The Happy Hour - Epic, Indeed

I’m enjoying the debate about whether the Apple v. Epic ruling is a good or bad thing for both sides on Twitter. Yes, Apple won on almost all counts but they were always expected to. The most interesting element is what the judge did with regard to steering. Apple can declare victory all they want. And Epic can declare defeat all they want. This is a massive change (if it holds, of course – it will be challenged) that will have real ramifications far beyond this case.

And that’s why I’m choosing to believe that Epic actually knows what they’re doing here, statements aside. And also that Apple may actually not have a firm grasp of what is happening. It’s another domino in the line that has been falling. And they’re going to keep falling. Apple should probably get ahead of the cascade, but is utterly failing to do so. It’s fascinating to watch, at least.

Anyway, more thoughts to come on that topic. I also need to catch up on the Facebook Glass – er, Wayfarers? – news. The quick buzz seems to be that they’re actually well done, but why on Earth is a company like Facebook, in the precarious trust position they’re in on several fronts, aiming to launch them? At least do it under a sub-brand?! Then again, we’ve been down this path before. And it ended up, okay for Facebook?

Drinking: a Fort Point Westfalia 🍻

The Little-Known Genius Who Helped Make Pixar Possible

Great profile of Alvy Ray Smith by Steven Levy. Several great anecdotes, leading with:

“This might be crazy,” she began, “but is there any connection between the world of the counterculture and psychedelics, and Pixar?” The panelists on stage—Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, both central to Pixar’s development—fell into an uncomfortable silence. Drugs and the counterculture are edgy subjects for employees of a Disney division beloved by generations of children. Finally, Lasseter said, “Is Alvy Ray Smith in the audience?”

From there, the crossing of paths with George Lucas and Steve Jobs – no love lost there. Also, I find this almost shockingly compelling:

Putting together their contributions on the nature of light, sampling, and computation, Smith makes a convincing case that there’s no difference between analog and digital reality. It’s a belief that he’s held for decades. Barbara Robertson, a computer graphics journalist, remembers sitting with him at a café and hearing him say, after a contemplative silence, “You, know, everything is just waves.”

He also grew up, quite literally, under a mushroom cloud – just 100 miles from the Trinity atomic bomb test when he was an infant.

www.wired.com

Touring Trinity, the Birthplace of Nuclear Dread

Speaking of Trinity… Dennis Overbye takes a tour of what the test site is like now, all these years later. Pretty touristy, even while unearthing literal groundbreaking history.

www.nytimes.com

Instagram Has Become SkyMall

This is a great angle by Clive Thompson. The nostalgia is heavy:

As with all good SkyMall products, it’s got the gist of an interesting idea here — which is promptly taken, with exhilirating fervor, about fourteen miles past the point of reasonableness.

I linked to an article about Ron Popeil (RIP) last week. And he comes to mind here as well.

debugger.medium.com

Loot is a Viral Social Network that Looks Like Nothing You've Ever Seen

Casey Newton talks to Dom Hoffman about his latest creation (disclosure: I invested in two of Hoffman’s previous escapades: Vine and Byte). It’s weird, wild, and compelling in the way it’s naturally taking off as an almost analog concept in a decidedly digital realm.

www.platformer.news

The We That Didn’t Work at WeWork

I have not yet read The Cult of We book by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, but given this excerpt alone, I feel the need to. The intro here alone:

Adam Neumann and Masayoshi Son were negotiating a possible $20 billion check when Mr. Son pulled up an image of Yoda on his iPad.

Also, we’re entering this strange world, with boomeranging COVID, where WeWork is making a lot of sense again? Maybe more than ever before? (Disclosure: GV, where I’m a partner, holds some WeWork shares via some acquisitions back in the day.)

www.wsj.com

Quotable

"They may have an interesting technological solution, but it totally lacks personality."

– Joost van Dreunen, a New York University professor who focuses on the business of video games, on the topic of the cloud-streaming video game services and why they have failed to take off, thus far.

Quick Hits

😎 It’s the weekend. How do I know? This guy posted that Daniel Craig said so.

🤖 Twitter is testing a label for bots on their platform. This is good, so we can be clear when arguments and congratulations in the future are really just bots talking to bots.

🎧 What if Microsoft had created the iPod? Hard to say – Zuuuuunnneee! aside – but the packaging undoubtedly would have looked like this. (Still funny, 15 years later – thx @atmasphere!)

🖥 Last week I noted that I wanted the “iGo” stand for the OG iMac. Kyle McDonald let me know that there’s also one for newer generations!

🕹 I’m game for basically any and all collaborations between Nintendo and Lego. The latest Super Mario 64 one is no different.

👩🏻 Last but not least, congrats to my lovely wife who Fortune has smiled upon for being great at what she does while being under 40.

Some Recent Writings

Twitter, Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I hate to say I told you so but… Who am I kidding? I love to say I told you so. And I did. Right when Twitter launched Fleets I laid out why I didn’t think it would work as a feature. And it did not…

mgs.blog

Where the Fuck Can I Stream This?

It’s so simple. Well, it should be. Which may be a problem, honestly. Last night, I tweeted about my desire (which as it turns out is basically everyone’s desire, at least on Twitter) to have a…

mgs.blog

Super Fellows

Now that Fleets are out of the way (or soon enough), I’ve been thinking about the forthcoming ‘Super Follows’ functionality of Twitter. Obviously, I haven’t seen it yet (beyond what they’ve shared)…

500ish.com

Hold Out Those Great Hopes

The people shitting on Jeff Bezos for going into space today are something else. Was it a publicity stunt? Sure, in a way — in so far that more or less anything done in public is a publicity stunt to…

500ish.com

Apple’s Long Lost ‘Netbook’

Of all the Apple products I own — and yes, I own nearly all of them — I’m honestly not sure anything gets me as excited as the prospects of a new iPad mini.¹ Perhaps it’s because it’s a product that…

500ish.com

This Is Us, Sadly