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BBC News:

Apple has been ordered to pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes by Europe’s top court, putting an end to an eight-year row.

The European Commission accused Ireland of giving Apple illegal tax advantages in 2016, but Ireland has consistently argued against the need for the tax to be paid.

The Irish government said it would respect the ruling.

Apple said it was disappointed with the decision and accused the European Commission of “trying to retroactively change the rules”.

Ireland doesn’t want the money:

The Irish government has argued that Apple should not have to repay the back taxes, deeming that its loss was worth it to make the country an attractive home for large companies.

What a great win for Margrethe Vestager, making clear to the world that the EU is hostile to successful companies. Good job.

Juli Clover, reporting for MacRumors: Apple today discontinued its ill-received FineWoven material, introducing no new cases that use the leather replacement. The company has also removed existing FineWoven iPhone cases for older devices from its website, though FineWove...

My iPhones 16 briefing yesterday was at this new building. It is very nice. A little cozy — it’s not that big. Great light, and from the main room, a splendid view of the main building. Restroom doors are like bank vault doors.

Harris must become the president of Twitter before becoming president of the United States.

BRIC countries == Brazil, Russia, India and China.

12 minute podcast.

I made kittens the theme for the presidential campaign, it was my attempt to bring levity to it for readers of my blog. Then came "childless cat ladies" and now cats being eaten in Ohio. Either I was prescient, or the Trumps are copying me! Anyway, here's the Wordle Kitty $5 postage stamp, next in the series. She just broke out of prison to rescue the Ohio cats from JD Lance. My collaborator of course is ChatGPT.

Today's song: Spanish Moon.

After the debate, Harris should be interviewed anywhere they'll have her. Go ahead and be overexposed. Answer every question with one of your major positioning statements. Call in to radio talk shows, podcasts, whatever you can think of. Biden hardly ever promoted himself. Not being heard all the time was his biggest sin. Harris should get accustomed to being accessible when she's in office. Keep the kamalahq snark channel going. This will have been Trump's contribution to American politics, no fear of being heard.

James Earl Jones: "I don't know if we ever learn from history."

Ed Kranepool was a Met when that really meant something. He started on the Mets in their inaugural year, 1962. They went from the worst team ever to World Champions in record time. They became the heroes of NYC in 1969. I was riding the subway back then to get from Flushing to the Bronx to go to school, and in the Bronx, when the Mets won, everyone was smiling. If you've ever been to NYC you know how unusual that is. And in the Bronx, which is of course where the always-hated Yankees were HQ'd. Ed Kranepool died Sunday. He was watching a Mets game when he had a heart attack.

Famous heroic kitten breaks out of prison to rescue house pets in Ohio from being eaten by JD Vance.

Are the Apple announcements like great reunions for people who have been going to these things regularly for 20+ years? If so, I can see the value in it. I went to a reunion at Berkman, after 20 years, and it was great, made me wonder why we didn't do it every year for the ...

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Could Kamala Harris look into the camera tomorrow night and say "To Fox News viewers, they've been feeding you a load crap. Just thought you should know that. And I wouldn't trust what the others are saying either."

My thanks to 1Password — which, earlier this year, acquired longtime DF sponsor Kolide — for sponsoring last week at DF. When the EU enacted GDPR in 2018, executives and security professionals waited anxiously to see how the law would be enforced. And then they kept waiting ...

As it stands, fun side is not the EU. But hope springs eternal.

A very practical issue.

BlueSky has a 300 character limit, which is less than the other services I cross-post to, namely:

• Mastodon: 500 (using mastodon.social as benchmark)
• Threads: 500
• Twitter: 10000 (assume paying the montly fee)
• RSS: no specific limit
• WordPress: no specific limit
• BlueSky: 300

This will be a problem when we eventually get peering working cross-network among twitter-like systems.

As it stands, fun side is not the EU. But hope springs eternal.

Do you think you've ever had an online chat with an AI impersonating a human without you knowing? Have you had such an experience with someone you know? If no, when do you think you will have such a conversation? Would you mind if a friend used an AI to front for them, so they could do other things while they were "chatting" with you? Would you be liable for anything your avatar did or said?

Also, when the Berlin Wall came down there were no blogs or podcasts. We got what we were given by the news networks and NYT and WSJ.

It's a fascinating moment, somewhat like when the Berlin Wall came down. When it happened, we were all kind of in a daze. That wall had been there my entire life. No one knew, for many years, what its disappearance would mean. Same with the wall betw the Democratic and Republican parties. It was still the same US when one or the other was in power, there were constants that didn't change. There was an agreement that politics ends at the border. But now, are there two parties? What became of the one we call Republican?