The Brooks Review

Month: March 2013

  • Quote of the Day: Bruce Schneier

    “Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does.”

  • Blindly Drinking the Kool-Aid

    [Peter Matthaei has penned a response to](http://mobivangelist.com/post/45363132528/why-ben-brooks-is-totally-wrong-about-the-reader) [my post](https://brooksreview.net/2013/03/billlllllllions/) about the Reader shut down. I wanted to dissect his argument a bit, because it is very much on the exact opposite side of the spectrum from my argument.

    Matthaei:

    > The truth is, user-RSS is slowly dying. While I, and many of my friends, are true info-addicts who love the river-of-information approach of cross-device synchronised RSS feeds, news consumption is shifting to apps like Flipboard and Zite, and powered and filtered by social sharing.

    I’d ask for the proof here. Where are the numbers, the graph, that shows that RSS is dwindling? *[Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net)* boasts “over 400,000” RSS readers — and that’s a number that hasn’t changed in a while, but also a number that has *never* decreased. This site’s non-paid RSS readership still *grows* every month.

    Is RSS a nerd tool? Yes.

    Does that mean that its growth is stagnant by default? No.

    Let’s get some proof to back up the claim that RSS usage is almost dead.

    > It’s not about free versus paid, and how that fits or doesn’t fit with Google’s business model. It’s about the reality that even if (or especially if) a company has tens of thousands of employees, it needs to focus on where the puck is going.

    I agree, but that’s not the whole picture.

    > The reason Google is shutting Reader down is the same reason Apple is slowly but surely sunsetting the Mac Pro range. (And Mac Pros are priced, if I may remind Ben, at the extreme opposite of free.)

    What the fuck? We are now going to make the leap from RSS to desktop computing? We have concrete proof that desktop computing is a decreasing business from a multitude of sources. Further, you simply cannot equate one with the other. You buy a Mac Pro because you need one for work, you use RSS because you *want* to keep up with sites you like.

    Apple is ignoring the Mac Pro (which is still sold, mind you) because despite charging for it, the profit potential isn’t there. Google is shutting down Reader instead of even trying to charge for it — maybe it would break even, or make some money if they stopped ignoring it — who knows.

    > Contrary to Ben’s argument, Google isn’t just willy-nilly dabbling in Maps and keeping it alive for free because it can do so because of a formidable user base. Google maintains and grows Maps because it directly and tightly fits into Google’s re-invigorated mission of improving people’s lives through relevant information.

    My point wasn’t that Google Maps just has a large user base, but that it is a strategic tool that also, wait for it, shows you ads. Huh, they make money off of Maps from Ads and aren’t considering shutting it down — imagine that.

    > So if Glass is Google’s unified vision of the future, there really isn’t a place for an antiquated service like an RSS reader in Google’s ecosystem. […]
    > And as anybody who has worked at a company with more than a hundred employees can attest: it’s not about how many developers you can spare working on cool but ultimately doomed side-projects but how well the entire company is pulling towards one concrete vision of the future.

    Not true. As anybody who has ever run a company can attest it’s not about what you do, but how much money you make doing it. Let’s not forget that Google is publicly traded and has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to make money. Giving away Reader for free didn’t work, vision or no vision and instead of trying to make it a profit center Google shit-canned it.

    If Reader made money, or just broke even, then there’d be no reason to get rid of Reader — again, vision or no vision.

    > Srsly ppl, the whole cynical “Google cares about nothing but serving you ads” meme amongst sections of the tech elite is starting to wear thin.

    The sad fact is that the evidence points to the fact that showing Ads is what Google cares about, the proof to the contrary simply isn’t compelling and is sparse.

  • When Even Billions of Dollars Won’t Support Free

    [Two years ago I wrote](https://brooksreview.net/2011/03/fragility-free/):

    > Sticking with Gmail for another example, imagine if Google decided that Gmail was a money loser and that it was to be shut down. Doesn’t matter what you offer to pay, in a week it’s gone.

