John’s Blog

Rand Fishkin writing at the SparkToro Blog with a bombshell leak of policies from Google on how its search algorithm works:

On Sunday, May 5th, I received an email from a person claiming to have access to a massive leak of API documentation from inside Google’s Search division. The email further claimed that these leaked documents were confirmed as authentic by ex-Google employees, and that those ex-employees and others had shared additional, private information about Google’s search operations.

Many of their claims directly contradict public statements made by Googlers over the years, in particular the company’s repeated denial that click-centric user signals are employed, denial that subdomains are considered separately in rankings, denials of a sandbox for newer websites, denials that a domain’s age is collected or considered, and more.

These documents are really sending the SEO industry into a tailspin this week. This is a fascinating look into one of the most closely guarded secrets in tech.

Mike King also received the documents and has a great breakdown on iPullRank:

I have reviewed the API reference docs and contextualized them with some other previous Google leaks and the DOJ antitrust testimony. […]

You’d be tempted to broadly call these “ranking factors,” but that would be imprecise. Many, even most, of them are ranking factors, but many are not. What I’ll do here is contextualize some of the most interesting ranking systems and features (at least, those I was able to find in the first few hours of reviewing this massive leak) based on my extensive research and things that Google has told/lied to us about over the years.

“Lied” is harsh, but it’s the only accurate word to use here. While I don’t necessarily fault Google’s public representatives for protecting their proprietary information, I do take issue with their efforts to actively discredit people in the marketing, tech, and journalism worlds who have presented reproducible discoveries.

At first, there was silence from Google on this leak. Yesterday, The Verge received email confirmation with a statement:

“We would caution against making inaccurate assumptions about Search based on out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information,” Google spokesperson Davis Thompson told The Verge in an email. “We’ve shared extensive information about how Search works and the types of factors that our systems weigh, while also working to protect the integrity of our results from manipulation.”

Sara Fischer writing for Axios:

The Atlantic, one of the oldest magazines in the U.S., and Vox Media, one of the nation’s largest digital media holding companies, have both inked separate licensing and product deals with ChatGPT parent OpenAI. […]

The deals give OpenAI added momentum in its quest for credible content to train its algorithms and inform its chatbots — and could also protect the Microsoft-backed company further from future copyright liability. […]

Deal terms weren’t disclosed, but it’s safe to assume both publishers are being compensated for their content — that’s how previous deals between publishers and OpenAI have been structured.

The land grab for licensed content to feed into AI continues.

Also interesting:

Internally, Vox will leverage OpenAI’s tech for its first party data platform, Forte, to bolster advertising creative optimization and audience targeting capabilities.

The Vox Media Union’s response:

Today, members of the Vox Media Union, Thrillist Union, and The Dodo Union were informed without warning that Vox Media entered into a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAl. As both journalists and workers, we have serious concerns about this partnership, which we believe could adversely impact members of our union, not to mention the well-documented ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the use of generative Al. We demand that Vox Media engage with us on this issue transparently - and address our many unanswered questions about this partnership — instead of continuing to fail to include our voices in decisions like these. We know that Al is already having a monumental impact on our work, and we demand a seat at the table in discussions about its future at Vox Media.

Nilay Patel, Editor in Chief of The Verge, responds on Threads:

I don’t have a lot to say about this – our newsroom is independent of the company’s business dealings as it’s always been. We’ll figure out some disclosure language and do a disclosure when it’s appropriate, we are pretty good at those ;)

[…]

To me it’s the same as anything – there is a firewall between editorial and the commercial side of the business. They don’t get to tell us what to do, and we don’t get involved in how they generate revenue

It’s been a wild week here in Dallas. From the Dallas Morning News:

Ferocious winds and heavy rain swept through North Texas early Tuesday, flooding roads, downing trees and power lines and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people.

Many in the Dallas area woke to the wail of tornado sirens when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning.

“Take cover now!” the weather service in Fort Worth said at 6:13 a.m. on X. The storm packed nearly 80 mph winds, golf ball-sized hail and the threat of flash floods.

Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins issued an emergency declaration and warned some residents will be without power for days. At a news conference Tuesday, Lewis Jenkins said the extent of the damage and number of people affected make this storm unusual, and he urged patience in the days ahead.

