I always think of The Shield as a show no one watched. But searching online after hitting “publish” on that last post turned up a ton of kudos for that finale. The one at the LA Times was good, and has an interview with some of the actors. However, this made me literally laugh out loud:

Martinez: Glenn was brought into our world to play on our court, and she had to come up to our game. As it were, it was part of adding to the team. It didn’t diminish or alter the team.

“Martinez” here is Benito Martinez, who was by far the weakest regular actor on the show. The level dropped every time that guy was in a scene, and I was happy to see his character Aceveda get “promoted” out of the precinct.

Going off shift at ‘The Shield’

The actors agree that it was team chemistry that fueled FX’s police drama. But, not surprisingly, there are a few disagreements too.

www.latimes.com
TV

“Eight Perfect Series Finales”

Stephanie Bai, writing at The Atlantic:

Last year, I asked The Atlantic’s writers and editors to name a perfect episode of TV, but a perfect finale is especially hard to pull off—and nothing invokes the wrath of fans quite like a bad ending. Here are eight shows that make the most out of their last minutes.

I love this premise. For me, the first thing that came to mind when I thought of “a perfect finale” was the finale to The Shield (★★☆☆☆). For a show that started really rough for me, it was a rare example of one that got better over the seasons. And that finale was, indeed, perfect.

Eight Perfect Series Finales

How a show ends determines how it’s remembered.

www.theatlantic.com

Kristen A. Schmitt, writing at Smithsonian Magazine:

The test kit, which remains effective for up to 12 months, is simple to use. After carefully removing the tick with either tweezers or a tick-removal tool, you place it into the kit’s “Tick Crusher.” The grinder pulverizes the tick’s chitinous exterior, exposing the internal contents where the Borrelia burgdorferi is located. A patent-pending buffer solution readies the sample for testing. The user then inserts a test strip into a slot in the grinder. The strip’s chemically treated nitrocellulose paper functions as an immunochromatographic assay that can detect the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi.

As someone who is often out in areas where ticks are common, this is great to hear. California, where I live and ride MTB most often, isn’t a Lyme hotspot, but I’ve still had my share of tick discoveries post-ride, and this would definitely be welcome when that happens. At $50 each, with a 12-month shelf life, it’s probably a bit expensive, but I’ll certainly put one in the medicine cabinet anyway.

The First At-Home Test for Infected Ticks Could Improve Lyme Disease Diagnosis

LymeAlert will hit the market in August. The latest tool against the tick-borne illness could become a medicine cabinet staple

www.smithsonianmag.com

Speaking of the Commodore 64, here’s a post about a joystick from that era that’s being resurrected. Wild. I had the black model!

Another ’80s-era Commodore joystick has been resurrected.

The TAC-2 (totally accurate controller) first launched 43 years ago for Atari and Commodore personal computers. It’s still in demand today among retro enthusiasts, so the creators of the C64 Ultimate are bringing it back starting at $49.99 with a stronger steel joystick shaft and a bunch of new color options.

www.theverge.com

Telengard

A recent meeting I attended had a fun icebreaker question, something along the lines of, “What was your first favorite video game?” I had two answers, one for an arcade game (Tempest), and one for a computer game: Telengard.

Telengard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Telengard, as the linked article details, was a Dungeons & Dragons-like game that I played on the Commodore 64. I haven’t thought about it in a long time, but I spent many hours on that game as an early teen. My copy was on a cassette tape, and it took something like 20-30 minutes to load the game into memory before it was playable. Games were saved at an “inn”, which prompted for another tape, where your progress was saved. Man, how times have changed! Anyway, it was a fun icebreaker, and a blast from the past to think and read online about now, after all these years.

Jay Peters, writing at The Verge:

The new feature is part of a broader push to reduce the volume of apparent AI slop on the platform. AI detector Pangram recently found that 41 percent of longform LinkedIn posts were flagged as being completely generated by AI, as reported by 404Media.

Yikes, 41%! I’m honestly surprised that people actually use LinkedIn for more than staying connected to former colleagues. I never go there to read long-form writing.

