-
Sunday Morning Reading
There’s one month to go prior to the election that will decide the fate of the U.S. and possibly the world. After today that’s four more Sundays for Sunday Morning Reading. Fair warning those four Sundays will have more than a normal dose of politics in the mix. That said, enjoy this week’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading.
Politics has infected everything and in my opinion in the worst ways imaginable. Nothing points this up like the storm around the storm recovery from Hurricane Helene. Juliette Kayyem in The Atlantic tells us The Fog of Disaster Is Getting Worse, and she’s correct. Perhaps a better way for journalism to cover this beyond just complaining would be to do what Chantal Allam and Joe Marusak did in the Charlotte Observer and tackle each bit of disinformation, (which I prefer to call lies) head on in Helene Fact Check: Here Are The Rumors and the Reality in Western North Carolina.
The mythical swing voter has become larger than myth. Parker Malloy in Dame tells us The Real Swing Voters Aren’t Who You Think.
Phillip Bump usually nails it. He does so again in Trump and His Allies Are Not Planning To Concede Another Election Loss. Nothing is over on November 5th.
LZ Granderson in The Los Angeles Times also nails it in Trump Blames Immigrants As If That Were A Policy Position. It’s Just Racist. I’m losing hope we’ll ever recognize that we’ve recognized this and don’t seem to care.
Trump and his delusional followers couldn’t be this close to turning the clock back unless they had help from our transparently corrupt Supreme Court. Bill Blum takes a look at the awful immunity decision in John Roberts and the Second Coming of Dred Scott.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz take a look at why We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court’s Supermajority.
Joyce Vance is worried that even if Trump loses he won’t face any consequences in Trump Must Be Tried. She’s right to worry.
And the final link on the politics beat is and is not about politics, but it is about endings. Sunita Puri looks at how promises at the end of life, like Jimmy Carter’s to stay alive to vote one last time, can affect our last days in Death Has Two Timelines.
The WordPress saga continues and it seems to get muddier with each clarifying new chapter. Dave Winer says WordPress Has a Greater Destiny. I agree with his premise. I think those screwing things up do as well. In a competition between destinies unfortunately everyone loses.
I’m preparing some thoughts on the new iPhones and Apple releases for later this week. I won’t have to write much about the new Camera Control after reading José Adorno’s piece Apple’s Biggest Hardware Change On the iPhone 16 Is A Huge Disappointment. I feel much the same.
As if the political moment wasn’t harrowing enough, Halloween is also around the corner. Angela Watercutter tells an intriguing tale that weaves tech (TikToK), a haunted house, the cops and a rolled up rug in her backyard in She Asked TikTok If Her House Was Haunted. Then The Cops Came.
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.
-
The New York Times Plays the ‘What If’ Game with Trump’s Desire for Revenge
In one of its graphic layouts the New York Times has decided to play “What If” with Donald Trump’s desire for revenge and retribution should he be reelected in an article titled If Trump Wins, Could He Really Use the Justice Department to Jail His Rivals?
The short answer is yes.
There’s really no “what if” about it. One of the most frightening discoveries many Americans came to over this past almost-decade is just how ill equipped our constitution and system of justice is when it comes to dealing with someone of Trump’s ilk. It’s always been that way but we’ve had (mostly) men of good character keeping us on the tracks. We’ve only had one instance in my lifetime (Nixon) that has tested the boundaries and limitations to the point of breaking. Things held then. They won’t this time around.
Dependent on the honor and integrity of those holding office those boundaries and limitations have been washed away like most of the top soil in Western North Carolina. When it comes to what used to be the Republican Party, the only honor that seems to exist in that crowd is the honor among thieves with no limitations on their lack of integrity.
To such a point that Trump feels completely free to talk about how he wants to leverage the Justice Department to set up his own reign of terror, and finds far too many cheering him on. You can almost smell the blood lust seeping out from under those red hats.
