Notices by Joe Rosensteel 🏳️‍🌈 (joesteel@duck.haus)

“Tim Cook Is Failing Us”

“So yes, I do hold Tim to a higher standard than these other robber barons, but that’s because Tim claims he holds himself to those high standards. I am measuring him against the ruler that he has provided and he comes up short.”

https://joe-steel.com/2025-01-25-Tim-Cook-Is-Failing-Us.html

“I am watching films that were made for TCL, the largest TV manufacturer on Earth as part of a pilot program designed to normalize AI movies and TV shows for an audience that it plans to monetize explicitly with targeted advertising and whose internal data suggests that the people who watch its free television streaming network are too lazy to change the channel. I know this is the plan because TCL’s executives just told the audience that this is the plan.”

https://www.404media.co/i-went-to-the-premiere-of-tcls-first-commercially-streaming-ai-movies/

Might as well announce the store closing too.

Jesus Christ.

If any of you send me a Happy Birthday generative AI image I will block you.

Hey web developer party people, what are some good JS image gallery and lightbox libraries that you *personally recommend* (not search results that you are handing to me)?

I want something lightweight that I can embed on my static site, with simple syntax for invoking it in the middle of a blog post without making the text document unwieldy. I would prefer a brick layout to a slide carousel. Minimal overlay cruft and nothing that will mess up page dimensions or scrolling. Needs figcaptions too.

@powersoffour @tvaziri I'm not sure I could really say anything useful about it without more context. I don't have any experience with stereo in non-cinema applications.

https://joe-steel.com/2023-12-27-So-You-Just-Found-Out-Amazon-Is-Greedy.html

People seem super surprised by the Prime Video ads for some reason.

In other news, I - a humble frog - am shocked about the behavior of this scorpion that told me it would sting me months ago.

Amazon Fire TVs have found a new and annoying way to slap you in the face with ads - The Verge

“A new update now auto-plays ads on startup…”

I used to recommend the Fire TV Stick to price conscious consumers a few years ago, but I can’t possibly recommend it to anyone these days. Hopefully none of you bought this stuff as gifts for people. https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/1/23984444/amazon-fire-tv-autoplay-ads-on-startup

Apple Removed Trump Comments From Robert De Niro Gotham Speech - Variety

(via @powerllama) https://variety.com/2023/film/news/robert-de-niro-apple-censors-trump-criticism-gotham-speech-1235810832/