    > This happens with free software and services, sometimes with paid services (but that is far less likely). Sometimes the funding for free just runs out — perhaps it was just someones hobby, a hobby that you depended on — doesn’t matter because it is gone now.

    I received tons of email telling me there was no way that Twitter or Gmail would *ever* shut down. I still stand behind what I said, I didn’t need the news today of Google Reader being shut down to know that my long and expensive move to pay for everything I use is, was, and will be the right decision.

    Free is fickle, free is fragile, and now tons of users and developers are paying the price for relying on a free service.

    ***

    The more interesting part about this move from Google is not that they prove my theory, but that they’ve now shown their hand to all of us. Google can no longer afford, or is no longer willing, to give shit away for free with no monetization in sight.

    What does that mean for:

    – Third party access to Gmail?
    – Google Maps
    – Android
    – Chrome
    – Chrome OS
    – Google Translate
    – And on and on.

    Google has built a cult-like following around the idea that you can use what they provide for *free*. Now Google is telling us that if the following isn’t great enough, or the project not lucrative enough, they’ll abandon it and consider it a favor to you if they give you a three month heads up.

    *Nice*.

    To think that this was Google’s only option though is shortsighted. It wouldn’t have been hard for Google to make the API to access Reader a paid service, where developers paid X percent of their sales for access to the API, and Google makes the API an officially supported part of Reader. That would have been easy for Google, but Google chose to shut down the service instead.

    Why?

    I think the why is self-evident. The why is that Google doesn’t want to make anyone spend cash for their services (there are exceptions to this). So if faced with charging for Reader or shutting down Reader, shutting down Reader fits the Google mantra better than the former.

    That’s scary to think about.

    How much does Google make off of Gmail? Is it enough to support the ever growing service? Because if the past is any indication of the future, Google would rather shut down Gmail than let you give them your money to use it.

  • Bye Google Reader

    [Alan Green announcing the “sun setting” of Google Reader](http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html):

    > There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.

    That’s a crock of shit. The real problem is that you can’t monetize Google Reader when no one actually goes to the web interface.

    I personally use [Fever](http://feedafever.com/) and highly recommend it if you have your own web server.

    If you don’t, [NewsBlur](http://newsblur.com/) is probably your best option.

    If you are a developer who makes a living off of selling an app that re-packages Google Reader, this is a huge blow, but you had to see it coming. Reeder for iPhone syncs with Fever, and I have to believe that is not a coincidence.

  • Quote of the Day: Kontra

    “The list of grandiose promises and statements made by Google that turned out to be false and hypocritical is uncomfortably long.”
    — Kontra

  • No One Should Agree With You

    You know what’s boring? A room full of people that will only agree with you.

    You know what kind of blog post is boring? A blog post with a lot of words which all together don’t say much.

    I find that the two go hand in hand.

  • Quote of the Day: Philip Messing and Chuck Bennett

    “An undercover TSA inspector with an improvised explosive device stuffed in his pants got past two security screenings at Newark Airport — including a pat-down — and was cleared to get on board a commercial flight, sources told The Post yesterday.”

  • Bullshit Wait-listed Apps

    [Alli Dryer on the newly popular, incredibly annoying, iOS app wait list tactic](http://badyewex.com/words/2013/3/11/strong-reservations):

    >The idea behind the wait list is that once the backend systems have scaled up in step with demand, you’ll receive a code that unlocks the full feature set of the app and it will perform much much more better than it would if they let everyone use it all at once. It sounds reasonable, but the concept has my knickers in a twist for three reasons:[…]

    I agree with all of her reasons and would add that any app that utilizes this tactic has already pissed me off before I even have had the chance to use the app.

    Oh, but you say people have troubles keeping servers up? Pinboard.in is a great example of running a web service correctly.

    You know what makes it easy to scale quickly? *Money*.

    You know how you get money? By *charging* people.

    You know what all these bullshit wait list apps have in common? They are *free*.

