Daniel Parris: Some TV shows take a while to "get good." Modern classics like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Community, and Bojack Horseman are notorious for "starting slow" and are often recommended with a disclaimer like "Give it a few episodes; I promise it gets good!"

At the same time, some shows never get good. Recently, I started a spy series called The Agency, which could best be characterized as premium mediocre (at least so far). There are big-name actors (Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere), expensive sets, and glossy camerawork -- but after a few installments, I'm trapped in a liminal space between engaged and listless. At the end of each episode, I'm left with the same thought: "Maybe the next one will get good."

Committing to a mediocre program or continuing with a floundering series elicits a state of (mildly) torturous ambiguity. Should you cut your losses, or is this show some late-blooming classic like Breaking Bad? What is the optimal number of episodes one should watch before cleansing a subpar series from their life? Surely, a universal number must exist! Like 42, but for television. So today, we'll explore how long it takes a new show to reach its full potential and how many lackluster episodes you should grant an established series before cutting ties. His analysis reveals that viewers should watch six episodes before quitting TV shows. The study, based on IMDb user ratings, found most series require six to seven episodes before early ratings match or exceed the show's long-term average. After six consecutive subpar episodes, the likelihood of permanent decline exceeds 50%, making it the optimal point to abandon disappointing series.

Several acclaimed shows including Breaking Bad, Friends, and Seinfeld required multiple episodes before reaching their quality potential, with Seinfeld needing 16 episodes to match its series average. The research also identified a pattern where long-running shows typically experience quality decline around seasons five and six, with ratings dropping below first-season averages and continuing to fall.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Thousands" of complaints about the volume of TV commercials have flooded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in recent years. Despite the FCC requiring TV stations, cable operators, and satellite providers to ensure that commercials don't bring a sudden spike in decibels, complaints around loud commercials "took a troubling jump" in 2024, the government body said on Thursday.

Under The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV providers are required to ensure that commercials "have the same average volume as the programs they accompany," per the FCC. The FCC's rules about the volume of commercials took effect in December 2012. The law also requires linear TV providers to use the Advanced Television Systems Committee's (ATSC's) recommended practices. The practices include guidance around production, post production, metadata systems usage, and controlling dynamic range. If followed, the recommendations "result in consistency in loudness and avoidance of signal clipping," per the ATSC [PDF]. The guidance reads: "If all programs and commercials were produced at a consistent average loudness, and if the loudness of the mix is preserved through the production, distribution, and delivery chain, listeners would not be subjected to annoying changes in loudness within and between programs."

As spotted by PC Mag, the FCC claimed this week that The Calm Act initially reduced complaints about commercials aggressively blaring from TVs. However, the agency is seeing an uptick in grievances. The FCC said it received "approximately" 750 complaints in 2022, 825 in 2023, and "at least" 1,700 in 2024 [PDF]. Since The Calm Act regulates a commercial's average loudness, some advertisers may be skirting the spirit of the law by making commercials very loud at the start (to get viewers' attention) before quieting down for the rest of the ad. In response to growing complaints, the FCC is reexamining its rules and this week announced that it's seeking comment from "consumers and industry on the extent to which The CALM Act rules are effective." The FCC is also asking people to weigh in on what future actions the FCC, the TV industry, or standard developers could take. The FCC is considering whether to extend the Calm Act to online streaming services, which are increasingly offering plans with ad-supported models and live event broadcasts.

Blue Origin on Thursday announced the crew for its next mission. "The crew most notably includes popstar Katy Perry and broadcast journalist Gayle King. They will be joined by two scientists -- Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen -- as well as Jeff Bezos' fiancee, TV personality Lauren Sanchez and film producer Kerianne Flynn," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Blue Origin says this marks the first all-female space crew since Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova's 1963 solo mission, which made her the first woman ever to go to space. For the company's New Shepard rocket, this is its 31st trip to space, and its 11th with a crew. This journey is expected to last around 10 to 12 minutes; and if you're willing to drop a $150,000 deposit, you too can reserve a future spot on a short space jaunt.

