“It’s Baltimore, 2022. Adnan Syed has spent the last 23 years incarcerated, serving a life sentence for the murder of Hae Min Lee, a crime he says he didn’t commit. He has exhausted every legal avenue for relief, including a petition to the United States Supreme Court. But then, a prosecutor in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s office stumbles upon two handwritten notes in Adnan’s case file, and that changes everything.”

The description for the first episode back in 2014 began, “It’s Baltimore, 1999”. It’s an amazing thing that this story has been unfolding for so long, and a podcast has let us feel like we’re part of it. It all came back today with the simple, haunting intro music that I forgot I loved. As I said yesterday, the fact that the podcast can add another episode almost eight years after its last (now just previous, I guess) episode is incredible. I hope we get more, once Adnan is willing and able.

Amazing! So many years after Serial brought this case so much attention, there’s finally some progress on Syed’s case. I don’t know if he’s innocent, but there was enough questionable going on with the case to at least justify a retrial.

And how awesome is podcasting that this many years later, there will be a new episode tomorrow!

Nikkei:

Japanese camera maker Nikon will withdraw from the development of single-lens reflex cameras and shift toward digital offerings amid intensifying competition from smartphone cameras, Nikkei has learned.

An earlier version of this article said that Canon was also stopping DSLR development, but that was removed in a later update; still, it’s inevitable that they will follow suit.

The article attributes the change to “smartphone cameras”, and while those have certainly changed the face of the camera market more than anything else in decades, this change is likely more due to mirrorless formats taking over the professional market, as the title suggests. Mirrorless cameras—especially now that Nikon (and Canon) have finally put in full-throated efforts—have advanced to the point where their benefits to pros outweigh the few remaining cons.

John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:

The M2 13-inch MacBook Air should not be thought of as version 2 of an Apple silicon MacBook Air. It’s more like version — I don’t know — 40 of what Apple thinks a standard Mac laptop should be. Apple silicon is what’s been missing — no-compromise chips that enable Apple to make the laptops they’ve always wanted to make. It’s taken decades of iterative refinement to get to this point: a nearly perfect laptop for nearly everyone.

As an owner of the M1 Macbook Air (I’m writing this on it), I can only say that if the new M2 version weren’t out, this would be the “nearly perfect laptop for nearly everyone”, so I have no problem believing this about the M2. The Verge in particular, has been making hay of minor quibbles, throwing doubt on the amazing achievement these laptops represent.

If I were to make the MBA a better laptop for me, I’d upgrade the screen to the excellent one on the new MacBook Pros and give an option for built-in, always-on 5G, both things that keep me using an iPad as frequently as I do. As Gruber notes, the 12.9" iPad Pro with the excellent screen is quite chunky compared to the MacBook Air, so I’m always choosing which to use while on the go, and I tend towards the iPad Pro. I’d love for the MacBook Air to be that complete machine instead.

Alex Castro, writing at The Verge:

…rather than prioritize posts from accounts people follow, Facebook’s main feed will, like TikTok, start heavily recommending posts regardless of where they come from.

This is the exact opposite of what I want from social platforms. I’m interested in what my friends and groups centered around my interests are posting about. I couldn’t care less about the latest memes or what some influencers are saying. This change is as unwelcome as was moving away from reverse chronological order to an algorithmic feed, based on engagement.

I’m still a user of an RSS reader, and would encourage anyone who hates these kinds of changes as much as I do to use applications like a reader to control your consumption, rather than be subject to the whims of platforms like these.

Mike Wilk & John Watson at The Radavist have a fantastic account of the Yeti C-26 and the early days of mountain bike racing.

Haribo gummy bears have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. Smithsonian Magazine has an article with more than you ever needed to know about the candy and the brand.

Scott Kelby, writing on Lightroom Killer Tips, has an article titled “Why I Don’t Convert My Raw Images To DNG”.

In my case, I’d mostly stopped converting raw images to DNG, after a short time of converting everything. However, I have been converting Sony images to DNG recently, mostly for the storage size benefits. I’m not worried about losing the ability to use first-party converters/editors, as I don’t use them in my workflow, but the lack of losslessly compressed raw files for Sony means that converting to DNG can be a big space saver, on the order of 20%. When you’re talking about hundreds of gigabytes, it can add up quickly, and there’s not really much of a downside from my perspective.

Once again, Google has parodied Apple only to become a parody itself the following year.

Inevitable.

We’ve asked Google why it is dropping the headphone jack for the Pixel 6A. But it’s possible the company wants to make a more convincing case to sell you wireless headphones — and wouldn’t you know it, Google revealed the new Pixel Buds Pro at Google I/O as well.