The Brooks Review

Month: December 2013

  • ‘No Contest: Edward Snowden is Person of the Year’

    John Cassidy:

    > According to Time, its award, which will be bestowed on Wednesday, goes to the person who, in the opinion of the magazine’s editors, had the most influence on the news. By this metric, it’s no contest. In downloading thousands of files from the computers of the electronic spying agency and handing them over to journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman, Snowden unleashed a torrent of news stories that began in May, when the Guardian and the Washington Post published a series of articles about the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities. Seven months later, the gusher is still open.

    Nope, they choose Pope Francis. I think I remember seeing a news story or two about him, I think.

  • Punishment vs. Rewards: App Store Reviews

    [John Gruber, voicing a frustration about the “rate this app” nag screens that are the scourge of iOS users][1]:

    > I’ve long considered a public campaign against this particular practice, wherein I’d encourage Daring Fireball readers, whenever they encounter these “Please rate this app” prompts, to go ahead and take the time to do it — but to rate the app with just one star and to leave a review along the lines of, “One star for annoying me with a prompt to review the app.”

    It’s actually hard to be an iOS user and *not* agree with Gruber here. Those screens are shitty and annoying.

    I hate them with a passion.

    If you have been following any iOS developers on App.net/Twitter that do these nag screens, you will have also noticed that Gruber’s post seems to have started to affect the app ratings overall for apps with nag screens. (Which was the point, as we hope it would inspire change.)

    We hope we will eliminate these nags by giving bad reviews.

    Except that’s only looking at the problem from *one* side of things.

    ### User Side

    From the user perspective: you took time to download this app and therefore should be able to use it without being nagged to death to rate the app.

    This is only logical.

    As a user you also expect a stable app that is given regular updates and improvements. Again, not wholly unreasonable.

    Mostly, you just want to use the app when and how you want to and then get on with your life.

    ### Developer Side

    Developers *need* to get their apps into the hands of as many users as possible to fund the future development of apps.

    Developers also know that people are unlikely to buy poorly rated apps, and that not everyone reads blogs about apps to stay abreast of what is best. Therefore developers need good ratings to fulfill the first obligation of sales/downloads and thus the nag screen.

    There’s no more evil to it than that, with developers feeling like it is a small ask of their users. Again, not wholly unreasonable.

    ## Opposing Forces

    This is where the problem exists. The developers have every incentive in the world to cause a user a *minor* annoyance and ask users to rate the app via nag screen. The developer figures this minor annoyance is worth it for the user because it indirectly helps the developer continue to work on the app.

    More ratings = more installs = more money = more time spent developing the app = benefits to users. Everyone wins…

    It’s rather simple. And in that vein it is in the best interest of the user in the long-term.

    Except the user’s priorities don’t align with this thinking. The user faces a few problems with nag dialogs that aren’t typically expressed in the developer perspective:

    1. *Your* app isn’t the only one nagging them to review. In fact, if it was just one app every once and a while nagging the users, then users would likely never care — but it’s not just one app every once and a while. Actually *most* apps, most of the time, are nagging thus creating a feeling of *constantly being nagged*. It’s like driving a school bus: what’s the harm in *one* student asking “are we there yet?” There’s no harm in that, but the fact is that once one student asks they all ask, and then you just pull the bus over and walkaway from those little brats.
    2. The user has to stop their day. Think about that, especially if your app is designed to help the user accomplish something faster/better/easier. You, the developer, are asking your user to forgo the potential “productivity” benefits of your app, stop, head over to the App Store, write a few words, sign in, agree to new terms, sign in again, pick a star rating, and submit. It’s not a minor annoyance, it’s typically a big pain in the ass that takes real time.

    The simple fix is for Apple to allow submitting reviews from inside an app. That’d be great and simple.

    But that’s not reality today, and we need to deal with reality.

    It’s not fair for users to review apps one star based on the fact there was a nag screen from rating the app. We should *all* agree on this.

    But it’s also not fair for developers to nag users to review their app based on the fact that “it’s vital to development and doesn’t take any time”. Again, we should *all* agree on this.

    I think a better strategy is this: If you don’t like nag screens and an app nags you, don’t rate that app, but pencil in some time once a week to rate one app you like that never nags you.

    It’s a matter of punishment versus reward. I think, in this case, rewarding those that don’t nag is better than punishing those that do nag.

