New Mac app by Mikey Clarke, and it’s just what it says on the tin: a “lovingly crafted Bluesky app designed and built just for the Mac”. I’ve been beta testing Aeronaut for months, and it’s the only interface to Bluesky I actually like. It’s a real Mac app — written mostly in AppKit, supporting all the right UI idioms and platform integrations. It’s not just the best Bluesky client I’ve seen, for any platform, but maybe the best new Mac app I’ve seen in years, period. Certainly the one whose very existence has made me happiest. Next time someone tells me no one makes good new native apps for the Mac anymore, I’m going to tell them Mikey Fucking Clarke does.

$2/month or $15/year. A veritable bargain for an app so nice.

Bruce Springsteen:

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Best line from the lyrics:

Their claim was self-defense,
Just don’t believe your eyes.
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.

Whistles, phones, and birds.

Tim Cook’s call for “deescalation” is meaningless without specifying which side he’s calling upon to change course, and there’s no weaker sauce than the weak sauce of “both sides”.

Tim Cook, in a company-wide memo (first published by Mark Gurman):

Team,
I’m heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis, and my prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families, with the communities, and with everyone that’s been affected.

This is a time for deescalation. I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity. This is something Apple has always advocated for. I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all.

I know this is very emotional and challenging for so many. I am proud of how deeply our teams care about the world beyond our walls. That empathy is one of Apple’s greatest strengths and it is something I believe we all cherish.

Thank you for all that you do.
Tim

“Events” is doing a lot of work there, to describe what has happened and is happening in Minneapolis.

Trump’s “openness” on this particular “issue” has been to replace Greg Bovino — the diminutive Himmler-cosplaying “commander at large” of Border Control, who insisted, adamantly, that the real victims in Alex Pretti’s murder were the Border Patrol agents who shot him — with “border czar” Tom Homan, a man who took a $50,000 cash bribe from undercover FBI agents in exchange for a promise to award them government contracts if Trump were reelected.

Zac Hall, on Twitter/X:

Cook took three days to not name Alex Pretti in his not public statement and 20 days to not name Renée Good in his not public statement. [...]

2020 Tim Cook on Apple’s homepage: “Right now, there is a pain deeply etched in the soul of our nation and in the hearts of millions. To stand together, we must stand up for one another, and recognize the fear, hurt, and outrage rightly provoked by the senseless killing of George Floyd and a much longer history of racism.”

Quite the different message (and medium — this time with nothing on Apple’s website, let alone their homepage) from 2020, for what I consider far more outrageous and alarming killings.

Andy Stone, VP of communications at Meta, responding, in a series of tweets on Twitter/X, to Jeff Horwitz’s report at Reuters yesterday, linked here last night, which claimed that “Zuckerberg blocked curbs on sex-talking chatbots for minors”:

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh, @Reuters, @JeffHorwitz!

The documents you cite in the story itself contradict this headline.

The headline says “Zuckerberg blocked curbs on sex-talking chatbots for minors”

But the story cites a document that says “Zuckerberg believed that AI companions should be blocked from engaging in sexually ‘explicit’ conversations” w young people.

Huh?!

After my post last night, a friend of mine, with a career of experience working in a large company, sent me this:

A word of caution. “Scumbag middle manager says CEO said” is not the same as “CEO said.”

I could believe Zuck shitcanned parental controls, but I am certain there are thousands of snakes inside that company who would lie about it to get what they want.

That’s a good and fair point, and I think it’s what Stone is trying to emphasize above. The New Mexico lawsuit filing doesn’t contain evidence that Zuckerberg nixed parental controls for teens engaging in chats with AI bots; it contains evidence that other (unnamed employees) claimed in internal discussions that Zuckerberg had nixed them. That is different.

But so let’s take Zuckerberg out of it personally. It’s still the case that Meta shipped these chatbots for teens to use. And the buck, presumably, stops at Zuck’s desk. Read Horwitz’s report from back in August, detailing a leaked internal document listing Meta’s content guidelines for generative AI chat.

Sidenote: Why in the world is Meta’s VP of comms doing this on Twitter/X, not Threads, which continues to grow?