  • ‘Why I Like DST’

    The level-headed [Dr. Drang on daylight savings time](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/why-i-like-dst/) and studies that seek to prove the waste of DST:

    >Second, do these “studies” ever look into the productivity of people who can’t get a good night’s sleep from May through July because the sun streams into their bedroom at an ungodly hour and the birds start singing outside their window at three-fucking-thirty in the morning? No, they do not.

    Dr. Drang makes some fantastic points in favor of DST, but I still can’t get on board with the notion that *we* should have DST. Even though it would mean sunrise at an [ungodly 4:18a](http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php) here in June, that seems like a small tradeoff for fucking with my internal clock.

    Drang’s solution is for better programming to make the transition easier, but what about easing into the transition. If we take into account that we, in fact, have most of our clocks internet connected then shouldn’t we be able to slowly shift time every month so that 6:00a (or whatever time) always aligns with sunrise?

    Now, unless every clock everywhere was internet connected, this would be a horrible experience. ((That’s an understatement.)) And so would shifting by fifteen minutes every Saturday night for a month, but there *are* other options rather than a twice a year hour reset.

    At least I think it is worth exploring and debating those options, so [I signed the petition](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-bi-annual-time-change-caused-daylight-savings-time/ShChxpKh).

  • Keyboard Maestro Macro: Publishing to WordPress from iA Writer (kind of)

    One of the things I used to love about doing all of my writing in TextMate was publishing directly to this site using the “blogging” bundle. iA Writer is a better writing app than TextMate, so the tradeoff when I switched seemed fair, but I still get annoyed every time I copy and paste the latest post into MarsEdit.

    This is further complicated by linked-list style posting: When I did *Daring Fireball* style linked lists, with one-line comments, it was easy to quickly post a link with a pull-quote by hitting `CMD+1`. That shortcut dumped all the data I grabbed into MarsEdit. But it sucks for my Kottke-style links where I try to write a bit more — often not in the same sitting.

    Bottom line: My most irritating workflow problem *used to be* the amount of copying and pasting going on just to post something to this site.

    That’s now changed.

    ## The Research

    The biggest stumbling block was getting the text to WordPress from Writer. I found ways to do it via PHP, Python, and a command line interface — but none of these were solutions that I could figure out, or wanted use. Additionally these solutions require detailed documentation to reinstall, should I start on a fresh computer. ((This is something I have recently done, so I’m a bit sensitive to it.))

    I wanted something easier. Actually I wanted an AppleScript that would send the post, but I’ve yet to figure that out.

    MarsEdit was out of the running due to it having categories under check boxes that I can’t easily set using the keyboard.

    Welcome back TextMate, old friend.

    ## The Macro

    The macro.

    You can see the macro on the side there. It’s not overly complicated, just lots of actions.

    Here’s what the macro does (simplified):

    1. Grabs the title, which it places at the top of the post, prefixed with a `#` and followed by a carriage return.
    2. Grabs the body text.
    3. Asks me for metadata.
    4. Opens a new TextMate document and dumps all that information in, formatted for the TextMate blogging bundle.
    5. Waits for me to publish the post (so I can check everything looks correct).
    6. When I hit the shortcut to publish in TextMate, the post publishes. The changes to the Writer file are reverted and saved, then the windows for all the programs used are closed.

    Pretty simple.

    Another thing I wanted was to set the scheduled publish date, which meant adding a field in TextMate containing a correctly formatted date string. I used a TextExpander snippet to speed things up (`;bdate`).

    *(Here’s the detail view of some of the actions that you may find useful. [Pause action](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/pause-km.JPG). [Meta data questionnaire](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/meta-data.JPG). [Text insertion to TextMate](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/insert-txt-km.JPG).)*

    ## End Result

    Now I can publish from iA Writer via a series of simple actions, triggered by a single keystroke.

    Because I install this macro’s only dependencies — Writer and TextMate — on every Mac I own, the solution is simple to reinstall and portable.

