Et Tu, Tim?

Tim Cook’s personal donation of $1,000,000 to Trump’s bribe fund inauguration fund has left a bad taste in the mouth of Apple fans across the net.

First, the situation from Mike Allen via Axios:

Apple CEO Tim Cook will personally donate $1 million to President-elect Trump’s inaugural committee, sources with knowledge of the donation tell Axios.

Why it matters: The donation reflects a long, collaborative relationship between Trump and Cook that included many meetings during Trump’s first term, and dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Other CEOs and companies have made seven-figure inauguration contributions in their efforts to build bridges to the incoming administration.

John Gruber via Daring Fireball:

It seems pretty obvious that it was Apple/Cook that leaked this to Axios, not Trump’s side, given the eye-roll-inducing “proud American tradition” spin, but more especially the nugget that only Cook personally, not Apple as a company, is contributing. That’s Cook asking for any and all ire to be directed at him, personally, not Apple. Good luck with that.

Marco Arment via Mastodon:

Is it that hard to believe?

Why do we think Tim Cook couldn’t possibly support Trump, while all of these other billionaires support him for their own billionaire self-interests?

Why do we keep making excuses for him?

Why do we keep making excuses for Apple?

Nick Heer via Pixel Envy:

Call this what you want: bipartisanship, diplomacy, pragmatic, outright support, or “the spirit of unity”. But one thing you cannot call it is principled. We have become accustomed to business leaders sacrificing some of their personal principles to support their company in some way — for some reason, it is just business is a universal excuse for terrible behaviour — but all of these figures have already seen what the incoming administration does with power and they want to support it. For anyone who claims to support laws or customs, this is not principled behaviour.

Daniel Jalkut via Daniel Punkass :

On the occasion of Apple’s slithering CEO Tim Cook donating $1M to a neo-fascist insurrectionist, it’s FINALLY time to deploy the often overused expression “this never would have happened if Steve Jobs were still in charge.”

Monton Reece via Manton.org:

Tim Cook has led Apple to incredible success, but his words are hollow. Even the principles he seems to care most passionately about, like user privacy, are in doubt. I’m increasingly thinking it’s an act.

I’ve been an Apple developer since the 1990s when the company was doomed. Fans propped up the company because we believed they were different. They focused on design and creativity. They were the rebels and troublemakers, trying to push the human race forward through technology.

Most of the employees at Apple still care about these things. Tim Cook cares about appeasing a would-be autocrat and taxing developers in an app distribution monopoly. It’s time for new leadership.

Cabel Sasser via Mastodon:

I wonder how Tim would answer the question: “why are you donating to this one, but didn’t donate to the last one?”. That’d be fascinating to see.

It’s a sad day for Tim Cook, Apple, and the of course the USA. How can they expect the world to choke down their claim of American exceptionalism when its leaders both in and out of government are so transparently corrupt?

Apple Photos – How to view all unnamed faces – Solved

I finally discovered the secret for creating a smart album that only shows photos that do NOT have people or pets identified in Apple Photos on MacOS.12

  1. Create a smart album with the criteria “person/pet” -> “does not contain” -> =”A” (It will suggest a name from the database to place here but just change it manually.)
  2. Repeat creating rules using the same criteria but with the all the other vowels.
  3. Next create a rule for “person/pet” -> “is” -> “<blank>”. By blank I mean remove all characters from the textfield. This should filter out all of the photos without a face.
  4. Lastly create a rule for “photo” -> “is not” -> “screenshots”.

Here is the smart album:

I also created one for unmarked GPS locations.

Screenshot of the smart album for showing images that have no location in Apple Photos.

  1. My source for this information comes via Apple Discussion Forums[]
  2. It doesn’t work if at least one of the other people in the photo are named but it’s a pretty good start.[]

Three Seconds Everyday 2024

2024 is the 11th year I’ve created a once a day video project. Lots of travel this year, lots of kids, and lots of fun. It’s a pretty good glimpse at the everyday routine of our lives.

Top 10 Posts of 2024

Here’s a quick table of my most view posts in 20241

Post Views
Stairway to Heaven Backwards Full Lyrics 8,139
Secret Hitler – Print and Play 5,616
Home page / Archives 4,147
Laughing Wild — by Christopher Durang 1,833
Laughing Wild — by Christopher Durang 578
The Face of Dr. Claw Revealed! 427
Tab Cola Commercial 269
Edmonton Spelling Test on Google Forms 266
Backmasking Info 247
More Backmasking Songs 234
  1. Previous year-end stats for 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020[]

The Vanity Fair Interview with Billie Eilish, Year Eight

Every year since 2017, Vanity Fair has interviewed Billie Eilish about her life and career. They didnt release last year’s conversation but they are back this year with the eighth iteration.

It’s amazing that Vanity Fair picked Eilish for this project when they could have picked any number of up-and-coming stars from 2017. They got lucky picking not only the one who went supernova winning multiple grammies and maintaining popularity but who is also self-reflective, eloquent, and willing to talk about her emotions.

The Bad Review Revue

Mufasa: The Lion King: “Be prepared for a disappointing prequel.” — Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: “[Peter Jackson] proves here that if you scrape hard enough at the bottom of any barrel you will eventually damage the integrity of the entire barrel.” — Kevin Mahar, Times (UK).

Nightbitch: “[W]himpers slowly into the night, a fangless could-have-been.” — Tom Meek, Cambridge Day

Venom: The Last Dance: “The third and final episode in the Venom saga issues a third and final reminder that the world never really needed a Venom saga in the first place.” — Leigh Paatsch, Herald Sun (Australia)

Red One: “If this is what Red One is, don’t expect a Red Two.” — Matt Neal, ABC Radio (Australia)

Joker: Folie à Deux: “How dark and depressing is this movie? Let’s put it this way: If ‘Seven’ had musical numbers, it might get to where ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ has set up shop.” — Sean P. Means, The Movie Cricket

Becoming Led Zeppelin

The long awaited authorized documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin has finally released the first trailer:

From Angie Maroccio at Rolling Stone Magazine:

The film was first announced five years ago, then premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival. That same year, an early clip of “Good Times Bad Times” was released. In May 2024, the “hybrid docu-concert film” was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.

Making the film was challenging for MacMahon and writer-producer Allison McGourty, as hardly any footage from the band’s early years existed. Through their research, they were able to include unseen concert footage, including their early performances at the Fillmore West in January 1969 and the Texas Pop Festival in August 1969.

“We spent five years flying back and forth across the Atlantic scouring attics and basements in pursuit of rare and unseen film footage, photographs, and music recordings,” McGourty said in a statement. “Then we transferred each piece of media with custom techniques, so that in IMAX, these 55-year-old clips and music would look and sound like they came out of the lab yesterday.”

Becoming Led Zeppelin will be released on February 7th, 2025 in 200 IMAX theatres.

Santa is Just a Normal Guy

Santa Claus holding a bottle of Coca-Cola

My five-year-old came to me the other day with what sounded like breaking news.

“Santa is just a normal guy!” he exclaimed.

Frowning, I looked at him. I nodded and began wondering if I should have played up the jolly elf a little more.

“He’s just a normal guy who doesn’t even make the presents.”

Sadly, the Christmas magic is gone before it really even started. My thoughts wandered. Obviously the brand names and packaging are a dead giveaway. Good on him for figuring it out at five but he’s too young to be so cynical…

“He’s just a normal guy who doesn’t even make the presents — he just gets the elves to do all the work!”

Nevermind. The magic is alive and well.