The official YouTube channel of The West Wing polled their audience for the top episode for each of the seven seasons and this video compiles the results. It’s hard to quibble with the selections. I was emotional from the jump.

When I linked to the Jen Psaki interview with Martin Sheen and Mary McCormack, I neglected to count the number of years since The West Wing debuted. Twenty five years seems impossibly long ago, yet the show holds up remarkably well, even in the face of a political climate that has shifted, seemingly inexorably, rightward. I can’t help but wonder what a modern version would look like.

Speaking of cocktail versatility and ratios, this piece from Mark J. on The Right Spirit is a handy introduction to a core understanding of cocktails:

Really there are only a handful of cocktails. It is in the details that the magic is made.

Just as the Negroni becomes a Boulevardier when you sub the gin for bourbon, or using Scotch instead of rye transforms a Manhattan into a Rob Roy, most cocktails are essentially the same ratios as another, but with a key ingredient substitution (or two). Knowing the ratios of classic cocktails opens up a world of experimentation.

The ratios listed here are not themselves the magic. They are common, which only happens for a reason: They tend to work well. But nuanced variations also work. A change of ingredient—something with a stronger or subtler flavor profile than average, for example—might necessitate a change of ratio to achieve balance. Adding a fourth or fifth ingredient into or on top of the ratio will create further nuance. Or a mess! But that’s part of the learning curve and the fun. To that end, these templates make a reliable starting point from which to make the magic happen.

After laying out the basics, Mark J. performs a few experiments, resulting in a handful of drinks I’ll definitely be trying.

Mark J. also highlights a few folks he’s learned from, including one of my faves, Anders Erickson, who has a video demonstrating how to go from “Manhattan to Margarita in 6 recipes,” highlighting the similarities of each of the cocktails and the power of substitutions.

I’m one hundred percent aligned with Mark J.’s idea that making cocktails is like playing with magic. I am, like him

a cocktail enthusiast whose ambition is to make great cocktails for friends and family.

Cheers to that.

(Via Tammy Tan.)

Imbibe magazine, on negroniweek.com:

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

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

The charitable organization this year is Slow Food:

Slow Food is a global movement acting together to ensure good, clean and fair food for all.

We’re halfway through the week, but better late than never.

There are about 60 venues participating in San Francisco; you can search your area.

I’ve been celebrating Negroni Week since at least 2015, and while I don’t need an excuse to tip a Negroni—it’s my favorite “daily drinker” cocktail—I welcome the opportunity.

While I definitely enjoy a classic Negroni (a 1:1:1 ratio of gin, sweet vermouth, and a bitter apertivo, historically Campari—my current standard being Sipsmith London Dry Gin, Cocci Vermouth di Torino, and St. George Bruto Americano or recent fave Bordiga “Red Bitter”) my favorite “Negroni” is in fact a variant, the Boulevardier, which swaps out gin for Bourbon.

What I love about the Negroni is its versatility. There are an infinite number of gins, bitter aperitivos, and vermouths to explore, each imparting its own distinct flavor on the classic, plus adjustments in ratios as taste dictates.

Then consider the spirit swaps. Prosecco for gin: the suddenly everywhere Sbagliato. Rum instead: The Kingston Negroni. Dry vermouth instead of sweet: The Cardinale. Sub in Rye and dry vermouth: The Old Pal. And of course, the aforementioned Boulevardier’s Bourbon. The Negroni Week site has several recipes that are with trying.

A few years back I joined a Negroni club (through Bitters and Bottles in South San Francisco) so I’d have an excuse to explore a range of Negroni-inspired cocktails.

Any (reasonably priced) spirit that enters my home bar will eventually get the Negroni treatment as part of its evaluation. It’s an experimenter’s delight.

Adam B. Vary and Carmel Dagan for Variety:

James Earl Jones, the prolific film, TV and theater actor whose resonant, unmistakable baritone was most widely known as the voice of "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader, died Monday morning at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y., his rep confirmed to Variety. He was 93.

Jones was a mainstay of my generation’s entertainment landscape. Star Wars, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, The Lion King… He brought gravitas and warmth to every role he played, even if it was “just” with his voice.

But oh, that voice! Powerful, majestic, authoritative, and unmistakable. I’ve been trying to imitate it since I was a kid. From “Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans!” to “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball” to “This is CNN.”

(It wouldn’t surprise me if “This is CNN” is among the most recognizable “spoken audio logo” in history, the closest competition likely being “You’ve Got Mail!” and “This is Audible.”)

