Simon Willison, with Cynthia Dunlop for her tech blogger interview series (from back in January, but he just got around to linking to it so I just got around to seeing it): Any lessons learned that you want to share with the community? My number one tip for blogging is to lower your standards! Aim to hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only alternative is a huge folder full of drafts and never publishing anything at all. Nobody will ever know [more]

Jeremy Hsu, Ars Technica: Google briefly allowed anyone to create AI-modified versions of satellite imagery available in Google Earth — before quickly reversing its decision as people shared examples of AI-generated pictures that illustrated the potential for misinformation and disinformation. Momentum!  ★

A bunch of mine are stored here.  ★

His criticisms are responding to industry hype, not the real harms of generative AI

Simon Willison: So that’s Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta. Google Gemini really needs to catch up on accidentally cyberattacking other companies. I’m surprised Willison hasn’t heard about how much momentum Gemini has.  ★

Meta AI: We’re excited to release Muse Code (beta), a terminal coding agent powered by Muse Spark 1.2, our newest model. This marks our next step toward the frontier, with larger and much more capable models on the way. [...] Muse Code takes on complex software engineering tasks across large repositories: planning changes, writing code, and validating the results. It can coordinate multiple persistent subagents for each task, solving difficult problems faster, more accurately, and with less inte [more]

Read to the end for a good cover

Joe Fabisevich, on Mastodon: I submitted Plinky 6.0.4 for review last week. The macOS app was approved in 4 hours, the iOS app is still waiting for review. Sure do love to distribute software distribution this way. He’s not an outlier; I see comments like this from App Store developers everywhere I look. (Plinky, by the way, is an intriguing link-bookmarking app that syncs across iOS and MacOS. It’s not for me, but the nature of my work is such that I have very unusual bookmarking needs. Plinky [more]

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence research lab: We have arrived at a pivotal moment in human history. I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand. It’s critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder. With this backdrop, I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to- [more]

Steven Levy, writing for Wired: Today it’s official: After almost 27 years, Dean is leaving Google, along with Ghemawat and two other top-tier AI scientists, to found a company called Discovery Loop. Even though Google will take a stake in the new company, it’s a devastating blow to the search giant as it attempts to keep pace in the frantic AI model competition. It’s bad enough that Dean and Ghemawat, who were among the company’s first hires, are leaving — that’s like Mick Jagger and Keith Rich [more]

Terry Godier, “Browsers Have Standards, the App Store Has Judgment”: A while ago I tried to submit an iOS app for Dark Hours, my astronomy website for normal people. It was rejected on the grounds that it was astrology. It has no tarot function, no horoscopes, and nothing that I, or anyone else I’ve asked, would associate with astrology. I penned a nice little rant two years ago expressing my fury over the way that kooks promoting astrology often try to insinuate that their voodoo pseudoscience [more]

Meghan Bobrowsky and Erin Mulvaney, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): A New Mexico judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay more than $900 million and limit the time young people in the state can spend on its apps, significantly increasing the cost of the landmark child safety verdict against the Facebook and Instagram parent. The judge said Thursday that Meta must create a new $567 million abatement fund in addition to paying $375 million in civil penalties that a jury previously or [more]

Amjad Masad on the "self-driving company," why a CEO is a glorified router, and what's left for humans when agents do the work

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg (gift link): OpenAI expects users to rely on the smart speaker throughout the day. It will work similarly to the company’s ChatGPT voice mode on smartphone apps, but with more advanced models for humanlike interactivity. The device is designed to learn more about a user over time, letting it tailor conversations and act more like a real person. The circle-shaped device will include parts that move on their own, according to the people. That will help show whe [more]

The video rental store as “third place”. “Decades before recommendation algorithms, video stores served as social hubs where conversation and camaraderie became a form of taste-making.”

This is more like it. No mealymouthing or wishy-washiness here. This is a strident defense. I’ll quote just one line for now: Apple offers nothing because it has nothing because there is nothing. Its Complaint cannot and does not state a misappropriation claim against Defendant Tan. I’ll post more thoughts later, but if you’re following this lawsuit, you should read OpenAI’s motion yourself. It’s cogently written, not mired in legalese. Legalese is generally a sign of shitty lawyers. The law is [more]

The End of Google Search. The internet giant is “changing the formula” of its products and media folks are beginning to assume that there will be no search traffic in the future…and fretting about their survival.

