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Besides the questions of, “Why would you do that, you sicko!?” and “How did you get the elephant into the elevator?”, this is an amusing (think “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” British humour) and interesting explanation.

A great article about the general theory of relativity and why it is so important even today.

Blue Apron posted mixed results for the quarter, but I think the CEO has the right outlook as he deals with pressure from Amazon:

But CEO Matthew Salzberg told CNBC that the grocery market is far from a “winner-take-all” battle between grocers, Blue Apron and Amazon.

“We admire Amazon as a company, and we take them seriously, big or small,” Salzberg said. “That being said, we are competing in a competitive and large market. … We think about ourselves very differently, I think, than Amazon thinks about themselves.”

That’s exactly right and a good way to look at the market. It’s easy to assume that he’s saying that because the quarter wasn’t great, but it is true.

Then, just as I was about to leave the dictionary’s Web site, I noticed something new: next to the earliest known year that a word appears in print—for “alembicated,” 1786—Merriam-Webster now offers a link to a list of all the other words that were first used in the same year. The feature is called Time Traveler…

That is so great.

Walt Disney Co. is ending its film distribution agreement with Netflix for new releases in one of the boldest moves a traditional studio has taken against the leading digital platform.

The Burbank company instead will launch a new Disney-branded direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019. The decision represents a major shift in strategy for Disney, which for years has worked with Netflix to distribute its content — including hit films and original television shows.

No, Disney, I don’t want another streaming service. I get the company has a lot of hits, but damn, the number of streaming services is getting ridiculous.

Glen Campbell, the indelible voice behind 21 Top 40 hits including “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” died Tuesday. He was 81. A rep for Universal Music Group, Campbell’s record label, confirmed the singer’s death to Rolling Stone. During a career that spanned six decades, Campbell sold over 45 million records. In 1968, one of his biggest years, he outsold the Beatles.

So sad. Much respect, Glen.

I would happily do a Kickstarter campaign to fly The Publisher of The Loop to Detroit so he can make a vinyl record of his music that we could all buy!

I didn’t watch Letterman for the last few years of his last show but I’ll definitely want to check this out.

Not every beginner photographer needs a DSRL but, if you do, you can’t go wrong with either of these cameras.

A lot of folks will be at work and likely unable to go outside to watch the eclipse.

Julian Assange has offered a job to the employee that Google fired for writing the memo on gender differences.

James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” He said he’s “currently exploring all possible legal remedies.”

I think he’ll have a really difficult time finding another job in Silicon Valley.

After decades of selling products—and knowing exactly what people are buying, and when they are buying it—Amazon has started cutting out the middle-man by selling self-produced items. Through its AmazonBasics house brand, it sells all sorts of small items, from iPhone chargers, to batteries, power strips—even foam rollers, backpacks and washcloths. It’s the sort of stuff that you might not be too brand loyal over—who really minds whether it’s a Duracell or a Panasonic battery? Amazon sees that a product is selling well, and may decide to work with manufacturers to make the product itself—it’s a tactic that is already worrying vendors, and can’t bode well for partnerships in the long run. But those are the obvious instances. Now, Amazon is selling products across a wide array of categories, using a host of brands that do not exist outside the confines of amazon.com and do not make it clear that they are Amazon-made products.

This is a common business practice and it’s smart too. I remember one oil company in Canada that would look at what it spent the most money on each year and then either buy the company or do it themselves. Each year, more money stayed within the confines of the main company.

Co-creator and co-executive producer Ben Winston and series executive producer and co-showrunner Eric Pankowski spoke with Billboard about the series that’s set to launch on Apple Music. They called it “A Celebration of the Joy of Music.” I get that.

I was a bit worried about the future of this show, but I’m looking forward to seeing these episodes. At least Apple finally stopped pimping Pharrell, so we won’t have to deal with him.

Female characters appear in superhero comics less often than males — but when they are included, how are they depicted?

I thought there would be a lot of people that would like to read this.

