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The Last Quiet Thing | Terry Godier:

What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn't a moral failure but the completely rational response to being made responsible for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking? 

Another crackerjack essay on design and attention from Terry Godier. (Note that the Casio in the essay not only shows the actual time, but has functional buttons.)

Apple Newsroom today: Apple today announced AirPods Max 2, bringing even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), elevated sound quality, and intelligent features to the iconic over-ear design. Powered by H2, features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Iso...

“What that means in practice is that even a kernel-level exploit would not be able to turn on the camera without the light appearing on screen.”

I thought I had escaped the gravitational pull of Arsenal fandom, but then Max Dowman showed up. Now I’m in an unstable orbit.

60 Minutes should do a segment on what you have to go through to get a birth certificate in any random state. It's a lot of work, I've had to do it twice in the last few years. You'd have to be a pretty committed voter to be willing to do all that work. I imagine it would be even harder if you're black, and it's going to be hugely hard for married women who changed their last name when they got married. And how much you want to bet they don't accept birth certificates from Muslim countries? It is the biggest scam ever, and if the journalists don't cover it that way, always, with no both-sides-isms, then we should all know this is the end of journalism in the US. And btw also the end of real elections in the US too. The Repubs these days like to say they're against the "deep state" -- well my friends this is about the most deep state bullshit ever.

Reuters tries to out Banksy:

We concluded that the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse. In so doing, we applied the same principle Reuters uses everywhere. The people and institutions who seek to shape social and political discourse are subject to scrutiny, accountability, and, sometimes, unmasking. Banksy’s anonymity – a deliberate, public-facing, and profitable feature of his work – has enabled him to operate without such transparency. 

The idea that an artist, like a government agency, cannot be allowed to “operate without transparency” is ludicrous. This is idle curiosity masquerading as social responsibility. 

Cal Newport: This is a worst-case scenario: you work faster and harder, but mainly on shallow, mentally taxing tasks (because of all the context shifting they require) that only indirectly help the bottom line compared to harder efforts. It’s not quite clear why AI tools ar...

Carole King, 1971. So so beautiful.

David Pogue absolutely killed it hosting this live event last week. Glad I saved it to watch on my TV. Special guests include Chris Espinosa, John Sculley, and Avie Tevanian. A legit treat.

Apple (MacRumors): As of March 15, 2026, changes will be made to the commission rates that apply to the China mainland storefront of the App Store on iOS and iPadOS. The commission rate for standard Apple In-App Purchase and paid app transactions will be 25%. Currently, the rate is 30%. The commission rate for qualifying […]

Computer History Museum (MacRumors): Join us for a special CHM Live evening celebrating Apple’s first half-century, featuring speakers from across the eras of Apple history, including former Apple CEO John Sculley, Senior Employee Chris Espinosa, former Senior Vice President (SVP) of Hardware Engineering Jon Rubinstein (by video), and former Chief Software Technology Officer and SVP […]

Amanda Silberling (Hacker News, Slashdot): Meta acquired Moltbook, the Reddit-like “social network” where AI agents using OpenClaw can communicate with one another. The news was first reported by Axios and later confirmed to TechCrunch. Moltbook is joining Meta Superintelligence Labs, a Meta spokesperson told us. Moltbook creators Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr will join the […]

A wonderful essay on Constable’s The Leaping Horse and … other matters. 

Resume.org, summarizing their survey of 1,000 U.S. hiring managers:

59% admit they emphasize AI when explaining hiring freezes or layoffs because it plays better with stakeholders than citing financial constraints.

Reminds me of the “Not Me” ghost in Bil Keane’s The Family Circus comic strip.

My thanks to Finalist for sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. Finalist is a remarkable, ambitious, and novel app for iPhone, iPad, and the Mac from indie developer Slaven Radic. It’s a planner — a digital take on traditional paper planners — that (with permission) pulls...

Horace Dediu, under the headline “The Most Brilliant Move in Corporate History?”: Apple used to be the biggest capex spender, mainly because it paid for most of the property plant and equipment in the factories that made its phones and computers. [...] But that all chan...

As I sit here on Sunday morning, reflecting on what has been one of the most hectic writing weeks in a long time, I can’t help but ask, why? Of course, there was a lot of news and action. Not that any of that matters to me, but still, there were new Apple products that …

They've been having intelligent and clear-thinking guests on CNN and MSNOW on the coverage of the Iran War, unusually good discourse. But the best coverage I've heard has been from Frontiline podcasts. There's a new one out, haven't listened to it yet, but the one I heard yesterday was very informative and probably a better briefing than our president has been getting (or paying attention to).