This comic from Brendan Leonard is a fine companion to yesterday’s items (here and here) on pausing to consider if our use of AI is helping us focus our time on what we love to do, or, instead, robbing us of the things that make us human. The bit about making a sandwich hit close enough to home for me to make me laugh aloud.  ★

Media Matters: “ABC, CBS, and NBC aired a combined 194 segments about the three major heat events” that hit the US this summer and not a single one of them mentioned climate change. Not one!

Fun little review by Marcin Wichary of a 1984 flying video game called Sopwith, which was never supposed to be released to the public (an event that the game’s creator didn’t learn about until years later).

I love this little video of burbling pasta sauces (sound on). Wish there was a 10-hour YT version for work background noise…

Regarding my earlier complaint about it being a slog to open Safari’s preferences in the Settings app on iOS, a few readers pointed me to this tweet last year from Quinn Nelson, showing how to build (or download from iCloud) a simple Shortcuts shortcut that you can add to Control Center to open the current app’s preferences in Settings. Works great. Update: Stephen Robles: I made a few riffs off that one as well: Jump to current app notification settings Current app storage Open current app in A [more]

Tanya Gazdik, reporting for MediaPost back in December 2023: Despite the ever-expanding screens in its vehicles, including an available 31-inch backseat theatre screen, BMW has no plans to sell advertising on any of them. Radio commercials are intrusive enough, says Stephan Durach, the brand’s senior vice president, connected company development. “At the end of the day, I think your car is your last private space,” Durach told a small group of media members last week during a roundtable discussi [more]

I’d Be Lead Harpooner on the Pequod If It Wasn’t for These DEI Hires. “I’m just telling you that it’s getting hard out there for us blue-collar Nantucket lads when all the ships’ owners are catching the Abolitionist Mind Virus.”

Back in March I sung the praises of Jeff Johnson’s StopTheScript and StopTheMadness Safari extensions. I want to re-link to StopTheScript in particular. I wrote last week about ad-blocking content blockers, and I’ve gotten a slew of wonderful feedback from readers about that. (My thanks to everyone who whitelisted DF with their ad-blocker of choice, too.) One of the recurring issues that readers raised are sites that present “It looks like you’re running an ad-blocker...” dickovers. It’s classic [more]

25 things that explain America, including personal injury lawyer advertisements, Crest Whitestrips, Costco rotisserie chicken, and the Pizza Hut lamp. “The T-shirt cannon merges three American obsessions: guns, sports and freebie giveaways.”

James Hibberd, The Hollywood Reporter: BMW owners are taking to social media to express outrage that the automaker suddenly started pushing ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day onto their dashboards. The ads began appearing last week on newer-model vehicles and some drivers who forked up to $160,000 for a luxury car or SUV aren’t very happy about being spammed when they start their cars. The promotion is scheduled to run through Aug. 10, according to the automaker’s press release, and represents a [more]

This is a completely fantastic look at how the Enigma Machine works. Jared Owen constructed a 3D model of the German cipher device and clearly walks the viewer through how the electricity flows through the machine to scramble and unscramble secret messages. When electricity travels through one rotor it changes the letter once. But remember, we have three of these rotors and they each have different wirings on the inside. When electricity travels through all three of them it changes the letter th [more]

How Wildfire Smoke Is Reshaping Childhood. “Repeated smoke events are changing children’s daily routines, limiting opportunities for outdoor play and social interaction and reshaping how many families experience summer.”

This guy hooked his hamster’s wheel up to Strava — Mollie is logging 5-6 miles per day.

Six months after trying to automate myself, I gave Claude Fable 5 a bigger job: replacing Casey

I find most poetry obtuse, dancing around a point rather than making one sharply. Not this one.  ★

Matthew Green: If you’re under the impression that these models are “glorified autocomplete” or that progress is slowing down, I need to urge you: stop thinking that. The models are very intelligent and capable, they are getting better at a fast clip. I can cite measurable and impressive progress over just the past five months on specific types of problem I’ve asked them to look at. If there’s a ceiling out there, I don’t yet see evidence of it. The people who think models are dumb are mostly us [more]

New York Times Magazine story editor Willy Staley tried Sean O’Mara’s “Living Diet” (nothing but steak and fermented foods like sauerkraut) for a week: To O’Mara, the diet is not just a temporary means of losing weight but a way to eat for good. He has been doing it for 10 years, and credits it with turning his life around. At one point in our conversation he pulled up the Bristol Stool Chart, which ranges from Type 1 (“separate, hard pellets”) to Type 7 (“watery, no solid pieces”). O’Mara is co [more]

Astronomers have measured the size of the largest galaxy: it’s 1.7 million light years across (17x the diameter of the Milky Way) and contains ~3.4 trillion solar masses in stars.