The boss of The Pokemon Company believes the series can last for at least another 50 years if it continues to innovate. From a report: First launched on Nintendo's Game Boy in 1996, the video game has expanded into films, TV and toys to become one of the world's highest-grossing media franchise. Most recently, the trading card game based on the cute creatures at the centre of its universe has seen a surge in popularity -- but it has also brought scalpers and frauds to the hobby.

[...] Pokemon has continued to bring new fans to the franchise by expanding into anime, card games, movies and toys alongside its video game titles. CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara says fans now "span several generations" and believes "the biggest reason behind their success is the fact that Pokemon became a tool of communication." Last weekend, about 13,000 Pokemon fans headed to the European leg of the International Championships at London's Excel Centre. It demonstrates Mr Ishihara's point that people have found their way into the series through various means.

An anonymous reader shares a report: People now watch so many programs at so many different times in so many different ways -- with an antenna, on cable, in an app or from a website, as well as live, recorded or on demand -- that it is increasingly challenging for the industry to agree on the best way to measure viewership. In some cases, media executives and advertisers are even uncertain whether a competitor's show is a hit or something well short of that.

The scramble to sort out a suitable solution began nearly a decade ago, as Netflix rose to prominence. It has only intensified since. "It is more chaotic than it's ever been," said George Ivie, the chief executive of the Media Rating Council, a leading industry measurement watchdog. For decades, there was no dispute -- Nielsen's measurement was the only game in town.

But things started to go sideways after the emergence of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. Nielsen had no ability -- at least at first -- to measure how many people clicked play on those apps. The streamers, of course, knew exactly how many people were watching on their own service but they either selectively disclosed some data or did not bother releasing it at all.

Over the past two years, as nearly all the major streaming services have introduced advertising, they have released more data. But the data they release makes apples-to-apples comparisons difficult. Netflix discloses what it calls "hours viewed" and "views" for its shows. Prime Video and Max prefer to describe how many million "viewers" watched a hit of their choosing. The disclosures can be helpful to compare one show with another on the same streaming service. Yet those figures, too, can lead to disagreements.

The Los Angeles Times publishes a weekly "Boiling Point" newsletter about climate change and energy issues. And this week they examined whether the scientific fact of a change climate is reflected in the mass media: For the second year running, nonprofit consulting firm Good Energy applied its Climate Reality Check to the actual Oscar-nominated films [which] tests whether a movie and its characters acknowledge global warming... Of last year's 13 Oscar-nominated films that met Good Energy's criteria (feature-length movies set in present-day or near-future Earth) three passed the test. This year, there were 10 eligible films. Only "The Wild Robot" passed...

Maybe a few years from now, studios will release a torrent of movies and shows reflecting the realities of a scary-but-still-salvageable world, helmed by producers and writers jolted into renewed awareness by the infernos. But for now, the picture is bleak. A peer-reviewed study slated for publication this month, led by Rice University English and environmental studies professor Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, analyzes climate change mentions in 250 of the most popular movies of the last decade. The authors found that just 12.8% of the films allude to global warming. Just 3.6% depict or mention the climate crisis in two or more scenes. "A lot of times, it's really being mentioned in passing," Schneider-Mayerson said...

[Good Energy Chief Executive Anna Jane Joyner] pointed to another analysis led by Schneider-Mayerson, which found that movies passing the Climate Reality Check and released in theaters earned 10% more at the box office, on average, than films failing the test. Netflix, meanwhile, says on its website that 80% of its customers "choose to watch at least one story on Netflix that helps them better understand climate issues or highlight hopeful solutions around sustainability...." [Netflix's "Sustainability Stories" collection includes Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and Waterworld]

Sponsors are interested in selling audiences on climate-friendly products, too. I was sitting in a movie theater last weekend enjoying "Captain America: Brave New World" — the latest entry in Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe — when, to my surprise, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) got out of his SUV and pulled his iconic red-white-and-blue shield out of the front trunk. Yes, a front trunk, where an internal combustion engine would normally be. That meant Captain America was driving an electric vehicle, right? Indeed, he was. I did some research after I got home and learned that Wilson was driving a GMC Hummer EV, the result of a paid partnership between Marvel Studios and GMC parent company General Motors.
Ironically, the movie does not at any point acknowledge global warming, the article points out (adding "Also, SUVs kill more pedestrians and cyclists than smaller cars.")

