David A. Graham, writing at The Atlantic:
Not that long ago, believe it or not, Donald Trump ran for
president as the candidate who would defend the First Amendment.
He warned that a “sinister group of Deep State
bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists,...
Nick Heer, Pixel Envy on the news that SpaceX “invested” $2 billion in the xAI money pit:
This comes just a few months after xAI acquired X, one
year after Musk shifted a bunch of Tesla-bound Nvidia GPUs
to xAI, and just a few years after he used staff from
Tesla to work...
Steve Berman, The Athletic:
Lee Elia, who managed the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs
for two seasons apiece but is perhaps best known for a profane
postgame rant critical of Chicago fans, died on Wednesday. He was
87. The Phillies announced his death in a stateme...
Large media companies, and the NY Times in particular these days,
like to use the phrase “experts said” instead of simply stating
facts. The thing is, many other statements of plain truth in that
brief Times post lack the confirmation of expertise. To aid the
paper in steering their readers away from notions of objective
truth, here’s a suggested rewrite of that Bluesky post.
Anthony Lane, in a crackerjack piece for The New Yorker on the writing and work of Elmore Leonard:
So, when does Leonard become himself? Is it possible to specify
the moment, or the season, when he crosses the border? I would
nominate “The Big Bounce,” from 1969 — which,...
Last year, retro computing YouTuber Christian “Peri Fractic” Simpson bought licensed the branding rights and some of the IP belonging to Commodore (which rights have been transferred five times since the original company went bankrupt in 1994). Last week they launched their ...
Classic Web is a fun account to follow on Mastodon. Curator Richard MacManus posts half a dozen or so screenshots per day of, well, classic websites from the late 1990s and 2000s. Makes me feel old and young at the same time.
My thanks to Drata for sponsoring this last week at DF. Their message is short and sweet: Automate compliance. Streamline security. Manage risk. Drata delivers the world’s most advanced Trust Management platform.
Simon Willison:
Grok 4 Heavy is the “think much harder” version of Grok 4 that’s
currently only available on their $300/month plan. Jeremy Howard
relays a report from a Grok 4 Heavy user who wishes to remain
anonymous: it turns out that Heavy, unlike regular Grok 4, has
...
Blake Brittain, reporting for Reuters:
Apple asked a U.S. appeals court on Monday to overturn a trade
tribunal’s decision which forced it to remove blood-oxygen reading
technology from its Apple Watches, in order to avoid a ban on its
U.S. smartwatch imports.
A three-ju...
Here’s a product recommendation long in the making. Four years ago this month, Matthew Panzarino was my guest on The Talk Show and at one point he recommended Moft’s Snap-On iPhone Stand/Wallet. It uses a very clever origami-style folding design. Folded flat it kind of just ...
Linda Yaccarino, in a post on X yesterday:
After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of X.
When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it
would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the
extraordinary mission of this company. I...
Jonathan Wold and Luke Carbis cohost a podcast called Crossword, focusing mainly on WordPress and the open web. They occasionally invite guests to join them, and it was my pleasure to join them on their latest episode:
John Gruber’s Dithering podcast with Ben Thompson wa...
Mark Gurman got some interesting quotes from interesting former Apple employees for his report at Bloomberg on Jeff Williams’s retirement:
“Jeff’s importance and contributions to Apple have been enormous,
although perhaps not always obvious to the general public,” said
T...
It’s Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale, and if you click through this link, or any of the ones below, you can show your support for Daring Fireball by throwing the referral revenue from any purchases you make my way. You don’t pay a penny more but I get a few percentage points ...
Apple TV+:
Today, Apple TV+ announced a new, six-episode seventh season for
the widely hailed, darkly comedic spy drama Slow Horses. The
Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning series stars Academy Award winner Sir
Gary Oldman, who has been honored with Golden Globe, Emmy and
BAFTA...
OpenAI’s page for io, minus the “Sam and Jony” short film that introduced the partnership, is back up, with a brief announcement that the deal has officially closed:
We’re thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has
officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain
independent and have assumed deep design and creative
responsibilities across OpenAI.
Referring to the company as “io Products Inc.” rather than just “io” is seemingly their stopgap workaround for the trademark injunction they faced from rival startup iyO two weeks ago, which led them to temporarily take down this web page and the video. The video remains unavailable, presumably because of the ongoing trademark dispute.
Matt Novak, writing for Gizmodo:
Social media users first started to observe that Grok was using
the phrase “every damn time,” on Tuesday, something that seems
innocuous enough. But if you’ve been exposed to Nazis on X, it’s a
phrase they like to use to claim that Jews a...
Wired, two weeks ago:
Elon Musk’s lawyers claimed that he “does not use a computer” in a
Sunday court filing related to his lawsuit against Sam
Altman and OpenAI. However, Musk has posted pictures or
referred to his laptop on X several times in recent months, and
public ...
Apple Newsroom, this afternoon:
Apple today announced Jeff Williams will transition his role as
chief operating officer later this month to Sabih Khan, Apple’s
senior vice president of Operations as part of a long-planned
succession. Williams will continue reporting to A...
Here’s the full statement, given by Apple to the media, including Daring Fireball:
“Today we filed our appeal because we believe the European
Commission’s decision — and their unprecedented fine — go far
beyond what the law requires. As our appeal will show, the EC is
ma...
Rebecca Rubin, reporting for Variety:
When it comes to Apple’s biggest films, F1: The Movie has
officially moved to pole position.
I will allow this pun.
F1 has generated $293 million at the global box office after 10
days of release, overtaking the entire theatric...
MG Siegler, on Threads last week:
We’re already beyond ridiculous with the full-on ad assault from
Apple as everyone is well aware by now. But the wild thing here — in this full screen pop-up in the Apple TV app — is that it’s
not in-app but links out to the web to pay?!...
My thanks to Fly.io for sponsoring last week at DF to promote Phoenix.new, their new AI app-builder. Just describe your idea, and Phoenix.new quickly generates a working real-time Phoenix app: clustering, pubsub, and presence included. Ideal for multiplayer games, collaborative tools, or quick weekend experiments. Built by Fly.io, deploy wherever you want. Give it a try today.
Paramount will settle President Trump’s lawsuit over a “60
Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris for $16 million, the company
announced late Tuesday.
CBS News’ parent company worked with a mediator to resolve the
lawsuit. Under the agreement, $16 million will be allocated to Mr.
Trump’s future presidential library and the plaintiffs’ fees and
costs. Neither Mr. Trump nor his co-plantiff, Texas Rep. Ronny
Jackson, will be directly paid as part of the settlement.
The settlement did not include an apology.
It could have been a lot worse, but this is, ultimately, bribery.
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:
Well, would you look at that? The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the
M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on
multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1
MacBook Air but have decided that even today,...
Resurrect your side projects with Phoenix.new, the new AI app-builder from Fly.io. Just describe your idea, and Phoenix.new quickly generates a working real-time Phoenix app: clustering, pubsub, and presence included. Ideal for multiplayer games, collaborative tools, or quick weekend experiments. Built by Fly.io, deploy wherever you want.
Let’s start with Apple’s own announcement at Apple Developer News:
The European Commission has required Apple to make a series of
additional changes under the Digital Markets Act:
Communication and Promotion of Offers
Today, we’re introducing updated terms that let de...
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