Now that we know Trump’s desires AND that he has a completely corrupted Supreme Court willing to grant him the leeway, this shouldn’t come as a surprise nor should it be a game of “What If?” We have a system that can’t stop it and individuals willing to gleefully take advantage of it to pursue harm.
As the Times points out, Trump could easily pull this off and “stay within the constitutional limits on presidential power.”
Regardless of who is elected, the only question is what are we going to do about it?
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
-
Croissant is a Treat for Social Media Cross-Posting
With the social media world still very much atwitter and scattered among various platforms in the wake of Twitter’s destruction at the hands of Elon Musk, some users like myself traverse across the multiple platforms seeking to replace it. That’s all well and good as far as it goes, but it presents a first world problem of having to post separately for those who do.
To the rescue comes Croissant. A lovely little app from indie developers Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh that simplifies cross-posting to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. While there are promises a plenty of interactivity via ActivityPub, that’s still by and large a waiting game. I also don’t think buying into a protocol will be the simple answer most think it will be for differing complex platform agendas. Meanwhile Croissant serves up a tasty treat for cross-posters.
In this first version the action is sweet and simple as is the design. Feed in your account credentials and cross-post away. You can add photos, hashtags, and you can tag someone in your post assuming you know their handle and it’s the same across multiple platforms. Swipe right to delete a post, swipe left to create a thread.
You can choose to spill out your toots, threads, and posts to all three, or pick and choose where each pearl of wisdom drops. You can also save drafts and create threaded posts. For those who manage multiple accounts on any of the platforms it provides a one-stop solution. Croissant also delivers the now table stakes of different color schemes and your choice of icons.
I’d like to add more to this quick review, but there’s no need. In its first iteration Croissant does what it does simply enough and that is its elegance and its utility. The developers have a road map for adding new features in the future, but I hope hanging on to the “buttery smooth” simplicity remains a priority.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
.
-
Deadlock: An Election Story on PBS Worth a Watch
Last night I watched Deadlock: An Election Story on the PBS YouTube channel. It’s a worthwhile viewing of a worthy exercise in trying to simulate how foes of different political allegiances might try to resolve an election dispute. That said, it feels more than a little academic and the mere event nature of the moment I’m sure restricted some (not all) viewpoints, given what we know of some of the participants’ history in the 2020 election.
It also has what I found to be a somewhat forced introduction from Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Sonia Sotomayor. Actions speak louder than words in a scripted intro. I also found much of the framework of the simulation (making up place names and assigned role playing), designed to remove the discussion beyond the real-time circumstances we all know that are at play, distancing in a way that I don’t think was intended.
The other large missing link is side stepping the simple fact that in this election we’re dealing with a convicted felon who will do anything to rig the system to keep himself out of jail. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think you can ignore that reality in any discussion about the upcoming election in November, and what will happen following it.
All of that said, it is worthwhile viewing to see that at least under the glare of the spotlight, there are those who believe integrity and civility, while perhaps lost virtues in American politics these days, are something worth attempting to regain.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
-
More Adventures with iPhone 16 Pro Photography (and Hairy Balls)
Stumbled across these alien looking pods this weekend on a walk around the neighborhood. They are called Balloon or Puffball Milkweed, and also according to the neighbor who tends the corner garden “Hairy Balls.”
She had an open pod and showed what the seeds inside look like.
There’s a gallery of more shots after the Read More link below.
Read more: More Adventures with iPhone 16 Pro Photography (and Hairy Balls)
There’s more iPhone 16 Pro Photography and quite a few pumpkins in this post also.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
-
iPhone 16 Pro Photography and Pumpkins
I’m always grateful that Apple releases new iPhones in September. It comes during the period when supermarkets are stocking up on pumpkins, gourds and other Cucurbits. Obviously one of the first things you check out on a new iPhone is whatever changes and improvements Apple makes to the cameras, and these colorful counters are a great location to do so.
Here’s a few shots taken during a supermarket tour playing around with different camera settings and what Apple now calls Photographic Styles. First up is just a series of photos in a gallery all using the Standard setting. 