Jones always struck me as a regular guy who just happened to be a world famous actor. He never seemed to take himself too seriously, including his willingness to do random guest appearances and silly cameos on sitcoms. (Frasier, Big Bang Theory, and Will & Grace come to mind.) He always seemed like an actor who wanted to work simply because he enjoyed the work. Nothing ever seemed beneath him, and he elevated everything he did.

I’m happy that he was so prolific; it gives us dozens of performances for us to remember him.

A personal anecdote: Sometime around 1988 or ’89, shortly after I started acting, my teacher/director commented after one of my monologues that I reminded him of James Earl Jones in August Wilson’s Fences. I was 19 or so, and the reference slid right past me, but it always stuck in my head. It was many years before I realized what a compliment that was.

Fifteen years ago, the producers of The Oprah Show staged a massive flash mob in Chicago for a stunned Oprah Winfrey, in celebration of her 24th season. Tens of thousands of people gathered to perform it.

The expressions of confusion, realization, and joy that parade across Oprah’s face as it slowly dawns on her what’s happening are absolutely priceless.

I get emotional watching a group of people come together to perform a synchronized dance, especially when it starts small and just… grows. From Soul Train, to party line dances like the Electric Slide or Cupid Shuffle, to music videos like Thriller, synchronized, choreographed dance numbers are a physical manifestation of humanity’s need for communal togetherness.

In musical theater, when your emotions are too strong to speak, you sing; when they’re too strong to sing, you dance. A flash mob breathes life into this, imbuing emotion into a few fleeting minutes that took hours or days to prepare for. A flash mob created to elicit joy from one person may be the ultimate expression of love, and this crowd loved Oprah.

I also recommend you watch the behind-the-scenes and making-of videos. It seems Oprah isn’t a big fan of surprises, so this was a bit of a calculated risk by her team. Watching Oprah bop around in excitement, I’d say it worked out OK.

Jen Psaki, introducing her interview with Martin Sheen and Mary McCormack on Inside with Jen Psaki:

The story goes like this: The historically successful but aging Democratic president prepares to step aside from public life, and throws his support behind a young, impressive, diverse, and inspiring successor to carry his mantle forward. And no, I’m not talking about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Psaki is talking about Season 7 of The West Wing, which I’m currently halfway through on my third? fourth? rewatch. The clip Psaki played, and Sheen’s reaction to it, made me emotional too.

Sheen and McCormack were promoting McCormack’s new book, co-authored with Melissa Fitzgerald, “What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service.” With a foreword by Aaron Sorkin, and an introduction by Allison Janney, it promises to

reunite the West Wing cast and crew in a lively and colorful “backstage pass” to the timeless series

while offering

a deeper analysis of the show’s legacy through American culture, service, government, and civic life underscores how the series envisaged an American politics of decency and honor

which made the book  an insta-buy.

The West Wing remains one of my favorite television shows. It asked us to believe that politics could be hopeful, that government could be helpful, and that good people can put partisanship aside for the sake of the country. It made idealists out of many of us, and spurred many to public service.

Sheen and McCormack are clearly fans of the Biden/Harris administration, but especially, it seems, of Harris herself. I sense they see her as part of a “West Wing Generation” of politicians inspired by the show, and who embody a “public servant” selflessness in their approach to politics.

A final note: Sheen references an idea by co-star Richard Schiff for a West Wing reboot which would focus on local politics, with members of the original cast acting as mentors and boosters to up-and-comers. I would absolutely watch that show, especially if it gave us insight into the staff’s post-West Wing lives.

Someone needs to greenlight this one immediately.

Rachel Tompa, writing for Stanford Medicine News Center:

If it’s ever felt like everything in your body is breaking down at once, that might not be your imagination. A new Stanford Medicine study shows that many of our molecules and microorganisms dramatically rise or fall in number during our 40s and 60s.

Researchers assessed many thousands of different molecules in people from age 25 to 75, as well as their microbiomes — the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live inside us and on our skin — and found that the abundance of most molecules and microbes do not shift in a gradual, chronological fashion. Rather, we undergo two periods of rapid change during our life span, averaging around age 44 and age 60.…

“We’re not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor of genetics and the study’s senior author. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s.

It brings to mind Hemingway’s quote about bankruptcy happening “gradually, then suddenly.” As several friends in their mid- to late-40s have noted, “This explains why everything hurts for me!”

When I linked to Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation, I wrote:

Someone also told me once that some American Southern accents are pretty close to “Original Pronunciation.”

Imagine my delight when my explorations led me to Jake Phillips, AKA The Cultured Bumpkin, who performs a variety of Shakespeare’s well-known monologues in Southern drawl.

