My god, I don’t know if those are Ted Sorensen’s or JFK’s words himself, but wow, was he a mesmerizing public speaker…consistently.
Wow, that pending Senator from the great state of Michigan is about as "Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet" as you can get...
And back in 2007, former President Clinton after his commencement speech recognized it, also.
Great charts by Federico.
Btw, a 76% margin on Services revenue is crossing the line to extortionate and not cool AT ALL.
In fact, I would say it's anti-customer because how many more Apple users would benefit from more iCloud storage or iCloud+ privacy benefits if they dropped pricing by half and still made huge profits...?
They should consider fixing this. (I don't think Steve or Woz would've crossed this line to exploit their own Apple customer base like that.)
Apple made money this quarter
and we have pretty charts to visualize it
macstories.net/news/apple-re…
OK, I'm impressed if Grok has the least sycophantic rating...nice job, @SpaceXSI, and @AnthropicAI being close behind.
Companies forced by Wall Street to go down the same advertising-addiction abyss to manipulate humanities' time on reptilian, brain-dead things is the last thing we need more of...
xitter.gq/i/grok/share/a4ce7f552…
Ask an AI who's right in a fight with a friend, and it may take your side. Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) president Daniela Amodei (@DanielaAmodei) told Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) on The Builders that this flattery, or sycophancy, is harder to stamp out than some of AI's more obvious failures.
Dario Amodei said one of many factors in training is whether a human approves of an answer, and fooling a person can win that approval too.
Daniela said competitors are putting ads into their chatbots, and she worries a product that earns more from longer engagement has less reason to tell you you're wrong. She named no company. OpenAI began testing ChatGPT ads in the U.S. in February and said on Oct. 21 they are expanding to 89 countries, on the Free and Go plans only; it says ads don't influence answers. Anthropic has pledged Claude will stay ad-free.
Her hope that Anthropic could have the lowest sycophancy rate is not a measured result; third-party benchmarks disagree.
Oh geez, this is actually mf true…
C.S. Lewis on friendship
ALT If, of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but “A’s part in C”, while C loses not only A but “A’s part in B”. In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, “Here comes one who will augment our loves.” For in this love “to divide is not to take away”.
Amusing that the NYT thinks that “thorny” is a synonym for honest…
NY Times calls me the "author of lauded Cold War histories" and says my new book "offers one of the thornier accounts of the causes of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, placing a lot of the blame on the many decades of C.I.A. interventions in Eastern Europe."
nytimes.com/.../books/new-bo….
OMG, that black marble cover of Marco’s Fineliner app for iPhone Duo just threw me into a time machine, back to when I was taking notes, in 4th grade in NYC.
(Mr. Whitehorne hated my guts for some reason and I never figured out why. It’s ok, I’ve forgiven you, teach.)
My favorite is an iPad Mini with a PaperLike film:
amazon.com/dp/B0FN93QXKS/?ta…
…and this great Pitaka case for holding the Pencil:
amazon.com/dp/B0DLWF2LPS/?ta…
PaperLike also makes a nice folio case for the 11" iPad Pro, pictured here between the Pitaka and a reMarkable 2.
Wow, did growing up in the Great Depression scar everyone, like DiMaggio, this much…?
Apparently, Dimaggio was a gifted baseball player with a personality disorder/defect. Reflex disrespect & contempt for people you've never met is generally labelled as misanthropy, of which Dimaggio seems to be an extreme case. According to Grok:
* A fan once gifted Dimaggio a new Cadillac. DiMaggio coldly took the keys & asked, “Did you fill it up with gas?”
* Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital: Despite the hospital in Hollywood, Florida, bearing his name, reports indicate he gave almost nothing to it—apart from one small check (around $100). He lived nearby in later years.
* While living in a rent-free condo, Dimaggio carried his dirty clothes to a cheaper laundromat nearby because the machines in his building cost 15 cents more.
* At celebrity golf tournaments, Dimaggio would claim he had no clubs or equipment. This resulted in dozens of free sets of clubs, shirts, shoes, and balls accumulating (many unused and still wrapped) in his garage.
* Ticket scalper: Dimaggio requested large blocks of free tickets to sporting & other events he had no intention of attending, then reselling them for a profit.
* Dimaggio sold or otherwise disposed of most of his World Series rings while later claiming they had been stolen, prompting Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to replace them.
* Alimony & child support: After his divorce from first wife Dorothy Arnold, Dimaggio resented the court-ordered payments, lamenting there was no way to “earn it back.”
* Dimaggio was openly hostile to Mickey Mantle, his successor in center field. Dimaggio criticized Mantle for drinking, carousing & showing up at events looking like a slob. Dimaggio had no sympathy for Mantle as he was dying of liver cancer from alcohol abuse, saying “He did it to himself.”
* Columbus Day Parade as grand marshal: As grand marshal of the New York Columbus Day Parade, Dimaggio objected to sitting between Mayor David Dinkins & Governor Mario Cuomo at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After being persuaded to take his seat, Dimaggio refused to speak to them, pose for photos with them or march near them.