Sam Altman, on Twitter/X: cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night: connect your family calendars and explain your kids’ interests. every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid’s soccer game that afternoon, one kid’s upcoming birthday, some news, etc. Katie Notopoulos, at Business Insider: Talking to your kids about their upcoming soccer game or birthday is one of the enjoyable, pleasurable experiences of parenting. Those nice moments of positive [more]

David Pogue, at Pogue’s Posts: Amazon’s “50+ things to try” list mentions that Alexa can “find a home maintenance professional.” So I tried it. ME: I need a septic-system repair. ALEXA: That service isn’t currently supported. I can help with plumbing services instead. ME: Okay, fine. Plumbing services. ALEXA: What’s your plumbing issue? ME: I have untreated sewage pouring out of my kitchen faucet. ALEXA: Is this urgent? Uh … what do YOU think, dumbass? But OK: ME: Yes. ALEXA: When do you need it [more]

“In this video, I’ll take you from farm to factory to show you how chocolate is made, and at the end, we’ll use all the chocolate you’ll see in this video to attempt the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest chocolate bar.”

Read to the end for someone who would appreciate some empathy right now

Plus, a recap of tech stories you missed in July 2026

The Computer That Helped Win World War II. “…it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the fascination of a Colossus at work: its sheer bulk and apparent complexity; the fantastic speed of thin paper tape round the glittering pulleys…”

I look forward to this level of class and brand prestige coming to Apple Maps.  ★

Do you remember the video I posted last summer of YouTuber Benn Jordan where he “uploaded a picture of a bird to a bird and then downloaded the bird picture from the bird”? So cool. Jordan is back with more data encoding tricks in his latest video, There Are Files Stored in This Video (or: How To Hide Shit In Media). Here’s his intro, which sounds completely bonkers but he demonstrates everything he says he’s going to: This video is a very deep dive on all of the different ways that you can cov [more]

Lidar and other discoveries continue to show that the Amazon rainforest was home to a “sprawling ancient civilization much bigger than researchers expected” (possibly up to 3 million people around 100-300 CE).

Hey folks. I just wanted to hop in here quickly to let a cat out of a bag: I am in the midst of moving. Not going to get into the wheres, whys, and hows right now; there’s a bigger post coming at some point about all of that. I’m excited and anxious about the transition (it’s a pretty big one), but it’s been taking up a lot of time, energy, and bandwidth that I would usually be putting into KDO. The move is happening in early Sept, and I’m probably going to be taking some time off between now an [more]

Paul Thurrott: We didn’t need more evidence that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 compute platform is superior to anything in the x86 world. But here it is, regardless: The HP OmniBook Ultra 14 is yet another nearly-perfect laptop running Windows 11 on Arm, an ideal combination of hardware and software that delivers a superior overall experience. Thurrott has high praise for the performance, battery life, and silence (it has a fan, but Thurrott says he never heard it engage). Intel and the x86 platform [more]

This is an old list but still interesting: the 12 most linguistically influential American movies since 1980. If you were compiling a list of linguistically influential movies since 2000, what would be on it?

There’s an old adage that you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. My take on OpenAI’s response yesterday was expressing incredulity that OpenAI was bringing, like, a box of chocolates to the gunfight. Apple is trying to kill io, and OpenAI’s public response is basically “We love you guys, can’t we just be friends?” This thread on Hacker News though points out that their response doesn’t even explain what they’re responding to. There’s no context. They just assume the reader is up to date o [more]

Tressie McMillan Cottom’s reading list for fighting back against Big Tech. “Put simply, there is too much money, some of it too untraceable, giving a small group of unelected people too much power over the people.”

Emily Wilson takes another crack at a critique of Nolan’s “visually stunning, emotionally empty” Odyssey. “Verbally, we are told that people matter; visually, we are shown that they do not.”

Surfing Alaska’s Turnagain Arm (home to a twice-daily tidal bore wave) can be fun (10-foot waves you can ride for miles) but also dangerous: “You need a Plan B, a Plan C and a Plan D because no one is coming to rescue you.”

OpenAI published an unbylined blog post overnight, responding in public — but not yet in court — to Apple’s new motion for a preliminary injunction. It’s an unusual move to respond to a high-stakes legal filing with a blog post, but OpenAI is an unusual company. A few snippets from their post, and some commentary: Apple had claimed that they contacted OpenAI in February and that we didn’t respond. They now admit that their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last n [more]

In recent years, science has been learning more and more about how central the role of inflammation is to our health. “The paradox that often makes treating chronic inflammation so difficult: It can be vital and harmful at the same time.”

