The Brooks Review

Month: April 2013

  • ‘Do US Cities Need More Surveillance Cameras?’

    [Dominic Holden][1] presents a look at what more security cameras would do, and wouldn’t do in our country. This entire debate reminds me of the decent (but not great) TV series: Person of Interest.

    The show surrounds a smart computer geek, who created a program that analyzes all available data on the U.S. population (from cameras, wiretaps, phone logs, emails, etc.) to determine a likely terrorist threat, but a subset of the program (which the show revolves around) sends the creator a SSN of someone in NYC about to commit a serious crime, or have one committed against them. (Then they try to help and yadda, yadda, yadda.)

    Needless to say there is a lot of a good and a lot of bad that come from security cameras in public areas, but I think the most telling statement of how hard it is to still catch someone is a passage Holden includes from the CTO of the CIA:

    > The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time. Since you can’t connect dots you don’t have, it drives us into a mode of, **[we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever][2]**.

    24/7 monitoring of security cameras of any type is largely ineffective, inefficient, and cost prohibitive (except, apparently, in Las Vegas), so the deterrent factor isn’t “immediate arrest” as much as it is: tracking down people later. But as the passage above points out, it’s not always an immediate later. First you have to know that something happened somewhere that needs review, then you have to try an identify a nameless face off a grainy, poorly lit, and far away, camera.

    I can tell you that in my day job we struggle with the decision, of whether or not to install security cameras, all the time. Do we install security cameras to curb graffiti, what about curbing, or catching, people breaking into cars? Nine times out of ten, the best decision (economically and practically) is to not install cameras at all.

    My argument against cameras is not a privacy argument, but instead the same argument I would use against dead bolts on your front door.

    Dead bolts and security cameras serve the same purpose: to keep the honest people honest. Anyone intent on crime will do so no matter what level of “security” you have in place. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have a dead bolt — I do — but that you need to have reasonable expectations about the level of security offered. A strong boot is still coming through your door — dead bolt or not.

    Also remember that in addition to catching people with security cameras, you have to worry about securing the security cameras. At one building I manage, with a large camera network, the first place broken into is always the security camera room.

    There is always a place the cameras don’t cover, and always a place to attack — cameras just shift those places around.

    [1]: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/21/after-the-boston-bombings-do-american-cities-need-more-surveillance-cameras
    [2]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/cia-gus-hunt-big-data_n_2917842.html

  • Quote of the Day: George Saunders

    “Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: ‘Oh, I should tweet about this.’”

  • Betaworks

    I knew nothing about the sale of Instapaper until well after the news was posted online. After reading the news I wasn’t sure what to make of the entire situation. My knee jerk reaction was to cancel my account and just use Pinboard.in instead. However I stopped to consider what, why, and who was taking over: Betaworks.

    I knew that I knew the name Betaworks, but I couldn’t place it. A quick check of their site reminded me: Digg.

    Digg is really relevant to talk about in order to understand my thoughts on the Instapaper sale. When Digg first came out, I fell in love with it. For me Digg was *the* way to see the greatest anything on the web, it’s where I found out about a lot of the sites that I read and love today. I was a huge fan of the corresponding podcast and just enjoyed the service in general.

    Then Digg went sideways and there was a lot easier and better ways to stay on top of the web. Digg died for me.

    When Digg was relaunched I gave it a try via the iPhone app. The Digg iPhone app is still an app that I use and check multiple times a day, I really like it.

    The design, the content, everything in Digg right now is really great. Betaworks, in this bloggers opinion, has done a fantastic job taking Digg back to its roots.

    ***

    Which brings me to Instapaper.

    I really love Instapaper, and I admire the hell out of the work Marco Arment has done to build and maintain the integrity of the service. But I worry about its future under Betaworks.

    I have no doubt that Betaworks can keep the usability of Instapaper in place, that the speed and reliability of service will only improve, but I worry about the soul of Instapaper. Specifically, that it is a service worth paying for in a segment that has immense competition from free providers, and that Betaworks will keep it a privacy conscious, paid service (well mostly paid).

