Thoughts on software and life
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,…
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…
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…
This is a fun read, about a “regular rider” trying his hand at Sedona’s new-ish double black diamond trail, Hardline.
For the first time in since my early 20s, I don’t have a vehicle that has a manual transmission. That’s partially because most manufacturers no longer offer them. I hope this spreads to more manufacturers, because I can’t buy that Porsche. 😞
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!
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 , 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…
Neat. I don’t watch baseball live, but I’ll try and check one of these games out.
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…
★★★☆☆ 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
I just watched The Dink (★☆☆☆☆) on Apple TV, and yikes, is it a stinker. It’s easily the worst movie I’ve seen in a really long time. Do not watch.
Gruber: The obvious truth is that Apple’s ads just plain suck. They are not good at advertising-based services. And it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re not good at advertising-based services, because the incentives for advertising-based services are in direct opposition to the incentives for everything Apple actually is good at. To wit: offering superior products worth paying a premium price…
That’s a great-looking trailer! 💪
This is a bit of a TIL, and small, but it was a nit that I lived with for too long before figuring it out. In Mac Safari, when you use separate profiles like I do, say a Work profile for all of your work bookmarks, it can be hard to figure out where the bookmarks in the Favorites bar come from. It’s easy enough to drag items into the Favorites bar, but if you go to Edit Bookmarks and look at…
Speaking of The Odyssey , this is a great essay on teaching it—the book, not the movie—to a class at San Quentin.