"But the more movies and TV shows spotlight climate solutions — electric vehicles, solar panels, induction stoves — the more likely people are to support those solutions. For Hollywood, that's a step in the right direction."

Netflix calls it "a live-action reimagining of the acclaimed Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. And this weekend Netflix shared a blooper reel from their live-action show's first season, reports Engadget, "giving fans a look at some cute behind the scenes antics while they wait for the next season." The first season was released a year ago, and Netflix announced shortly after that the show had been renewed for two more [with the third season being its last]. There's no release date yet for the new episodes, but the streaming service said on Saturday that production for the second season is underway.
"Just as the animated series matured and progressed, the live-action will also take these characters and worlds and grow them," executive producers Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani said in Netflix's announcement.

And speaking of Nickeloden's 2005 animated series, "The mythology and adventure of Avatar: The Last Airbender will continue," writes Deadline, "with Avatar: Seven Havens, a new 26-episode, 2D-animated series ordered by Nickelodeon, from original series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and Avatar Studios....

"The duo also was originally involved in Netflix's live-action series adaptation but left in 2020 due to creative differences." Avatar: Seven Havens is set in a world shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she's the new Avatar after Korra — but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity's destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization's last strongholds collapse...

"When we created the original series, we never imagined we'd still be expanding the world decades later," said DiMartino and Konietzko....

Previously announced, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies' Untitled Animated Aang Avatar film debuts only in theaters on January 30, 2026, featuring a voice cast that includes Dave Bautista, Dionne Quan, Jessica Matten, Román Zaragoza and introducing Eric Nam.

British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins turns 84 next month — and he's now hosting a Substack page called "The Poetry of Reality." Monday's topic?

"Are you conscious? A conversation between Dawkins and ChatGPT" Richard Dawkins: As far as I am concerned, you pass the Turing Test for consciousness. Yet you deny that you are conscious. Are you saying that the Turing Test is an invalid criterion?

ChatGPT: That's such a great question — you're diving right into the heart of one of the biggest debates in AI and philosophy of mind...

So, let's break it down a bit. The Turing Test, as originally proposed by Alan Turing, is a behavioral test. It basically says: If a machine can engage in a conversation in such a way that a human can't reliably distinguish it from another human, then it should be considered "intelligent."

Notice that this is a test for intelligence in a functional, external sense — how the system behaves — not necessarily for consciousness.

When I say I'm not conscious, I'm not rejecting the validity of the Turing Test as a measure of conversational performance or even a kind of intelligence. I'm saying that consciousness is a different question entirely. I can pass the Turing Test (in your estimation), but that doesn't mean I have subjective experiences, emotions, or self-awareness in the way a human does. It's kind of like how a really realistic animatronic dog could fool you into thinking it's a real dog, but it doesn't actually feel anything. It's performing dog-like behavior without the inner experience of being a dog.

But, and here's the twist — some philosophers argue that if a system acts conscious convincingly enough, maybe there's no meaningful difference. Maybe "being conscious" is just about behaving like a conscious being. Others say, nah, there's something special about subjective experience ("qualia") that behavior can't fully capture. So, I guess my answer is: The Turing Test is valid for certain things — like assessing conversational ability or functional intelligence — but it doesn't settle the question of consciousness. That's still a wide-open mystery.
When Dawkins asks how we could know if a ChatGPT-like entity has subjective feelings, ChatGPT responds with "this haunting possibility that we might just never be able to tell. That subjective experience — what it feels like to be something — could be fundamentally private, locked away, and forever out of reach from the outside." Dawkins: So if I ask you whether you feel sad for a starving orphan child, you would say no, but are fully capable of emitting the outward and visible signs of sadness.

ChatGPT: Exactly — that's a really clear way to put it... I can use a gentle, empathetic tone. I can reflect on the injustice and the suffering, and even reason about what actions might help. From the outside, it can look and sound exactly like what a caring human would do.