    I know that Betaworks has to make the purchase pencil on the ledger, whether they paid $1, or the “reported” $100 Billion dollars. ((I know of no such reports, but if CNN can make shit up, so can I.)) I worry that the service will eventually have to change, but for now I think it is a win for the current Instapaper users — with a healthy caveat of keeping a close eye on any ToS changes that may or may not come.

  • ‘This is freedom’

    [Tom Rogan writing about why conspiracy theories are usually good][1]:

    > And yet… Tsarnaev is innocent until proven guilty. In this sense, his supporters are little more than amateur defense attorneys — odd and pathetic, perhaps, but harmless. And they’re actually helping uphold the American tradition of a presumption of innocence. This is freedom.

    The more we question things, Rogan argues, the more accepting we are of reality. It’s an interesting viewpoint and hard to disagree with.

    I’ll see if I can get my buddy to join my crazy meet up — he knows more conspiracy theories than anyone I have ever met and it’s entertaining as hell.

    [1]: http://theweek.com/article/index/243355/why-conspiracy-theories-are-good-for-america

  • The Ego-Boosting-Wow-WWDC-Sure-Sold-Out-Fast Meetup (Seattle)

    Just to see how many people would respond, I posted on App.net the other day that I wanted to hold a Seattle meet up during WWDC for those not attending the conference. Two people said yes, and for App.net that’s batting 1.000, so here we are.

    Here’s what I am planning (please email me to let me know if you want to attend so I can choose a properly sized venue):

    – **Date:** June 13th, 2013 at 7:00pm to whenever I get too tired to be there.
    – **Location:** An appropriately sized bar in downtown Seattle, or (reluctantly) in Capitol Hill. Bar must serve a decent selection of whiskey. [We’ll be meeting here](http://www.yelp.com/biz/radiator-whiskey-seattle).
    – **What:** A group of nerds drinking, and not being ashamed that they own more than 15 weather apps even though they live in a city with only two weather types (rain and clouds).
    – **Who:** So far I can guarantee you me, and two other people.

    That’s all. [Shoot me an email][1] if you can attend so I can get the venue sized right.

    [1]: mailto:ben@brooksreview.net

  • Stark Contrast

    [Jason Kottke on some of the first weblogs][1]:

    > Those weblogs were idiosyncratic, about a little bit of everything, and sent people away to keep them coming back — a stark contrast to the late-’90s portal strategy of “stickiness.”

    Also a stark contrast to most major blogs of today. Think: TechCrunch, *The Verge*, Huffington Post — they all have designed their websites, and link in ways, that show how much they loathe sending away even one click (unless it is to an advertiser that is). This type of thinking is just ridiculous and arcane — sadly it is also standard web practice.

    [1]: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/04/kottke/

  • Twitter Music

    [Jim Ray](http://jimray.tumblr.com/post/48626134951/twitters-music-app-is-beautiful-in-that):

    > Perhaps I’m just too far past what Twitter considers cool, but a stream littered with #NowPlaying refuse (or Vines or Foursqure check-ins, for that matter) is a sign that I need to spend some quality time with the unfollow button. Twitter has built an app that requires users to abuse their timelines and followers with machine tags without any meaningful way of tuning out that noise.

    That’s an astute observation of not only Twitter’s new music thing, but of Twitter itself. Hashtags served a great purpose in the early days when they were used sparingly, but in a world where every TV show has a little hashtag in the bottom corner — well it’s time to run.

    App.net, of course, is not immune to this either — there exists hashtags on App.net and I hate them equally there too.

    I personally always thought Twitter would move beyond hashtags by scanning the content of a tweet and categorizing it automatically. I think that would work well for sports, and other things that one can easily discern what is being yelled about. For now I just hold out hope someone builds that for ADN.

  • Sunstroke 1.4

    [Sunstroke gained a modest update today][1] to version 1.4. New in this update is a few little things, one neat one:

    > Added the ability to long press on the sync button to force Sunstroke to refresh the Fever server.