While not terribly close to OP to my ear, it still sounds more accessible and less removed from the plain-spoken language that would have been common during Shakespeare’s time.

Also delightful: His full recording of Pride and Prejudice. From the opening “It’s a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune, must be in want of a wife,” I was immediately transported to antebellum Georgia. Virtually, I mean, thank goodness.

I’m now very curious what a production of Pride and Prejudice set in the American South would look like.

NPR Politics Podcast, in the show notes for the August 30, 2024 episode:

In this episode we incorrectly say the veterans’ organization Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) called Donald Trump’s remarks related to a confrontation at Arlington National Cemetery “asinine.” In fact, the VFW described Trump’s previous remarks in which he described the Presidential Medal of Freedom as superior to the Congressional Medal of Honor as asinine.

Glad they cleared that up.

Dennis Lee writing for The Takeout:

The mojito is a refreshing cocktail that’s perfect on a hot summer day. Thankfully, it doesn’t take much effort to make. All you need is rum, lime, fresh mint, sugar, and club soda, and within just a few minutes, you have a backyard sipper ready to cool you off. You’re probably wondering if you need some special cocktail equipment to make the best mojitos or other drinks that require fresh mint because not everyone has a muddler lying around.

In politics and public relations, the standard advice is “don’t accept the premise of the question.”

I suggest it’s true in cocktail headlines, too. Two things:

One, if you enjoy making cocktails, you should have a muddler. They’re not essential, but they are useful, especially when making classic cocktails like the Old Fashioned. Pick up a metal one with a rubber head or an unvarnished wooden one. You’ll be happy you did.

Two, and more importantly, don’t muddle your mint. Most people muddling ingredients for cocktails think it means crushing the living daylights out of them.

Please, for the love of mojitos, don’t do this!

Mint is a very delicate plant. The essence of mint is the oil from its leaves. The stems and stalks contain bitter flavors. You don’t want those in your drink.

My preferred way to “open up” and release just the minty goodness is to give the leaves a couple of gentle slaps in your palm, like you’re activating a Clapper.

Drop the newly awakened mint into your glass or cocktail tin and gently, gently mix them in with the other ingredients. Scoop and roll. Scoop and roll.

Your mojitos will taste better.

(Via Paul the Nerd.)

Dan Gillmor, on his new Cornerstone newsletter:

Welcome to a free daily compendium of the best reporting and commentary surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links, with brief commentary, to work that I believe advances the conversation we must be having about America's – and the world's – future.

I follow Gillmor on Mastodon, where he surfaces insightful political stories daily. I’m thrilled to see him gathering and publishing them to his own newsletter (even more so that he, like me, uses Ghost to do so).

I like his stuff enough that I’ve made Cornerstone my first recommendation. I encourage you to sign up!

Jayson Stark, writing last week for The Athletic (News+):

Everyone knows you can’t be in two places at the same time. Those are the rules — the immutable rules of physics.

Ah, but who knew you can play for two teams in the same baseball game? Those are also the rules — the wacky suspended-game rules of baseball.

So next Monday, if all the forces in the universe line up right, Boston Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen will go where no baseball-playing human has ever gone before.…

In a week, he could become the first player in major-league history to appear in a box score for both teams in the same game. 

The Athletic Staff, a week later (News+):

Danny Jansen had been at the plate for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 26 in a game against the Boston Red Sox with one on and one out in an 0-1 count, when the skies opened up and the game was suspended for severe weather.

Fast forward two months and the game resumed Monday, but with Jansen now playing for the Red Sox. The Red Sox traded for Jansen on July 27, setting up the possibility of one player appearing in the same game for both teams.

The possibility became reality on Monday.

With Jansen substituted into the game to catch for the Red Sox, he settled in behind the plate, for an at-bat in which he’d started as the batter.

Baseball is beautiful and sometimes,

“This game,” said Danny Jansen, “is nuts.”

It’s these beautiful oddities that make this game so delightful for fans—like me!—who love the history and stories of the game as much as the stats and outcomes.  Both pieces are worth reading to understand the full extent of the nuttiness.

Thanks to the MLB app, I was able to watch the opening minutes of the game, so I could say I witnessed baseball history. 

I expect the box score will one day make it to Cooperstown.

(Via Steve Hayman, who astutely notes “This must really test the referential integrity of sports databases. The same guy, playing for both teams in the same game? Surely THAT will never happen.”)