LinkedIn actually adds a ‘seems like AI slop’ button

It’s also removing an AI “enhance” feature.

www.theverge.com

Widow’s Bay

Val and I just finished Widow’s Bay on Tuesday, and enjoyed it, though not as completely as some others I know did. It starts painfully slowly, taking several episodes to get going. It does pick up, though, and has some home-run episodes, notably “Beach Reads”, which focuses a lot on perhaps the most interesting character in the show, Patricia (played by Kate O’Flynn, who is nominated for an Emmy award for the role). I won’t spoil anything here, but even though she seems like a minor character in the early episodes, she’s worth keeping an eye on.

I also want to call out the music and the sound design. We have a pretty good Atmos home theater setup, and Widow’s Bay used it better than any TV show in recent memory. The show relies a lot on environment to instill its creepy, damp vibes, and the great sound design really sells the whole thing. And the music ties it all together really well. Do yourself a favor and watch it wherever your best sound system is.

Speaking of environment, the ’70s-style Jaws-like location is perfect. It captures the aspiring beach vacation tone of that movie, but shabbier. It also captures the small-town, everyone-knows-everyone vibe. It has it all: a lighthouse; a creepy church; an abandoned, dilapidated murderer’s house that kids can’t help but mess with as a challenge; and underground tunnels and rooms lined with slimy stone that don’t lead anywhere good. And the fog. Don’t forget the fog.

Widow’s Bay was nominated for 19 Emmy awards during the time we were watching the show. I already mentioned O’Flynn, but many others in the cast were recognized as well. And there are nominations for sound, music, and production design, which I was happy to see, given my own impressions.

I’m not totally over-the-moon about it, though, as I said. We almost dropped off after the first couple of episodes. The main thing that kept us coming back was the reviews online and, crucially, a friend who said “stick with it” when I complained about the pacing.

I agree: stick with it. There really are some stand-out episodes and moments. I grew increasingly fond of it as I watched, and even more so as I reflect on it now that we’ve finished.

“Apple’s reported ‘HomePad’ may launch as early as October”

David Imel, writing at The Verge:

The rumored device is part of a larger push into the smart home for Apple, which previously relied mostly on third-party accessories to compete in the space at all. But with its enhanced Siri out in September, the company may finally feel ready to take on the category. Apple was reportedly supposed to reveal the smart home display in Spring 2025, but when the company delayed its AI-upgraded Siri, it moved the launch to line up with the release of iOS 27 and Siri AI.

What a rollercoaster this device has been on. First it was reportedly delayed by the debacle over a new AI Siri not materializing, and now it’s slated to make its debut right as RAMmaggedon has a hold on the electronics industry. And, rather than having been out over a year ago, presumably helping to rehabilitate Siri’s tarnished reputation, it might have to go head-to-head with OpenAI’s rumored AI device. If the current state of Siri AI (in beta) and GPT-Live are any indication, it’s going to be a fight.

Apple’s reported ‘HomePad’ may launch as early as October

The ‘HomePod with a screen’ might finally see the light of day

www.theverge.com

Elizabeth Williamson, writing at The New York Times:

In the Opera House, which no longer has an opera, there is an empty orchestra pit scattered with trash. On the grand terrace overlooking the Potomac River, the flower beds are wilting and weedy. In the corridors and lounges, artwork has disappeared.

…

No one yet knows whether President Trump, who in his second term gutted the center’s leadership, purged its programming and whose handpicked board had his name drilled into the building front, will close the Kennedy Center in the coming weeks, as part of what he says is a two-year renovation plan.

It’s hard to read this and not think of it as representing what is happening to the country under this administration. “Wilting”, “weedy”, “gutted”, “purged”.

Trump Gutted the Kennedy Center. A Tour Guide Wants You to See It Anyway.