    That’s a really clever little update — I love how minor but powerful that touch is. There’s a bunch of bug fixes too, oh and it now supports iPad.

    Yeah iPad now has not just a native Fever° app, but the *best* native Fever° app. Sunstroke is $4.99, which is a bargain. So buy it now before I convince him a price increase is needed.

    (Side note: I still use Fever mostly on my iPhone, but that’s really more due to habit than anything else — because using Fever° on my iPad is a joy in Sunstroke.)

    [1]: https://goneeast.com/sunstroke/

  • Drafts 3: One Hell of a Notepad

    [Federico Viticci has a very detailed review][1] of what is new in Drafts 3.0. I haven’t used the app, but to call it a scratchpad any longer is really unfair. There is a tremendous amount of power in Drafts — one could spend months in the app configuring it.

    I have a lot of respect for the work that has gone into Drafts, but I just need the scratchpad, so [Scratch][2] it is for me. I’ve come to realize I am just not a person that wants to, or needs to, use apps on my iPhone to do all sorts of crazy other stuff. It makes it too complicated for me to think about and adds too much cruft and not enough just doing.

    I don’t do much work on my iPhone any more — that’s been off loaded to my iPad(s). So when I pull out my iPhone there is a specific thing I want to do:

    – Check App.net
    – Post to App.net
    – Check Email
    – Send an email
    – Add a task to OmniFocus
    – View tasks, or mark tasks off
    – And much more

    My point is: I know what I am doing when I grab my iPhone, so why not just use the actual app. If I use it often it’s already on my homescreen. This is why Launchpad, Drafts, Triage, and other apps really didn’t stick for me. That’s not to say those aren’t great apps, but they tend to add too much cruft for me to stick with them very long.

    [1]: http://www.macstories.net/reviews/drafts-3-review-better-ios-automation-and-workflows/
    [2]: http://gokarbon.com/scratch/

  • Horizon 2.0

    *Today* Horizon calendar ships a major update. Gone are two of the biggest drawbacks of the application: bad icon and no natural language input. The former was one of the biggest reasons I wouldn’t put the app on my Home screen and the latter is a nice little extra for me.

    The new icon took me a week to get used to, I didn’t like it at first, but now quite a while into using the app with the new icon I really do like the icon. Horizon is now my default, Home screen, calendar app. It’s a fantastic app and I really do enjoy using it.

    One thing that I like about the app which I didn’t mention when I first reviewed it: is in the list view, you simply cannot go back in time. You can only see today and everything forward from there. This is actually a great touch, something that I think more calendar apps should incorporate.

    We don’t need to accidentally get stuck in the past — man that happens to me *a lot*.

    Two annoyances about the app:

    1. The new natural language parser (while good) offers no feedback in [the way that Fantastical does][1]. I wish it did, but this is minor for me as I use Siri for new events the majority of the time.
    2. Launch speed. I know (from beta notes) that the developer has been working hard on speeding up the app launch, but it’s still a tick too long for me (though better than it was). For me this is the one thing that Horizon really needs to improve on to take the app to that next level.

    If you haven’t tried out Horizon because you have Agenda, or Fantastical, then I suggest that you do. In the same way that Agenda and Fantastical are different apps, so too is Horizon and [it’s a worthy purchase for calendar nerds][2].

    [1]: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/04/whats-really-great-about-fantastical/
    [2]: http://horizonapp.me

  • Status Board

    [Panic has released Status Board][1]:

    > Status Board takes your data and gives it meaning. Use the easy built-in widgets. Or massage your data for our Graph and Table widgets. It’s going to be awesome.

    Like every other nerd, when [Panic teased about Status Board back in 2010](https://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/) I really wanted to get my hands on it. I had absolutely nothing to use it for, but sometimes you just must have pretty things. Status Board, the iOS app is indeed very pretty.

    That first day though, I had nothing to put on it. Now, just a little while later, there are tons of panels that one can add — [Viticci has a collection of them here][2].