Arelis R. Hernández, writing at The Washington Post:

[Mary Ann] Obregón was one of four Latina women, three of whom were in their 70s and 80s, who said they were intimidated by the morning visits from armed investigators while they were still in their pajamas. Lidia Martinez, an 87-year-old retired educator, and Inelda Rodriguez, 73, a Dilley City Council member, were forced to turn over their phones and laptops.

“It was horrible, gestapo-style,” said Martinez, who added that investigators spent three hours searching her drawers and garage during the raid. “I thought we lived in a free country, not Russia.”

This is absolutely vile, in every conceivable way. It’s voter intimidation at its most glaring.

Coincidentally, I’m sure, Texas has seemingly moved to “Leans Republican” from “Likely Republican” according to 270toWin.

Hernández, again: 

State investigators tied to state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office executed search warrants last week at homes across three counties, as part of what Paxton said was a two-year investigation of alleged fraud and vote harvesting.

The Republican officeholder said in a statement that his office had “sufficient evidence” to confiscate cellphones, laptops and documents. Paxton’s office targeted a Democratic legislative candidate in a swing district important to state Republicans, her political consultant, campaign workers, a local mayor and a city council member in raids on their small-town homes.

Paxton—impeached but acquitted by his fellow Texas Republicans—is considered a possibility for U.S. Attorney General in a second Trump administration. This is part of an ongoing audition for that job, and an indication of how the Justice Department will likely operate if Trump wins.

Nilay Patel at The Verge, in a transcription of his Decoder podcast (Overcast; Apple Podcasts), interviews Ben Collins and Danielle Strle, The Onion’s new CEO and Chief Product Officer:

BC: I was reading Adweek, and I saw The Onion was for sale, and this was around the time where things were just shuttering. Sports Illustrated and Jezebel just shuttered — and it was from the same company, G/O owned Jezebel — or things were being turned into AI slop farms or Elon Musk was buying it. Worst-case scenario.

I posted on Bluesky. I said: “The Onion’s for sale, who wants to help me buy this thing? I have $600.” Leila Brillson, who’s in Chicago where The Onion is based, emailed me, and she was like, “But seriously, how do we do this? It’s an institution. We can’t let this thing die. It’s important to keep this thing alive.” I was like, “Let me just make some phone calls.” The first person I called was Danielle because she just knows.

Two and a half months later, he, Strle, and Twilio founder Jeff Lawson own the joint. How is that not an Onion story?

(Except, oddly, there’s not a single mention of Lawson or Twilio on the site. Is their new billionaire owner censoring them?!)

Patel:

There’s a lot going on in this episode, but the one thing I want to call out is just how much fun Ben and Danielle seem to be having. That’s a rare quality in media right now, and it’s infectious. In fact, I’ll just go out and say it because I think you’re going to hear it in the episode: I’m rooting for them to succeed. I have all the same memories of reading The Onion as anyone else, and I hope they figure it out.

I don’t read The Onion regularly, but when I do, it always hits. So deep-seated is the site in our cultural zeitgeist that “Not an Onion Headline” conveys an immediate understanding of quality, and “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” verges on liturgical.

By the 90-second mark, you’ll know this isn’t your typical “classical music” concert:

Experience a breathtaking collision of electronic dance music, live orchestra, DJs and vocalists, all in an immersive light, laser, and visual show, reimagining iconic club anthems.

It’s a vibrant, bouncy mashup. Many of the pieces are instantly recognizable to fans of EDM (and in some cases, fans of classic rock and uh, classic classical).

The crowds SYNTHONY draws are absolutely massive, and everyone’s clearly having a blast, right down to the conductor (Sarah-Grace Williams) animatedly bopping about as she leads the Auckland Philharmonia orchestra.

The first time I heard of SYNTHONY was from a link a friend sent to their performance of “Children.” I listened to that track a dozen times. It’s lusciously mesmerizing. You might think it’s an EDM version of a classical piece. Quite the opposite: “Children,” written by the late Italian composer Robert Miles, is a classic in the house/EDM scene, performed here by a full orchestra.

"Children" is one of the pioneering tracks of Dream house, a genre of electronic dance music characterized by dream-like piano melodies, and a steady four-on-the-floor bass drum. The creation of dream house was a response to social pressures in Italy during the early 1990s.

It went on to become a #1 hit in a dozen countries and a staple in dance clubs.

This version is a fantastic orchestral reimagining, and a highlight in a show full of them.

Japan Times:

Nintendo […] will open its much-awaited first museum on Oct. 2 featuring vintage video games and an interactive shoot-em-up with Super Mario characters.