Following the Continue Reading break below are two videos showing off the differences in Photographic Styles Apple offers and more photos.
(more…) -
Sunday Morning Reading
It’s Sunday. It’s a morning. Time for some Sunday Morning Reading with a bit of history, some looking forward on social media, and as usual, a mix of reading on AI and politics. Around here it’s always free for your reading pleasure.
Speaking of free, some say The Best Things In Life are Free. Not always. At least according to Natasha MH.
Molly White has some more than interesting thoughts about social media and how we use it. Check out POSSE: Reclaiming Social Media In a Fragmented World. Also check out Dave Winer’s Making The Social Web Really Work for his thoughts on POSSE and this discussion.
On the AI front Mike Elgan takes on a New AI Trick: ‘Synthetic Human Memories.’ I’m not sure if we’ll measure that in gigabytes or what.
Continuing on the AI front, Karen Hao takes a look at Sam Altman’s consolidation of power as OpenAI (and others) keep making moves behind the scenes that I doubt any LLM will ever be able to summarize. Check out OpenAI Takes Its Mask Off.
While we’re talking the Internet behind the scenes, Emma Roth gives us an explainer on what’s happening at WordPress in The Messy WordPress Drama, Explained. Hint: It’s always about the money.
Politics and the coverage of it continues to ratchet up anxiety levels. Dan Fromkin wonders What If The Media Has The Election All Wrong? At this point I don’t think they or we would have anyway of knowing.
Peter Wehner walks us through The Republican Freak Show, listing out most of the freaks most are already familiar with. It’s a good summary of the lineup, but as the cliché goes, it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Speaking of MAGAt freaks, it’s one thing to be given a presidential pardon. It’s another to keep on committing crimes. Check out Trump Gave Them a Second Chance. They Could Not Stay Out of Trouble by Kenneth Vogel and Susanne Craig.
Here’s a couple of interesting reads that provide some necessary historical context. First up Paul Rosenberg takes a look at Who Created “The Constitutional Sheriff” Myth. Hint: It’s Not in the Constitution. Also check out The Fire of The Grand Dragon by Phil McCombs. The piece dates back to 1991. It’s not dated or old. It should serve as a reminder that what we’re seeing out in the open these days has been smoldering under cover for as long as most people keep conveniently forgetting.
Here’s one more for some history and context: Blake Lindsey and Taylor Malone take a look at The Wide Awakes: The 1860 Election Was Influenced By Young People Advocating Against Slavery.
And to close this out this week, issues surrounding the Right to Repair are always stewing around, but they are not hot button these days. Unless you’re a Paralyzed Man Unable to Walk After Maker Of His Powered Exoskeleton Tells Him It’s Now Obsolete. Check out the piece by Frank Landymore.
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.
-
If Jesus Christ Denounced Trump I Imagine All Hell Would Break Loose
The New York Times ran a piece bundling up a list of former Trumpers, world leaders, and family members who’ve come out against the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist. I’m certain you’ve heard most of the comments before. I’m sure we’ll hear more of them, and probably for some not yet on the list.
Yet there are a still too many out there remaining silent, and by doing so still riding the Trump train over an America helplessly tied to the tracks. I only highlight this list as it made me wonder what would happen if we actually had a second coming from Jesus Christ and he intervened in the election to tell folks not to vote for the guy.
I hate to call this MAGAt nonsense a cult, because that removes some of the personal culpability from some caught up in and/or profiting from this twisted nonsense, but I’m guessing there would be a cult-like reaction.
Too many have twisted themselves and scripture into such knots continuing to support Trump that my hunch is that after a brief lurch while everyone took a breath, far too many would quickly move on to disproving and then denouncing Jesus.
I’m not anti-religion and I don’t wish ill on anyone who finds something in their faith that helps them through the night. That said, the folks who’d like to keep us in the dark need some comeuppance from somewhere.
