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For all the great and revolutionary products and features Apple has released over the years, there are just as many head-scratching decisions that have taken away or ruined things we love. They’re usually gone forever, like USB-A ports or headphone jacks, but every so often Apple hears our wails and reverses course. It happened most recently with the butterfly keyboard. Way back in 2015, Apple shifted away from its very excellent scissor-switch keyboards to a proprietary “butterfly” model that was thinner than its predecessor. Apple claimed it was superior, but unhappy users loudly complained about the keyboard, which was so prone to sticking and unresponsive keys that Apple launched a service program extending to every butterfly MacBook ever made. Apple finally retired the butterfly keyboard once and for all in 2019, and…

LET’S IMAGINE PLANET EARTH WITHOUT VIRUSES. We wave a wand, and they all disappear. The rabies virus is suddenly gone. The polio virus is gone. The gruesomely lethal Ebola virus is gone. The measles virus, the mumps virus, and the various influenzas are gone. Vast reductions of human misery and death. HIV is gone, and so the AIDS catastrophe never happened. Nipah and Hendra and Machupo and Sin Nombre are gone—never mind their records of ugly mayhem. Dengue, gone. All the rotaviruses, gone, a great mercy to children in developing countries who die by the hundreds of thousands each year. Zika virus, gone. Yellow fever virus, gone. Herpes B, carried by some monkeys, often fatal when passed to humans, gone. Nobody suffers anymore from chicken pox, hepatitis, shingles, or even the…

Macs are undergoing a big change. Apple is switching its internal architecture from one that uses Intel CPUs, third-party graphics processors, and other parts, to the company’s own “system on a chip.” The first Apple silicon SoC for Macs is called the M1. It’s a big step for Apple and the Mac. But what does it mean for you? In this article, we cover what Apple’s system on a chip means to the user, how it affects what software you can use, and answer other frequently asked questions. WHAT IS THE ‘APPLE SILICON’ M1 SYSTEM ON A CHIP? “Apple silicon” refers to the chips Apple makes. In the Mac, they replace the Intel processors they have used for the past 14 years, and will eventually also replace the AMD graphics processors in higher-end…

The experience of architecture happens across various scales, from a building’s situation to its skin, and from the entire interior down to the most minute of fittings. There’s a big difference between selecting products from a catalogue and developing something specifically for a project, something that conveys the very essence of the architectural concept. Laufen has realized the need to add this degree of influence to the bathroom, a space whose fittings haven’t historically received such high levels of customization. Laufen wants to move beyond the role of manufacturer to become an ‘industrial partner’. This means that in addition to offering its already extensive product portfolio, the brand can work with architects, designers and investors to create bespoke bathroom products that meet their individual specifications. Part of the goal of the Bespoke…

DANNY BARCELONA LIVES IN constant fear that doctors will stop the medications he considers lifesaving. The 66-year-old has suffered for more than two decades with a debilitating nervous-system disorder and severe back and shoulder pain, forcing him to close his once-thriving dental-lab business in Asheville, North Carolina, and sometimes leaving him bedridden for 18 hours a day. That he can function at all, he says, is due to his ongoing prescription for oxycodone, an opioid. In the middle of an epidemic of opioid overdoses, doctors, hospitals and pharmacies across America are facing intense pressure to sharply cut back on prescribing and dispensing the drugs. About 8 million patients in the U.S. who depend on opioids to face constant, intense pain are at risk of losing access to the one treatment that…

What does it mean to create a grand New York City apartment— something equal in ambition and quality to the finest homes of the Gilded Age—in the 21st century? How do you express the ideas of connoisseurship and luxury in a way that feels modern, elegant, unpretentious, and, above all, relevant for a young family? In short, how do you invent the future? AD100 designer Steven Volpe had the rare opportunity to explore those questions in the design of a 10,000-square-foot, full-floor apartment, with 13-foot ceilings, located in a slender, skyline-defining tower in midtown Manhattan. But before Volpe and his team could bring in a single Giacometti lamp or Picasso painting, they faced a massive engineering challenge: essentially creating a building within a building to mitigate the eerie sounds of wind…

The paleolithic period – or ‘Stone Age’ – has an evocative place in the modern popular imagination. It looks both backward and forward, an ancient clean slate from which to project and describe humanity’s near future. While The Flintstones are a prehistoric family, their lives are enmeshed in the trappings of an emerging post-war modernity: domestic appliances, fast food and entertainment. We see this duality emerge once again, between the Stone Age and modernity, expressed in a new Modern Stone Age. The character of these spaces eludes and obscures the hand of human design and planning. The sinewy columns, misshapen doorways and globular window portals appear gelatinous, like extruded, misshapen bone marrow. Form is persistently organic, never repeating to the point of motif or feature. Territories morph and billow onwards, carrying…

