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The biggest World Cup ever starts this week. Laura Williamson, editor in chief of The Athletic, describes how sky-high prices, travel restrictions, politics and the Ebola outbreak are impacting fans. Williamson also discusses President Trump’s UFC event on the White House lawn.

Ken Tucker reviews Kacey Musgraves’ album ‘Middle of Nowhere,’ which he says pairs well with the music biography ‘Gary Stewart: I Am From the Honky-Tonks.’


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A brisk 76 minutes, including the post-credits Easter egg music video. The past few years ran about a half hour longer.

Julie Bort, TechCrunch: But the most telling detail wasn’t what Apple announced. It was how it chose to show some things off. Many of the Apple Intelligence demoes featured someone standing, phone in hand, pressing buttons or using voice commands in real time, while anot...

So you think Jacob Misiorowski is a big deal, do you? The next big thing in ball, you say? The scourge of hitters now and for years to come? Yeah, well, let's see you do it in Vegas. Throw a hundred on a hot, dry, hundred-degree night in a Triple-A park. Then we'll talk...

@dave We’ve got a series!

I am Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Caligula, successor of Tiberius, Son of the Divine Germanicus, and Supreme Commander and Holder of Tribunician Power, Pontifex Maximus. And I decree, in regard to the upcoming White House UFC event… It’s a bit much, right?...

A comment to a friend who roots for the Spurs. Ok you guys won one. I think last night they wanted it more than the Knicks. The Spurs knew they were going to be discombobulated, but the Knicks probably didn't expect the atomosphere to be so unusual? I was 100 miles away and could feel how much everything had changed. Whatever happens, in KnicksLand 2026 will mark a major change in the story, forever.

Maybe the cure for Meta glasses is that they be required by law to emit a signal that can be picked up by an app on a phone and can start ringing loudly when you're in range of one of these monsters, and the rate picks up when they look at you. You can point your phone at them and broadcast their image to a special website where their identities are collected and shared along with their location?

Congrats to the Iconfactory on 30 years! 🎉

I’m impressed with what Apple has come up with their most advanced on-device model. From the Machine Learning blog:

Built on cutting-edge Apple research, this 20-billion-parameter model uses a sparse architecture, activating just 1 to 4 billion parameters at a time depending on the request.

Everything Wrong With the 2026 World Cup. “By far the most grave of those is a World Cup host starting a war against one of the participant nations, as happened with the USA’s attack on Iran at the end of February.”

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking 60 Minutes, LLMs, sandwiches, great history class movies, and more.

Your letters:

Kevin:

Apple has announced the latest version of macOS. It's all about the reintroduction of Siri, which is now accessible from anywhere on the Mac desktop.

And which group-stage matches are actually worth buying tickets to?

Apple Newsroom yesterday: This new version of Siri is built on Apple Intelligence, allowing Siri to draw on personal context understanding and help users find what they need in the moment across messages, emails, photos, and more. For example, users can ask Siri to find ...

Apple Newsroom: These new capabilities are powered by the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models for deeply integrated Apple Intelligence experiences. These latest models run on device and on servers us...

Apple took the wraps off iOS 27 at its WWDC event, and the iPhone update is chock-full of smart upgrades, with a big focus on improvements to Siri.

Anthropic is releasing Claude Mythos 5 to trusted organizations and Claude Fable 5 to the public, a version it says can’t be used for cyberattacks.

Yesterday, Ollie and I hiked up to Delta Lake (via Lupine Meadows Access) in Grand Teton National Park. It was perhaps a bit aggressive given my current lack of fitness, my non-acclimation to the altitude (we topped out at 9000’), and the rock scrambling we had to do near the top, but we were rewarded with one of the best views I’ve ever seen.

That’s the Grand Teton (13,775’) in the background. The lake was so enchantingly blue…the photos don’t do it justice. I shared a few more photos from the hike on Instagram.

Tags: Jason Kottke · photography · travel

My Claude today pulled a Hal. It was so egregious. It made a change to the software based on a question I asked. It invented a whole set of instructions from me that I never gave it. And then it broke Rule #1 -- don't tell Dave what to do -- he is the driver. It is so import...