December of this year marks the 35th anniversary of the first PowerBooks shipping to customers. If only Apple would take the opportunity to bring back that classic brand name.

A couple of weeks ago the guys in Weapons of God released a video for “Double Barreled Medicine,” off their 2025 album TRIbulation. The video features mostly footage from their set at Immortal Fest 2025 in Versailles, Ohio, along with submissions from fans.

Love this song. Great riffs, Leon’s gravely vocals, it’s just a lot of fun.

The legends Rex Carroll and Ken Tamplin have combined forces to give us “Where Do We Go From Here?”. This was quite a treat on a snowed-in weekend!

The boys in Messenger have released a new video for their song “Messenger at Arms,” from their 2020 album In To Win. It’s very metal!

Ashley Belanger:

The law requires the divestment “to end any ‘operational relationship’ between ByteDance and TikTok in the United States,” critics told the NYT. That could be a problem, since TikTok’s release makes it clear that ByteDance will maintain some control over the TikTok US app’s operations.

Is anyone truly concerned with the national security implications of TikTok surprised that ByteDance is, well, dancing around the particulars to maintain some form of access and control?

The Chinese Communist Party is not going to willingly give up access to American users or the influence it can exert on those users by way of controlling the algorithm of what they see.

If we were really serious about TikTok, we would have cut off its access entirely to the nation, but then the powers that be in this country haven’t been serious about national security in decades.

[Wave of the phin to Michael Tsai for linking to the Ars piece.]

Why streaming sucks for sports, reason #1,659:

To watch the Packers-Bears playoff game:

  1. Switch input to AppleTV
  2. AppleTV asleep, wake up, select viewer (me)
  3. Switch to Prime Video app
  4. Prime Video launches with useless graphic
  5. Select viewer (me)
  6. Select game
  7. Select how I want to watch game (Live)

If there was any sense in this world, and the game was on a normal television channel:

  1. Select channel

This month, the United States Marine Corps celebrates its 250th year of existence, and they put out a special birthday message:

Happy birthday, Marines! Thank you all for your service and sacrifice. May our nation always be as faithful to you, as you have been to it.

It’s early yet in making my way through @MichaelFKane’s book After Moses Sanctum, but it’s going to be hard to beat this paragraph:

Great. Even more politicians. Like roaches on a space station, they were impossible to get rid of and far more numerous than allowed by health codes.

"The Left loves to tell us we have to listen to people's 'lived experiences' to understand and respect them. That's all well and good, but they also want to make those 'lived experiences' the basis for laws and often stripping people of their rights (including the right to free speech).

"But when those 'lived experiences' don't support the Left's narrative, they ignore them. Like this man, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain."

A few months ago, my good friend Ryan North started a new leadership podcast, Mind Spirit Strategy, and was kind enough to have me on as the first guest.

We discussed a common leadership failure, resistance to feedback.