Formula 1 is set to maintain its DI V6 turbo hybrid power units for the foreseeable future. However, after extensive discussions with the current and some intent OEMs, the next generation, set to arrive in 2026, will contain some crucial recipe changes. One of the most significant is eliminating the e-Turbo-style heat energy recovery system (H-ERS). The H-ERS is a motor-generator unit mounted on the turbocharger shaft of a Formula 1 internal combustion engine. The unit converts heat energy from exhaust gases into electrical energy. This is then used to power the car’s electrical driveline (either charging the battery or directly deployed to the kinetic energy recovery unit) to boost the power unit’s performance. It’s arguably the most significant performance differentiating system onboard the power unit. Party politics Understanding how this primary performance…

Acapulco, look here comes the sunAcapulco, it’s a day for funI can’t wait till I meet your sweet senoritasKiss everyoneThis is not time for siesta, this is time for fun… The lyrics to the title song of Fun in Acapulco — the 1963 fiesta starring Elvis Presley and Ursula Andress — helped cement the vision of this palm-fringed, mountain-rimmed, semi-circular bay in the state of Guerrero, on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, as a kind of sun-sparkled, azure-splashed Shangri-La. It was already well on its way to becoming Mexico’s largest beach and balneario resort city, but, at the time, still retained vestiges of its original twilight-paseo, bayside-village charm. The Duke of Windsor made a visit in 1920 and gave the place his proto-influencer approbation. Elvis never made it to Acapulco — he’d been declared persona…

BABY BOOM Newly retired Czech skater Michal Březina and his wife Danielle Montalbano are getting ready to welcome a baby boy in November. The couple has a daughter Naya, who is now 21/2. Canada’s Meagan Duhamel and Bruno Marcotte are expecting their second child, a girl, in July. Their daughter Zoey will turn 3 in October. In a social media post in early May, China’s Han Yan revealed he had married in January and became a father in April. Yan did not provide any details about his wife or the newborn. LAST DANCE Spanish ice dancer Adrián Díaz announced his retirement from competitive skating on May 23. Díaz and his partner Olivia Smart won over a lot of fans last season with their dogged determination to claim the sole ice dance spot Spain had at the 2022 Olympic…

The first time I met Piero Castellini Baldissera was at his home in Casa degli Atellani in the center of Milan. Nicolò Castellini Baldissera, his son and my partner, hadn’t provided much forewarning about his family palazzo—about its likely connection to Leonardo da Vinci while he was painting the Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie church across the street, or about the attached apartment building filled with members of his extended family, or even about the museum and café run by his cousin in the middle of the compound’s courtyard. When Piero’s ancestor Ettore Conti purchased the 15th-century palace in 1919, he enlisted the help of the legendary architect Piero Portaluppi (the husband of Conti’s niece Lia Baglia, whom he later adopted) to restore it. He engaged him a second…

JUST OVER SIX MONTHS INTO HIS TENURE, President Joe Biden has overseen the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and pulled back the Pentagon’s mission in Iraq amid domestic and regional pressure. But in Syria, the U.S. military remains with no discernable exit plan. “Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are three completely separate issues and should not be conflated,” a senior Biden administration official tells Newsweek. “On Syria, we do not anticipate any changes right now to the mission or the footprint.” That’s because the administration says the strategy is working as is. “We are supporting Syrian Democratic Forces in their fight against ISIS,” the official adds. “That has been quite successful, and that’s something that we’ll continue.” The Syrian Democratic Forces are one of several factions in Syria’s decade-long civil war. The largely…

When Deb Menicos walks a strawberry field, she doesn’t look at just the berries. Menicos, who holds a doctorate in plant breeding from Ohio State University and works as a senior scientist at Driscoll’s Inc., will often find herself counting leaves and examining the small stalks protruding from the base of the plant. These parts, known as trusses, are important because they’re where the flowers and berries grow. “We want a small plant, with compact leaves and trusses poking out—not too long, because we don’t want them to touch the dirt,” she says. Developing a new berry variety at Driscoll’s takes at least five years. It begins with a crop of 25,000 genetically distinct plants that grow in the company’s breeding field near its headquarters in Watsonville, California. Menicos and her…

I’ve always held the opinion that a backyard astronomer should never go outside without an organized list of objects to observe. Whether designed for a single evening or as part of a goal-oriented observing program, having a plan helps you avoid night after night of aimless searching, which could diminish your interest in the hobby. I offered ideas for one-night observing lists in my February 2020 column, “February’s Finest Sights.” But this time around, we’ll look at some extensive compilations of deep-sky objects that can keep you engaged for nights on end. Perhaps the best known deep-sky list is the Messier Catalog. And while it can serve as a single night list (if you’re adventurous enough to tackle a Messier marathon), its 110 entries are better subdivided into a series of…