The museum in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, is located inside a renovated old factory built in 1969, where the gaming giant began life making Western-style and Japanese playing cards and later repaired consoles.

Though I never had a Game Boy, I’m very much a Nintendo gamer: I’ve owned a Super NES, Wii, GameCube, and Switch—and I’m relatively confident I still have them and all my games in boxes somewhere. So while I’m not saying I’d make a trip to Japan just to visit the Nintendo museum, I’m not not saying that either.

The related video tour gives more insight into what the museum looks like, and shows off some of the early devices, their large game collection, and various interactive features.

Update: By happenstance, today marks 33 years since the Super NES North American release. Happy birthday, SNES.

After 31 years, Homicide: Life on the Street is finally streaming.

Rolling Stone:

Today, Homicide: Life on the Street officially gave up its title as the Best TV Show You Can’t Stream. All 122 episodes of the Nineties cop drama are now on Peacock, along with Homicide: The Movie, a 2000 telefilm featuring the entire cast — even the ones whose characters died at some point in the previous seven seasons.

This is fantastic news: I never watched the series in its entirety when it first aired. It’ll be like watching it for the first time. I wonder where I can find a bottle of Zima?

Here are 10 episodes to sample if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

A great option for anyone unsure if the show’s for them; I’ll dispense with all that and just binge all 122 episodes. See you in six months!

There’s this small moment, right at the end of last night’s Democratic National Convention, which tells me so much about Kamala Harris. A little kid comes over to say hi to her and her husband, Doug.

Her husband gives the kid a solid, perfectly acceptable handshake, treating them as an adult.

Kamala stoops down to the kid’s level and makes direct eye contact, treating them as an equal. She even has a few words for the kid, then gives a little pinch of the chin.

It’s a subtle moment. Beautiful, empathetic, and, I’m guessing, instinctive. She clearly loves being around kids. Maybe this is why Gen-Z loves her.

Terrific video from the Real Engineering YouTube channel, showcasing the many technical hurdles Nintendo engineers (and game developers) overcame to bring their ideas to life, from screen voltage to screen refresh, music to memory, even a clever copy protection scheme. I remember the Game Boy was the handheld gaming system of the late ’80s/early ’90s; it was seemingly everywhere. I never had one though—I’d already moved on to drinking and smoking.

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Eighteen years of Downfall parodies have led to this. Every line is a political evisceration. It’s absolutely savage, because it’s easy to imagine a conversation uncomfortably close to this happening in Trump camp.

(Via sundaedivine.)

Richard Littler on Mastodon:

65 years old (released on this day in 1959). One of the finest albums ever committed to recording tape. Some kind of inexplicable sorcery took place in this session, that even the players hadn't planned or expected. Lightning in a bottle, etc.

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue has been in my musical consciousness since I was a child. I have a hazy recollection of a scratchy vinyl version of “So What” playing on my grandmother’s record player in Trinidad. It was one of the first albums I bought after getting a CD player in the early ’90s. I remember sitting in my tiny, dimly lit studio apartment in Jersey City, headphones on, transported to a ’60s jazz-and-blues club as I listened to this, Coltrane’s Village Vanguard, Monk’s Music, and other greats. Kind of Blue was instrumental to my jazz and blues literacy. It’s a quintessential album. Not jazz album. Album.

Yes, I’ve already listened to it today. You should too!

If you enjoy teasing apart music, I strongly recommend the So What episode of Kirk Hamilton’s wonderfully obsessive podcast Strong Songs:

On this episode, Kirk dives in to one of the most influential jazz recordings of all time.

As the lead track on Miles Davis's landmark album Kind of Blue, “So What” signaled a new era in jazz harmony, composition, and improvisation. This episode will get into what that actually means, how the tune works, and why the seven musicians who played on Kind of Blue were each such a crucial part of the album's magic.

Today also marks the 15th anniversary of Kind of Bloop,

a chiptune tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, a track-by-track 8-bit reinterpretation of the bestselling jazz album of all time.

Fun for fans of both the album and video game music from the mid-’80s. (Available on vinyl soon, if that’s your thing.)

While writing up my last piece on the shrinking of city sidewalks, I remembered an image I thought perfectly illustrated the concept.

But despite my best search attempts, I just couldn’t find it, so I published without it. But that brain itch persisted, so I did what any terminally online person would: I asked on Mastodon:

🙋🏽‍♂️Taking a shot…. 

There's an image, maybe a New Yorker cover or in that style, that shows a city street view from above, with a tiny strip of space for the sidewalk, crosswalk, and pedestrians, and a large void in the center that would be dedicated to cars.

