Notices by Harry McCracken (harrymccracken@mastodon.social)

WHICH ONE IS IT, BEST BUY?!?

Trying to parse this, and failing.

@ChuckMcManis @harrymccracken I *think* the big type is reminding you that if you’ve got a case, it needs to support magnetic charging. And the small type means to remove the plastic that the message is printed on before you use the charger.

After the employee disruptions at Microsoft’s recent events, I was surprised that Google’s I/O keynote didn’t involve anything similar. https://www.theverge.com/tech/672312/microsoft-block-palestine-gaza-email

Pichai is showing how Gmail composed an email to his friend offering vacation advice he didn’t have time to assemble himself. This whole oft-cited example of using AI for friendly personal correspondence still seems off to me. I’d rather get a brief note I knew was really from Sundar!

New tariff coming for Vatican City?

It’s hard to imagine what the senators who voted to confirm this guy could do with the rest of their careers to redeem themselves. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/us/politics/kennedy-vaccines-research.html

I mentioned Micro/MacWarehouse’s Kerry in my recent article on PC Connection’s raccoons, and lots of people remembered her. Here she is on the packaging for the company’s house-brand SyQuest cartridges (a sort of proto-Zip disk).

I have these images of Americans who own iPhones becoming like Cubans with cars and keeping them somehow going even if it requires fixing them with Android parts. https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-airlifts-600-tons-iphones-india-to-beat-trump-tariffs-sources-say-2025-04-10/

Facebook’s uncanny AI is suggesting I share my love of…myself?

My first boss in tech publishing loved talking about Dave the Hard Drive King. For years, I’ve been looking for him and wondering whether he actually existed at all. While looking for something else, I just stumbled across him.

($499 for a 104MB hard drive!)

Justice is served. https://gulfof.mapquest.com/?name=Radio+Shack

Found a box of vintage business cards that @MarieDomingo meant to enter into her palmtop and now most likely never will.

Even by the standards of the last few weeks, a truly sad day for the United States, and one owned by Trump’s various cheerleaders and enablers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/02/13/robert-kennedy-hhs-secretary-confirmation-vote/

Another photo I’d normally post on Instagram.

I wrote about the real consequences of knocking government webpages offline, even before you get to what they might look like when they come back. If they come back. https://www.fastcompany.com/91271348/the-destruction-going-on-at-u-s-government-sites-is-bad-news-for-us-all

His name is Donald Trump Jr. He owns a mansion and a yacht. https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-jr-iraly-duck-hunt-illegal-footage-birds-animals-shooting/

No matter what you think of Meta’s recent pivot, the fact that a company can turn on a dime from one stated set of principles to their polar opposites shows they weren’t really principles in the first place. https://www.fastcompany.com/91269069/users-should-boycott-meta-over-ending-dei

I’m at the Media Lab. This thingie is autonomous.

@robertwrighter has two jobs open at his NonZero media empire, which has done so much good stuff for so many years. Application deadline ends shortly. https://nonzero.substack.com/p/nonzero-is-hiring-59c?open=false#§staff-writer