    The best of the lot is the work done on the [Mint integration][3].

    What’s more fascinating to me is the allowance for CSV files in the app. I tried this out and it works as expected. Ideally I would like more control over different aspects of the CSV display, but it is indeed a quick and pretty way to display data.

    I am not sure if I will ever find a place where Status Board becomes a real tool for me, but that’s certainly not going to stop me from trying — because it’s an app you *want* to use.

    [1]: http://panic.com/statusboard/
    [2]: https://pinboard.in/u:ticci/t:statusboard
    [3]: https://github.com/maximevalette/MintStatusBoardHelper

  • ‘Are You the Customer?’

    [Harry Marks,][1] responding to [my “country club” post about App.net][2]:

    > App.net is as inclusive as you can get because it puts users and developers first, not big-name companies and celebrities. App.net treats its user base as more than just one big antenna for ads and there are actual support channels that don’t end in .py. That means a lot to me.

    Marks is arguing that I am wrong about App.net being an exclusive club, and thus being *the* reason to join App.net. But I think the above quote supports my position.

    It’s true that a large reason to join App.net is so that you are using a service that cares, instead of one that wants to shit ads all over you. But App.net specifically cares because the user cares. It’s not altruism driving the culture at App.net, if it was it would be free and free of ads.

    Both App.net and App.net developers stand to gain from more users *and* better users. To get that kind of “better” user you need a user that cares about furthering the service, and thus the country club analogy.

    My point wasn’t about exclusivity as much as it was about two other items:

    1. Not everyone can, or will, pay to join App.net. Just like a country club.
    2. Those that do pay to join, immediately feel invested in the service and thus will continually do their part to better it, not worsen it. Again, just like a country club.

    If you are a golfer, you have no doubt golfed at a public course. Public courses are full of golfers which don’t replace divots (gasp!), drink (double gasp!), or drag their golf carts over the green and any other taboo golf infraction there is in the book. Now go to a private course of any nature and the amount of people you see doing those things almost drops to zero.

    This is the difference I am referencing.

    With Twitter and App.net you see a lot of the same behavior as you do between public and private golf courses. People are vigilant about SPAM on App.net and so too is App.net, and thus there is little (if any) spam that most people see. Look at Twitter. You can report spam all day long, just keep tweeting “iPad” and you will get flooded, but Twitter can’t stay on top of it. I can only speculate as to why, but they *should* be able to stay on top of it.

    People follow what is happening with the App.net, pay for apps, and so forth — not so with Twitter. On Twitter people just follow what celebrity has joined, and look for the free apps that do whatever.

    These are important facts which are made possible by more than just people being treated as customers, it’s about a mutual level of respect. Respect for the user, for the service, for the greens.

    When people feel invested in anything, they take more care with it and that’s why App.net is like a country club.

    [1]: http://curiousrat.com/are-you-the-customer
    [2]: https://brooksreview.net/2013/04/first-class-baby/

  • Beating the Skeuomorph Drum

    [Seth Godin on skeuomorphic design and businesses][1]:

    > Yes, it’s far easier to get understanding or buy in quickly (from investors, in-laws and users) when you take the shortcut of making your digital thing look and work just like the trusted and proven non-digital thing. But over and over again, we see that the winner doesn’t look at all like the old thing. eBay doesn’t look like Sotheby’s. Amazon doesn’t look like a bookstore.

    The iPhone doesn’t look like a rotary phone, or an iPod+rotary phone. And on.

    There’s a lot of places where skeuomorphic design is just fine: largely when it doesn’t interfere with the usability of an object. But I loathe things like bookshelves for my iBooks, and page curls, and so forth. These get in the way, as there could be so much better information display if “trying to make it familiar” wasn’t the goal.

    [1]: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths%5C_blog/2013/04/skeumorphs-failure.html

  • ‘Expunging Google’

    [Duncan Bayne lists the sites he is using to replace Google][1]:

    > I’ve replaced Drive, Calendar and Contacts with my own installation of ownCloud. It’s great – I’ve got full two-way sync with my Android devices, and complete control over my own data.

