As datacenter production gets automated, the cost of intelligence should eventually converge to near the cost of electricity. (People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes. It also uses about 0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.)
Source: Sam Altman
Apple’s new container support in macOS 26 is nowhere near as feature-rich as Docker. It doesn’t support memory ballooning or loopback networking to the host. But it’s much lighter on Apple Silicon resources and launches containers like greased lightning.
The 6G wireless spectrum auctions are coming soon.
Telcos: We’ve learned our lesson after overhyping 5G, something that was an expensive, incremental upgrade.
Me: Oh good!
Telcos: 6G will provide holographic communication and facilitate the Internet of Senses.
Me: Get out.
The phase-out of Rosetta 2 in macOS was just a matter of time. But as someone who runs an ancient MMO client on top of WINE, this is a new challenge. Windows x86 code → WINE translation layer → macOS Intel APIs → Rosetta 2 translation to ARM64. That chain could break.
Apple are doing okay with AI. AI will be like databases. Big models in the cloud and tiny ones in everything else. Whenever I see people give Apple advice, I remember that if they had followed mine from 20 years ago, the company would be 1/20000th its current size but make the best desktops ever.
YouTube introduces an ad-free tier, changes its mind. YouTube’s offer is to rival TV ad revenue for content providers. They’re also going hard on AI content creation tools to allow creators to pump out more videos to keep eyeballs. Of course, to pay for all of this, they’ll continue to flood the platform with ads.
YouTube competes with Netflix for viewers' time. Unlike Netflix's walled garden approach, YouTube offers a mix of subscriptions, memberships, and creator payouts. However, YouTube has been steadily adding more viewing interruptions than Netflix. At some point, this may become so annoying that viewers will go elsewhere.
Fantasy game books for kids in the 80s and 90s. You’d flick through them in the bookshop, and there was something dangerous-looking every few pages. It was great. You’d wonder, ‘I’ll have to fight that?!’
This time of year I enjoy looking at all the new games I won’t have time to play. But then I see most of them are built on the jittery, traversal-stuttering mess that is Unreal Engine 5. Then I’m relieved I won’t have time to play them.
The next time you go to pay at a supermarket, look up. I remember doing this years ago at the Amazon Go in Seattle and being disturbed by the arrays of cameras looking down. Supermarkets are catching up. You’ll take something off a shelf soon, and a camera lens will stare back at you from the shelf.
Mac development hero, Bill Atkinson, has died. He leaves a lot of fingerprints on modern computing. He also created the Venice font. The only original Mac font not created by Susan Kare.
Ballerina. Now that Keanu’s knees have given out, the John Wick stunt show needs a new face. That face is Ana de Armas, and she’s fine. Two hours, which I found long, but you know what you’ll get with this John Wick continuation. Nothing else to say.
I have low expectations for Ballerina (John Wick spinoff). But as it’s pouring rain outside, let’s take a look.
Rogue One is more enjoyable to watch right after the finale of season 2 of Andor. In 2016, who’d have thought there would be an Andorverse? Well, besides creator Tony Gilroy.
Apple’s WWDC 2025 is next week. And when it comes to major releases, to paraphrase Sean Connery:
Captain Ramius: Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary - macOS hardware obsolescence.
I’m in the queue to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order. There’s over a hundred people here. Nintendo will be around forever.
I’ll say one thing about Laurene Powell Jobs, in 2020 she said she was going to donate the family fortune.
"I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that,” she added. “Steve wasn’t interested in that. If I live long enough, it ends with me."
I raised an eyebrow at that as Steve wasn’t known for philanthropy. But her fortune is now half what it was when the article was written. Apple and Disney have both done well over the past five years, so that isn’t a decline in portfolio value. It’s giving.
The Bonfire of the Vanities
The Devil’s Candy doesn’t need a review. People set out with the best intentions and a lot of money. They made an unloved movie from a popular novel. That’s it.
But I’ll mention that Melanie Griffith puts in a better performance in film version of The Bonfire of the Vanities than Tom Hanks or Bruce Willis. Needy and damaged in the book, but dynamite on the screen.
Tom Wolfe despised the characters he wrote about in his novel. De Palma is ambivalent about the characters in his. Perhaps that’s why the book reading audience rejected the movie. The movie characters weren’t reptilian enough.
Today I finished reading the 30th anniversary edition of The Devil’s Candy, covering the torturous filming of Brian De Palma’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” While the movie is a dud with fun moments, nothing in this book screamed it was a fiasco. I’ll rewatch the movie before I review the book.
Season 2 of Andor shows you how good Star Wars should be. The World War II occupied France storyline. How ambitious people can slide towards hideous acts. The timeline compression that keeps the story moving. All the episodes work.