A hundred years ago convalescence was seen as a necessary part of the recovery process. The word was part of the vernacular, describing a liminal space between health and illness: a phase when people were neither ‘sick’ nor ‘well’ but somewhere in between. Today the word is almost obsolete and, rather than taking time to rest and recuperate, most people return to work as soon as humanely possible. They are helped by wonder drugs like antibiotics, which, by dealing effectively with the extreme symptoms of illness, con the body into thinking it’s fully recovered when often it’s only part way there. COVID-19 has re-introduced us to the concept of a prolonged recovery, with numerous patients claiming they are not back to full health after more than 100 days. It has also seen…

Making people laugh connects us to one another. But what humour endures? For me, it’s personal life stories and experiences. Life, twisted and moulded until you find the funny, will always evolve, and therefore endure. I’ve found that the closer it cuts to the bone, the funnier it is. The beauty of life is that everyone is similar in some way. While we may not have the same experiences, everyone can relate to observations on life, family and the varieties of behaviour we all encounter every day as we go about our lives. Humour is very helpful in everyday life. For example, it can end tense situations. In my life, humour has ended arguments at home and at work too many times to mention. Finding humour can break tension immediately. My…

After 25 years of marriage, a relationship problem in my home typically plays out like this. I go to the kitchen to make dinner and see my husband’s walking stick leaning against the drawers that contain my pots. (Ambrose has been nursing a bad knee.) I move the stick a metre over and rest it against the door frame. The next day, it is back leaning on the drawers. I move it again. This can go on for weeks. Neither of us mentions it to the other. It’s just a silent tug-of-war about where things belong in the house. I mentioned this to him the other day, about how hilariously low-stakes the romantic drama has become in our lives, and he countered that, actually, he hadn’t noticed that I kept moving…

JOHN FORD WANTED a whale’s-eye view. One summer day in 1978 a pod of killer whales raced toward a pebbled beach on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. The young biologist was waiting in a wet suit and snorkel. The ghostly black-and-white procession steamed in like a team of U-boats, low and fast. Ford pressed on his face mask and slipped into the sea. In waters barely 10 feet deep, the creatures slowed and rolled to their sides. Bodies partially submerged, the fans at the end of their tails—their flukes—wagging, the whales began to twist and shimmy. One by one, each scuffed its side and belly on the stones, like grizzlies scratching against the pines. Ford, age 66, has now studied killer whales, the largest dolphin and from the branch of the Cetacean…

Intel’s Alder Lake processor is starting to become available in PC laptops and that means one thing: benchmarks! Macworld’s sister publication, PCWorld, posted a review of one of the first laptops with the Core i9-12900HK processor, code-named Alder Lake, and it inevitably got us thinking about Apple’s M1 Pro and Max. To be clear, PCWorld didn’t include Apple silicon in its review—they are reviewing Windows-based laptops and comparing Alder Lake to its predecessor and a new 8-core Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU. Many of the benchmark programs PCWorld used aren’t even available on the Mac or do not have native M1 versions, but PCWorld did run Geekbench and Cinebench, two benchmarks Macworld also uses. And we learned a lot from them. First, let’s check out the specifications for the laptops: 14-inch MacBook Pro M1…

The Mac’s FaceTime camera sucks—720p or 1080p, it doesn’t matter. But Apple does make great cameras, like those in the iPhone, and with macOS Ventura and iOS 16, Apple is leveraging its iPhone cameras so they can be used as a webcam through a new enhancement to macOS’s Continuity Camera feature. If you’re sick of being embarrassed by your Mac camera’s image quality during videoconferences, or you demand better quality for video recordings of yourself that you want to use, Continuity Camera is a godsend. And fortunately, it’s so easy to set up and use, that you’ll come to rely on it and only use the Mac’s built-in camera in emergencies. Here’s how to set up and use Continuity Camera. But first, here are the requirements: > A Mac running macOS Ventura > An…

WHEN RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin ordered the first of his 190,000 troops into Ukraine on February 24, the invasion had a seismic effect on Europe and the Western world. But tremors were also felt some 5,000 miles to the east: Taiwan rapidly became a trending topic. For years, the world has speculated nervously on when President Xi Jinping will finally make good on the Chinese Communist Party’s vow to annex Taiwan, a self-ruling island off the east coast of the People’s Republic of China—an act that threatens to provide the spark that ignites a hot war between Beijing and Washington. The developments in Ukraine offer Beijing a hazy window into its own future. Russia’s many failures and miscalculations in its blitzkrieg, and its struggle to assert full control in Ukraine against a…

Pre-pandemic co-working was popular mainly with freelancers and start-ups, but the ongoing backdrop of uncertainty has seen traditional businesses de-risk by setting small teams of their employees up in local hubs. ‘Businesses today are looking for flexible rental options that are versatile and highly responsive to changing market dynamics,’ says Kong Wan Sing, founder of JustCo. Before the pandemic, 50 to 60 per cent of the Southeast Asian flex space provider’s deals were with enterprises. As of last December, it was 90 per cent. Sing told Coworking Insights: ‘The combination of businesses seeking to deploy less capital into real estate, and employees expecting more choices over how and where they work, will fuel expectations toward flexible office space to complement primary real estate needs over the next decade.’ In Australia, major…