This is the worst storm I’ve been a part of since living here. No power for us still, but hopefully by end of week. Stay safe out there.

The Eruption and the Pinto - by Patrick Witty:

Then, at 8:32 am, the mountain erupted with fury. Lasher skid to a halt as the gigantic ash cloud barreled towards him, jumping out of his Pinto and taking the now-infamous photo. Normally, it’s a Cardinal sin for a photographer’s vehicle (or camera bag) to appear in the frame. But not this time.

It was too late for Lasher to turn around his car, so he jumped on his Yamaha and fled the plume of ash. “By the time he unhooked his dirt bike his Pinto was on fire,” Smith told me.

via @stop on threads

Sonos has made a lot of headlines lately.

First, the good. Chris Welch, reviews the new Sonos Ace headphones for The Verge:

These look like what you’d get if you put Sony’s WH-1000XM5 and Apple’s AirPods Max into a blender. The pleather ear cushions are magnetic and easily removable, though Sonos tosses in some thoughtful touches of its own; the insides are color-coded so you can easily tell which goes on what side. There’s a fingerprint-resistant coating on the exterior of the headphones to reduce smudges — particularly helpful for the black pair. And the memory foam headband has varying levels of padding to avoid putting too much pressure on any one section of your head.

Mercifully, the Ace are far lighter than the AirPods Max. There’s not quite as much metal throughout, but they still feel very well put together. And on my ears, they felt wonderfully comfortable. […]

Some very impressive details and considerations here.

Try as I might, I couldn’t find any obvious first-generation hardware flaws in my brief time with them. Maybe they’ll reveal themselves as I review the Ace, but on first impression, it’s clear that Sonos sweated the small details. (One more example: inside the fabric carrying case is a pouch for the USB-C and headphone cables that also attaches magnetically.) The controls are done right too, with physical buttons for everything and no tap or swipe gestures to memorize.

The Sonos hardware and design appear superior to the AirPods Max in every way. Will be curious to see if Apple revises the Max later this fall and fixes many of the issues with the first generation. Not that they’re worried about Sonos, but it sure would be nice to see them keep up.

Second, the bad. The new and “improved” Sonos app seems to be a hot mess. I disabled automatic app updates on my phone to avoid this. My iPad did update automatically so I’ve been trying to fight through the new UI there. It’s not great. And as noted in another Reddit comment the app update removed all accessibility support. Yikes.

Last week, Microsoft held a Windows event keynote prior to its Build Conference. Normally this is not the sort of thing I’d pay much attention to, or highlight here, but the entire thing was very compelling and interesting.

From the Microsoft Blog:

Today, at a special event on our new Microsoft campus, we introduced the world to a new category of Windows PCs designed for AI, Copilot+ PCs.

Copilot+ PCs are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built. With powerful new silicon capable of an incredible 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second), all–day battery life and access to the most advanced AI models, Copilot+ PCs will enable you to do things you can’t on any other PC. Easily find and remember what you have seen in your PC with Recall, generate and refine AI images in near real-time directly on the device using Cocreator, and bridge language barriers with Live Captions, translating audio from 40+ languages into English.

The keynote focused several times by name on the MacBook Air line, and how these new Copilot+ PCs are out performing the best-selling Apple laptops.

Tom Warren writes more at The Verge:

Microsoft is confident that it finally nailed the transition to Arm chips — so confident that, this time around, the company spent an entire day pitting its new hardware against the MacBook Air.

On a recent morning at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft representatives set out new Surface devices equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips inside and compared them directly to Apple’s category-leading laptop. I witnessed an hour of demos and benchmarks that started with Geekbench and Cinebench comparisons, then moved on to apps and compatibility.

Geekbench scores aren’t everything, for sure. And it’s not a fair comparison when one device is passively cooled without fans and the other sports an active cooling system with, at least, one fan.

The fan issue was noted by Andrew Cunningham at ArsTechnica:

One caveat that I hadn’t seen mentioned in Microsoft’s presentation or in other coverage of the announcement, though: Microsoft says that both of these devices have fans. Apple still uses fans for the MacBook Pro lineup, but the MacBook Air is totally fanless. Bear that in mind when reading Microsoft’s claims about performance.

