Keeping the Pook-Emu Bee weekday streak going on this sunny (here in Brooklyn, at least) August 19, 2026. [caption id="attachment_7131" align="aligncenter" width="1008"] I upgraded the InfiniTime firmware on my PineTime yesterday.[/caption] 1 | Vindman Vaporizes $16.2 Million in Loss, Spends 36X DSA Candidate on Ads (Paul Bois for Breitbart. August 18, 2026) & Rep. Cory...

Keeping the Pook-Emu Bee weekday streak going on this sunny (here in Brooklyn, at least) August 19, 2026. I upgraded the InfiniTime firmware on my PineTime yesterday. 1 | Vindman Vaporizes $16.2 Million in Loss, Spends 36X DSA Candidate on Ads (Paul Bois for Breitbart. August 18, 2026) & Rep. Cory Mills Unseated in GOP Primary, Ryan Elijah Wins Nomination (Olivia Rondeau for Breitbart. August 18, 2026.) Both of these Florida primary results made me chuckle in their own ways. 2 | Minnesota’s “Nudification” Ban Repeats Unconstitutional Errors of Early Revenge Porn Bills (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. August 18, 2026.) I haven’t thought much about the legal particulars but interesting article and caution about crafting laws carefully. 3 | After Europe ditched Windows, China follows suit with its own home-grown Linux distros (Rianne Schestowitz for Tux Machines. August 19, 2026.) I was originally going to comment that while I am a proponent of Linux, I will respectfully stop short of celebrating the Chinese government’s Linux uptake. But then I saw the quote from the XDA Developers article includes “Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents.” I checked the original article. Sure enough, the page source for XDA’s AI summary includes “Here is a fact-based summary of the article contents.” I’m not an expert on WordPress AI summary plugins but that strikes me as subpar. 4 | Cheap USB-C chargers are actually fine—these 4 specs are all that matter (Ismar Hrnjcevic for How-To Geek. August 17, 2026.) I have the little UGREEN robot charter pictured in the last image in the article, but in a different color. It’s endearing. I never measured it but I think it charges well enough for all charging purposes. 5 | How to Crown — or Deny — a Champion (Neil Paine. November 4, 2025.) To start: Don’t do what NASCAR has done for most of the last quarter century. 6 | Caputo’s Bake Shop Owner Is Back—This Time in Park Slope (Grand Army Gazette. July 31, 2026.) This certainly raises some questions given his shifty explanations for the unsanitary demise of his previous endeavor, which I covered in the May 27, 2026 Pook-Emu Bee. 7 | Is this Billboard Hot 100 hit AI slop? (Terrance O’Brien for The Verge. August 1, 2026.) I had no prior knowledge what “Fenix Flexin” was and I have no interest in investigating further, but I will submit that if you have to ask whether his “work” is AI slop, the fact you have to ask should probably call into question whether it is worth discussing at all. My Basquiat forgery article remains evergreen. You can reply to this article from your own site by sending a Webmention.

More than six years after Pine64 introduced a cheap smartwatch designed to run open source firmware, the company is preparing to launch a new model. The PineTime Pro isn't a replacement for the original PineTime (which is still available for $27). But it brings a bunch of upgrades that could make it a better platform for users that want a better screen or support for more complex software.

The mills of InfiniTime grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. It has been nearly 400 days since our last release, but there has been continuous steady progress over this time, bringing us ...

Happy New Year! This month we discuss the current state of the PineVox, seeing what the community have been up to with their PineNotes, announcing InfiniTime 1.15 and announcing the end of production ...

InfiniTime 1.0 firmware release makes PineTime open-source smartwatch an "enthusiast-grade" end-user product, and not only a devkit anymore.

In this community update we’ll discuss PinePhone keyboard progress (and hurdles), add-on back cases awaiting developers approval, initial PineNote impressions and early development progress, as well as news of InfiniTime 1.