If you have a newer Mac, it likely uses a speedy solid-state drive to store files, apps, music, videos, and other important stuff. But there’s one thing you may not know about SSDs: They wear out over time. Since the SSD is such a vital part of your Mac, it’s a good idea to keep tabs on its health. While it usually takes a really long time to wear out an SSD—likely far longer than you’ll keep your Mac—problems can arise. Most recently, users started noticing that new M1 Macs and some Intel-based ones are showing advanced wear after just a few months of use, a troubling sign that could cause drives to burn out years before expected. So even if you have a brand-new M1 Mac, you might want to check…

One thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear is that some people who get the virus don’t suffer much, while others become very sick indeed. And while the elderly have been particularly hard hit, some do survive – even centenarians. As for younger people, whose immune systems are supposed to be more robust, many have nevertheless died of it. So, what factors give some people a stronger immune system than others, regardless of age? What does it mean if, for example, your partner or child gets sick, and you don’t – or vice versa? We know that our immune-system function slowly declines with age. Just like when you see a photo of yourself from ten years ago versus one taken this afternoon, you see changes in your face, skin and…

You may have noticed that external SSDs from top-tier vendors are pricey—especially when they’re Thunderbolt. If you’re looking to lessen your financial pain a little, then OWC’s $79 Envoy Express T3 (Thunderbolt 3) enclosure might be just what the doctor ordered. Populate it with a budget M.2 NVMe SSD, and you’re on your way to external storage nirvana for a very reasonable price. The kicker is a clever caddy that adheres (semipermanently) to your computer, laptop, or display and allows you to keep the drive handy, but securely in place and out of harm’s way. DESIGN AND SPECS The Envoy Express measures approximately 4.1x1.6x0.5 inches and weighs around 3.3 ounces—including the SSD. The metal case is all black with a brushed-metal stripe down the middle bearing the name and OWC logo. Though shown in…

We’ve heard rumors for about a year or so that Apple is on the verge of launching some products with Mini LED display technology. It could come to MacBooks, iPads, iMacs—really anything with a display, though it’s quite unlikely to ever end up in Apple Watch or iPhone (which use OLED displays). What is a Mini LED display and what exactly will it do for you? This short explanation may help you understand why this technology could represent such a big step forward into the future for Apple’s products. A BETTER BACKLIT LCD To understand Mini LED, you first have to know the basics of how a traditional backlit LCD works. That’s what we have in all our iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs today. It can get complicated, but in short, there’s a backlight (usually…

iOS and iPadOS 16 share many new features but some are specific to iPad or iPhone. For example, the Lock Screen on iPhone gets a new look that we’d have liked to see on iPad too, but this feature won’t appear on iPadOS. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, declared that “iOS 16 is a big release with updates that will change the way you experience iPhone.” There’s certainly packed a lot in there, with Messages and Mail getting an overhaul too. Significantly, Apple is introducing a ‘buy now, pay later’ option called Apple Pay Later, allowing payments to be spread over six weeks. It will be available anywhere that accepts Apple Pay. Consumers will also be able to track orders directly in the Wallet app. Elsewhere, the…

On a sunny Tuesday morning in the town of Grândola, an hour and a half south of Lisbon, Sandy Chen steps out of an Uber and braces herself for the five home viewings she’s lined up for the day in Portugal’s Alentejo region. As Chen walks down a quiet street in the town of 14,000, dogs bark and elderly residents, alerted by the noise, emerge from their homes to check out the visitor. “If I buy a house here, I might be the only Chinese person in town,” she says. Chen, a retiree originally from Tianjin in northern China, is racing to find a property before Portugal slams the door on a program offering residency and a path to citizenship to foreigners willing to invest in the country. In 2021, Portugal…

In Kyrgyzstan, a member of parliament urgently called on the government to start creating jobs and setting up temporary housing for the information technology professionals now arriving daily from Russia. Even a poor Central Asian nation that exports cheap migrant labor for Russian construction sites and fast-food restaurants looks like a safe haven to thousands of educated Russians fleeing the cataclysm Vladimir Putin created by invading Ukraine. This can no longer be described as brain drain: It’s a stampede for the exits. Konstantin Sonin, an economist at the University of Chicago, has estimated that some 200,000 Russians fled in the first 10 days of the invasion—to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel—any country that admits Russians visa-free. That’s a small number compared with the 2.8 million refugees who’ve left Ukraine, but…

Cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes: in the lexicon of ageing and disease, these are some worrisome words. But researchers have suspected for years that all of these health issues, and more, have at their heart one common trigger: chronic low-grade inflammation. And now they may finally have proof. In 2017 researchers in Boston reported on a clinical trial with more than 10,000 patients (mean age: 61) from 39 countries that tested whether an anti-inflammatory drug, canakinumab, could lower rates of heart disease. They discovered that it could, but they also found that it reduced lung cancer mortality by more than 67 per cent. Reports of gout and arthritis, which are conditions linked to inflammation, also fell. “In flammation plays a role in everyone’s health,” says rheumatologist Dr Dana DiRenzo. When inf lammation…

The first-ever dictionary The earliest single-language dictionary in the English language was known as A Table Alphabeticall. Produced by Robert Cawdrey in 1604, it contained around 3000 words. It didn’t give definitions so much as synonyms; the author’s purpose, he wrote, was to introduce more complicated words to “ladies, gentlewomen, or any other unskillful persons”, so they could better understand scriptures and sermons. The word with the most meanings You might be surprised to learn that the most ‘complicated’ word in English – the word with the largest number of separate definitions – is a three-letter word. Although set held the title in the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, with 430 separate definitions, in more recent times it has been outrun by a competitor. According to the editors,…

The winds this April morning were giving Wayne Boone’s massive 2007 semitrailer a good lashing. A driver for a paper recycling company in Virginia, US, Boone steered the empty 18-wheeler up a stretch of the highway, to pick up his first load of the day. The 53-year-old driver pulled into the eastbound left lane of the G.A. Treakle Memorial Bridge, known to locals as the I-64 High Rise, a four-lane drawbridge traversing the Elizabeth River. On the span, the storm let loose its full force, finding no obstacles in its path but vehicles, which it pummelled. Boone slowed as wind and rain hammered his windshield. At the bridge’s crest, 21 metres above the rushing estuary, the concrete road gave way to steel decking. Boone’s front wheels met the slick steel just as…

Light, dark, moist, dry, heavy, spongy, leavened, unleavened. All around the world there are many variations of the Christmas cake that started in Britain in the 14th century as porridge. Yes, you read that correctly. Porridge. In 567, the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed that Christmas Day to Epiphany (January 6), later called the 12 Days of Christmas, would be a sacred and festive season. The pre-Christmas period, or Advent, was traditionally a season for fasting when the faithful prepared themselves for the coming of the newborn King, and for the celebration of the feast of Christmas. On Christmas Eve, to help line their stomachs, many ate something called plum porridge, or ‘frumenty’. According to Hazel Flight, a nutritionist at Edge Hill University, frumenty was made from hulled wheat that was boiled…

Marjon van Eijk was excited. The 57-year-old from the Netherlands and her family had just landed on the Spanish island of Mallorca for the wedding of her daughter Iris. It was a day she’d dreamed about. The intimate ceremony was taking place the next day, October 10, 2018. Twenty-one guests were planning to gather at a stunning villa in the hills beyond the picturesque town of Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, just under an hour’s drive from the airport. “I can’t wait for the barbecue tonight, never mind the wedding,” Marjon told her mother, Bets Kasiu. Bets was a sharp, warm-hearted 84-year-old, but she wasn’t in the best of health. A year earlier, she had had emergency surgery on a perforated intestine and now wore a colostomy bag. Hip problems meant she had to…

November 30, 2022. Indeed, Rod’s passing shortly after his 88th birthday was a very sad day. A hearty amen to all the nice things that have been said about Rod and his accomplishments in ham radio. Rod was real gentleman. In all my years of knowing Rod, I never heard him say a disparaging word about anyone. Rod received his first license in 1949 when he was 15 years old – W7KIM – the beginning of a passion for ham radio that he enjoyed for the rest of his life. Rod’s first station was a set of ARC-5 aircraft radios and simple wires in trees. Years later, he became W7YBX and finally, W7OM, in 1977. Rod entered the US Air Force aviation cadet program after high school, having already received his pilot’s…

WHEN COVID-19 began tearing around the globe, Francesca Dominici suspected air pollution was increasing the death toll. It was the logical conclusion of everything scientists knew about dirty air and everything they were learning about the novel coronavirus. People in polluted places are more likely to have chronic illnesses, and such patients are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. What’s more, air pollution can weaken the immune system and inflame the airways, leaving the body less able to fight off a respiratory virus. Many experts saw the possible connection, but Dominici, a biostatistics professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was especially well equipped to test it. She and her colleagues have spent years creating an extraordinary data platform, one that aligns information on the health of tens of…

ON A SUNLIT FEBRUARY morning in Cape Town, Ross Frylinck waited near the doorway of a private home perched on a steep mountainside overlooking False Bay. Co-founder of the Sea Change Project, an environmental organization dedicated to preserving the kelp forest in South Africa’s coastal waters, Frylinck had gathered with a group of colleagues and musicians to welcome Yo-Yo Ma to Cape Town, one of 36 stops on the cellist’s six-continent tour known as the Bach Project. Preparing to receive one of the world’s most celebrated musicians caused some trepidation. “We were all a bit intimidated,” Frylinck said later. But the tension dissipated as soon as Ma arrived. The cellist’s face was open and warm, and his demeanor caring, earnest, and inquisitive. “His whole heart was smiling in the room,” Frylinck…