    You can download the macro [here](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/Blog%20Post%20to%20WordPress.kmmacros.zip).

  • Keeping Up-to-Date with Apps

    ## Justnotes

    Since I [reviewed Justnotes in May 2012](https://brooksreview.net/2012/05/justnotes/) there has been a number of enhancements to the app. The change that addresses my biggest complaint, is that file naming now makes logical sense. It’s still a great app that I use everyday, but now it’s a *lot* better. The latest update even added support for the new Simplenote API, which seems to have made [the Simplenote faithful pretty excited](http://shawnblanc.net/2013/03/justnotes-1-3/).

    [Great app](http://selfcoded.com/justnotes/). Buy it.

    ## Riposte

    I still love, and use, Felix but [Riposte](http://riposteapp.net/) is a very close second. If multi-account support on App.net is a must for you, Riposte is leaps and bounds better than Netbot. ((That’s not just my biased bullshit either, many people have told me they prefer it. Then again that’s a pretty small sample size.))

    At first I thought the color scheme was off, but the more I use Riposte to check the @tbr account replies the more the app grows on me. I still don’t like that the app defaults back to my @benbrooks account instead of staying in the @tbr reply stream when I open it. I assume the account-switching behavior will be fixed, which will make Riposte a killer App.net client.

    ## Kiwi

    Since we’re talking about App.net clients, [Kiwi](http://kiwi-app.net/) was just released and it’s now the best Mac client you can get. Kiwi’s UI and UX is much better than Wedge. The only thing missing from Kiwi (and Wedge) is multi-user support.

    My second complaint: The row of icons for switching between streams feels unbalanced because the ‘PM’ icon is shorter than the others. There are other minor issues but, again, Kiwi is currently the best App.net Mac client out there.

    ## 1Password 4 for iOS

    I didn’t immediately see the value of the [new 1Password app](https://agilebits.com/onepassword/ios) when it came out, but people really encouraged me to keep using it. I’m glad I did, because it’s a fantastic update. The ‘favorites’ section make things easy to find and the built in browser is great, if you train yourself to use it from the outset.

    Annoyingly, when closing the last tab of the built-in browser, rather than switching back to the logins screen, you stay in browser mode. I’d prefer to automatically be switched back to the logins screen because I always forget about the pull-tab gesture to switch back manually.

    ## Basecamp for iPhone

    Now I want Basecamp for iPad. I’ve been using Basecamp off and on for years and there has never been a great way to use it on your iPhone. When the solution looked to be a “responsive” design I was a bit annoyed as there were some things you just couldn’t do on the mobile version of the site.

    The [new iPhone app](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id599139477) is great and solves all of those problems. My biggest complaint is that the default view for each project is the progress/updates view — I’d love to be able to change that.

    *(37Signals have [described some of their design decisions](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3439-design-decisions-projects-on-basecamp-for-iphone), and the trade-offs involved in [making a mobile version of Basecamp](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3438-drawing-the-nativeweb-line-in-basecamp-for-iphone), on the SVN blog.)*

    ## Daedalus Touch

    I was on the beta of [Daedalus Touch](http://daedalusapp.com/) when it was in development and have always found it to be one of the prettier iOS writing apps. But it’s also a very odd duck — I’m never sure exactly when, or how, to use it. Lately I’ve been using it for all of my half-formed ideas and rants (the ones that are less likely to ever be published).

    Since I’ve been using Daedalus Touch a lot lately, I’ve noticed one great feature of the keyboard: Daedalus, like so many iOS text apps, has a fifth row of keys for things like tabs, parentheses, quotes, colons and so forth. Both parentheses and quote marks are ‘smart’: They know when to insert an open or closed mark. Nothing new there, but what’s really neat is that when you apply an open paren the button changes to show only the closed parentheses (with open grayed out). This gives you a heads-up about what will happen when you next hit the button.

    I don’t recall seeing that in other apps, but I love it. It’s a small detail that makes me want to keep using an app that I struggle to fit into my workflow.

