Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
The Yarddogs of Northwest Arkansas
"What is never discussed in all of this hand-wringing is the fact that those dogs and their owners likely far predate the people riding their bikes here."
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
POSIWID: The Purpose of a System Is What It Does
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does
Colossal
• Grace Ebert
Lush Foliage Permeates Xanthe Burdett’s Delicate Portraiture
For Xanthe Burdett, the boundary between humans and nature is thin, malleable, and always in flux.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Lush Foliage Permeates Xanthe Burdett’s Delicate Portraiture appeared first on Colossal.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Apple’s Polishing Cloth Is Now Just $9
9to5mac.com/2026/08/25/apple-releases-new-polishing-cloth-for-9/
Chance Miller:
Not to be overshadowed by the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, Apple today has also released an updated version of its Polishing Cloth. In an age of everything getting more expensive, the new Polishing Cloth is cheaper than before at $9 (down from $19). [...]
Apple released the Polishing Cloth in October 2021 and sold out almost instantly. While it has become a meme, it is genuinely a good polishing cloth for your Apple gear.
Moore’s Law comes for everything eventually.
Link: 9to5mac.com/2026/08/25/apple-releases-new-polishing-cloth…
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
‘Surprise and Shine’ Apple Event: Wednesday 9 September
9to5mac.com/2026/08/26/apple-officially-announces-iphone-18-pro-foldable-event/
Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:
Apple has officially announced its next product event, where it will unveil the iPhone 18 Pro lineup and its first foldable iPhone. The event will take place on September 9 at 10 am, PT. The tagline reads “Surprise and shine,” and the invitation features a glowing Apple logo with a sun shining through.
Apple generally prefers Tuesdays, but on years when Labor Day falls in the second week of September, they move it to Wednesday.
Link: 9to5mac.com/2026/08/26/apple-officially-announces-iphone-18…
Colossal
• Kate Mothes
Mischievous Cats Rule in Minyoung Kim’s Affectionately Quirky Paintings
When it comes to felines, the artist revels in "the contrast between how ordinary and how weird they are."
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Mischievous Cats Rule in Minyoung Kim’s Affectionately Quirky Paintings appeared first on Colossal.
Work Chronicles
• Work Chronicles
(comic) Amnesia
Colossal
• Kate Mothes
Wildlife Photographer of the Year Whittles More than 65,000 Entries to the Top 100
The prestigious contest showcases the world's diverse creatures and their habitats.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Wildlife Photographer of the Year Whittles More than 65,000 Entries to the Top 100 appeared first on Colossal.
Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive
"Mini human brains are being grown in labs all over the world. Soon, they could outthink neural networks."
Longreads
• Krista Stevens
The Sound of Your Voice
"The fact that I had song ideas, let alone a place where I was saving them, was significant. It had been 15 years since I’d last released an album."
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
Dolphins and Other Lovers
"The Andoque of the Amazon know what we have forgotten: the forest’s most beautiful creatures are also its most dangerous."
Quoting Paul Dix
The fact that AI wrote 1M LOC and then refined it over the course of the next couple of months to produce a reliable piece of software that is currently running on millions of developer machines is absolutely mind blowing. And you can say, “well it’s not that impressive because they had an oracle to compare against, so it was simple to go from one language to another”, but I think that’s selling this entire thing short. If you can build a verification system and give proper direction, AI can produce a highly complex, highly sophisticated piece of software and it can continue to refine it until it just works.
— Paul Dix, The end of programming
Tags: coding-agents, ai-assisted-programming, generative-ai, bun, ai, llms
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
• SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura
Did This Cursed Ring Inspire J.R.R. Tolkien?
EVE Online: The Move to Python 3 Begins!
The Wildest Camera Robot
It can do flips, etc
Dolly Parton and Kermit the Frog Sing Everyday People (1987)
On the fifth episode of her late 80s variety show Dolly, Dolly Parton was joined by Kermit the Frog for a lovely rendition of Sly and the Family Stone’s 1968 hit Everyday People.
You can also watch the clip on Instagram and Reddit. The full episode, which features special guest stars Delta Burke, Terence Trent D’Arby, and the Oak Ridge Boys (in addition to Jim Henson as Kermit), can be seen on YouTube (not very good quality unfortunately).
Tags: Dolly Parton · music · The Muppets · video
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
XCancel, the Twitter/X Mirror, Shuts Down After Cease and Desist From the Fine Folks at X Corp
XCancel:
On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel.
The service XCancel is stopped until further notice.
We are seeking legal advice and won’t share more details for now.
Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel.
I didn’t want to jinx them, but this obvious threat hanging over their head was the main reason I never linked only to XCancel rather than directly to tweets on x.com. This sucks not just because some people don’t want to visit x.com, but because XCancel was a faster-loading website with no bullshit.
Update: Nitter, the open source project that XCancel was an instance of, got the same cease and desist and also shut down.
Link: xcancel.com/
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Dolly Parton Dies at 80
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Update Regarding the Base Prices of the M5 Max Mac Studio
daringfireball.net/2026/08/configurations_and_pricing_for_new_mac_minis_and_mac_studios
