Astro‘s street art style is easy to recognize in the streets. He creates giant murals with complex patterns and optical illusions that make it look like the building is empty on the inside.

I find optical illusions fascinating.

Churchill’s satirical reply to ending Britain’s drought is great.

Fred Wilson:

I’ve written many times about how I/we prefer to invest in mission driven founders vs mercenary founders. The former starts a company because they see a problem they feel compelled to fix. The latter starts a company because they see an opportunity to make money.

I love mission driven companies. Those are the ones that solve problems we have as users.

Apple is being sued by a subsidiary of China’s broadcasting regulator over a propaganda film more than 20 years old, in the latest legal wrangling for the tech giant in China in recent weeks.

A Beijing court says the case has been brought by a production center that alleges that Apple has infringed its exclusive online rights to broadcast a film that depicts Chinese fighting against Japanese soldiers in northern China in the early 1930s.

This is absolutely fascinating.

A digital video disc player was found in the Tesla car that was on autopilot when its driver was killed in a collision with a truck in May, Florida Highway Patrol officials said on Friday.

“As to the video, there was a witness who came to the scene immediately after the accident occurred, and we can’t verify it at this point,” said Paul Weekley of Tampa, the lawyer for the truck driver. “But what we have been told is that he saw a Harry Potter video still playing when he got to the scene.”

Again, tragic loss of life, but come on. You are responsible for your car.

Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell:

“Our guidelines apply equally to all app developers, whether they are game developers, e-book sellers, video-streaming services or digital music distributors; and regardless of whether or not they compete against Apple. We did not alter our behavior or our rules when we introduced our own music streaming service or when Spotify became a competitor,” Sewell explains. “Ironically, it is now Spotify that wants things to be different by asking for preferential treatment from Apple.”

I absolutely love that Apple didn’t take this criticism sitting down!

Choosing a music service is a very personal decision and not one that somebody else can make for you. However, Daniel Bader does a good job of highlighting the good and bad of each service.

Accessibility is Apple doing the right thing for its users—all users. It’s hard not to support a company that does the right things for the right reasons.

Jonathan Mann (no relation) joins Jim to talk about writing a new song every day, the recording process, and what it’s like to have Steve Jobs play your video at a keynote.

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Microsoft—Tiny Seattle-area startup is building cool stuff for iOS developers.

The talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal, these people said. Apple is exploring the idea of bringing on Tidal to bolster its Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong ties to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.

Apple doesn’t need more celebrities, it needs to fix what it already has.

The May crash occurred when a tractor trailer drove across a divided highway, where a Tesla in autopilot mode was driving. The Model S passed under the tractor trailer, and the bottom of the trailer hit the Tesla vehicle’s windshield.

“Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied,” Tesla wrote.

This is tragic, but you have to maintain control of your car. Perhaps it happened so quickly that the driver wouldn’t have been able to avoid it either.

This lesson is from Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra. I’ve always loved the way Jimi embellished the chords he played—this lesson shows you how to do it.

At The Wirecutter, we believe in keeping gadgets alive for as long as possible through repairs, upgrades, upcycling, and whatever else it takes to get them to the end of their useful life. But we also understand that the time will come when we need to dispose of our electronics. So we’ve compiled a list of alternatives to putting them out on the curb. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s a lot easier than you may think.

It’s always worthwhile to know your options.

Much respect Gruber.

“This latest episode raises serious concerns under both U.S. and EU competition law,” Gutierrez wrote. “It continues a troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to exclude and diminish the competitiveness of Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music, particularly when seen against the backdrop of Apple’s previous anticompetitive conduct aimed at Spotify … we cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon to harm competitors.”

This could get ugly very quickly.

Millions of people are Googling to see what the hell Nougat is this morning.

But CSS wouldn’t be introduced for five years, and wouldn’t be fully implemented for ten. This was a period of intense work and innovation which resulted in more than a few competing styling methods which just as easily could have become the standard.

Fascinating read. The screenshot of Mosaic certainly took me back.

It is absolutely stunning how far we’ve come in gaming in a relatively short period of time.

Prime Day is a one-day only global shopping event exclusively for Prime members. On Tuesday, July 12, the second annual Prime Day will be the biggest global Amazon event ever. Members in the U.S. can shop starting at midnight PT, with new deals starting as often as every five minutes throughout the day.

With the new that Evernote is limiting free accounts and hiking prices, it’s only natural that some people will be looking for alternatives. Apple’s new Notes for iPhone or iPad and Notes for Mac might just make for that alternative. But how to migrate all of those notes? It’s easier than you think if you have a Mac running OS X 10.11.4 or higher.

Clearly not everyone is going to get rid of Evernote, but I talked to a lot of people that are. If you are considering it, he’s a run through on how to do it.

I absolutely loved Steve when he was upset. Say what has to be said, and do what has to be done. I was in the audience for many of these moments.

You can grab it from the Avid Web site.

The UAD-2 Satellite USB DSP Accelerator is a sleek, powerful way for Windows-based PC users to “supercharge” their systems and run larger mixes filled with acclaimed UAD plug-ins.

I love UA gear.

John Gruber on Facebook’s decision to prioritize friends over news sites:

The idea that Facebook was going to “save” the news industry, or even that Facebook traffic is something that news organizations should bank on for the future, is just goofy.

I agree completely. I didn’t link to this earlier because it didn’t surprise me in the least. The fact is, people would rather hear from their family and friends on Facebook than news sites.

If you use Google Now, you’ll want to take a look at this site.

I love Evan Calkins’ cards. He owns a small letterpress shop in Washington and does great work. Now he’s offering calligraphy cards, as well. I’ll be ordering some of these.

Warren had different beefs with Google, Apple and Amazon, but the common thread was that she accused each one of using its powerful platforms to “lock out smaller guys and newer guys,” including some that compete with Google, Apple and Amazon.

And a comment from Spotify’s Jonathan Prince:

“Apple has long used its control of iOS to squash competition in music, driving up the prices of its competitors, inappropriately forbidding us from telling our customers about lower prices, and giving itself unfair advantages across its platform through everything from the lock screen to Siri. You know there’s something wrong when Apple makes more off a Spotify subscription than it does off an Apple Music subscription and doesn’t share any of that with the music industry. They want to have their cake and eat everyone else’s too.”

Rogue Amoeba’s Jeff Johnson takes a look at macOS Sierra’s new Gatekeeper Path Randomization and the implications for developers.

Nilay Patel wrote on The Verge about all of the I/O that Apple has done away with over the years. Personally, I agree with Apple’s decisions, including the latest MacBook with its one USB-C port and the removal of the headphone jack, if that comes to be. I also agree with Gruber’s take on the issue.