I was able to use the Tubi app to watch the Super Bowl on both an Apple TV 4K and an iPad, but the Vision Pro app gave an error the entire time.
How to Watch the Super Bowl on the Apple Vision Pro
The streaming service called Tubi is one of the official ways to stream the Super Bowl this year, and I noticed they have a native app for the Vision Pro. I'm sure it's not using any of the Vision Pro's real promise for sporting events, but I'll try it out anyway.
Charles Pulliam-Moore, writing at The Verge:
"...Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is, in fact, one of those 'woke' shows you’re always hearing culturally conservative types harp on about. It celebrates multiculturalism by treating diversity as a simple fact of the world Peter Parker exists in. And the series’s 'wokeness' is honestly one of the best things about it."
This is part of what I was referring to when I previously posted about the show, and this article is a really nice expansion of why this is a real strength of the show. I've seen two more episodes since writing that previous post, and I continue to really like it, and recommend it, as well as the linked article about it. (The article does discuss the show at length, so I recommend reading it after watching the early episodes if you want to avoid minor spoilers.)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gets community justice right
Disney Plus’ new Spider-Man series is a solid exploration of what it means to be a street-level hero.
Dominic Preston, writing at The Verge:
"Apple has reportedly been ordered by the UK government to create a backdoor that would give security officials access to users’ encrypted iCloud backups. If implemented, British security services would have access to the backups of any user worldwide, not just Brits, and Apple would not be permitted to alert users that their encryption was compromised."
Anyone reading this should turn on Advanced Data Protection, which encrypts iCloud backups, which aren't encrypted by default. There is one big caveat: You have to make doubly sure that you have your Recovery Key in a totally secure place, since you can lose your data irrevocably if you lose that key. That said, that's the reason why it's so powerful—even Apple can't decrypt your backups, even if asked by a government.
Apple ordered to open encrypted user accounts globally to UK spying
The secret order would give the UK access to encrypted backups belonging to any user — not just Brits.
Musk Isn't The Problem
Elon Musk couldn't be doing the things he's doing without Trump giving him the agency and authority, and Trump couldn't enable those things without Congress being complicit. We need to hang these actions on the people we elected and who have the power to do something about it. The fault belongs to Trump and to Congress. (Of course, it also belongs to us for putting them there, but that's another thing entirely.)
"Newly discovered fungal species makes zombies of cave spiders on island of Ireland"
Oh, man, just like The Last of Us!
Such manipulation of the host in order to favor dispersal of the fungal spores engendered the description of 'zombie-ant fungi' and led to the publication of a number of zombie-fungus themed books, as well as to a popular video game and the television series, The Last of Us. Behavioural-changing metabolites, such as dopamine, have since been identified in cultures of zombie-ant fungi of the genus Ophiocordyceps.
"Newly discovered fungal species makes zombies of cave spiders on island of Ireland"
Dave Winer, on Our Social Web:
"Support for links is the basic requirement of the web, the same way we say feeds are required to be a podcast. If you don't support links not only aren't you the web, you're anti-web."
I can't think of a more basic requirement for the Web, let alone the "social web". I'd add that it has to be two-way linking, as well—both links in and out. Instagram, in particular, was always a non-starter for me in large part due to this.
oursocialweb.org
"Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" Debut
I watched the first two episodes of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" on Disney+, and I'm impressed. The character designs and animations are great—they're modern takes on the styles of the early Spider-Man comics, evoking the style of Steve Ditko. The characters themselves are also fresh takes on some classics, while also introducing new ones. I'm certain this will be controversial with some, as the cast of characters is very diverse, and some long-time characters have been race- and/or gender-swapped from the comics, but I found the changes to be fun. For instance, Dr. Connors is a woman, and Norman Osborne is a Black man.