    I had never heard of [ownCloud][2] before, but it certainly looks very nice. The hardest part of trying to move away from iCloud/Drive/Dropbox is that there is simply no developer support for other options.

    So while it is easy to move away, there are very few tools/apps that support other services. I fear we will find ourselves in a Google Reader type situation with Dropbox in a few years — all of a sudden we have a real reason to move, and every developer is scrambling to update their apps to support 1,000 new services that pop up.

    It’d be much easier to just not have apps that solely depend on Dropbox. Much in the way that [Ulysses III][3] can use local storage, Dropbox, iCloud, and what have you.

    [1]: https://github.com/duncan-bayne/duncan-bayne.github.com/wiki/Expunging-Google
    [2]: http://owncloud.org
    [3]: http://www.ulyssesapp.com

  • News Is Bad for You

    [Rolf Dobelli on the health hazards that reading news presents][1]:

    > Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not to click, which in itself is distracting. News is an intentional interruption system.

    And:

    > News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can’t act upon makes us passive.

    This is a fantastic read and well worth your time to read in full. I’ve been working to slow down my personal consumption of news and instead try to focus on books and longer-form articles, but it certainly is not easy — I’m not used to it.

    The first block quote above really struck me when I think about my own writing and the amount of links that I put in a post. I’m torn between trying to have only the bare minimum of links, or instead having a bibliography of sorts at the end of each article, thus allowing the reader to move more freely through my writing.

    On the flip side is the annoyance factor of such a bibliography-type change — at least I know that I would find this supremely annoying if I were the reader.

    For now I will just stick with trimming the fat in my RSS reader.

    [1]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

  • Quote of the Day: Garrett Murray

    “The way they make these waiters carry around 20 pounds of salad and breadsticks on giant trays is just silly. They should just push around wheelbarrows or something and use shovels to scoop it directly into people’s faces.”

  • ‘You’d be better off cleaning your gutters’

    [Farhad Manjoo writing for Slate about the useless practice of following breaking news][1], has this point about what happens if you just catch up with one in-depth article the following day:

    > And that’s it: You’ve now caught up with all your friends who spent the past day and a half going out of their minds following cable and Twitter. In fact, you’re now better informed than they are, because during your self-imposed exile from the news, you didn’t stumble into the many cul-de-sacs and dark alleys of misinformation that consumed their lives. You’re less frazzled, better rested, and your rain gutters are clear.

    There’s a growing sentiment that I am starting to see among news junkies that perhaps it is time to pull back. To not following the news so closely. Instead, follow well-sourced, well-reported news — investigative journalism.

    I’m horrible at *not* following breaking news, but I managed to be too busy with my own life to follow the events in Boston and Texas — instead I just caught up today with all of the stories. I don’t feel like I missed anything, I knew what was happening in a general sense while it was happening, and now I know what really did happen (including the screw ups) — and no one around me even had time to laugh at me for not being “informed”.

    I highly recommend it.

    [1]: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/04/boston_bombing_breaking_news_don_t_watch_cable_shut_off_twitter_you_d_be.single.html

  • Quote of the Day: Jason Katzer

    “I may buy a lot of stuff, but should I only be viewed as “a consumer” in the eyes of the government and my democracy?”

  • Helioslight: Most Powerful Programmable Keychain Flashlight

    [1000 Lumens, small enough to carry on your keychain.][1] Even if that was all that this flashlight project was, I’d still back it for $120. I flipping love flashlights.

    However, this is a lot more than that (if you can ignore all the Tom Cruise swooning).

    > Helioslight is a programming flashlight. You can change its brightness at any time from 1 to 100 per cent. The flashlight has a favorite mode, and several extra features.

    > Helioslight has red light indicator that flickers once in 5 seconds that helps don’t lose the flashlight with keys in dark.

    > Battery Stretch Function. The output is reduced to 10% at 10% of the battery. So it lets the remaining 10% of battery to last 10 times longer.