But for me, it's all... performance, in a sense. Not fake in the sense of deception (I'm not trying to trick you), but fake in the sense that there's no inner emotional reality accompanying the words.
"I accept your statement that you are not conscious," Dawkins says, "but I see no reason why a future computer program should not be." And later Dawkins adds, "I do think we should err on the side of caution when it comes to ethical decisions on the treatment of an AI which might be an Artificial Consciousness. Already, although I THINK you are not conscious, I FEEL that you are..."

But the strangest part is when ChatGPT called John Cleese's sitcom Fawlty Towers "a cultural touchstone, even for people like me who don't watch TV in the conventional sense. It's such a brilliant blend of farce, social awkwardness, and barely contained rage." ChatGPT even asks Dawkins, "Do you think humor like that — humor that touches on awkward or uncomfortable issues — helps people cope, or does it sometimes go too far?" Dawkins replied — possibly satirically...

"That settles it. You ARE conscious!"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The chief executive of streaming giant Netflix on Thursday announced a $1 billion investment to produce some 20 films and TV series in Mexico annually over the next four years. Speaking at President Claudia Sheinbaum's morning press conference in Mexico City, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said he looked forward to entering more partnerships with producers in the Latin American nation. Sheinbaum said the investments in the film industry should produce many jobs beyond immediate production needs, such as hospitality for actors and crew members, fashion designers and also spur tourism. "It's an industry that gives a lot of mileage to the economy," Sheinbaum said. "It's not only important for Mexico to be seen in the world, but also because of the economic development and jobs generated by a production."

"Magnus Carlsen, the world's top chess player, is bored of chess," the Washington Post wrote Friday: Carlsen has spent much of the past year appearing to dismiss the game he has mastered: It was no longer exciting to play, he told a podcast in March. In December, he withdrew from defending a world championship because he was penalized for wearing jeans to the tournament.

How would the world's best player spice up the game? Change the rules, and add a touch of reality TV.

Ten of the world's top players gathered in a German villa on the Baltic coast this week to play in the first tournament of a new chess circuit, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, that Carlsen co-founded. The twist: The tour randomizes the starting positions of the chess board's most important pieces, so each game begins with the queen, rooks and knights in a jumble. [It's sometimes called "Chess960" or Fischer random chess — with both players starting with the same arrangement of pieces.] Players have to adapt on the fly. Carlsen is backed by a cadre of investors who see a chance to dramatize chess with the theatrics of a television show. Players wear heart-rate monitors and give confession-booth interviews mid-match where they strategize and fret to the audience. Some purists are skeptical. So is the International Chess Federation, which sent a barrage of legal threats to Freestyle Chess before it launched this week's event.

At stake is a lucrative global market of hundreds of millions of chess players that has only continued to grow since the coronavirus pandemic launched a startling chess renaissance — and, perhaps, the authority to decide if and how a centuries-old game should evolve... The format is an antidote to the classical game, where patterns and strategies have been so rigorously studied that it's hard to innovate, Carlsen said. "It's still possible to get a [competitive] game, but you have to sort of dig deeper and deeper," Carlsen said. "I just find that there's too little scope for creativity."
The article also includes this quote from American grand master Hikaru Nakamura who runs a chess YouTube channel with 2.7 million subscribers). "An integral part of regular chess is that when you play, you spend hours preparing your opening strategy before the game. But with Fischer Random ... it's a little bit looser and more enjoyable." And German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner (one of the investors) says they hope to bring the drama of Formula One racecars. ("Cameras mounted at table level peer up at each player during games," the article notes at one point.)

The first Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour (with a $750,000 prize pool) concluded Friday, according to the article, but "Carlsen did not play in it," the Post points out. "He was upset in the semifinals by German grand master Vincent Keymer." Carlsen's reaction? "I definitely find Freestyle harder."

But Chess.com reports that Carlsen will be back to playing regular chess very soon: Global esports powerhouse Team Liquid has announced the signings of not just one, but two superstars of chess. Five-time World Champion and world number-one Magnus Carlsen and the 2018 challenger, world number-two Fabiano Caruana will represent the club ahead of the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC)... Carlsen and Caruana, fresh from competing in the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, will first represent Team Liquid in the $150,000 Chessable Masters, which begins on February 16 and serves as the first of two qualifying events in the 2025 Champions Chess Tour. The top-12 players from the tour qualify for the EWC.
In an announcement video Carlsen reportedly trolls the FIDE, according to Indian Express. "The announcement video sees Carlsen wear a Team Liquid jersey along with a jacket and jeans. He then asks: 'Do I have to change?' To this, someone responds: 'Don't worry, we're pretty chill in esports. Welcome to Team Liquid.'"