Peter Parker has changed from being a bullied nerd to a nerd who has jock friends, and is relatively well liked. His pressures and social challenges come more from having too many demands on his time—his friends, his internship, and his perceived responsibilities as Spider-Man. This, too, feels like a nice change of pace to me. His origin has changed from being bitten by a radioactive spider to being bitten by an alien spider during an encounter with what appeared to be a symbiote like Venom. Fine, I guess.
Spider-Man's costume is cobbled together clothing that looks good, while being the kind of thing a kid would be able to come up with. His web shooters are a primitive version with a pressure tank on his back and hoses connected to his wrists. All fun details, in my opinion.
One thing I don't like is that this is yet another alternate timeline: it's adjacent to the MCU Spider-Man universe, but it branches right at the beginning, with the introduction of Dr. Strange and the destruction of Midtown High. I think we could do without more alternate timelines right now.
Anyway, we're only two episodes in, so I'm not going to call it a win yet, but it's a great start.
It sounds better than I expected it to be. I'm looking forward to watching it.
Star Trek: Section 31 is firing on all cylinders
Paramount Plus’ new Star Trek film: Discovery spinoff movie feels like the start of something better than another series.
I never got deep into watches, although I've worn one for many years. It used to be a stainless steel model, as the article describes, albeit not nearly as expensive as the ones listed. I've given up on traditional watches since the debut of the Apple Watch, though. I bought the original stainless steel model (and stayed with that choice through multiple upgrades), but the highlight has been the stainless bracelet, which is truly a wonderful piece of engineering, requiring no tools to resize. It's also extremely durable, looks as good today as when I bought it back in 2015, and I've used it with every Watch I've had since. Most recently, I bought the Apple Watch Ultra 2 instead of the stainless standard model when it was time to upgrade, and the stainless bracelet continues to look good with it, despite the material difference. Highly recommended.
Also: While the whole article is worth the short read, this line—mostly an aside to the point of the article—stood out to me: "If more men got into watches instead of guns, it would be a better world." Truth.
One Good Watch
Despite what magazines and other men’s style resources may tell you, the truth is that you only need one good watch: the classic stainless steel tool watch.
Oh, please be as good as this trailer looks.
Marvel Television's Daredevil: Born Again | Official Trailer | Disney+
Tom Nichols, writing at The Atlantic:
What America and the world saw today was not a serious examination of a serious man. Instead, Republicans on the committee showed that they would rather elevate an unqualified and unfit nominee to a position of immense responsibility than cross Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or the most ardent Republican voters in their home states. America’s allies should be deeply concerned; America’s enemies, meanwhile, are almost certainly laughing in amazement at their unexpected good fortune.
What an embarrassment. It's going to be a long four years. Let's hope we can repair the damage when it's over.
The GOP Is No Longer the Party of National Security
America’s allies and enemies watched as Trump’s pick for defense secretary failed to quell concerns about his character and qualifications.
Jess Weatherbed, at The Verge:
"An aircraft helping to fight wildfires that are raging across Los Angeles was struck by a civilian drone on Thursday. The collision damaged the wing of the aircraft — a CL-415 “Super Scooper” capable of scooping up 1,600 gallons of ocean water to drop onto nearby blazes — according to a statement by the LA County Fire Department posted on X, putting it out of service until it can be repaired."
FFS
Drone takes out Super Scooper fighting Los Angeles wildfires
The aircraft was capable of refilling 1,600 gallons in five minutes.
This is well-written, first-person account of the fires burning in Southern California right now. It's a tragedy unfolding in real-time.
‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This’
The Palisades Fire is destroying places that I’ve loved.
Jason Snell, at Six Colors:
Summarizing summaries isn’t working out for Apple, but more broadly I think there’s something to the idea of presenting AI-written headlines and summaries in order to provide utility to the user.
True, we focus on the times when LLMs do a bad job, but since humans are deliberately doing a bad job pretty regularly, this might be a good use for the tech.
LLMs aren’t always bad at writing news headlines
On Monday I complained about Apple’s response to Apple Intelligence making mistaken summaries of news headlines. But here’s the funny thing: large-language models are actually pretty go...