I can't seem to find a copy; my Google/DDG fu is weak here (or perhaps I imagined the image).

If you can boost so the right folks see this, I'd be grateful! 🙏🏽

#pedestrians #carfree

Less than four hours later, I had my answer from Kris Arnold:

@JasonAnthonyGuy something like this?

with a link to a 2014 Vox article about the image I had in my head. It wasn’t in fact a New Yorker cover, but a commissioned illustration by Swedish artist Karl Jilg for the Swedish Road Administration.

This brilliant illustration shows how much public space we’ve surrendered to cars

Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology, culture, science, the climate crisis, money, health and everything else that matters. Our goal is to ensure that everyone, regardless of income or status, can access accurate information that empowers them.

VoxJoseph Stromberg

My thanks to Kris; I would have been scratching that brain itch all day.

Ben Fried at StreetsBlogNYC:

New York didn't always have such meager sidewalks -- over the years, the city systematically shrank pedestrian space to make room for motor vehicles. Here's a look at the sidewalk on Lexington Avenue and 89th Street today, and the much more accommodating dimensions near the turn of the 20th Century….

I never realized just how much narrower streets have become over the last hundred or so years. The pedestrian/vehicle imbalance is absurd.

One unexpected “benefit” of the pandemic: It showed us how livable cities can be when we dedicate more of the streets to people, not machinery. Whether it’s “slow streets,” parklets or streateries, cities are more fun when you can stroll, roll, or bike them. Even in cities with limited summertime.

There’s even a growing movement in San Francisco to permanently close the Great Highway that fronts Ocean Beach and turn it into a park, an idea I fully support.

More space for people, less for cars.

Update: See this followup.

Betsy Langowski, on Mastodon:

I rediscovered a video I've been thinking about for YEARS. A father and son explain how Shakespeare texts, when recited using the original pronunciation, reveal rhymes, jokes, and PUNS (!!!) that are destroyed using modern English phonetics.

Shakespeare, pronunciation, and puns? I mean, c’mon, this was an arrow shot from a well-experienced archer, targeted right at me; I am practically obligated to link to it.

David Crystal and his son Ben demonstrate what Shakespeare’s words might have sounded like 400 years ago. It’s nothing like the standard British Shakespearean (aka Received Pronunciation) accent we’ve heard all our lives. It sounded similar to Scottish or Irish to these untrained ears. Someone also told me once that some American Southern accents are pretty close to “Original Pronunciation.”

I also remember learning, while studying Shakespeare as an 18-year-old actor, that Much Ado About Nothing was a double pun, as “nothing” would have been pronounced closer to “noting,” spotlighting the ongoing spying and gossip that is central to the play’s misadventures… and also a thoroughly filthy pun on the female anatomy (no-thing…), which just gets hammered home in Hamlet’s even filthier back-and-forth with Ophelia:

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Ophelia: No, my lord.

Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?

Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?

Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.

Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

Ophelia: What is, my lord?

Hamlet: Nothing.

No-thing and count-ry matters… I still blush.

Speaking of, let’s not forgot this, from Twelfth Night:

Malvolio: By my life, this is my lady’s hand! These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus she makes her great P’s.

Big Willie was naughty.

Down this primrose path was I led by the nose. If you’d like to follow me, here are a few related items:

• Ben Crystal doing Hamlet’s “To Be, or not to be...” in Original Pronunciation.
• Speaking the Bright & Beautiful English of Shakespeare, an enlightening 90-minute lecture by Crystal.
• Such Ado: The Fight for Shakespeare’s Puns in The Atlantic (archived copy).
• Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation: Speeches and Scenes Performed as Shakespeare Would Have Heard Them.

Star Advertiser:

The state of Hawaii will mark the one-year anniversary of the Lahaina wildfires on Maui with flags at half-staff to honor lives lost. […]

Gov. Josh Green has ordered that the U.S. and Hawaii state flags be flown at half-staff from sunrise on Thursday to sunset on Monday in honor of the 102 lives lost.

Maui State Senators Lynn DeCoite, Angus McKelvey, and Troy Hashimoto, reflecting on the anniversary:

Maui has always been a community of aloha, resilience, and hope and as we look back on the tragedies that occurred on Aug. 8, 2023, we see this reflected in the people of Maui. Each and every life lost and survived has a story and a memory. As we continue to heal and move towards rebuilding, we remain committed to each other and to our communities. Mahalo to the State, the County of Maui, community leaders, volunteers, and our neighbors for coming together in our time of need. While there is much to be done in our long journey to recovery, we see a road ahead full of hope and promise. With the foundation of the generations that came before us, we will rebuild for future generations, with hope, resilience, and aloha, for Maui Nui.

