🆕📝 On Tim Cook, Cowardice, and Leadership
This will probably get lost in the hubbub of today's iPhone event, but I had to get it off my chest before participating in the excitement of new gadget season.
Amit Gawande has come to embrace imperfection in blogging — something I’m still trying to learn:
I have a bad habit while blogging – my posts need to have a structure. Context first. Lead to the main point next. Follow that with as many supporting points as I can think of. And then I finally hit the whole point of writing the post.
This is foolish. I am not writing perfect prose. I am not writing to meet a particular word count. I often write to convey a thought. One thought. I should write just that one thought.
It doesn’t matter if it takes 10 words. Or 500.
Jules has attended summer camp in Old Forge the past few summers and got bit by the #46er bug. He and his dad booked us for a 2-day backpacking trip in which we knocked out three more peaks: Big Slide and the Wolfjaws, with Yard Mountain tossed in for good measure. It was so cool to help them dial in their hiking and camping skills, and we shared so many stories, riddles, and brain teasers on the trail. These two aspiring 46ers are well on their way!
Hanging out with Jim and @imjessicakahler and helping them on their @adirondack46ers_ journey was one of the highlights of my summer. Thanks for all the wonderful memories, guys, and I can’t wait till the next one! 🙏
Our clients are just the best! Just got a special delivery as member of the #SlothHikingTeam. 😁 I’ll wear it with pride. Thanks Jim & @imjessicakahler! 🦥
‘Twas a bad choice for folks to elect Trump. Don’t let voters ignore it.
The latest jobs report came in short, from AlterNet:
A federal jobs report released on Friday showed the US economy added a mere 22,000 jobs in August in yet another signal of weakness in the US labor market.
Economists had projected the economy would produce 75,000 jobs on the month[.]
Rep. Brendan Boyle says it plainly:
“Donald Trump inherited an economy built on years of steady job growth,” he said. “In just seven months, he’s managed to screw it up—just like he’s screwed up everything else in his life.
It seems the Trump administration’s guiding principle is to simply choose whatever side of an issue that will hurt the most people.
This time, they’re rolling back plans to make airlines compensate travelers for major disruptions and cancellations. But why?
🔗 macOS Icon History — Basic Apple Guy:
The new Apple Books icon might be the only one I like more than its predecessor. Good on BAG for putting this together, but it honestly makes me a little sad to scroll through. It’s like perusing a junk yard full of old masterpieces that were chucked aside.
Numeric Citizen: ‘While We Wait for the Next Apple Infomercial’
The consequences go beyond presentation style. The mythos of the Apple keynote—once a cornerstone of the company’s brand identity—risks fading into irrelevance. Once communal experiences, these events are now solitary viewings.
True. Though I’ve always watched the keynotes alone from my Mac, the feeling of being part of the crowd that was lucky enough to attend in person is gone. Producing a slick video takes skill, and Apple arguably does it best. But it doesn’t carry the same clout as nailing a live keynote, as they used to do.
Weird weather stuff this year. During the first few months, Upstate New York had something like 30 weekends in a row of rain or snow. Now we’re in a drought due to lack of rainfall for the last 90 days. No bueno! ☔️☀️
A sneak peek at an update to one of my most popular shortcuts…
(Oh, On-Device Apple Intelligence, bless your heart.)
I just installed the macOS 26 beta and yikes. I’ll reserve real judgment for when it’s actually released, but wow, the design has not made a good first impression. So many years of polish thrown out the Liquid Glass window for what feels—right now—like an unfinished and ill-considered desktop OS.
Kagi News looks awesome. And of course they have RSS feeds for everything. They’re doing the yeoman’s work for the web over at Kagi.
Kagi’s new news portal is wild. It’s like Ground News, but free. It cites multiple sources for each entry and you don’t even need a paid Kagi account, or an account at all to access it.
Kevin Wammer: ‘Polar launches Polar Loop, a subscription-free wearable’
The Loop has no screen and is designed for 24/7 wear, weighing only 29 grams. It tracks steps, workouts, heart rate, calories, sleep stages, and recovery using “Polar’s Precision Prime sensor”. It automatically detects training sessions, syncs data to the Polar Flow app, and runs for up to 8 days on a single charge.
For folks wanting the activity tracking of the Apple Watch, but without the watch part or a subscription, this looks pretty good at first glance. (Via Club MacStories 🔒)
Nick Heer: ‘Tech CEOs Take Turns Grovelling at Feast of Embarrassments’
At least nobody gave him any solid gold statues this time, as far as I know.
Heer should get a gold statue for that headline.
Every hiker’s journey is different, so although this was the second #46er finish I was part of this week, it was totally unique! Jim started his 46er challenge years ago with a friend, but when they couldn’t do it this summer, his daughter @imjessicakahler stepped up!
Getting to spend so much time with them was a blast, and on this trip we enjoyed awesome weather, tasty food, and even of the lean-to we wanted. Conditions on Skylight were just amazing, and two others were celebrating their 46er completion at the same time. Wild!
Congrats, Jim. It’s been a challenge, but you found yourself equal to it.
Catching up on some recent trips, here’s @imjessicakahler and her dad, Jim, on our overnighter to snag Mt. Marshall last month! We had a wet start, but enjoyed a dry night in the famous ADK lean-tos, and an awesome day up the Herbert Brook trail. Check back tomorrow to see Jim finish out his 46ers!
Paul Kafasis: ‘Another Shameful Part of American History’
There’s room for debate when it comes to immigration policy, but there must be no tolerance for abuse. Regardless of their immigration status, we’re talking about human beings, and placing them in concentration camps should be unacceptable to every American.
I’m ashamed to share a country, or even a species, with people capable of reveling in the misery of others. Let us all try to be better than that.
How are we back to rounding up people and putting them in inhumane conditions? This is a cycle the U.S. should never be in. 🤮
Ugh. I wish Instagram made it easier to get posts out. I’ve got a Make.com setup to crosspost them to my blog for safekeeping, but I keep hitting free-plan limits. Hard to justify paying more for the automation than for the blog itself. A fruitless wish, I know.
TIL that in the Messages app on Mac, if you hold down ⌥ and then cycle with the up/down arrow keys with the message field highlighted, it’ll autofill your previous messages in case you need to rewrite something quickly for whatever reason. 🧠
Just a quick appreciation post for how impressive generated alt text has gotten. From my recent post with lots of cat pictures, using a prompt that’s basically as simple as “write alt text for this image.” I rarely need to make edits anymore.
The Sparks family really packed in a full day at King Philip Spring Wall for their first time climbing outdoors together! We climbed on three different walls, practiced a bunch of new techniques, did a primer on top rope anchors, and got in a gorgeous rappel!
The whole family had a blast, and it was another gorgeous early autumn day with the crag all to ourselves. #Sendtember is just around the corner!
Matt Birchler: ‘+ My text-based social media thoughts mid-2025’
There was a joke a few years ago about how Avatar was the highest grossing movie of all time, but no one talks about it and it doesn’t have any major cultural impact. I think that’s being a bit unfair to Avatar, but I think that general idea applies to Threads as well. Apparently tons of people are using it, tens of millions more people every month, but it doesn’t seem to have any “juice”.
I was bullish on Threads, and now actively avoid it. I only think about it when it annoys me by sneaking posts into my Instagram feed.