The new Surface Pro looks very nice. To me this isn’t a MacBook Air competitor, but rather one for the iPad itself. A detachable keyboard, touch screen, pencil support, and a decent screen that runs a desktop-class operating system is a good thing. Microsoft seems to understand this. For the first time in over 20 years I’m very tempted to buy a Windows PC! Wow.

These announcements are a bold bet and are very compelling. In a time where passionate support for Apple products may be waning, this is a solid step for Microsoft to take. I am continuously impressed with Satya Nadella and his leadership.

A nice breakdown of the track at Imola by Madeline Coleman for The Athletic.

Enzo Ferrari was on hand when construction began in 1950, and later described in his book how the circuit could become similar to a famed German track: “A small Nürburgring – I repeated that day looking around – a small Nürburgring, with equal technical resources, spectacular and an ideal path length. This belief has been achieved through the decades that have passed since then.”

Glad this race is back for 2024 and I’m excited for the European schedule to begin this weekend in Italy.

Wow. Someone was selling Apple Employee #10’s employee badge?! What an incredible piece of Apple history! Sure, it’s not Steve Jobs’ badge (despite the auction title), but there are only so many of these in the world – especially from one of the first ten employees.

At first, it looked good. The plastic was scuffed with age, the tape on the map was yellowed, the logo was (mostly) correct, and Sherry Livingston really was Employee #10.

But it also felt a little off. The scuffing looked… sandpapery. The splotches on the map felt overcooked. And I couldn’t stop looking at the “typewritten” part…

Cabel is the best. This is so cool.

Federico Viticci reviews the state of iPadOS:

If you’ve used iPadOS long enough (the iPad has been my primary computer for 12 years now), I’m sure you’ve run into these: the small bugs, annoyances, and missing features that don’t seem like much in isolation. Considered as a whole, however, they paint a not-too-rosy picture for an operating system that, 14 years into its existence, still lags behind macOS in terms of basic functionalities and problems that have never been addressed. […]

You know what’s equally the best and worst part of all this? That I still love the iPad.

The iPad is the only Apple computer that genuinely feels made for someone like me – a person who loves modularity, freedom, and the mix of touch and keyboard interactions. I share my frustrations because I care about the platform and want it to get better. But at the same time, we need to face reality: the iPad’s operating system isn’t improving at the speed the hardware deserves – that iPad owners who spent thousands of dollars on these machines deserve.

Something needs to change.

John Gruber has a slightly different take on Daring Fireball:

iPadOS has never been a workstation-style OS. The obvious truth — reiterated in recent weeks by the EU calling bullshit (or perhaps, conneries) on Apple’s claim that iPad and iPhone are separate platforms — is that iPadOS is a souped-up tablet-oriented variant of iOS.

This has never been more true than now — the M4 iPad Pros are, by some practical measures, the fastest computers Apple makes. But iPadOS is not the sort of system that the typical power user would think to run on super-powerful hardware.

But let’s invert our thinking on this. Instead of starting with the hardware and pondering what the ideal software would be like to take advantage of its power, let’s start with the software. A concept for simplicity-first console-style touchscreen tablet computing. A metaphor for computing with smartphone-style guardrails, with tablet-specific features like stylus support and laptop docking. A tablet OS that is unabashedly a souped-up version of iOS, not a stripped-down version of MacOS. What type of hardware should Apple build to instantiate such a platform?

Nicely produced website and list of the 100 Best Albums. Curated by Apple Music with “the help of artists and experts.”

The list will be complete on May 22nd, so just the bottom 20 are available now. I have many gripes on the ordering of this list so far, but will reserve my judgement until the entire thing is ready. 🤣

(Built in part with Svelte, it appears.)

It’s tech conference season. Yesterday was the main Google I/O keynote and, in case you haven’t heard, Google is working on AI.

As usual, The Verge has a nice video breakdown of the most important announcements. (I find sitting through Google keynotes tedious so this was helpful.)

Just a few overall thoughts from the presentation:

• Google Lens gets video. Taking a video of a computer screen of code, and having Google explain the code is very interesting.

• The Gemini features within Google Workspace look incredible. Creating sheets from a list of emails and and analyzing data across many sources will be very useful.