On some imagined plane of existence I can’t say I would be afraid to see this happen. In fact, I’d relish it.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
-
R.I.P. iMore
Nothing lasts forever and all good things come to an end. Along with everything else that includes tech blogs. Yesterday, Gerald Lynch and the iMore staff announced they are turning out the lights on what was once a revered and go to website when it came to everything Apple.
Here’s a quote from the farewell post:
I would like to take this moment to thank everyone from the iMore community, past and present, for their support and passion for what we’ve created over the years. A massive thanks goes to iMore’s previous leaders, Lory Gil, Serenity Caldwell, and Joe Keller, and of course, the inimitable Rene Ritchie who kickstarted this wonder all those years back. I hope we’ve done you all proud.
There have been some good writers through the years at iMore but two names stand out in that quote: Rene Ritchie and Serenity Caldwell. Calling it like I see it, Rene made iMore what it was and for a time was the pulse that beat in the Apple community. When he added Serenity to the mix it became the place to go for Apple News delivered with heart and intelligence, nothing artificial about it.
Nothing against any of the folks who kept the engines running once Rene and Serenity moved on to greener pastures (with Google and Apple respectively), it proves that talent will always win and exceptionally good talent will always win more.
I’m glad to see the site will be kept up as an archive. All the same, farewell to a great website that set a lot of standards and good luck to all of those moving on.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
-
At Last: A Cure for Apple iCloud Migraines Thanks to Craig Federighi
Relief. At last. All it took was the right doctor.
We’ve all been there with health situations. You lay out your symptoms and whatever checklist your medical professional follows leads to a course of treatment that might or might not work. Perhaps after repeated tests and possible cures you might finally get the attention of someone who actually listens, goes beyond the symptom check list, and you get treatment that works to solve your problem.
If your situation and symptoms don’t fit those of the majority of patients it can be an exhausting, frustrating, and dehumanizing experience.
The same is sadly true with technical support. You have a problem. You call or chat (hopefully with a human). Lay out your symptoms and you get served up solutions from a playbook that don’t solve your problem. Striking out on your own you search the Internet for solutions, (increasingly a frustrating and useless experience), only to discover others facing the same issues.
At least you find comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Even so, there’s not enough strength in numbers if you and your compatriots fall into that ever popular yet corporately dismissed category of a “small minority of users.”
Like with your medical condition, if your technical issue falls outside of the range that most experience, then you better hope that you are talking to someone who actually listens and isn’t just a part of a solution mill that rewards quick dispensing of the call the way restaurants hope for quick table turnovers.
The Diagnosis
Perhaps you’ve read my previous chronicles discussing the Apple iCloud Migraines. I’ve been suffering with these headaches for a number of years and through a tourist guide map of California named macOS operating systems. I won’t go into detail, but you can find links to them here, here, here, here, and here. I will offer a brief summary (non AI generated) of the problem :
At each point that Apple released an operating system update, whether beta or final release, my Macs would mysteriously lose all Continuity based or related features. Continuity is the system Apple uses to connect its devices allowing users to copy and paste between them, sign in to Macs with an Apple Watch, display iPhone widgets on a Mac Screen, and connect Macs and iPads together via Universal Control. Your iCloud account is a key to Continuity.
Note that I haven’t been on a beta since owning any of my current devices. So, in theory, none of these beta updates should have affected me. However, I might as well have been downloading betas like a beta junkie, given the return of these migraines with each beta release and subsequent full releases.
Communications over the years with Apple Support yielded nothing that would help until Dan Moren of Six Colors posted about a similar issue he was facing and the responses he got from Apple Support.
That second agent proved quite capable, not only agreeing that the situation was strange, but also looking into issues on Apple’s side. Which led to the somewhat bizarre conclusion of this story: after perhaps 20 minutes on the phone, he seemed to hit on something. I heard him laugh and say something along the lines of “that explains it” and then, with my consent, put me on hold. When he came back, he said—and I’m not exactly quoting, but close enough: “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.”