With the release of macOS Monterey, Apple’s oldest platform is embarking upon its latest journey around the sun. And while this newest update brings with it a whole host of features, from Focus mode to FaceTime improvements, it also puts into stark relief some of the Mac’s shortcomings—especially when compared to iOS. Apple’s been working hard to get its platforms in sync and, to the company’s credit, many of the new features that it rolled out this year have arrived on both platforms—even if not in simultaneous releases. (SharePlay and redesigned Memories in Photos are lacking from the initial Monterey release, despite already coming out for iOS.) While attention often focuses on places where iOS is still catching up to the Mac, that street runs both ways. There remain places where iOS…

After more than a decade with the same design, the iMac finally has a brand-new look, and it’s stunning. The 2021 iMac also has Apple’s super-fast M1 processor, a bigger display with even more pixels, a much-needed update to the FaceTime camera, and some pretty awesome audio capabilities. But is this enough, or would you be better off spending your money elsewhere? 1. PERFORMANCE AND PRICE One thing is clear: The M1 chip is far superior to the 8th-generation Intel quad-core and 6-core options in the iMacs it replaces. If you are just seeking a new iMac to replace an older generation of iMac, then you won’t be disappointed in the speed boost. There is little to distinguish the iMac from the other M1 Macs, though. We have tested all the M1 Macs…

Well-drawn type has been integral to the Mac since the very start. Steve Jobs, who famously adored a calligraphy course in college, insisted that the Mac use “real” fonts, something made possible by the company’s early partnership with Adobe Systems. From 1984 through the present day, Mac operating systems have always let you use typefaces that look great—as well as those designed poorly, to be fair—but the features associated with type aren’t always well exposed. Apple has over several years gradually and quietly added support for refinement available by accessing features in OpenType, the standard way in which font files are created for digital use. Cracking open the Fonts palette in Pages and other Apple software (as well as some third-party apps or their alternative controls) can let you make routine…

我們是美國，沒有什麼事情是我們無法一起做到的！」美國時間七月四日晚間，美國總統拜登在白宮南草坪舉辦的國慶日園遊會上，用這段話，為將近十五分鐘的致詞作結。 這場約千人出席的「派對」，相較於七月一日在北京天安門廣場舉行的中共建黨百年慶祝大典，規格顯得迷你；拜登著重美國如何逐漸擺脫疫情陰霾的談話，也明顯少了中共總書記習近平一番警告外來勢力恐將「頭破血流」的霸氣。 兩大強權，一周內的兩場慶典，東方巨龍的聲勢更為浩大，但華裔美籍的中國研究專家裴敏欣在中共建黨百年大典隔天撰文評論，對中國而言，「拜登，可能是更可怕的敵人。」理由是：「不同於川普以侮辱、威脅和關稅疏遠盟友，拜登修復了美國的聯盟，成功形塑一條相對團結的抗中戰線。」 六月，當台灣社會聚焦於新冠疫情，太平洋另一端的拜登政府則是連續出手，從最外顯的地緣政治，到5G戰、科技戰、金融戰，都像是在這一個月內完成了關鍵布陣，上任至今許多曖昧或決斷的背後意義，也似乎在此一個月間豁然開朗，攸關全球政經格局的「拜登規則」瞬間清晰──如同裴敏欣的解讀，這是一套「比川普更兇狠」的對中戰略。…

I grew up in a bar. When most kids my age were at the park playing ball or riding bikes, I was watching old men shoot pool and play shuffleboard. I saw a bar-room fight before I ever saw a sporting event on TV. I don’t imagine that Dr Spock’s book on child rearing, which was so popular 50 years ago, advised exposing children to dimly lit drinking at an early age. But lessons can be taught by unlikely teachers in unusual environments. All that is needed are instructors with pure hearts. Clear eyes are optional. My parents owned a bar called the M Ninety-Seven, named for a nearby highway in Detroit. Built in the ’30s, it had a long wooden bar that was on the right as you walked in.…

Tom de Dorlodot knows a thing or two about travelling and flying. A professional paraglider and paramotor pilot he has literally turned his passion for flying, adventure and travel into a career. He entered his first Red Bull X-Alps when he was 21, and has since travelled and flown in more than 60 countries around the world. He set up the Search Projects in 2011 to travel and fly remote areas, and has crossed Africa overland north to south, sailed the Pacific and Atlantic, and covered an estimated 13,000km during different vol-bivouac trips. Last year he was back in the Karakoram, where he has flown seven times over the last 12 years. At our Cross Country Subscribers’ Masterclass in November he shared some of what he knew. Here are some of his…