    ### Side Note About Push Notifications

    But, with all that said, fuck those people that abuse push notifications. Slaughter them in reviews.

    [1]: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/12/05/eff-your-review

  • ‘Fine Art Gliclée Prints’

    John Carey is now selling prints of his images and I now cannot decide which one(s) to buy.

  • Quote of the Day: John Gruber

    “I’ve been saying for years that page view-based advertising is a corrupting force.”

  • ‘NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking’

    Ashkan Soltani, Andrea Peterson, and Barton Gellman:

    > Apps transmit their locations to Google and other Internet companies because ads tied to a precise physical location can be more lucrative than generic ads. But in the process, they appear to tip off the NSA to a mobile device’s precise physical location. That makes it easier for the spy agency to engage in the sophisticated tracking techniques the Post described in a story Dec. 4.

    It makes perfect sense for the NSA to use data from cookies to track targets, because ,as the article says, nearly everyone has a Google cookie on their machine. This site serves three: WordPress (I think there may be two here, one for WP stats and another for your login/remember me), Mint (self-hosted analytics), and Go Squared. I am now considering removing all three, especially since I don’t need the stats to show advertisers. ((I mostly use stats to see who is linking in to me, and how well received each post is.))

    There are many options for limiting how many cookies your computer stores, but it does break some websites and at the very least is fairly annoying. It’d be less profitable if Google removed the unique ID, but it is the best thing they can do for users.

  • A Note About Old Pictures

    In March of 2012 I switched cloud providers for hosting images on TBR. I moved from the ubiquitous Amazon S3 to [Rackspace Cloud Files][1]. I made the move for two reasons:

    1. I couldn’t easily upload an image to S3, set it public, and grab the URL from my iPad. I could do that from Rackspace though.
    2. In my rudimentary testing Rackspace was just a touch faster than S3.

    With the cost being a negligible factor, I made the move. Instead of doing the wise thing an porting over all my old images to Rackspace and updating the linking at that time, I just left it be. So every image pre-March-2012 was still on S3.

    I never foresaw an issue with this and on my left went. ((I should have. Fuck.))

    About two months ago I got a fraud call from my credit card company telling me that there was a pending charge from Amazon for $30,000+ — and was I ok with that? WHAT!

    This lead to an afternoon of my life that is rather blurry. I got in contact with Amazon support and we tracked it down to someone hacking into my AWS account in the middle of the night and spinning up a lot of EC2 instances (I had EC2 on for VPN usage, but never used it). So while my S3 bill was still only $4, there was more than thirty thousand dollars being billed with EC2.

    I was frantic, but confident that I could prove in court it wasn’t me and it was a hack, but still didn’t want to have to go that far as it would likely cost my a lot of time *and* money.

    Still it took hours that day, and weeks of waiting, to fully resolve the issue.

    It is resolved now. To Amazon’s credit their support staff was smart, well trained, helpful, and felt on “my side” the entire time. In fact, from almost the outset of the call, the support rep told me “we will work to get these charges removed for me”. She said that often and I’d be lying to say that wasn’t what I needed to hear at that time.

    During that fiasco (while on the phone with Amazon) I downloaded a backup of my S3 data (not much) with the intention of porting over the data to Rackspace because Amazon told me on the phone I had (maybe they strongly urged me, I can’t recall) to delete my AWS account and the S3 data would be nuked.

    I never got around to uploading that backup S3 data, but now many of you are pinging me to let me know that old image links are broken (I know, believe me, I know).

    Today I set out to repair those images, but I can’t find the backup file. ((Fuck!)) At this point I fear it was overwritten on a USB drive, so as it stands old images are just going to be broken. If I find the backup file I will update the images as quickly as I can — but it is truly not looking hopeful.

    I apologize for this and am a bit red in the face over the matter.

    [1]: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/files/

  • The Goruck GR1 Pictures

    After I added pictures to the GR1 field pocket post I literally had halve-dozens of emails asking for GR1 pictures. Here you are.

  • Reform Government Surveillance

    It seems to me a more effective solution than an open letter for tech giants would be one, or all, of the following:

    + Refuse to give any money to any political candidate.
    + Refuse to sell your products to any governmental agency. Including SaaS products. (Never going to happen, but would be great.)
    + Create a pooled ad budget (like the one to promote this letter) to run ads (video and print) demanding reform.

    This will never happen, but I still occasionally dream.

  • ‘Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data’

    Great look at the practical downside of automated government spying.