• So many announcements, naming conventions, and code names. Astra, Veo, Gemma, Gemini, Gems, SynthID, yikes. Hard to decipher and remember what each is for, and what the difference is unless you work at Google on one of these teams.

• I find it very interesting to hear the launch timing around each of the announcements. The “later this year” and “in the coming months” timelines really speak to unfinished and potentially reactionary features. The features that are shipping now are the most interesting to me and shows what Google has actually prioritized over the past year.

• Nice bit at the end where they use Gemini to count the number of times the word “AI” has occurred in the keynote. (121)

In contrast to the OpenAI Spring Update from Monday, it seems like all of the demos from Google were very scripted and clearly pre-recorded. I understand why given the nature of this tech and its unpredictability, but the pre-recorded demos feel less real and more contrived.

Google has a long history of announcing unfinished work at I/O that often doesn’t even ship to users. I’ll be excited to see which of these announcements make it into shipping products for customers this year. Some very cool ideas and features here, now it’s time to deliver them.

OpenAI announced a few very nice updates during its Spring Update yesterday, most notably including GPT-4o:

GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”) is a step towards much more natural human-computer interaction—it accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs. It can respond to audio inputs in as little as 232 milliseconds, with an average of 320 milliseconds, which is similar to human response time(opens in a new window) in a conversation. It matches GPT-4 Turbo performance on text in English and code, with significant improvement on text in non-English languages, while also being much faster and 50% cheaper in the API. GPT-4o is especially better at vision and audio understanding compared to existing models.

The video demo was very interesting regarding the conversation style of GPT-4o. We’ve had text-to-speech capabilities for a long time, but this feels much more conversational and ‘real’. If the product is as good as this demo, it’s going to be really cool. The conversation felt very relaxed and, for lack of a better term, human.

Also announced is a desktop app for macOS, which will be available to Plus users starting today. Very interesting to see a macOS app before a Windows desktop app. Excited to give this a spin.

It’s been a few weeks since these two albums dropped and both have been in steady rotation on my Spotify since. It’s not a fair comparison, because I’ve been a Pearl Jam fan for well over 30 years so I won’t be comparing them. (I absolutely love Dark Matter.)

But what strikes me about both of these albums is some of the hate and rage towards them. Certainly Taylor Swift is going to get more scrutiny than a bunch of old guys, but in both cases I don’t agree.

To be a fan of an artist you don’t have to love every piece of music they release. But what you should want is for them to keep trying new things and releasing work that they love.

I’m so thrilled that these guys keep putting out music that makes them proud and excited to keep playing after so many years. And I love that Taylor keeps pushing herself, even when it’s not for everyone. She’s so incredibly prolific it’s remarkable.

More music from talented people is the goal. Some of it will resonate, some will not. And that’s just fine.

This Audio Academy link from 2019 (via Hacker News) about the Grateful Dead and its sound engineer Owsley “Bear” Stanley is fascinating. Live music amplification is mostly taken for granted these days, but it wasn’t alway the case.

It was a time when live sound problems plagued engineers, bands, and audiences equally. While rock concerts grew in size and scope throughout the 60s, audiences grew larger and louder, without the technical sophistication of amplification ever changing to meet this scenario. Screaming fans meant that low-wattage guitar amps could hardly be heard and without the help of monitoring systems, bands could barely hear themselves play. Things were so bad that the Beatles quit touring in 1966 because they couldn’t hear themselves over the audience. It was after this era that the band, the Grateful Dead, became obsessed with their sound, largely thanks to their eccentric and dedicated sound engineer.

Their solution was the famous “Wall of Sound”:

The mammoth structure was massive, made up of over 600 hi-fidelity speakers that sat behind the band as they played. It used six separate sound systems which were able to isolate eleven separate channels with vocals, rhythm guitar, piano each having their own channel. Another channel each for the bass drum, snare, tom-toms, and cymbals. The bass was transmitted through a quadraphonic encoder, which took a signal from each string and projected it through its own set of speakers. The result of each speaker carrying only one instrument or voice at a time was crystal clear audio, free of intermodulation distortion.

An overall nice bump to the iPad lineup today at Apple’s spring event. It’s surprising that this is the first major refresh of the iPad Pro lineup since 2018!