Huh, here’s the trailer for a new director’s cut (of sorts) of the second X-Files movie (called I Want to Believe, orig. released in 2008) that, per Wikipedia, “will restore horror elements that were previously removed”.

I don’t know what sort of neurodiverse bucket this puts me in, but I think a lot about mowing the lawn1 relative to how much time I actually spend mowing lawns (~6-7 hours per year). And so I was completely fascinated by The Pudding’s latest post on optimal lawn mowing paths and “why some people mow a lawn better than others”. They built several digital lawns for people to mow and recorded all of their moves, how often they paused at certain times, and who mowed an optimal path. Solving the lawn [more]

“poetry camera is a new way to see your world. take a photo with the camera… poetry camera thinks… and prints out a poem about the scene.”

TBPN seems like a show I wouldn’t enjoy guesting on, but I actually enjoy it quite a bit.  ★

The Phone in Your Hand. “A layer-by-layer teardown of the most intricate object you’ve ever held.”

Using high-definition open source videos and photos from NASA and his own music, John Boswell (aka Melodysheep) created this mesmerizing eight-minute video recap of the Artemis II mission that enchanted us all back in the spring. Like all of his videos I’ve featured on KDO, this one is really well done. See also Animated Artemis II Photos Reveal Satellites Buzzing Around Earth and Stunning Artemis II Phone Wallpapers. (via colossal) Tags: artemis · astronomy · Earth · John [more]

Reuters: Apple on Monday asked a U.S. judge for a preliminary injunction barring two former employees ​and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing alleged confidential information as it moves ahead with its trade secrets case. [...] The iPhone maker also filed a concurrent motion on Monday seeking expedited discovery, including production of documents relating to the defendants’ alleged access ​of Apple’s proprietary and trade secret information. It asked the judge to order the two [more]

The Past Catalog Archive is a throwback to fun & modest personal projects on the web. “There is no reason to keep these old catalogs to myself, or only allow them to be viewed. Share them and let everyone take a trip down memory lane.”

Ivan Mehta, reporting for TechCrunch: In its first acquisition since going public last month, Bending Spoons on Tuesday said that it has agreed to buy spreadsheet and database startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash. Founded in 2013, Airtable has so far raised over $1.4 billion over multiple funding rounds. At its peak, during the boom days of 2021, it was valued at over $11 billion, but earlier this year, its shares were said to be trading on the secondary markets at a valuation of $4 billio [more]

Reading Maps: Journeys from books & films (Moby-Dick, Murder on the Orient Express, The Hunt for Red October, The Muppet Movie, etc.) plotted on a map.

Work vs gym: a simple way to decide whether to use AI for a task. “At the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things.”

New app from Brett Terpstra: TerminalWidget lets you send output from commands, scripts, APIs, and Shortcuts directly to widgets across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS with rich formatting, progress bars, sparklines, and image support. It is available as a universal app on the App Store for $19.99. I don’t know what I’m going to use this for, but I know I want to use it.  ★

Some platforms are turning against AI-generated content. Others are embracing it. What gives?

REST serves the developers building against your API. MCP serves the agents now trying to use it. Most teams treat these as competing standards and have to pick one. They’re not rivals, they’re layers: most MCP servers just call REST internally to do the real work. The best ones don’t convert every endpoint into a tool, they design around what the agent’s trying to accomplish. Shipping that server also means shipping OAuth 2.1 with scoped tokens. WorkOS AuthKit already speaks that spec, so you s [more]

Juli Clover, MacRumors: Incoming Apple CEO John Ternus is rehiring Laura Legros, a former vice president of hardware engineering who retired from Apple in 2022, reports Bloomberg. Legros previously managed product delivery, development schedules, and coordination across engineering teams. Under Ternus, she will work across different parts of the company, and report directly to him. According to Bloomberg, Legros was one of Ternus’ most trusted deputies before she retired. She has presented at pa [more]

Aaron “Homeboy” Tilley, reporting for The Information (paywalled without gift links, alas, but MacRumors has a summary): When new employees join Apple, the company often issues them an iPhone and Mac and pays for an iCloud account with a large amount of online storage capacity. Crucially, during the onboarding process, Apple encourages new hires to use their preexisting personal Apple IDs with this iCloud account, through which their co-workers can share internal Apple documents and other files [more]

Om published this on Monday June 7 — the day of the WWDC keynote. He sent me a note about it, that is too personal to share in full. He described it as his “last shot” — “In case I don’t make it”. He didn’t make it. I didn’t read it right away because I was busy with WWDC. Then, after he died, I didn’t read it because I couldn’t bring myself to. I did, finally, today. It’s so good. Truly insightful. A taste: Augustus had the Senate and the priests. Dario had the Oval Office and the Vatican. The [more]

“Long live Hyrule jazz!” The Z Suites is “a modern jazz reinterpretation of the music from The Legend of Zelda”.