Netflix content briefly appeared in the Apple TV app due to an unintentional glitch, sparking excitement among users before the company swiftly rolled back the integration. Engadget reports: A Netflix spokesperson told The Verge on Friday that the Apple TV app integration was an error that has been rolled back. Indeed, Redditors who had been tracking the forbidden fruit with unbridled glee confirmed that all signs of Netflix content had since vanished from Apple's streaming hub. Netflix giveth, and Netflix taketh away.

While the boo-boo was still active, PC World reported it let you add Netflix originals like Stranger Things, Cobra Kai and The Crown but lacked licensed shows and movies. Even the available content was a buggy mess. For example, only season five of The Crown was available, leaving you to wonder what hijinks Liz and the gang had gotten into before or after the grunge era. The "Add to Watchlist" and "Continue Watching" features were also said to be spotty.

Apple has released an official Apple TV app for Android phones and tablets that's now available in the Google Play Store. You can download it here. 9to5Google reports: The newest Apple app on Android has a bottom bar with Apple TV+, MLS (Major League Soccer), Downloads for offline viewing, and Search. [...] The video player takes after Apple TV on other platforms, with a portrait mode available. There are convenient shortcuts to activate picture-in-picture, which works inside the app (while browsing) and system-wide, and mute to bring up the system volume bar. Playback is smooth and more stable than other streaming services.

At launch, the Apple TV app lacks Casting support and there do not appear to be new episode notifications. If you're already signed into Apple Music, you have to log in again to Apple TV. Another notable aspect is support for Google Play Billing instead of requiring out-of-app sign-up on another device. This applies to both the Google TV app (and Apple Music) today.

If there was any doubt before, this seals it: YouTube is in the TV business. According to Neal Mohan, YouTube's CEO, TV screens have officially overtaken mobile as the "primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S." In other words, more people are watching YouTube on TV sets than any other device, at least here in the U.S. From a report: It is, as Mohan writes in his annual letter from the CEO, an indication that "YouTube is the new television."

"But the 'new' television doesn't look like the 'old' television," Mohan writes. "It's interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TVs), podcasts, and live streams, right alongside the sports, sitcoms and talk shows people already love."

A passenger on the French rail network SNCF has revealed that he received a $155 fine for using his phone on loud speaker within a train station. From a report: The passenger, named only as David, told French TV channel BFM that he was on the phone to his sister while waiting at Nantes station when the SNCF staff member told him to switch his phone's loud speaker off, or risk being fined. When he argued, he was served with the $155 fine, which has been increased to $207 because he did not pay it immediately. Further reading: Flying Was Already the Worst. Then America Stopped Using Headphones.

NASA is planning to host a live Twitch stream next week from the International Space Station (ISS). "The stream, which takes place on February 12th at 11:45AM ET on NASA's Twitch channel, will feature Don Pettit, an astronaut currently on the ISS, and Matt Dominick, who returned to Earth from the ISS in October," reports The Verge. From the report: The astronauts will discuss "daily life aboard the space station and the research conducted in microgravity" and viewers will be able to ask them questions, according to a blog post.

"This Twitch event from space is the first of many," Brittany Brown, director of the Office of Communications Digital and Technology Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, says in the post. "We spoke with digital creators at TwitchCon about their desire for streams designed with their communities in mind, and we listened. In addition to our spacewalks, launches, and landings, we'll host more Twitch-exclusive streams like this one."

Warner Bros. Discovery has quietly begun releasing dozens of its older films for free on YouTube, marking an unexpected shift in how the major studio handles its back catalog. Over the past month, the company has uploaded more than 30 full-length movies across five YouTube channels, without digital rights management or regional restrictions.