The new OLED “Retina XDR” screen is going to look amazing. One of the (few) shortcomings of the outgoing generation is the black levels on the LED displays just aren’t great at all. Especially compared to modern OLED TVs, the iPhone, and certainly the Vision Pro. This is a huge step forward. Oh, and the nano texture display option is interesting as well. Excited to see that in person.

The M4 is a nice bump. Although, I don’t hear anyone complaining about the previous CPU performance.

The new “Pencil Pro” with squeeze-ability and haptic feedback is a welcome upgrade. The tap-to-change tools on the current pencil trip me up constantly. I’ve been using the pencil more lately to take notes during meetings, so this one is tempting. The killer feature of this update is the ability to locate your pencil via the Find My app. (Apple, please bring this feature to the TV remote!)

I’m currently using an 11" iPad Pro from 2022 and I don’t really see any reason to upgrade here. There are a few really new hardware features but my shortcomings on iPad have nothing to do with hardware–it’s all about the software for me.

Speaking of the software, it was very nice to see updated versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. I don’t use either of these on iPad, but I’m really glad they exist and that Apple is pushing them forward. More pro-level iPad software please!

Today gets me excited for WWDC, just around the corner in June.

It was an absolute joy watching Lando Norris win his first F1 race yesterday in Miami. We were on the edges of our seats just hoping he could pull it off and beat the field.

On the cool-down lap it was so fun to see the other drivers pull along side Lando and congratulate him. You can tell this was a big moment for him, and for the sport. What an amazing race weekend.

🏎️🏎️

Happy Saturday, and Happy Star Wars Day to those who celebrate. Catching up on some links of note from the past few weeks…

FTC Bans Non-Compete Agreements

Good move here by the FTC, I think. If an employer can’t keep an employee happy through normal means (compensation, benefits, work arrangements, etc) then they shouldn’t be allowed to keep them around due to ridiculous legal documents.

NASA Repairs Voyager 1 from 15 Billion Miles Away

This is an incredible engineering story! So amazing what this team was able to do. Imagine debugging a software program with a nearly 24-hour delay?!

iA Notebook

I love small teams designing products with incredible precision and care. This notebook looks incredible.

AI isn’t useless. But is it worth it?

Molly White’s breakdown of the current state of AI. White has a really thoughtful view of overhyped technologies.

David Pierce Reviews the Rabbit M1

Better than the goofy Humane pin, it seems. But still not quite ready for prime time. I sure do like seeing new consumer hardware companies but they continue to be handicapped by smartphone integration and the infancy of AI-based solutions.

And, a few from the my nerdier archives:

• Microsoft Open Sources MS-DOS 4.0
• The BASIC programming language turns 60

Have a great weekend. 🏔️🎸🏎️

It was a big week for us at Air Mail. We officially opened our new newsstand in New York, at 546 Hudson St in the West Village. Almost all of the work I’ve done in my career has been online or in digital form so it’s a rare occurrence for me to have a physical manifestation of an idea or work product. This was a lot of fun and I’m so excited to see the store open to the public.

Lovely coverage of the opening and Graydon’s vision in The New York Times from Friday. Ruth La Ferla writes:

The shop arrived in Manhattan after Air Mail opened others in London and Milan. Its merchandise, like the newsletter it is named after, is meant to appeal to an urbane crowd.

A rigorously edited selection of books and high-end glossies like “The World of Interiors,” “Kinfolk” and “Beauty Papers” is supplemented by various novelties with a statusy, you-can-only-find-it-here appeal. Say, a curly brass shoehorn ($145); a palm-tree-patterned Chez Dede lampshade ($345); old-fashioned typewriter paper ($15); or an Air Mail logo baseball cap ($30) like the one Larry David wears in recent episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Is Mr. Carter, Vanity Fair’s former editor in chief, adopting a new identity as a shopkeeper? Not quite. But “there is a merchant inside everybody,” he said unflappably.

Love that quote. If you’re in New York, come visit us.

Happy Saturday. It’s a rainy one over here in Texas. A few notes and thoughts from the week that was…

Limitless

The newly announced Limitless Pendant looks really nice. Limitless dubs the device “a personalized AI powered by what you’ve seen, said, or heard”. I’m also going to give the Limitless Meetings feature a spin as well. Overall this launch seems very well done. Considering pre-ordering one of these to try it out. It’s the first AI-device that I’m seeing actually utility for myself with.