    Basically this is a flashlight which is bright, extremely well engineered, and stupid-human-proof or as much as a flashlight can be. Pretty neat. I’m in for $120, it’s already funded, but still…

    **Update**: Looks like greed has killed this project.

    > Serge, an owner of company Lux-RC, decided to refuse to sell his light engine module to us when he learnt about our project on kickstarter.
    At the beginning there were no conditions of using his light engine module from his side.
    > We found out, he promotes his modules in premium segment, and after he discovered we want to make an inexpensive flashlight, he changed his mind and refused to provide us with his module.

    Lame.

    [1]: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1817932181/helioslight-most-powerful-programmable-keychain-fl?ref=email

  • In the End, I am Just Not That Nerdy

    I have spent a lot of time chiding my good buddy Shawn about [his love][1] for those hideous beasts that true-nerds call “keyboards”. You know, the ones that make all that damned noise… Mechanical, I think that’s what the cool kids call them. I never liked them. In fact, once I found the current Apple Wireless keyboard I was hooked. It’s exactly what I want, which is:

    1. Attractive
    2. Small
    3. Just like my laptop keyboard

    It’s perfect. But, being a nerd, I can’t leave well enough alone — and given that I respect Shawn’s opinion I couldn’t ignore his strong encouragement that I try a clicky-clacky-annoying keyboard.

    So I did.

    When Matias announced the [Laptop Pro, wireless mechanical keyboard][2], I bought it. It meets all the criteria for a nerdy keyboard:

    1. It uses mechanical switches, and even calls out the name of those switches on the website.
    2. It’s ugly.
    3. It’s far bigger than anything a sane person would want to use.
    4. It’s ugly.
    5. It’s pretty loud, for a “quiet” version. Like those Hondas all the kids drive around.
    6. It’s ugly, but I covered that already… I think.

    The thing is, I wasn’t excited about the Matias keyboard. I know it doesn’t use the “best switches”, but the Matias presented a no-win scenario for me. The best case is that I hate the keyboard and wasted $170. The worst-case is that I kinda of liked it, but now wanted to try them *all* and would forever have a hideous keyboard adorn my desk.

    Neither thing happened. I’m somewhere in the middle on this issue.

    I’ve been using the Matias since I received it ((2-21-13)), which has been almost a full two months. The only other keyboard I touched during that time was the one on my retina MacBook Pro. For the first three weeks I hated the keyboard. I made more typos than normal, I was tripping over the keys, and my hands were getting tired.

    I pressed on and, eventually, made less typos. Then I found it very hard to switch back to the Apple Wireless. I was stuck.

    Now I had to make a decision: In two month’s use my typo rate hadn’t decreased, but my speed remained the same. That’s a loss.

    However, I did start to see the appeal of such a keyboard. I can see why people like them. I get it now, but *I* don’t like it.

    This isn’t a review of the Matias, because I really don’t care about the keyboard. It was the only one I found that fit my routine, my desk and my life. In the end, this is a test to see if mechanical keyboards are something that I *would* like.

    I liked the feel of the keyboard, more than the Apple Wireless, but I didn’t enjoy typing on it. I can’t explain why mechanical keyboards aren’t for me; it really is a personal choice. Either you’re more comfortable typing on mechanical keyboards, or you aren’t and they’re not right for you.

    The Matias made me a worse typist, with a worse looking desk. That’s the worst.

    Maybe I’m just not nerdy enough for a mechanical keyboard, so I typed this on one of my six Apple Wireless keyboards instead.

    ***

    I *am* tempted to buy and test a better mechanical keyboard. I *am* curious to know if the switches really make that big of a difference. But I won’t buy another keyboard to test. The reason is simple: cords. I *hate* cords.

    Every keyboard that true keyboard-nerds recommend to me are wired and that grates on me more than the idea of using an ugly keyboard for the rest of my life. So I’m back to old faithful and there I shall remain.

    [1]: http://shawnblanc.net/2012/04/clicky-keyboards/
    [2]: http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/