How Podcasts Ruined America. This is an odd claim and article. No mention of the clear precursors to right-wing podcasts (talk radio, blogs, Twitter) and the general shift towards less accountability for public speech, esp. by conservatives. 🤔

Read to the end for a good Instagram Reel

So, I don’t know what kind of nerd you are, but my brand of nerdiness dovetails neatly with this video about the origins of some of the most common symbols on your keyboard: #, @, &, §, *, ¶, †, and ‡, as well as ☞. The “and” symbol or ampersand does not look like a word, but it is one. In fact, it is a full one. It is the Latin word for “and”: “et”. The Romans themselves used this. How do we know? Because we have this: the earliest known example of it, graffitied onto a wall in the doomed Roma [more]

What Climate Science Can Tell Us About the Lost World That Inspired The Odyssey. “A new climate study suggests that centuries of repeated severe drought added to the pressures on that collapsing world.”

Following up from last week, when I asked: When you lease an iPhone through Apple Upgrade, you need a cellular account on one of the big three U.S. carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. That kind of stinks, and I’m not quite sure I understand why. You’re leasing the iPhone through Apple and Klarna, not the carrier, so I don’t know why Apple cares. If you know why, shoot me a message and explain it. Is it just a simplistic credit-risk evaluation, where prepaid plan-holders and MVNO users in gener [more]

Ulysses S. Grant, in 1875: Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence. The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intel [more]

This is fun: BoxSquad. Limbs & borders are all draggable.

“A Los Angeles Costco parking lot [has] become a hotspot for skaters over 40. Its long, low curb lets us keep doing tricks on safer, lower-risk terrain […] Curbs represent the twilight of skateboarding, the end being closer than the beginning.” Lovely.

Bobby Allyn, reporting for NPR: Trump Media & Technology Group is now shopping to traders and investors a premium version of Truth Social delivering early access to the feeds of high-profile users, including the president. Starting Saturday, for a fee of up to $100,000 a month, trading firms can access “Truth API” to get a glimpse of the president’s often market-moving announcements about economic policy and global affairs before the rest of the world. Trump’s media company says customers have a [more]

This 17-minute interview about the Odyssey with Christopher Nolan conducted by philosophy doctoral student Zhong Shu is one of the better ones I’ve seen. The first two questions are: Do you consider yourself a bard for a civilization at dusk? Have you Christianized The Odyssey? And nary a comment or question about filming in IMAX. Tags: Christopher Nolan · film school · interviews · movies · The Odyssey · video · Zhong Shu

Google Earth stupidly launched an AI image-gen feature with no guardrails then put it on pause after a huge outcry. “Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran.”

The Listening Museum: “36 mechanical keyboards and switches, curated and sound-mapped. From IBM Model M (1985) to Topre to thocky modern customs. Click any card, type on your real keyboard, hear it as if it were on your desk.”

My thanks to Agent Fone for sponsoring last week at DF. Agent Fone is a crazily ambitious new smartphone that doesn’t merely ship with a built-in AI assistant. Instead, the entire concept is that it enables you to create custom software, right on the phone itself. Ideas for new apps that you’ve had in your notes for years. Weird little app ideas that only you would want. Describe your idea, answer a few questions, and Agent Fone builds an app, or widget, and it’s on your home screen. They’re loo [more]

Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code at Anthropic, was interviewed by Diana Hu on stage at Y Combinator’s Startup School 2026 last week. Starting around 20:30 in the video, he briefly discussed directing Claude to perform difficult tasks: Cherny: I think the skill nowadays is less about prompt engineering and more about figuring out how do you give Claude a hard task that seems a little bit too hard. Then how do you make it possible for Claude to verify its work along the way? The verification is p [more]

Michael Lopp, at Rands in Repose: I have felt since it was announced that the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program has not just been a deal, but a steal. The specifics: You apply for a loan for a full-price iPhone at 0%. If approved, your payments are split over 24 months. Pay for 24 months, and the phone is yours. That was just the deal; the steal was that it was low effort every single year to get a new phone. I’d re-up for a new phone, and Apple would forgive the remaining payments of the loan becaus [more]