自從我們建立了洲際公路系統、打贏了太空爭霸賽，美國就再也沒有足堪比擬的計畫，直到現在……。這是二戰以來美國最大的一筆投資！」美國總統拜登（Joe Biden）四月七日發表這段演說時，語氣其實頗為平淡。畢竟，他在一周前的三月底已對外公布這項計畫，今天頂多算是補充說明。 他的後方站著美國副總統賀錦麗（Kamala Harris），再後方則是一片背板。在拜登所屬民主黨代表色藍色襯底的背板上，畫著幾位在高塔上賣命施工的工人剪影，簡單卻精準，傳達了這項計畫的基本意涵。 它的名稱是「美國就業計畫」（American Jobs Plan，簡稱AJP），短期目標是創造就業機會，達標的手段是翻修、興建美國基礎建設；而拜登四月七日的「補充說明」，則成功強化了這項計畫的想像空間，一種史詩級般的想像空間。 他說這是「二戰以來最大投資」，這句話憑藉的，是二．六五兆美元的計畫總額。即使扣掉其中關於「綠能產業租稅抵免」的四千億美元，政府支出的手筆仍達二．二五兆美元，相當於六十三兆元台幣。…

One of the major (and majorly controversial) changes in macOS Ventura is a redesign of System Preferences. It’s now called System Settings and it’s designed to better resemble the iOS Settings app. Apple’s desire to have more commonality between macOS and iOS is understandable, but the problem is that it’s now a chore to find the settings you need. The years of muscle memory developed by Mac users are out the window and it’s time to relearn where everything is. You can find most of the frequently-access preferences up front (Apple ID, Battery, Bluetooth, and Sound, for example). Others have been renamed to match the corresponding iOS setting, such as Security & Privacy, which is now Privacy & Security. But most notably, System Settings now uses a lot of subsections and lists,…

NOW NEARING ITS ONE YEAR anniversary, there appears to be little hope Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, itself the latest phase of an 8-year conflict, will end any time soon. Peace negotiations began within days of the February 24 invasion but were undermined from the start by wildly different demands, espionage and battlefield developments. By April, talks had collapsed, with Kyiv increasingly outraged by emerging evidence of Russian atrocities in parts of occupied Ukraine. Both Kyiv and Moscow acknowledge that a negotiated settlement will likely be needed to end the conflict. But the two sides appear to be living in different, contradictory, realities. Ukraine is demanding the full withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory per its 1991 borders, reparations, war crimes prosecutions for Russian leaders and NATO membership. Russia is demanding…

Cheater’s Mac and Cheese Replacing a traditional béchamel sauce with cream cheese, which melts almost instantly, makes this recipe ultraspeedy. Feel free to swap in other vegetables, such as fresh or frozen cauliflower florets or peas, for the broccoli. 4 ounces short pasta, such as penneKosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (optional)1½ cups fresh or frozen broccoli florets2½ ounces cream cheese (⅓ cup)1 tablespoon unsalted butter½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (⅓ cup), plus more for serving 1. Cook pasta in a pot of generously salted boiling water 2 minutes less than per package instructions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water and cover to keep warm. Add broccoli to pot; continue boiling until pasta is al dente and broccoli is bright green, 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain. Return pot to medium heat; add…

If you want to know how the world is preparing for the next global pandemic, consider Rolaing, a Cambodian village on a tributary of the Mekong River. For a few days in February this isolated spot became a hive of public-health activity after an 11-year-old girl died of H5N1, the most virulent strain of avian flu. It was the country’s first fatality from the disease since 2014. A rapid response team of health workers from the region was dispatched to the village, which is in Prey Veng province and a two-hour drive from the capital, Phnom Penh. Health workers found a community of almost 2,000 people living cheek by jowl with their livestock and chickens. In just 24 hours they set up a makeshift testing center, identified a dozen of the…

Just weeks after the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan, a cash crisis has crippled its already feeble economy. The tight supply of money, along with border restrictions and increasing international isolation, is robbing many Afghans of their livelihoods and driving the cost of food and other essentials higher, setting the stage for a humanitarian crisis. During the 20-year U.S. occupation, the economy was propped up mainly by international aid and U.S. dollars, which circulate alongside the local currency—the afghani—and are used regularly to pay for imported goods, as well as for big-ticket transactions such as buying a home or paying for private school tuition. Shah Mehrabi, a board member of Afghanistan’s central bank who’s now in the U.S., estimates that dollars accounted for about two-thirds of bank deposits and half of…

Groundhandling. Pull up, stabilise, turn around, tilt the wing to one side, collapse it, control it, move with it, stay centred, move forwards, feel the wind, balance on one foot, feel the pressure, play with the brakes, turn, pull, collapse, control. These, and much more, are a standard part of any good paragliding groundhandling training day, and over time will result in giving the pilot a high level of confidence both on the ground and in flight. Sometimes though it takes a little effort to practise these exercises after a great day’s flying, or to look for the best place to unpack the glider just for groundhandling when the weather is not right for flying. But what if you could do these training exercises at speed on skis on the snow…

