Democracy requires that parties know how to lose. Politicians who fail to win elections must be willing to accept defeat, go home, and get ready to play again the next day. This norm of gracious losing is essential to a healthy democracy.

– Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Kenji López-Alt nice pickup for NYT.

Also do steam your eggs. A great technique I pinched off of Kenji a few years back.

Today in sharecropping news.

Today in sharecropping news.

If you put [Funeral] on in a room full of people ages 37 to 45, at least 25 percent of them will immediately start crying.

I feel seen.

Nice piece from Jason Snell about some cool new short distance wireless technology to replace or at least greatly augment Bluetooth.

Across various podcasts last week, there was a great deal of speculation that Apple withheld a tile-like beacon device because the technology wasn’t ready (remember AirPower, they said).

But an Apple tile wouldn’t be terribly useful without a vast and scattered set of devices able to link them to the Internet. So an equally plausible reason (and not a last minute decision) to delay such a tile would be to wait until there were idk maybe 50 million Ultra Wideband capable iPhones in the world instead of basically zero. Not to mention third party IoT type gadgets.

So maybe don’t get too excited until next September. Which also leaves time for Apple to extend Ultra Wideband into any iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, HomePods, etc.

Attorneys general for 50 U.S. states and territories on Monday officially announced an antitrust investigation of Google, embarking on a wide-ranging review of a tech giant that Democrats and Republicans said may threaten competition, consumers and the continued growth of the web.

“Attorneys general.”

Good essay on the Electoral College from Julia Azari.

“There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous men.”

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“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

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Magical thinking with machine learning and subverting civil liberties in service of doing something about U.S. gun violence epidemic.