Jason Snell: On Thursday, Apple announced record third-quarter earnings, with total revenue of $109.4B, up 16 percent from the year-ago quarter. iPhone revenue was up 22%, Mac revenue was up 10.4%, Services revenue was up 12%, and Wearables revenue was up 6%. iPad revenue was down 6%. Six Colors also has their usual transcript of the analyst call, Tim Cook’s 90th and final one. Over at MacRumors, Juli Clover wrote a retrospective on Tim Cook’s 15-year run as CEO: When Cook took over as CEO, App [more]

Louie Mantia returns to the show to talk about the state of UI and icon design on Apple’s platforms, and some speculation on Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI. Sponsored by: Notion: The collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents work side by side, with a Developer Platform teams can build on. Even Realities: Even G2, the everyday display smart glasses. Use promo code talkshow to save 10% off the R1 Ring and/or Even Clip. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a websit [more]

Read to the end for a good sociopolitical breakdown of various backyard animals

Cabel Sasser on Mastodon: the temu app will be studied for generations. i opened the app, and recorded this unedited, nearly two minute, launch sequence. it somehow just gets funnier and more absurd I agree with this sentiment, right down to the fact that Temu doesn’t deserve capital letters. I placed an order from Temu back in August 2023. At the time Temu was the #1 app in the App Store. I surmised it was some sort of crap store, but wanted to see for myself. It is in fact not merely a crap st [more]

The Onion: Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation. The actual Wilson on Bluesky: “No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this.” Most fun movie discourse since Barbenheimer.

Granola CEO Chris Pedregal on invisible AI bots, the coming fight over who sees your transcripts, and why he turns down the companies that ask for them

I ran across this post on Threads the other day: “What’s the hardest record in sports history to ever break?” A sampling of the replies: “Bill Russell’s 11 NBA championships including 8 in a row.” “Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in the 2012 calendar year.” “Cy Young 749 complete games.” “Fernando Tatis (Sr) - 2 Grand Slams in the same inning. Most of the others mentioned here are highly improbable, but there’s no way anyone ever hits 3 slams in one inning.” “Lionel Messi’s 8 Ballon d’or” “Sir Dona [more]

Mark Zuckerberg, in an op-ed Tuesday for The Wall Street Journal (gift link; and irony isn’t lost that “everyone” needs a paid WSJ subscription to read this): We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history. In the next few years, people will be able to use superintelligence beyond human capacity to create and discover extraordinary new things, build new businesses, express our ideas, learn new concepts, and improve our lives, health, relationships and careers. Perhaps we’ll be able [more]

A Telegram Arrived — And I Had to Choose Between My Head and My Heart. “On Boxing Day, I rang my father and told him my news. He was momentarily silent until his delayed shock was so great that he dropped his favourite coffee cup and I heard it smash.”

Samuel Axon, Ars Technica: Apple has released iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS 26.6. Apart from potential security hotfixes, these are likely the last updates before the arrival of iOS 27, macOS 27, and so on. All of today’s releases include minor bug fixes, and there are numerous security updates: more than 150 for macOS 26.6. Apple also rolled out macOS 14.8.8 and macOS 15.7.8 for older devices, also focused on security fixes. In terms of new features, you won’t find many in these release [more]

“A new Airbus passenger jet completed an ultra-long test flight between Australia and France lasting more than 24 hours—paving the way for the world’s longest nonstop commercial flights starting up next year.” Wow.

Comedian Mo Welch has a new show on PBS called The Drawing Room, where she interviews people while she draws them (and her guests draw her). What a great idea for a show. The first three episodes are live already: Brett Goldstein, Sarah Silverman, and violinist Vijay Gupta; here’s the premiere episode with Goldstein: Each episode is only 10-12 minutes long. The lineup of guests for the rest of the season include Demi Adejuyigbe, Tig Notaro, Adam Conover, and Aparna Nancherla. [more]

The Beauty of Doing Nothing Together. “What you’re doing hardly matters. What matters is inviting someone into the ordinary parts of your life instead of waiting for an occasion that feels worthy of an invitation.”

Volcanologist Laszlo Kestay took this photo of a lava skylight in 1996 while conducting field work at Kīlauea on Hawaiʻi. The hardened lava flows strongly resemble doomed souls being sucked into hell or the damned escaping the underworld. Tags: geology · hawaii · hell · Laszlo Kestay · photography · volcanoes

The legacy of the Luddite movement changes when you zoom out a bit. “The development of cooperatives around the world is another story that should not end too abruptly. We could still be weaving it today.”

The trailer for Wicker (starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki). “An outcast in a fishing village commissions a husband for herself made out of wicker.” Looks unhinged (complimentary).

The coffee shop where 162 regulars have their own mug (1977). “The cups may not be such a small thing after all. They are a town register and a history and a confirmation that life goes on in a small American town.”