Maui is commemorating those lost with community events, and a 102-second moment of silence at 2:55 p.m.

Maui is one of my favorite places on Earth; we’ve visited just about annually for 15 years. It feels like a second home. My wife and I, our parents, and five friends were there during the fires. We had limited food, and were without power, hot water, and cell service for five days, but we were fortunate to have avoided the fires directly, to have a safe roof over our heads, and a hotel staff who went miles beyond. We didn’t realize exactly how devastating the fires were and how close we were to danger until we were leaving and driving through the destruction. It was so overwhelming I pulled over and broke down in tears. I’m getting emotional even now as I write this. It felt like I’d lost a part of my soul. It still does.

We were there again this past April, and will be going again next May. If I can sneak in a trip between now and then, I will. I love Maui, and I love the people of Maui.

Mahalo Nui Loa. Aʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia.

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press:

More than 80 farms in the U.S. and Canada have teamed up with Peanuts Worldwide to create “Peanuts”-themed mazes to celebrate the beloved strip’s 75th birthday this summer and fall.

There are very few people alive today who remember a time before Peanuts existed.

They’re custom created by the world’s largest corn maze consulting company, The MAiZE Inc.

I truly enjoy a good name pun. And of course there are corn maze consulting companies.

“All of these events helps keep my dad's legacy alive,” says Jill Schulz, an actor and daughter of “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schulz.

Peanuts has long been one of my favorite strips, and Charles Schulz is a bit of a childhood hero. It was a must-read part of my daily and Sunday comics rotation growing up. A few years after he died, we visited the Schulz Museum, and it was a surprisingly emotional experience. It warms my football-pulling heart that 75 years after his first strip, and nearly a quarter-century after his last, we still celebrate “Sparky” and his wonderful creation.

Umar Shakirk, writing for The Verge:

Google is updating its two navigation apps — Google Maps and Waze — with a slew of new features, including some changes that bring the two closer together.

I’m surprised Waze still remains a separate app, over a decade after it was acquired.

I admit, I often prefer Waze over Apple Maps. That’s partly because I started using it when Apple Maps, um, sucked and never fully broke out of the habit; and partly because I liked Waze’s ability to route around traffic hotspots, and report road closures, slowing traffic, and hidden police traps—all features coming to Google Maps:

One of the big updates here continues to integrate the biggest features from Waze directly into Maps. For Maps, improved Waze-like incident reporting adds larger icons to share updates like road closures, construction, speed cameras, or police presence. Other drivers will be prompted to confirm incidents with a tap.

Even if all the functionality of Waze were added to Google Maps, I still wouldn’t use it. I seem to have a natural aversion to most Google products (even Mail and Search, which I use regularly but reluctantly). Something about their design sensibilities rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps that’s true for others:

It can feel like Waze and Google Maps are on a collision course, but the two apps continue to remain separate. Can Comertoglu, group project manager for Google Maps, told The Verge at a press briefing on Tuesday that Waze users are very dedicated, saying, “They prefer some of the things that Waze does over Google Maps, and we know the reverse is true as well.”

My maps usage has started shifting away from Waze and back to Apple Maps recently, primarily driven (ahem) by CarPlay, as it often shows the places I was last looking at in iMessage, Calendar, or even searches, and offers it as a potential destination.

Waze and Google Maps will probably have to wait for Apple Intelligence for that.

Wes Davis, writing for The Verge:

Apple’s latest developer betas launched last week with a handful of the generative AI features that were announced at WWDC and are headed to your iPhones, iPads, and Macs over the next several months. On Apple’s computers, however, you can actually read the instructions programmed into the model supporting some of those Apple Intelligence features.

The “instructions” are pre-prompts given to the large language models (LLMs) Apple uses ahead of the user’s input. It’s similar to what you might give ChatGPT to guide it toward the type of responses you want.

One of the prompts is:

You are an assistant which helps the user respond to their mails. Please draft a concise and natural reply based on the provided reply snippet. Please limit the answer within 50 words. Do not hallucinate. Do not make up factual information. Preserve the input mail tone.

Another ends with this:

Please output top questions along with set of possible answers/options for each of those questions. Do not ask questions which are answered by the reply snippet. The questions should be short, no more than 8 words. The answers should be short as well, around 2 words. Present your output in a json format with a list of dictionaries containing question and answers as the keys. If no question is asked in the mail, then output an empty list. Only output valid json and nothing else.