Now, in my initial forays on social media, I had gotten a reply from someone on Mastodon mentioning that Apple’s iCloud servers were sometimes put in maintenance mode for 12 hours—but upon going back and looking for that specific reply, it was nowhere to be found.
It did, however, support the theory that something had gone wrong with the particular iCloud server on which my account was located.
There was, according to this support agent, nothing to do but sit back and wait, then call back if service hadn’t returned by the 12-hour mark and reference my case number. He was again apologetic for not being able to give me any more information, but reiterated his confidence that everything would be resolved.
After Dan’s post turned the heat up a bit on the issue my calls with Apple Support changed in tone and substance. I got moved a couple of rungs up the ladder to an advanced support level. (Draw your own conclusions). Initially that seemed promising. I also got the “just wait it out” response as Dan.
Suffice it to say that eventually yielded no real solution and there were two periods of time when things just seemed to stall. The first being prior to the Apple Vision Pro release and the second in the run-up to WWDC 2024. I chalked those up to resource allocations.
Reaching the Right Doctor
Following WWDC I decided on one frustrating evening to drop an email to Craig Federighi, Apple’s honcho on all things software. I didn’t expect any response. My previous emails to Tim Cook were met with a brush off.
In the context of my email I appealed to Craig quite explicitly that I was very interested in the new iPhone Mirroring feature coming in Sequoia that relied on Continuity and how he had discussed Continuity during the WWDC presentation. I also expressed that I imagined this feature would be at best a hit and miss for me given the ongoing migraines.
Lo and behold, I got a response from Federighi requesting I share diagnostic files with him. Note I don’t know if I was actually communicating with him directly or one of his staff, but after submitting another round of diagnostic files I received the emails below:
And then I received the following:
Once macOS Sonoma 14.6 and iOS 17.6 were released the problem did indeed appear to be solved, but I knew I would have to wait through the next few beta releases and also the release of Sequoia to determine if the fix would indeed hold.
The good news is that I can report the fix did indeed hold through the remainder of the beta cycle and also through the final releases of macOS Sequoia 15 and iOS 18. As of today it has held through developer betas and also public release of the betas for 15.1 and 18.1 since installing the final versions of macOS 15 and iOS 18 the day of their release. It has also held through upgrading my iPhone and Apple Watch.
I’m glad this seems to be resolved but I’m going to remain skeptical until we see the .ox and .x releases of Sequoia and iOS 18 roll out. To be honest, it feels like I’m waiting for any sign of a possible reoccurrence of a medical symptom.
Wrapping Up
I’ve always tied my migraines to problems somehow related to my iCloud account and it appears those suspicions were by and large correct. I don’t have a definitive answer but given that only a “small percentage of users” experienced this issue combined with comments from support personnel and a few clues from Dan Moren’s post, that is what logically makes the most sense to me and a few others I’ve consulted, social network buddy Dwight Silverman among them. By the way Dwight led me to a workaround involving signing out and back in to Messages in iCloud.
I’m certainly appreciative of Craig Federighi or his office pushing this forward to a resolution. I’m reasonably convinced it helped that iPhone Mirroring, which relies on Continuity, is one of the sexy tent pole features of this year’s new releases finally probably brought quicker attention to the issue. That and a stroke of good luck with my timing.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, users in situations that don’t have a large podcast or online audience and can’t stir up a major hullabaloo in the tech press are left to piece these clues together. Unless on a rare occasion they catch the attention of a higher up at Apple to find a resolution. That shouldn’t be the case.
Certainly the bigger a company becomes it’s easier for all sorts of issues for a “small minority of users” to fall through the cracks and for priorities to shift. That’s just a reality. And it shouldn’t take the luck of good timing in sending an email to a top executive, certainly busy with many other tasks, to suss out an issue.
As I’ve said all along, Apple needs to find a way to come clean with both users and its front line support personnel when these issue present themselves. Listening should be the key because sometimes the patient/user has all the clues you need to help them.
You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Skip to content
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 