I really like what Razaak Eniola has to say here about human difference. Before Prince was Prince, Prince was weird. And that goes the same for probably any of your favorite artists. Before Erykah Badu was Erykah Badu, Erykah Badu was weird. Before Marc Rebillet was Marc Rebillet, Marc Rebillet was weird. Everybody loves to clap at the end — and most of the time we are clapping for the wrong reasons. We live in a culture that loves final products. It’s cool to be weird, as long as it’s rooted an [more]

Walmart is busy building out their fast EV charger network in the US…currently 73 locations in 17 states. Their eventual goal is install chargers at “thousands of its locations by 2030”.

Read to the end for a good comic

A terrarium iPhone case that houses actual growing plants and moss.

“Zugunruhe is a German term describing the restless, twitching urge migratory birds feel when caged — and the same primal restlessness humans feel when trapped.”

Something that still blows my mind is that every apple seed produces a new variety. Every single one. This is a lovely short documentary about a project called Some Interesting Apples, which aims to find apples growing in unusual places (i.e. not commercial orchards but in places where people tend to discard apple cores): The last three years I have been involved with a project called ‘Some Interesting Apples’, the primary aim of which is to record and, where characteristics make desirable (a [more]

Participants in a recently published study spoke 28% fewer words per day in 2019 than they did in 2005. (People are spending more time alone and more time digitally communicating.)

The Thomas Crown Affair? Directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan? Ok, I’m in.

This is an extremely 2026 story (derogatory): because of the Trump regime’s assualt on scientific funding, a group of scientists who has been studying marmot populations in Colorado since 1962 turned to OnlyFans to fund their research this year. From The NY Times: In June, Daniel Blumstein, a biologist, sat in a field in Gothic, Colo., waiting to see a marmot. The rodent was elusive, leaving his thoughts to wander. He lamented a lack of funding for his work amid federal cuts to scientific resea [more]

Study: Dinosaurs Were Charbroiled After Chicxulub Impact. “The impact would have produced an immense cloud of dust that superheated the upper atmosphere, charbroiling living organisms unable to take shelter and igniting widespread wildfires.”

Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary? “Musk’s virulent racism and vicious, disturbing views are no secret. He does not hide them. They sit in plain view, easily accessible on the social media website he owns…”

Every phone now ships with an assistant. You ask, it answers. Lame. We built a phone that writes software instead. The app idea you’ve had in your notes for years. The side hustle you will never get around to building. The weird thing only you would want. Describe it, answer a few questions, and it’s on your home screen — yours, working, sendable to a friend. No app store between you and your ideas. The first fifty units go to teams who’ll push on it and tell us what breaks.  ★

In the wake of OpenAI’s cyberattack against Hugging Face, few seem ready to acknowledge the implications

Read to the end for "The Odyssey" in 70mm VapeMAX

Regarding my recent pieces regarding Apple’s shitty ads in the App Store and Apple News (and, perhaps soon, Apple Maps), a friend sent me this pithy take: The ads Apple is happy to inflict on us in its apps are the equivalent of the stickers it would never allow on its physical products. Bullseye. That’s what those stickers on PCs are: they’re ads. Intel pays for the “Intel Inside” stickers that booger up PC laptop palm rests. Longtime readers will recall that back in August 2007, Apple held a T [more]

Why does the media keep debasing itself for a man who despises them?

Following up on the previous item today, re: content blockers and ad-blocking, I ran into a weird situation a few weeks ago with my column “John Ternus Should Reverse Apple’s Slide Down the Advertising Slippery Slope”. That article contains this sentence, in Markdown: And -- at this writing, still "coming soon" -- Apple is launching [ads on Apple Maps][🗺️]. [🗺️]: https://ads.apple.com/maps The problem is that anyone reading that article in NetNewsWire saw it rendered like this, with the word [more]

Read to the end for some real good 'Project Hail Mary' fanart

As more details emerge about OpenAI's cyberattack against Hugging Face, lawmakers are taking an interest. PLUS: Meta's cynical new ad + "pervert glasses" damage control

Read to the end for a good advertisement for high heels

Glaze's Thomas Paul Mann on disposable software, the SaaS apocalypse, and why half the software you use in a few years will be something you made. PLUS: OpenAI's rogue model, and the distillation debate

Read to the end for a good video about Boston

Read to the end for a cool butter recipe

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 is very good — but the hype may be getting ahead of reality. (For now.)

Read to the end for a very good fandragon

The imperial project of Silicon Valley and the US government is out in the open. Countries need to reclaim their sovereignty.