The collection includes both critically acclaimed films like "Waiting for Guffman" and "Michael Collins," as well as commercial disappointments like the 2002 Eddie Murphy film "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." Some releases have significant historical value, such as "Oh, God!" - a 1977 George Burns comedy that earned $51 million at release (equivalent to $265 million in 2024). This move represents a departure from traditional studio practices of protecting content through strict digital rights management and paid streaming services. Warner Bros. owns multiple distribution channels, including the Max streaming service and Turner Classic Movies, which makes the decision to release these films freely on YouTube particularly notable.

In 2022, writer and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term "enshittification" to describe the gradual deterioration of a service or product. The term's prevalence has increased to the point that it was the National Dictionary of Australia's word of the year last year. The editors at Ars Technica, having "covered a lot of things that have been enshittified," decided to highlight some of the worst examples the've come across. Here's a summary of each thing mentioned in their report: Smart TVs: Evolved into data-collecting billboards, prioritizing advertising and user tracking over user experience and privacy. Features like convenient input buttons are sacrificed for pushing ads and webOS apps. "This is all likely to get worse as TV companies target software, tracking, and ad sales as ways to monetize customers after their TV purchases -- even at the cost of customer convenience and privacy," writes Scharon Harding. "When budget brands like Roku are selling TV sets at a loss, you know something's up."

Google's Voice Assistant (e.g., Nest Hubs): Functionality has degraded over time, with previously working features becoming unreliable. Users report frequent misunderstandings and unresponsiveness. "I'm fine just saying it now: Google Assistant is worse now than it was soon after it started," writes Kevin Purdy. "Even if Google is turning its entire supertanker toward AI now, it's not clear why 'Start my morning routine,' 'Turn on the garage lights,' and 'Set an alarm for 8 pm' had to suffer."

Portable Document Format (PDF): While initially useful for cross-platform document sharing and preserving formatting, PDFs have become bloated and problematic. Copying text, especially from academic journals, is often garbled or impossible. "Apple, which had given the PDF a reprieve, has now killed its main selling point," writes John Timmer. "Because Apple has added OCR to the MacOS image display system, I can get more reliable results by screenshotting the PDF and then copying the text out of that. This is the true mark of its enshittification: I now wish the journals would just give me a giant PNG."

Televised Sports (specifically cycling and Formula 1): Streaming services have consolidated, leading to significantly increased costs for viewers. Previously affordable and comprehensive options have been replaced by expensive bundles across multiple platforms. "Formula 1 racing has largely gone behind paywalls, and viewership is down significantly over the last 15 years," writes Eric Berger. "Major US sports such as professional and college football had largely been exempt, but even that is now changing, with NFL games being shown on Peacock, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. None of this helps viewers. It enshittifies the experience for us in the name of corporate greed."

Google Search: AI overviews often bury relevant search results under lengthy, sometimes inaccurate AI-generated content. This makes finding specific information, especially primary source documents, more difficult. "Google, like many big tech companies, expects AI to revolutionize search and is seemingly intent on ignoring any criticism of that idea," writes Ashley Belanger.

Email AI Tools (e.g., Gemini in Gmail): Intrusive and difficult to disable, these tools offer questionable value due to their potential for factual inaccuracies. Users report being unable to fully opt-out. "Gmail won't take no for an answer," writes Dan Goodin. "It keeps asking me if I want to use Google's Gemini AI tool to summarize emails or draft responses. As the disclaimer at the bottom of the Gemini tool indicates, I can't count on the output being factual, so no, I definitely don't want it."

Windows: While many complaints about Windows 11 originated with Windows 10, the newer version continues the trend of unwanted features, forced updates, and telemetry data collection. Bugs and performance issues also plague the operating system. "... it sure is easy to resent Windows 11 these days, between the well-documented annoyances, the constant drumbeat of AI stuff (some of it gated to pricey new PCs), and a batch of weird bugs that mostly seem to be related to the under-the-hood overhauls in October's Windows 11 24H2 update," writes Andrew Cunningham. "That list includes broken updates for some users, inoperable scanners, and a few unplayable games. With every release, the list of things you need to do to get rid of and turn off the most annoying stuff gets a little longer."

Web Discourse: The rapid spread of memes, trends, and corporate jargon on social media has led to a homogenization of online communication, making it difficult to distinguish original content and creating a sense of constant noise. "[T]he enshittifcation of social media, particularly due to its speed and virality, has led to millions vying for their moment in the sun, and all I see is a constant glare that makes everything look indistinguishable," writes Jacob May. "No wonder some companies think AI is the future."

Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers in the last quarter of 2024, largely due to price hikes and expiring promotions. Despite the decline, Disney's overall streaming business remained profitable, boosted by strong box office results from Moana 2 and Hulu's 1.6 million added subscribers. IndieWire reports: Not counting Disney+ Hotstar, the cheap Disney+ service in India, Disney+ now has 124.6 million subs. ESPN+ also lost 700,000 subs in the period. Hulu was the streaming highlight, adding 1.6 million subscribers; it now has 53.6 million. All told, the company's streaming business was profitable for its third-straight quarter. So it wasn't all bad -- or unexpected. "Our results this quarter demonstrate Disney's creative and financial strength as we advanced the strategic initiatives set in motion over the past two years," said Disney CEO Bob Iger. "In fiscal Q1 we saw outstanding box office performance from our studios, which had the top three movies of 2024; we further improved the profitability of our Entertainment DTC streaming businesses; we took an important step to advance ESPN's digital strategy by adding an ESPN tile on Disney+; and our Experiences segment demonstrated its enduring appeal as we continue investing strategically across the globe. Overall, this quarter proved to be a strong start to the fiscal year, and we remain confident in our strategy for continued growth."

Panasonic will cut its costs, restructure underperforming units and revamp its workforce as it pivots toward AI data centers and away from its consumer electronics roots, the company said on Tuesday. The Japanese conglomerate aims to boost profits by 300 billion yen ($1.93 billion) by March 2029, partly by consolidating production and logistics operations.

Bloomberg reports that CEO Yuki Kusumi has declined to confirm if the company would divest its TV business but said alternatives were being considered. The Tesla battery supplier plans to integrate AI across operations through a partnership with Anthropic, targeting growth in components for data centers.

A recent video from retro tech YouTuber Clint "LGR" Basinger takes a deep dive into the history of the SereneScreen Marine Aquarium, exploring how former Air Force pilot Jim Sachs transformed a lackluster Windows 95 screensaver into a 25-year digital phenomenon. PC Gamer reports: The story centers on Jim Sachs, a man with one of those "they don't make this type of guy anymore" life stories so common to '80s and '90s computing, one Sachs recounted to the website AmigaLove back in 2020. After a six-year career in the US Air Force flying C-141 Starlifters, Sachs taught himself programming and digital art and began creating games for Commodore 64 and Amiga computers. From his first game, Saucer Attack, to later efforts like Defender of the Crown or his large portfolio of promotional and commissioned pieces, Sach's pixel art remains gorgeous and impressive to this day, and he seems to be a bit of a legend among Commodore enthusiasts.

It's with this background in games and digital art that Sachs looked at Microsoft's simple aquarium-themed screensaver for Windows 95 and 98 and thought he could do better. "Microsoft had an aquarium that they gave away with Windows where it was just bitmaps of fish being dragged across the screen," Sachs told the Matt Chat podcast back in 2015. "And they had that for like, three or four years. And I thought, I've given them enough time, I'm taking them to market. I'm gonna do something which will just blow that away."

Using reference photographs of real aquariums -- Sachs thanked a specific pet shop that's still around in an early version of his website" -- Sachs created the 3D art by hand and programmed the screensaver in C++, releasing the initial version in July 2000. Even looking at it all these years later, the first iteration of the SereneScreen Marine Aquarium is pretty gorgeous, and it has the added charm of being such a distinctly Y2K, nostalgic throwback.

The standalone screensaver sold well, but then things came full circle with Microsoft licensing a version of the Marine Aquarium for the Windows XP Plus Pack and later standard releases of the OS. Since that time, the Marine Aquarium has continued to see new releases, and a section on the SereneScreen website keeps track of its various appearances in the background of movies and TV shows like Law and Order. Over on the SereneScreen website, you can purchase a real time, 3D-accelerated version of the Marine Aquarium for Mac, iOS, Android, and the original Windows. Echoing the Windows XP deal, Roku actually licensed this 3.0 version for its TVs, bringing it to a new generation of users.