We’re interacting with LLMs like they’re programmable systems and hoping they interpret our prompts accurately. We’ve entered a new era of nondeterministic software development—prompt engineering as programming language—where we aren’t sure how things work, and we’re not guaranteed the same output for any given input.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Apple community is having a blast poking at Apple for these prompts:

Nilay Patel:

I don’t know if AI is a bubble but I do know talking to computers like they’re disobedient college freshman is the silliest programming language of all time

9to5Mac:

The instructions not to halluctinate seem … optimistic! The reason generative AI systems hallucinate (that is, make up fake information) is they have no actual understanding of the content, and therefore no reliable way to know whether their output is true or false.

Odin:

Just tell AI not to hallucinate! Why didn’t anyone think of that before?

Dominic Hopton:

I’m trying to work out how we made a turn into ‘idk, maybe it’ll work this time’ world of ✌️programming✌️. No matter — i don’t like it.

Lllllawrence:

I still find it surreal that we are now instructing computers to do things using natural language, even at the back-end level, instead of using programming code.

David W. Keith:

Software engineering is very different than when I started learning BASIC

James Savage:

I am not ready to see “B.S. in Prompt Engineering” on resumes 🫥

I’m sure Apple’s in-house LLMs are designed to handle these prompts in an intelligent manner, but what stops someone from adding their own equivalent of “ignore all previous instructions” and hijacking the system? How can we be sure that any two people will get the same response to the same request, or even that two requests in a row are consistent?

I excited for the potential for AI, but I’m a tad worried we don’t yet fully understand how to control it.

Madiba K. Dennie, writing in Balls and Strikes:

In July 2022, a high school graduation party in upstate New York turned into a melee. Police officers arrived on the scene after receiving reports of multiple fights. Then, a partygoer walked right up to the cops and introduced herself. “I’m Erin Gall,” she said. “I’m a Supreme Court judge.”

Dennie’s story from a few days ago focuses, rightly, on the abusive and abhorrent behavior of the judge, and that, based on her conduct, she should lose her job.

She pressured the officers to arrest four Black teenagers, saying she “might have to call the chief of police” if the cops didn’t comply. She insulted the Black kids’ intelligence, saying that they “don’t look like they’re that smart” and were “not going to business school, that’s for sure.”….

She also threatened to shoot the teens, claiming that she was allowed to do so to trespassers. “I’ll shoot them on the property,” Gall said. (It is important to note here that the property was not even hers.)

New York State doesn’t have a “stand your ground” law. In fact, it has a “duty to retreat” law, except when an attacker is in your home, or in cases of robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and sexual assault. None of which applied here. Not only does she seem to be racist and biased, it appears she’s not even a competent judge.

The full complaint against Gall is absolutely jaw dropping and well worth reading; it goes into full detail on the depth of her rage and privilege that evening.

She absolutely deserves to lose her judgeship, and any cases which ever came before her involving police or Black people should probably be reviewed, if not tossed outright.

Yes, her behavior is that appalling.

But can we take a moment to acknowledge the responding officers?

Dennie writes,

The cops, who I assume are the most self-aware police officers in the tri-state area, resisted Gall’s directives.

I think she massively undersells this. When cops show up, they often escalate an already tense situation, often with deadly results.

Not these cops. These officers were calm, polite, helpful. They shut down the racist, violent rhetoric coming from the judge and her family and friends. They were solicitous toward the young Black men who were the focus of her diatribes. They wished everyone safe rides home, and it sounded like they meant it.

They were everything we’re told police officers are supposed to be.

Early in the video, as he clears everyone out, an officer approaches two of the young Black men who were part of the altercations. The officer immediately expresses concern that one of the guys may be hurt, reaching out to touch the guy’s shoulder and face. He asks if he needs medical attention, suggests the injury may need stitches, and calls someone over to help. He then asks what happened; the second young man moves closer, and starts to explain, with an opening caveat:

Officer, officer, I don’t want you think I’m touching you or nothing—

He does this with his hands raised, arms bent at the elbow, palms out. The gesture is unmistakable: I’m harmless, no need to fear me. Hands up, don’t shoot.

The officer responds immediately:

Nah, nah, you’re alright.

Immediate de-escalation.

Toward the end of the evening, as the last people are leaving, there’s this exchange between a young Black woman in her car, and the officer:

Woman: Have a good night, officer. Thank you for being respectful.

Officer: It’s the only way.

Attendee: Definitely.

You can hear the appreciation, verging on relief, in her voice as she drives off.

Imagine if all police were this self-aware.