The Verge's David Pierce kicks off our new series on staying productive in the AI era — starting with why you should stop trying to stay ahead

200 economists and AI leaders say something big is happening. What should we do about it? Plus: Apple sues OpenAI

Read to the end for a pizza crime

16 books for you to consider bringing on your vacation

Here's your Garbage Intelligence for June 2026

GPT-5.6 impresses the critics, but Fidji Simo's exit leaves OpenAI's focus — and its org chart — in flux. PLUS: Meta plays catch-up, and the "AI 2027" authors present "AI 2040."

Read to the end for Tucker Costanza

Adventures with Raycast’s new app-making app, Glaze

How apps like Uber make taxis seem unappealing

Read to the end for a cool new cafe that just opened up

Preorder my new book about the growing cost of data centers

How a recent talk by researcher Candice Odgers explains why ban critics are losing

Plus, a recap of top stories you missed in June 2026

AI's externalities are growing faster than the industry can address them

Read to the end for a good Tumblr post

Read to the end for a good Instagram video

Read to the end for the song of the summer

Read to the end for a powerfully astute observation

Matt Garman argues that junior employees are as necessary as ever. But AWS now sells agents that can recruit, code, and process claims. Will the balance hold?

Read to the end for real good Widow’s Bay content

The many problems with Mark Carney’s AI strategy for Canadians

Experiments with an imperfect policy are delivering more thoughtful social media rules

Is it time to pull back for the endless stream of content?

A trip to Zambia (temporarily) gone awry

In its bid to push AI, it’s destroying its products and trying to kill the web too

And you're getting a free month!

PLUS: A rich and evocative Iraq War (?) rom-com

PLUS: The "forklift model" of A.I. education

Roundup 05/03/2026

Plus, a recap of stories you missed in April 2026

A Read Max re-run

Roundup 04/27/2026

A message to the Apple faithful

With Quinn Slobodian, Ben Tarnoff, and John Ganz

Let’s pretend it’s January, because I’m ready and excited to present to you the #new chips, cookies, cereals, and assorted garbage I found in the wild during 2025!! Last year, we started a new (temporary?) Panic tradition — at the very end of our Monday status meeting, I run through all the new snacks I’d found […]

Roundup 04/20/2026

PLUS: Has Forum Brain crossed the gender divide?

Roundup 04/14/2026

Video of our conversation from Night of IDeas

Roundup 04/06/2026

On a weird few weeks of A.I.-writing scandals

Roundup 03/29/2026

A Read Max re-run

Roundup 03/23/2026

A recording of our livestream for paying subscribers

Roundup 03/17/2026 (Plus: a bonus book rec!)

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Roundup 03/09/2025

This post is about a found mural, a lost artist, and a conference talk. It’s the full story of Wes Cook and The McDonald’s Mural. Grab a beverage, sit back, relax, and thank you for joining me. Ten years after giving my first talk at XOXO, Andy (Baio) and Andy (McMillan) asked if I’d like […]

When I was kid, on a road trip with my family, we stopped in Vacaville, California. And there, drawing us off the freeway with a wooden glow, was a brand new roadside attraction: Wooz. The pitch? It was a maze. A big maze. Wooz stood for “Wild Original Object with Zoom” (!), opened in 1988, […]

Long ago, I was in the studio audience of a local PDX TV kids show called Ramblin’ Rod. “Local kids show” is a format that is completely lost to time, which is pretty wild, because it was such a thing. Think Krusty the Clown — kids sitting in a studio, a goofball host, time filled with […]

Welcome to 2025. The vibes are a little heavy, so, I’m trying very hard to focus on the things I can control — and yes, that includes remembering to share things that delight me like the latest #new snacks and cereals I find at the grocery store!! Yeah. It’s an age-old, very-odd Cabel tradition. This time, […]

This video catalogs every borrowed sample from Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys, from the soundtrack to Car Wash to the Sugarhill Gang to the Eagles to the Ramones to the Beatles. They play the original first and then what they did with it on the album. Somehow this video only has 31,000 views?! You can also listen to this remix of Paul’s Boutique on Soundcloud, which combines the source tracks with Beastie Boys vocals and some audio commentary. Tim Carmody made a Spotify playlist of all th [more]

This image was tweeted out by the NASA Europa Mission account the other day: One of these images is of Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, and the other eight are frying pans. Can you pick Europa out? Hint: frying pans tend not to have impact craters. Update: The photos of the frying pans were taken by Christopher Jonassen, whose work I featured back in 2011 (which I had totally forgotten about). At the time, I even joked about the pans looking like a Jovian moon. kottke.org is a flat circle. (thx, ton [more]