One thing I didn’t expect from Starship’s 13th test launch: the upper stage not exploding right after the inevitable tipover following a soft landing in the Indian Ocean. Very lucky break for SpaceX, especially if they can recover the whole thing to inspect it onshore.

I can't be the only nerd to walk by this sign in Arlington and think "I didn't know WordPress was getting into the apartment business."

Kayak is basically unusable in my Mac's copy of Safari and has been so for at least the past few weeks. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing a site operator would want to see persist if they don't want to get run over by Google.

Very, very much in the target demographic here.

A friend whose dad flew for PSA caught this error. His comment: "I’m impressed by PSA’s 47 year string of profitability until 2019 after they were merged out of existence in 1988."

Cooling off nicely at Fort Reno Park for tonight's concert.

Took way longer than I expected--Google shipped Android 17 almost a month ago--but this update is now ready to install on my Pixel 9 Pro. Do I feel lucky?

This standing-around time is treating eventual attendees to an extended look at the Kalshi-sucks ad playing on the side of a truck, hired by a "nonpartisan market integrity watchdog" called FairPredicts because Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour is one of the speakers.

Meanwhile, on X, where Ars (note: very occasional freelance client of mine) has almost 13 times as many followers...

The VC-25, the Boeing 747-200 that the Air Force has used for presidential transport for decades, is one shiny airplane.

Got a picture on one of their subsequent passes. The F-16 remains one of the finest-looking aircraft ever made--so give me a heads-up about when I should step outside into this heat to enjoy the view.

Fingers metaphorically crossed, but this actually seems to have worked! I no longer have Safari shoving a dialog in my face asking me to sign in by scanning a QR code or using a security key.

What setting do I need to change in Safari or macOS to shoot this dialog into the sun? I use 1Password and its Safari extension to manage passkeys, but Safari keeps getting in my way.

I wrapped up my visit at the @wmata.com exhibit, just before the exit at 4th and Madison, for a 1000-series train throwback experience and a peek at 8000-series train new hotness.

There are state exhibits, some more detailed than others. New Jersey represents well with a Shore-specific setup centered around large-scale sand sculpture.

The small version of the Arc de Trump may evoke Spinal Tap's onstage Stonehenge, but it does provide some badly needed shade.

And here we have the Department of Energy trying to get people to think that solar, wind and batteries have no role in "energy dominance" but coal does. That is an objectively stupid view to hold, much less air publicly.

There's no forgetting the current occupant of the Oval, courtesy of multiple Cabinet departments featuring one service or another featuring his name or face in their exhibits here. This sort of North Korean obsequiousness will never not be gross.

Hello from a sweltering afternoon on the Mall. This facade is not a great introduction to the Great American State Fair--but there is air conditioning and a NASA exhibit inside. Along with setups for SpaceX, TikTok, SAP, USPTO... and Truth Social, among others.

You usually don't see one mediocre man's fragility magnified on a monumental scale like this.

Posted much less than usual this weekend because I visited a telecom throwback: an island with almost no cell service but actual printed phone books in circulation.

Can somebody tell the Microsoft Teams developers how notifications are supposed to work in a mobile app?

Do I put this on my LinkedIn or not?

Being back in my favorite part of Texas also treated me to the sight this morning of one of Tesla's two-seat, gold-painted Cybercabs. Yes, they exist; no, I can't tell if this one had a human behind the wheel because I was on the wrong side of the street and too far away.

[taps sign once again] Don't share fake images that push your buttons and match your priors. Especially when the fakery is obvious - in this case, the flags in the stands are absurdly large, and Iran's uniforms don't look anything like that. www.cnn.com/2026/06/16/s...

Outside, a crowd waving the lion-and-sun flags of Iran's pre-1979 regime were protesting the theocrats that have denied Iran a better future for decades. I felt bad thinking about how Trump keeps rug-pulling them... how many crimes will Reza Pahlavi have to commit on Trump's behalf to change that?

And speaking of SDU: I strongly endorse getting a window seat for flights in and out of Rio's rough equivalent of National Airport.

It's been a while since I've flown a new-to-me passenger jet, but this afternoon's SDU-GRU flight on Azul treated me to Embraer's E195 E2. Verdict: It's really too bad that the E2's weight makes it ineligible under the scope-clause contract rules at almost all U.S. airlines.

FYI to anybody heading from the Web Summit Rio hotel to SDU later today: Uber to Jardim Oceânico / Barra da Tijuca station + Metro + VLT Carioca light rail is a cheap and fast #transitadventure, with an easy transfer and tap to pay available for each train.

Shout-out to Azul Brazilian Airlines for having the jankiest country-code-picker UI that I have ever seen. If you were about ask: No, type-ahead does not do anything. (Also bad: The "Finish Check-in" box remains grayed-out and unavailable at the end of the check-in flow in Chrome and Firefox.)