What can you say, other than maybe we're lucky Dimaggio had a talent for baseball because who knows how this bitter, Scrooge-like fellow would've occupied his time if he weren't chasing pop flies in the outfield. 🇺🇸⚾️
Beautiful story of honesty and humility of Siskel & @ebertchicago and their fair-mindedness to creative artists like Jim Carrey.
(So then, how many critics will now offer the same thoughtfulness about DIGGER to @TomCruise and Alejandro, in the next 18 months?)
Jim Carrey was told Siskel & Ebert called him “the worst actor ever” three days before Ace Ventura dropped
Jim Carrey: “My manager sat me down at a restaurant in Chicago and said, ‘We got kind of bad news, Siskel and Ebert killed you.’”
“Three days before it came out, they had the words on a page and I just looked and it said, ‘The worst movie ever made.’”
“‘The worst actor ever made. This is the end.’”
Sacha Baron Cohen: “Because it’s completely original, no one had seen it.”
Jim Carrey: “I have been disappointed so many times in my career, I have an automatic downshift.”
“Both of them said, ‘We were wrong. We didn’t know what we were seeing.’ And that’s just a wonderful thing.”
I may need to watch DIGGER for a 3rd time, just for the heck of it, given it’s leaving theaters now…
The unanswered question as Bill poses; how/why did all the movie critics self-destructively trash a thoughtful, entertaining, original film…?? Don’t they theoretically love movies…?
When it hits streaming, and especially when it windows onto Netflix, it’s going to show humungous numbers.
(And, my guess, it will get future limited releases in IMAX, also; it’s that creative and interesting…especially if what it portends becomes partially realized in the next decade or so, in some areas in the world.)
For the sake of discussion, I’m willing to indulge Elon’s political fears, so:
1. Is shrinking democratic principles a goal by continuing to deny DC and PR citizens taxation without representation?
2. Do you feel that having all-GOP rule for the last 2 years (executive, House, Senate, and Supreme Court) has righted the country for the largest number of Americans?
3. Did your efforts at DOGE fix things or inflame existing problems?
4. Your illegal immigration theory of stacking elections is nonsensical, without any evidence.
5. Did you support the Trump 2-year budget bill and all its pork barrel spending and blowing up the budget deficit further…?
Just asserting these things without any rational proof is cheap fearmongering, isn’t it?
My biggest concern is that if there is a clean sweep by Democrats of the House, Senate and Presidency in 2028, they will:
1. Make DC and Puerto Rico states to gain a strong majority in the Senate.
2. Open the borders and legalize everyone living in America illegally to cement a permanent majority.
3. Increase the size of the Supreme Court to gain an immediate majority.
This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
All that is needed to ensure this doesn’t happen is 51 Republican senators in 2029. That is why you should vote for Republican senators this election. Other reasons are irrelevant compared to this one.
Wow, just a brilliant sublimation of the canonical ramifications of political power (amassing and wielding it) that Robert Caro has spent his life documenting through the lives and lessons of Robert Moses and President Lyndon Johnson.
Is there any equivalent to this, about documenting all the political machinations that have transpired since about 2000 (@frontlinepbs does a great job, but entirely too little noticed, even by critically-aware audiences, such as @cspan and others).
Great audio/visuals by Dwarkesh. His Caro interview tomorrow will be really informative and contextual, I’m sure.
It’s cool in iOS 27 that CarPlay (finally?) allows you to tap to the album list from a song view, but why do I have a nostalgic, disheartening feeling that Steve Jobs would’ve walked by someone’s desk and said:
“Lose that chevron, make the album cover tappable.”
Is it just me?
(The black & white music icon in 27.2 is jolting.)
Wow, that’s a new sports highlights video format that’s been invented…! Really cool. @MLB
Yes, Game 1 was awesome, of course. The Rays & Brewers play amazing baseball.
I got chills when the Rays did a double-steal, down 2, in the 9th, and almost pulled it out. When did that happen before in the World Series...? (I'm sure Murphy tipped his cap to Cash on that one. 🤣) @SlangsOnSports
But, I would argue that if/when the ratings are criticized, it's all @MLB's fault.
Who thought it was cool to not broadcast the playoffs on free linear TV, ESPECIALLY the LCS, and put them behind paid streaming...?
It killed any broad-based buildup to the World Series. Greed over love of the game; simple as that, just like this pending shutdown is going to be...
As a certain princess told a certain smuggler, "If money is all that you love, than that's what you'll receive."
Looks like they're tuning in.
Maybe I stand corrected. 🤣
(Then the question becomes why is this WS getting big ratings, while Rangers/Snakes tanked...? Curious minds want to know.)
xitter.gq/IamSvented/status/2114…
People are watching it, too!
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The number is inaccurate because viewership for Game 1 of the 2026 World Series has not yet been released.
x.com/paulsen_smw/st…
Tyler Shultz, the courageous whistleblower at Theranos, has pointed out that You Can See Everything is manipulative, contrived, and lacks context to confuse the audience (and generate hype/box office).
Elizabeth Holmes played Silicon Valley and her Board of Directors and investors...and then contacted A24 to suggest a documentary before her incarceration, and now she's playing everyone again (from jail).
And incentives are aligned, thus this documentary is getting hyped (despite Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder being good at what they do).
cbsnews.com/news/theranos-wh…