In a dogged demonstration of love for a Washington institution, Sandy Weiswasser is among a few dozen volunteers still showing dwindling visitors a hollowed-out building.

www.nytimes.com

I had a Honda Element back when it first came out, and what an interesting vehicle it was. It seems mostly remembered for its boxy shape—noted in the second sentence of the linked article—but it was quite a bit more than that. For one, its opposing “suicide” doors opened wide, revealing a flat platform with affordances to secure bikes and other gear. Its interior was pretty waterproof and designed to be hosed out after camping; it even had drains in the floors. It also had a wide array of accessories, including an ahead-of-its-time first-party tent designed to hang off the back so you could camp out of the Element directly.

Its weakness, from my perspective, was its engine: It had a four-cylinder engine that was barely adequate when the Element was empty, and loading it up for camping overwhelmed it. It never got great gas mileage, but it absolutely had terrible range fully loaded. It really needed the V6 from the CR-V. Alas, Honda never made a follow-up that could learn from the first generation’s flaws.

Well, maybe it’s too early to say that, because they’re apparently considering bringing it back with a hybrid powertrain. That could be great! I hope they do take a swing at the Element concept again.

Is the Honda Element Really Returning in 2029 With Hybrid Power?

A report claims the quirky Honda Element could return as a hybrid Ford Bronco Sport competitor.

www.motortrend.com

Emily Wilson, who created a modern, well-received translation of The Odyssey, in her review of Christopher Nolan’s movie adaptation of the same, at the London Review of Books:

Christopher Nolan’s $250 million action movie version of Homer’s ancient Greek poem is an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures for a few hours. Nolan’s trademark jumps and twists in the narrative structure are relatively easy to follow, and appropriate for The Odyssey, a narrative of tales nested in tales. My teenagers had a good time. Unlike some of Nolan’s other films, The Odyssey is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely. It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.

OK, so she didn’t like it. 😉

Not only did she not like it, but she’s got about 4,000 words or so to tell us about all the ways that it’s not good. Reading the review, it was clear what a deep expert she is on the topic—if it weren’t already clear that you’d have to be to have written a translation in the first place—and she uses that expertise to expose every place where Nolan’s interpretation is a shallow one. I really enjoyed the movie, and for a few minutes, this review made me embarrassed to have liked it. Still, I did enjoy it. I think that spectacle and grandiosity were entertaining in this case, which made it more than worth it.

Wilson’s ultimate conclusion resonated with me: I purchased her translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey a while ago, and they’d gone unread since landing on my bookshelf, despite my best intentions. Seeing Nolan’s movie inspired me to pick up The Iliad afterward, and I suppose that’s a pretty good outcome.

(Also: What a beautiful page that is!)

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my…

www.lrb.co.uk

“Meta is backing 10 gas plants to power data centers – and just quit a global renewables pledge”

Michelle Lewis, writing at Electrek:

Meta says it still matches 100% of its annual electricity use with “clean and renewable energy” and has supported more than 30 GW of wind, solar, battery, nuclear, and geothermal projects. Entergy’s Louisiana package also includes Meta funding for up to 2.5 GW of renewables.

But that annual matching is a big fudge. Meta can buy renewable energy certificates or back clean energy elsewhere, but its data centers will be using fossil-fuel-generated electricity around the clock. Supporting new renewables on the grid and on paper doesn’t make those gas plants renewable, and they’ll run and cause harmful emissions for decades.

…

So Meta hasn’t abandoned renewables altogether; it’s just got its fingers crossed behind its back. It has abandoned the clean, unambiguous promise that put it in RE100: 100% renewable electricity. When AI growth and that pledge collided, the pledge was the goalpost that moved.

This is an extraordinary moment, to be sure. However, the article makes the great point that these plants will “run and cause harmful emissions for decades”, long after this challenging moment has passed. How you meet moments like this gives an indication whether your values are truly values, or just platitudes that result in light commitments, made and kept only when they are easy. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Meta’s were in that latter category. I’ll be really interested to see how Apple does with its commitments in this regard.

Meta is backing 10 gas plants to power data centers – and just quit a global renewables pledge

Meta quit a global renewable power pledge as it backs 10 gas plants to keep its power-hungry AI data centers running in Louisiana.

electrek.co