  • Quote of the Day: Tim Sniffen

    “Is it way too late to take the ! out of our name? I always feel compelled to shout it. Granted, with larynx atrophy it only comes out as an anguished gurgle. Still. “

  • ‘Umbrella Lottery’

    [Dan Lewis explains how “chance of rain” is calculated and why it really isn’t a useful metric](http://nowiknow.com/umbrella-lottery/):

    >The problem is that the weather forecast does not focus solely on the roughly four square foot area you’re standing in, but rather, a much larger area enclosing hundreds of square miles. And while it may rain in one part of that area, it does not necessarily rain throughout the whole area. So the formula for “chance of rain” — or, more accurately (and officially) “probability of precipitation” — has to account for this. So there’s a formula, as the National Weather Service explains: P = C x A.

    Read his entire newsletter on the topic because it is very informative.

    After reading it, go buy yourself a copy (or two) of [Dark Sky](http://darkskyapp.com) so you [really know](https://brooksreview.net/2012/04/dark-sky-review/) what the weather is going to be doing above your head.

  • Quote of the Day: Thomas Hawk

    “Being able to walk into a store and purchase something right there at the entrance in less than five minutes is the absolute height of customer service.”

  • I did it with the whiffle ball bat

    [Jeff Plungis for Bloomberg on a TSA rule change that is upcoming](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-05/tsa-will-permit-knives-golf-clubs-on-u-s-planes.html):

    > The agency will permit knives with retractable blades shorter than 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) and narrower than 1/2 inch at the widest point, TSA Administrator John Pistole said today at an aviation security conference in Brooklyn.

    This is one of the best things that the TSA has done. Now I just need to find the perfect travel knife that conforms to those rules. Also, in case you were worried, sounds like whiffle ball bats are going to be allowed too.

    Wait, why were whiffle ball bats banned? Oh, right, TSA.

  • Quote of the Day: Richard Branson

    “In 30 years time, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed.”

  • TypeEngine

    [Marco Arment is taking heat](http://www.marco.org/2013/03/02/calm-down-marco) [over comments made](http://www.marco.org/2013/03/02/type-engine) about TypeEngine — a new CMS/App that is coming out to allow individuals to publish periodicals on Newsstand. You can say it’s [sub-compact publishing](http://craigmod.com/journal/subcompact_publishing/), or that it is [The Magazine](http://the-magazine.org)-like all you want, but he truth is, systems like TypeEngine look great, are in demand, and will likely be a boon for digital publishing. They are built to help great writers get paid, and be read.

    That’s the truth. But the other truth was that The Magazine did it first.

    Not first like Rio MP3 player first ((Go ahead and argue MPman all you want, but I had never heard of it until I double checked my statement.)) , but first like iPod first. As in: early enough, and substantially better than all other offerings, that we’ll eventually just remember the iPod as first when we look back decades from now.

    So is TypeEngine a rip-off, kind of, but we can’t say that for sure until we see the execution on a larger scale. Should Marco Arment and crew be worried? Not yet, because there isn’t likely to be a publication popping up off of TypeEngine that can get the writers The Magazine has, let alone pay those writers $800 a pop (which is likely a large reason why the writers want to write for The Magazine).

    Right now TypeEngine is giving users the ability to clone The Magazine if they want, but ultimately TypeEngine is trying to stay out of that fight. When you think about it, that’s a rather boring position to take.

    ***

    One of the most interesting problems facing the web is design theft. During one of the design changes to this site I was emailed by a reader that wanted to copy my design, line by line, for his site — he was asking me for permission. I found this offensive and told the emailer so, to which he took exception.

    In his mind, and likely in the mind of many, my “theft” (at the time) of the *Daring Fireball* business model (linked lists, articles, one ad, RSS sponsors) was a far worse offense than his theft of my design would be. ((I encouraged him to email Gruber and see how that argument would fair. Still waiting word on that front.))

