It was my 45th birthday today. We celebrated with pizza and ice cream cake.
Here’s to another 45!
A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
It was my 45th birthday today. We celebrated with pizza and ice cream cake.
Here’s to another 45!
The other day the news leaked that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had purchased the Kirtland Temple.
Kirtland, not Kirkland, and not a “miracle”, after all, it turns out it’s true you can buy anything in this world for money, but still it’s a historic sale.
From The Church News:
Today, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, the responsibility and ownership for the Kirtland Temple, several historic buildings in Nauvoo, and various manuscripts and artifacts officially transferred from Community of Christ to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for an agreed-upon amount. Together, we share an interest in and reverence for these historic sites and items and are committed to preserving them for future generations.
Rumour has it the agreed upon amount is a whooping $192.5 million USD. Included in the sale:
This video about the news leaking explains how it went down:
Madame Web: “The real culprit here is the greed manifested by studio suits who keep hawking cheap knockoffs. ‘Madame Web’ feels like a random collection of half-baked ideas thrown into the air and allowed to land, with the cynical assumption that we’ll buy any lazy hack-work that is Spider-Man adjacent. Kill me now.” — Peter Travers, ABC News
Bob Marley: One Love: “If you’ve never heard of Bob Marley before watching the picture, you might know even less about him when the end credits roll.” — Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com
Lisa Frankenstein: “Overall, Lisa Frankenstein remains a lifeless genre effort needing a spark of electricity.” — Eric Marchen, Rogers TV
Land of Bad: “Despite solid and brutal action throughout, the longer this goes on, the storytelling choices put one in a land of confusion” — Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth
Players: “Director Trish Sie’s middling and at times mawkish film not only makes us hate the game, but also its players.” — Courtney Howard, Variety
Cabel Sasser won an auction of Dixieland jazz 78rpm records and found a long lost song cut from Cinderella:
My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made up of mostly Disney employees, the Firehouse Five Plus Two. But along the way, I accidentally discovered an incredible lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella. And you’re about to hear it too. Let’s go…
Read on cabel.com/2024/02/13/firehouse-five-and-the-cinderella-surprise/
Last night Jon Stewart returned as temporary Monday host of The Daily Show. After creative differences with the executives at Apple Tv+ concerning Stewart’s material ending the show before its third season, the polically minded comedian has returned to Comedy Central to host once a week leading up to the election.
Here’s his first episode back:
For the past couple years I’ve been trying to get my best time swimming a kilometre under 16:00. I’m still not there and obviously it’s not quite the same level as Casey’s three-hour marathon dream but the video definitely resonates in so many ways:
(via Waxy)
As Apple Vision Pro, Apple’s revolutionary spatial computer, arrives in stores across the United States, Casey has a cute review:
And if you want a more serious deep dive, check out Daring Fireball’s take or MKB’s video:
Apple today announced earnings revenue of $119.6 billion. Investors and analysts weren’t expecting any records after Apple warned that revenue would be flat following the longest sales slump in the last couple decades but, it turns out, it was their second biggest revenue report ever.
From Apple Newsroom press release:
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2024 first quarter ended December 30, 2023. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $119.6 billion, up 2 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.18, up 16 percent year over year.
“Today Apple is reporting revenue growth for the December quarter fueled by iPhone sales, and an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are pleased to announce that our installed base of active devices has now surpassed 2.2 billion, reaching an all-time high across all products and geographic segments. And as customers begin to experience the incredible Apple Vision Pro tomorrow, we are committed as ever to the pursuit of groundbreaking innovation — in line with our values and on behalf of our customers.”
Tim Cook also hinted at some upcoming announcements in AI.
As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in these [Vision Pro] and other technologies that will shape the future. That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.
Apple has long been working on custom chips that specialize in machine learning but were caught somewhat flat-footed at the speed and popularity of large language models. Perhaps Siri will finally get the overhaul we’ve been waiting for since her introduction on the iPhone 4s in October of 2011. It will be interesting to see the reveal at WWDC this June.
As always, the pretty charts via SixColors.
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh, the first successful mass-marketed computer with a graphical user interface. My first “Mac” wasn’t until my 2015 MacBook Pro but as a third grade kid my parents got me an Apple II1 which I loved and on which I learned to code BASIC.
Pricing for the original Macintosh started at $2,495, equivalent to over $7,000 today. Key specs and features included an 8 MHz processor, 128 KB of RAM, a 400 KB floppy disk drive for storage, and serial ports for connecting a printer and other accessories.