.

My interpretation is Atwood is suggesting that “less exclusive, less expensive forms of college” don’t exist, while I know from direct experience ”that hiring managers will accept” is the bigger issue.

Deceptive.Design:

Deceptive patterns (also known as “dark patterns”) are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something.

If you use a website or app today, I can guarantee you’ve run into one or more of these deceptive design patterns. For example, I’m constantly encountering Confirmshaming when unsubscribing from a list or declining an offer to sign up for discounts:

Confirmshaming works by triggering uncomfortable emotions, such as guilt or shame, to influence users' decision-making. Websites or apps employing this deceptive pattern often present users with opt-out button labels that are worded in a derogatory or belittling manner, making users feel bad about choosing not to engage with the offered service or feature. By targeting users' emotions and self-image, confirmshaming aims to increase the likelihood that users will give in to the desired action, ultimately benefiting the service provider.

I was reminded to post this remaindered link thanks to its appearance in Elie Mystal’s recently linked piece at The Nation—which, sadly, engages in confirmshaming: If you’re using an ad blocker (and you should be), they display a dialog window with a big red “Disable” button, and below that, tiny text that reads “Continue without supporting us”.

Since I started using Duolingo again, I’m also experiencing other deceptive patterns daily—especially Nagging. Oh boy, the nagging.

See also: Dark Patterns Hall of Shame.

“Parenting In the Age of Trump,” from the irreplaceable Elie Mystal in The Nation, is a brilliant examination of the mechanisms of resistance his kids (and we) need to employ. I’m tempted to quote the piece at length, but it’s best if you just read the whole thing.

But allow me these two:

I already know that my kids will encounter a civil rights environment more like the one faced by my grandparents in the segregated South in the 1920s, than the one I faced in 1980s Queens. My skills of fighting the white man through argument and lawsuits seem completely irrelevant to the lives MAGA will force them to live. I’m a classically trained effete liberal columnist trying to prepare children to live in a Hobbesian state of perpetual white violence against us. What the hell do I know about what they must learn to do? We are well past the point where “pulling your pants up” and engaging in respectability politics designed to appease “reasonable” white folks is of any use.

And:

People can entirely miss me with “But golly gee, Elie. If we use the tactics of our enemy we are no better than them.” That way of thinking is obsolete. That way of thinking is how you get whatever the hell the “Democratic Party” is doing right now. Everybody wants to raise Barack Obama. I’ve got to start trying to raise Harriet Tubman. In a worst case scenario, I have to be raising Oskar Schindler. I need my kids to be able to chloroform a baby they’re hiding in their attic when ICE comes around, then walk downstairs and pay Musk’s troops in Bitcoin to make them go away.

Seriously, just go read it.

(Via @echoz@kopiti.am.)

After mentioning 1967 The Fantastic 4 series in my aforelinked piece, I searched for it on the major streaming services. For apparent legal reasons, it’s not available on any of them.

I found a few stray episodes on YouTube, but only one place had all 20 episodes:

The Internet Archive.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Protect the Internet Archive.

As media companies merge and movies and TV shows stop being profitable, classics like this will simply disappear, as if they never existed—unless we take strides to preserve them. I’m glad someone cared enough about this show to upload it to the Internet Archive, and I hope IA will continue to exist long into the future to host it. Just in case, though, I’ve downloaded my own archive of the show.

Having watched a few episodes, a couple of thoughts:

• The opening sequence is still etched in my brain: the theme song (especially the sound effects!), the four-hands-to-the-center, The Thing toppling Dr. Doom, and Johnny hot-footing some guards—all like I’d watched it yesterday.
• I was struck by how wonderfully, hilariously, extra cheesy it was. From line readings to jokes to painfully expository dialogue. It was a joy. I’m confident my 12-year-old self had no idea.
• Sue “Invisible Girl” Richards was voiced by Jo Ann Pflug. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, I very clearly remember her as a panelist on Match Game.

I’m nostalgically inclined to like this trailer: Growing up, I was a huge fan of The Fantastic 4 (especially the 1967 animated series—in reruns, thank you very much!). I was especially fond of Johnny “Human Torch” Storm and his catchphrase “Flame on!”. I would doodle him in my notebooks (very elementary stuff, mind you; basically stacks of rectangles representing a body, arms, and legs, in red marker). I’m definitely digging the aesthetic here—the retro-’60s-high-tech vibe works for me—and the soundtrack is, well, fantastic. I’m excited.

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today introduced Apple Invites, a new app for iPhone that helps users create custom invitations to gather friends and family for any occasion. With Apple Invites, users can create and easily share invitations, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and engage with Apple Music playlists.

An app to manage invitations was not on my 2025 Apple bingo card. My only question is which Apple executive did Evite piss off to get themselves Sherlocked?

Surprisingly (or not), it requires an iCloud+ subscription to create invitations.

This feature is cool:

Additionally, participants can easily contribute photos and videos to a dedicated Shared Album within each invite to help preserve memories and relive the event.

It looks like an extension of Apple’s current Sharing Suggestions, plus uploading from the web for non-iPhone users.

And of course, it comes with the inescapable and obligatory Apple Intelligence features, including Image Playground and Writing Tools.

I’m looking forward to playing with this.

This Terry Gross interview with Questlove is a great companion to yesterday’s piece.

My favorite part comes about midway through, when Gross asks Questlove about Ashlee Simpson’s lip-synching failure and the rumors that “lots of acts” lip-synced. Questlove offers a thoughtful defense of Simpson and ties the rise of lip-synching to the popularity of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which he suggests redefined audience expectations—that what they see in videos is what they’ll get at concerts. Then, this (from the interview transcript):

You know, I think people - again, the Thriller effect is it must be perfect. I’m kind of from the school of warts and all. Like, I love seeing the warts. I love seeing the pimples, the mistakes. Like, to me, that’s the human touch. And I think people need to trust that more. Like, you know, things don’t have to be Instagram filter perfect 24/7.

That’s a perspective I’m working on achieving myself.

And we both appreciate the view from behind the scenes:

Like, for me, the best part of the show is what happens in the commercials. Like, watching the teamster guys and the crew guys, like, a furious pace in two minutes, like, build an entire set while you know, the artists are quick changing in the back, and will they make it in in two minutes flat? And to me, that’s the best part of the show, like, watching the choreography of a well-oiled machine.

I always loved those fleeting backstage moments we’d sometimes catch during commercial breaks. I’d happily watch entire episodes of just that.