Soulver 3 for iPhone

I am an avid daily user of Soulver on the Mac. It’s nice to see the app coming to the iPhone as well. Soulver is such a better way to do quick calculations and formulas than having Excel open all day.

Delta Game Emulator (App Store Link)

Now that Apple allows “retro game emulators” in the App Store, a few have started to appear. The best and most notable example seems to be Delta, by Riley Testut. The app used to require side-loading with AltStore, but now it’s in the App Store proper.

Oh the Humanity

Ben Sandofsky has a great piece on “Why You Can’t Build Apple with Venture Capital” and the Humane launch.

MKBHD’s Review of the Humane Pin

Speaking of Humane, MKBHD’s review seems to put the nail in the coffin of this device. Brownlee faced some odd criticism of this review, which seemed very honest to me. Ben Thompson, as usual, has a great take which I 100% agree with regarding content creators and integrity.

Meta.ai

A new “AI Assistant” launch by Meta, based on the Lllama 3 LLM. Meta has a solid approach to rolling out these AI features. Yes, they’re publishing cool tech and AI ideas, but they’re also actually making products out of them and enhancing existing products. Microsoft and Google are doing the same. Apple needs to show work in this space soon to keep up.

A Glimpse Into Modern News Consumption

The Trump hush-money trial begins, and M.G. Siegler has a very interesting breakdown of where the jurors claim they get their news. Sure, it’s a New York jury pool, but interesting to see how many of the jurors get their news primarily from The New York Times.

Have a great weekend. ⛈️

Excellent post on iteration by Justin Jackson:

Your ability to launch a successful business depends on the accumulation of experiences, connections, skills, resources, experiments you’ve run, and insights you’ve gathered.

Today, ConvertKit’s mission is to “help creators earn a living online.” [Nathan Barry] and his team design and build the product with intuitions about what creators want and need. How did they develop those intuitions? Nathan developed his intuitions through his time being a creator. His experience writing and launching multiple apps, books, and courses from 2011-2013 informs his work today.

As an indie entrepreneur, you want to maximize every advantage you have. Most good markets are competitive, so you can’t just show up with a “good product;” you need an edge. Your competitive advantage should be that you understand the customer (and what they want) better than anyone else.

Happy Friday. It’s been a few busy weeks of work for me, so I’m catching up on some interesting links..

Microsoft researcher discovers backdoor in xz Utils library

This entire story is crazy, like out of a movie. It’s incredible how much of the computing world is dependent on small libraries like this run by volunteers.

Open Source Quality Institutes

Tim Bray suggests a new government organization to maintain, support, and protect our most crucial open source infrastructure. Open source maintenance is a thankless and mostly zero-revenue job, but so important to modern tech life. This is a really thoughtful and nice idea, that’ll likely never happen.

Yahoo acquires Artifact

It’s only been a few months since Artifact announced it would wind down, but apparently Yahoo still wants in.

Threads API is coming soon

Very nice looking API docs and specs for the new Threads API. It’s in testing with a few partners now, and rolling out later this year. I’ll be interested to see how this takes off.

Beeper is joining Automattic

Beeper, mostly known for its battles with Apple over iMessage for Android, has been acquired by Automattic. This seems like a strange partnership on the surface, but I didn’t realize Beeper has a messaging app for multiple services. And apparently so does Automattic, in the form of recently acquired Texts.com. I’m not in the market for an app like this myself, but I’m glad it exists and will continue to get support.

Have a great weekend. ⚾️

Today’s eclipse was incredible. Here in Texas, we were in the line of totality so were able to see the full eclipse in all of its glory. At first it just seemed like it was about to storm: getting slightly darker every few minutes. The moon slowly rotated in front of the sun until everything was dark. The birds were acting strange and dogs were barking in the neighborhood. And for a few minutes it was nighttime again. Then it was all over. Incredible. So cool.

The series finale for Curb Your Enthusiasm last night was perfection. It’s so rare that a finale for a series this popular gets it right. Loved all of the cameos and flashbacks to the idiotic moments throughout this great show. Curb has been my favorite show on TV for years, and it’ll be missed.