Marcus Mendes, 9to5Mac:

Now, on the same day that F1 The Movie debuted at the top of Apple TV’s movie rankings, the company confirmed that Pluribus has reached another, even more impressive milestone: it is the most watched show in the service’s history. Busy day. [...]

Apple doesn’t share viewership numbers, so it is hard to quantify what exactly this means.

However, considering that Apple TV has had quite a few hit shows, including Ted Lasso, Severance, The Morning Show, Slow Horses, and, more recently, The Studio, it is still notable that Pluribus has managed to top them all in just a few short weeks.

I love Pluribus. I’d rank it behind Severance and Slow Horses, but it’s a close call behind Pluribus and The Studio for third place on my Apple TV favorites list. Great shows all four of them. I don’t think there’s any question that when it comes to prestige series, Apple TV had the best 2025. Which other streamer had four shows of that caliber this year?

Jason Kottke is iffy on it, though, because he’s not seeing the appeal of Rhea Seehorn’s protagonist Carol Sturka. Count me with Max Roberts — I find Carol very compelling, and uncomfortably realistic. She feels to me like a real person, not a “character”. It’s one of the best cinematic explorations of loneliness since Tom Hanks in Cast Away — or WALL-E.

From the LucasFonts account, in a comment on Hacker News:

Professional typography can be achieved with both serif and sans-serif fonts. However, Times New Roman — a typeface older than the current president — presents unique challenges. Originally crafted in Great Britain for newspaper printing, Times was optimised for paper, with each letterform meticulously cut and tested for specific sizes. In the digital era, larger size drawings were repurposed as models, resulting in a typeface that appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality.

Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively. While a skilled typographer can, in theory, produce excellent results with Times, using it in its default digital form is not considered professional practice.

This echoes my thoughts: the State Department should use a traditional-looking serif typeface, but they should choose — or even better, commission — something far better than Times New Roman.

Also from that Hacker News thread, comes this delightful Easter egg: do a Google search for “Lucas de Groot”, and the results will be set in Calibri. Same thing for common fonts like, yes, Times New Roman.

Peter Kafka, writing at Business Insider:

And last: It’s possible that Middle Eastern countries are investing in an American media conglomerate solely for a financial return, and would have zero interest in the content that conglomerate makes and distributes. But that’s an assertion that many folks would have a hard time taking at face value. And while lots of American companies have sought Middle Eastern funding for years, there was a pause after 2018, following the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi — a shocking act the CIA concluded was ordered by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself. (He has denied involvement.)

Now bin Salman might end up owning a piece of major American news outlets and other media arms. How’s that going to go over?

David Ellison’s hostile takeover proposal reportedly would have these Middle East partners owning “non-voting” shares, but regardless of their rights in the corporate by-laws, their mere ownership would give them influence. These are profoundly fucked-up countries, where women are a repressed underclass, LGBT activity is punishable by death, and their word is worth nothing when they promise to abide by Western norms.

This is very funny, but also a good indication of just how far away these things are from actual intelligence. First, a reasonable human being would never get caught in a loop like this. Second, only humans can not only recognize what’s going on here, but also see the humor in it.

Paris Buttfield-Addison (Hacker News, John Gruber): My Apple ID, which I have held for around 25 years (it was originally a username, before they had to be email addresses; it’s from the iTools era), has been permanently disabled. This isn’t just an email address; it is my core digital identity. It holds terabytes of family […]