    I think that is what we are rubbing up against with TypeEngine, and other similar sub-compact publishing systems — that somehow the theft of the design is nothing, just so long as they don’t steal the business model. And to be clear, none of these offerings to date are stealing The Magazine’s business model, they are just enabling *others* to do so if they wish.

    There isn’t a clear cut line here either. Dark text on a light background certainly isn’t a unique design, nor are red links ((Ahem.)) , but the combination of all the elements as TypeEngine has screenshotted can hardly be looked at as anything other than Samsung, I mean copying, *Copying*.

    But I would also caution that, as far as I can tell, the line between design theft and design inspiration on the web is drawn in sand on a good day, and often gets washed away and redrawn in a new spot on a daily basis. Which makes it very hard to call someone out for copying your design — hence the murky waters Arment finds himself in.

    ***

    Mostly, as Arment says, these companies are focusing on the wrong thing: the tool.

    [Hamish Mckenzie for Pando Daily](http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/02/calm-down-marco-micropublishing-is-about-more-than-just-the-magazine/):

    > Arment is right about the importance of quality editorial in attracting and maintaining a readership, but his argument about platforms is surprisingly out of touch. Platforms are of critical importance in any new era of publishing.

    And, later:

    > Sure the advent of Blogger, WordPress, and the likes also ushered in an era in which we have been bombarded with substandard writers filling up the Internet with pages of crap. But such software also allowed some great writers to emerge, and some of them have launched careers and created decent businesses because of it.

    Bullshit. Utter bullshit.

    The advent of WordPress or any other platform had fuckwithall to do with the success of great writers emerging — if you make that argument then you must make the same of word processors, typewriters, and on and on. It’s simply too shortsighted to argue that a platform, or any other tool, allowed anyone to emerge. It’s a combination of everything: tools, access, barrier to entry, willing and able readers, spellcheck, and on, and on.

    And more to Mckenzie’s point, WordPress has nothing to do with TypeEngine. WordPress, Blogger, et al are free systems built atop a mostly free web which is freely accessed by the world (exception to China, North Korea, and on). TypeEngine, née, The Magazine, née, Newsstand, née, iOS is a closed and expensive platform. Great writing will not emerge because there is an easy way to all of a sudden publish to iOS readers AND *charge them* — such a tool isn’t even in the same league as blogging engines, or the printing press for that matter.

    The tools used to create The Magazine are trivial, the hard part is finding good writers, editors, and finding the money to pay those good writers and editors.

    Once you figure that out, people keep coming back. All TypeEngine is, is a blank page that will look like The Magazine — that’s a long way off from being The Magazine.

  • ‘It’s Time to Legalize Cell Phone Unlocking’

    [R. David Edelman](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/its-time-legalize-cell-phone-unlocking?utm_source=wethepeople&utm_medium=response&utm_campaign=unlock) responding to a petition on We the People:

    >The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.

    Now we get to see if the politicians will make the change that is both common sense and “right”, or if AT&T, Verizon, et al will be able to successfully donate enough money to them.

  • Quote of the Day: John Gruber

    “If openness were key, Linux should have succeeded everywhere. It has not.”

  • Your Goal Should Be to Almost Finish

    [Debbie Cafazzo for the local Tacoma News Tribune](http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/03/01/2494665/tacoma-school-board-raises-goal.html):

    >The Tacoma School Board Thursday officially raised the bar for expected graduation rates. Board members said they want the district’s overall graduation rate to hit 85 percent by the year 2020.

    They are following the tried and true Olympian mantra of trying for Bronze in an attempt to win Gold… No, wait, that’s not how it works. Is it trying to swim halfway across the pool faster than… No. Actually trying for anything less the finishing first is kind of a waste of time, right?

    This is what’s wrong with “boards” — they are so goddamned worried about covering their own asses that they set half-assed goals so that, at the very least, they meet their goals and thus shouldn’t be fired.

    The goal should always be: 100% graduation. Seems pretty fucking basic to me. (By the way, they are currently at 68% graduation which is absolutely horrendous.)