I was standing in the main street of Pompeii, Italy, on a cool November day in 1992. The Via dell’Abbondanza – the street of abundance – a broad avenue running north-south through the ruined city, was completely empty save for me. There was not a single person between the brooding hulk of Mount Vesuvius off in the distance and me. It felt more abandoned than abundant, but I didn’t mind. I’d first read about the city of Pompeii as a ten year old. An ancient Roman city smothered one night in 79 CE in a thick blanket of ash when Vesuvius erupted and killed most of its inhabitants. It had seemed like a mythological place, not a place I would ever get to visit myself. Years later, here I was. The…

Since ancient times, I, the esteemed pomegranate (Punica granatum), have been regarded with reverence as a symbol of your human central beliefs. In many cultures and virtually every religion, I have come to represent life and death, fertility and marriage, beauty and abundance. Why, you may ask? It all has to do with my seeds (my name means ‘apple with many seeds’), while my orb shape and crown of sepals take on a different meaning all together. Buddhists revere me as one of the three blessed fruit (the other two are peach and citrus); in some Hindu traditions I’m a symbol of prosperity and fertility, while for Muslims I’m a symbol of beauty. As a romantic symbol I have featured in sonnets and literature, as well as Renaissance paintings. Sandro Botticelli and…

Every day, it seems, a new techy term pops up, leaving us non-techies asking questions in what sounds like a foreign language. “What is an NFT?” for example. And “Where, exactly, is the metaverse?” If you’re confused, you’re not alone. While it might feel as if technology is speeding up, it follows a predictable formula called Moore’s Law, which has correctly predicted the pace of human advancements in technology for nearly six decades. Moore’s Law suggests that the number of transistors on a computer chip will double about every two years. This is a reliable indicator of how much and how quickly technology will change. And while Moore’s Law has held true for all this time, it hasn’t stopped other key trends in tech from accelerating far faster than computer chips can…

Picture the scene: you’ve spent years working towards a specific goal. You’ve put in countless hours of work and made many sacrifices, but now you’ve got there it’s not how you imagined. Instead of celebration, elation and pride, you feel emptiness, confusion and doubt. Welcome to the anti-climax. The often-experienced but seldom-discussed downside of achieving life’s biggest milestones. Many of us work tirelessly towards our goals. We may spend our lives dreaming of the day we get married, publish our first book or purchase our first home. However, often, when we achieve these things it doesn’t feel quite as expected. In fact, the achievement of these goals feels a bit of a letdown. So why do we often experience an anti-climax when achieving big goals? “An anti-climax can be an unexpected by-product…

DXpeditions to the rarest of the rare, especially those to the sub-Antarctic, are dangerous and just plain hard to do. This month, Mike Crownover, AB5EB (with some additional photos from Adrian Ciuperca, KO8SCA) will take us along for the ride aboard Marama to one of the most remote islands on earth, Bouvet. The 3Y0J DXpedition is over now, and it was quite a roller coaster ride for the team, as well as for us DX chasers. I hope that Mike’s story will give us all a little more insight into how scary and dangerous these DXpeditions can be. This team deserves our deep appreciation for going above and beyond in order to activate the #2 rarest DX entity in the world for us all. It was not easy. Bouvet has…

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY ON A PICTURE-POSTCARD DAY IN 2021, Tenzing Gyalzen Sherpa crested the Balcony, a windswept rest spot high on Mount Everest’s Southeast Ridge. In front of his crampons, half buried in the hardened snow, were the remains of the world’s highest weather station. When the station was first assembled and bolted to the rock, it looked like an elaborate backyard antenna festooned with bird feeders and weather vanes. In reality it was $30,000 of precision instruments to measure wind, humidity, temperature, solar radiation, and barometric pressure. Now the mangled seven-foot-tall mast lay on its side, embedded in ice. Tenzing, a 31-year-old electrician and mountain guide, removed his phone from his down suit and began taking pictures of the scene. The Balcony Station had stopped transmitting on…

JUST BEFORE THE LAST BITCOIN BUBBLE popped, around the time socialite Paris Hilton issued her own “digital token” and idealists and amateurs across the globe were still tipsy on the idea of circumventing Wall Street, central banks and the usual billionaires with new digital currencies, Mike Novogratz was finishing up a talk at a cryptocurrency conference in New York City. Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned bitcoin advocate, had given many such speeches before, usually to an audience of staid financial types. This time, however, he stepped off the stage to a mob of millennials and a rock star’s greeting. “Literally pictures, pictures, pictures,” he says. “Everybody wanted a selfie. Some girl came up and started quaking, ‘Can you sign this?’ It was really weird.” “So I started selling.” It was a…