[Via Khoi]

I use Apple Music every single day, so I see all of the good and bad parts of the service. I also get to see the significant improvements Apple has made over time, and while there is still work to be done, the service is getting much better. […]

Apple says to “tag #ShotoniPhone to take part.” This has been a great campaign for Apple and being on Instagram will only make it more widespread.

From Revolver:

It all started as a joke. The Sword guitarist Kyle Shutt was smoking weed and talking with his bandmates about how absurd it is that every group that plays slow riffs or evokes feelings of dread get labeled “doom,” even if they sound nothing like pioneers of the genre: Black Sabbath, Pentagram Saint Vitus, Cathedral.

“Man, what if we did a heavy metal Pink Floyd cover band, called it Doom Side of the Moon, and did doom versions of Floyd songs!” he quipped.

Great idea and it turned out really good. You can listen to the album on Apple Music.

Thanks to last week’s inadvertent release of an unredacted build of HomePod’s version of iOS, we know some things that we didn’t know before. One of those things is that the new edge-to-edge iPhone is codenamed D22, and that the OS explicitly supports an iPhone display with hardware resolution of 2436 × 1125 pixels.

I love these resolution articles that Gruber does.

I do like The Rock. These are are kind of fun.

67 new emojis have been listed as “draft candidates” for inclusion in the 2018 emoji set, including softball, mango, salt shaker, and a variation of the much-loved pile of poo emoji.

I’ll admit, I laughed.

[Via MacRumors]

Is it just me or does anyone else think this shouldn’t have worked? I can barely get AirDrop to work between my Mac and iPhone when they are two feet from each other.

Boeing has to test their engines for long periods of time in flight. I guess these Boeing pilots decided to liven up the boring work and not just fly around in circles.

I love these odd little stories.

The coming solar eclipse is an almost once in a lifetime experience. Don’t let it be ruined by using substandard equipment and/or dangerous viewing habits.

Spoiler alert: It was an ugly, ugly place.

Apple doesn’t get nearly the credit they deserve for the work they do in accessibility. I know quite a few people with varying levels and kinds of disability and accessibility issues and they all say that, while there’s lots of work to be done, Apple is far ahead of the rest of the industry in their commitment to these users.

Dave here. James Thomson, in a Twitter thread with Steve Troughton Smith, pondering the interface possibilities of the coming iPhone Pro (and I use that name as a shorthand for any and all phones Apple announces next month with a new hardware layout):

https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/892868525559304192

This raises an interesting question. If the home button no longer has dedicated real estate but is, instead a fungible, virtual spot, with the ability to be turned on and off, what happens if an app runs full screen? How will you exit the app?

In other words, if a game takes over the full screen, presumably the home button will not be there. What will the user do to force exit the app, to return to the home screen?

To be crystal clear, I don’t see this as a problem. I see this as an interesting puzzle. We don’t know that the home button will disappear, we don’t know that developers will be allowed to grab the full screen without saving room for the home button.

But it’s an interesting question, one that I am quite certain Apple already has a lovely solution for.

As Federico Viticci so eloquently put it:

the next few weeks are going to be so fun – we think we know what the next iPhone is going to be like, but we also know nothing of its software.

Amen.

Amber Rudd (The UK Home Secretary) has said “real people” do not want secure end-to-end encryption on messaging services.

In response, Renate Samson Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch said:

“Suggesting that people don’t really want security from their online services is frankly insulting, what of those in society who are in dangerous or vulnerable situations, let alone those of us who simply want to protect our communications from breach, hack or cybercrime,” she said.

She’s making an argument that fits her agenda. I don’t believe for a minute that people want less security on anything, especially these days.

Costly cyber attacks are having a bigger impact on corporate earnings and are becoming a fact of life for companies as Oreo cookie maker Mondelez, drug maker Merck and others said that a destructive “worm” attack in the last week of the second quarter disrupted operations.

It’s not just the immediate fallout of an attack that hits companies, it’s the earnings too.