“…the Louvre is being held hostage by the Kim Kardashian of 16th-century Italian portraiture: the handsome but only moderately interesting Lisa Gherardini, better known (after her husband) as La Gioconda, whose renown so eclipses her importance that no one can even remember how she got famous in the first place.”

The Mona Lisa was indeed disappointing when we went to the Louvre last year. It was so crowded that my wife decided to not wade in. I took my daughter in, protecting her head with my elbows against the throngs of phone camera-wielding tourists. We did get to the front and see the painting, and…it was fine.

I think you might make a substantial improvement to the experience by banning photography. As one who loves photography, I hate to say that, but let’s face it: these people’s photos are going to be terrible, other than as an “I was here” marker. That’s not nothing, but it’s not worth the pain added to visiting the Mona Lisa.

A great, nerdy look at the iPhone 11 camera.

A quick follow up to the previous link. Good news! (That was quick for “never”! ;)

“Studio Ghibli does not make their films available digitally, whether for download or streaming, anywhere in the world,” a GKids representative told Polygon over email. “They continue to believe that presentation is vital and particularly appreciate opportunities for audiences to experience the films together in a theatrical setting.”

Too bad. I’d have loved to have the Ghibli catalog on Disney+. I have several of the movies on physical disc, but it would be nice to have access to the ones I haven’t purchased. Since they’ve already let the horse out of the barn with the home video releases, I’m not sure that they’re gaining a lot by holding out on streaming.

I just spent a few minutes with the new Google Pixel Buds hardware — the $179 truly wireless earbuds aren’t shipping until Spring 2020, and the units at Google’s fall hardware event aren’t actually turned on and working. So there’s no way to tell how they’ll actually sound, and how Google’s various software tricks work in practice.

So they’re non-working blobs of plastic, acting as a product announcement? They look nice, but I’m not sure what the point of this “announcement” is. Is it them hoping that people who are thinking of buying earbuds will hold off for ~6 months?

I ride with a regular group that counts quite a few women among its number. Almost all of them (with only one exception that I can think of) ride the men’s version of the bike (generally Santa Cruz vs. Juliana). I couldn’t figure out why, especially lately, when the paint and graphics are so much nicer on the Juliana versions. I asked one of the women, who is currently in the market for a new Santa Cruz, why she wasn’t shopping the equivalent Juliana.

The answer: resale value, pure and simple. If she bought the Juliana, it would be harder to sell due to the smaller market when she wanted to move to a new bike, and she’d get usually get less. She liked the Juliana for the reasons I mentioned, but not enough to override the resale issue. I heard agreement from others too.

My group is still a small overall sample, and perhaps the fact that they ride and talk together frequently influences them to think similarly on this topic, but it’s a viewpoint worth being part of the conversation.

Under the proposal, “Best if used by” would, as Roe puts it, translate to “Follow your nose,” and “Use by” would translate to “Toss it.”

I’ve always thought it was strange that the terminology around dates on food is so inconsistent. I think this kind of standardization would be great.

“By disabling all post-processing (e.g. motion smoothing, etc.) and preserving the correct aspect ratios, colors and frame rates, Filmmaker Mode enables your TV to display the movie or television show’s content precisely as it was intended by the filmmaker.”

Bravo!

Glad to hear it.

Somehow I missed this news a couple of months back. Paul Darrow’s Avon made Blake’s 7—good on its own—a truly memorable show. RIP Avon.