    (via Keith H.)

  • Let It Full-Bleed

    MG Siegler:

    > Think about how ridiculous that is for a second. A web browser needs a feature to make it easier to actually read on the web.

  • ‘NSA morale down after Edward Snowden revelations, former U.S. officials say’

    Ellen Nakashima:

    > Morale has taken a hit at the National Security Agency in the wake of controversy over the agency’s surveillance activities, according to former officials who say they are dismayed that President Obama has not visited the agency to show his support.

    Maybe if their PowerPoint slides weren’t so fucking bad President Obama would put them up on the fridge and everyone could feel better.

  • The Brooks Review December Membership Special

    For this month only, you can get the yearly membership option on this site for $30 a year. That’s a $10 savings right to your wallet.

    *(Also, you are welcomed to upgrade from monthly membership to yearly and get the $30 price. Just cancel your membership, stay logged in and go to the join page. Select the new membership and enter the info asked. You should now be rolled over. However you won’t get a refund for any partial month stuff.)*

  • ‘Cellphone data spying: It’s not just the NSA’

    [John Kelly](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/08/cellphone-data-spying-nsa-police/3902809/):

    > Armed with new technologies, including mobile devices that tap into cellphone data in real time, dozens of local and state police agencies are capturing information about thousands of cellphone users at a time, whether they are targets of an investigation or not, according to public records obtained by USA TODAY and Gannett newspapers and TV stations.

    This article is exactly what you expect, exactly what is stated in the above quote. What it points out though is that once you make it “ok” for one government agency to spy on people, it starts to trickle down and be “ok” for all policing agencies to spy on people.

    Now it’s not just about finding terrorists — it’s about finding kidnappers, murderers, and the guy who broke into the Sheriff’s car last night. And while most of those are noble causes, unchecked, the majority of use cases become personal vendettas and lines are blurred in the name of justice.

  • Quote of the Day: Wil Wheaton

    “Consider this, about having perspective on criticism: If you enjoyed making a thing, and you’re proud of the thing you made, that’s enough.”

  • ‘Your iPhone Will Talk to Stores While You Shop’

    Lex Berko:

    > What Apple has said with certainty is that it will not be storing the Beacon-collected data for itself. But in an age where data is among the most coveted of possessions, it’s not a huge escalation to imagine that someone will in the very near future.

    I think this is the real concern. Not that Apple will collect the data, but that others will — and they *will*. It would have been great for Apple to have designed the system in a way that doesn’t allow people to collect any data. ((Maybe they have, I don’t know one way or another.))

  • ‘Someone’s Been Siphoning Data Through a Huge Security Hole in the Internet’

    Kim Zetter:

    > Earlier this year, researchers say, someone mysteriously hijacked internet traffic headed to government agencies, corporate offices and other recipients in the U.S. and elsewhere and redirected it to Belarus and Iceland, before sending it on its way to its legitimate destinations. They did so repeatedly over several months. But luckily someone did notice.

  • ‘The simple fix that could heal the patent system.’

    James Bessen:

    > But this ignores a peculiar feature of U.S. patent law: The Patent Office cannot actually reject any patent application. Oh, a patent examiner can issue a “rejection” letter, but the applicant can keep an application alive simply by filing a response. In turn, the patent examiner can then issue a “final rejection.” But this, too, is doublespeak: All the patent applicant has to do is file a “continuation” under one of several possible procedures in order to keep the patent application pending for as long as 20 years.

    No way we could have foreseen that being a problem later on. *No way* I say.

  • Update to Goruck GR1 Field Pocket Post

    A sharp-eyed reader reminded me that I have gotten lazy about adding photos to my post. I just updated the Field Pocket post with some photos.

    Apologies.

  • ‘Apple’s Star Chamber’

    WSJ:

    > The arrangement is flatly unconstitutional.

    *Popcorn.*

    (via DF)

  • Cano to Mariners for $240 Million Over Ten Years

    Thank God for baseball season again. Dave Cameron:

    > It could also be a total disaster, though. If the other moves don’t come together, or simply aren’t enough to turn a bad team into a good team, the Mariners could easily have the best second baseman in baseball surrounded by a supporting cast that still doesn’t leave them with a better than .500 club. And this team is very vulnerable to injuries, especially to either Cano or Hernandez, who represent a huge chunk of the team’s chances of contention. A prolonged DL stint by either one probably sinks their season.

    I hate long contracts. Five years seems like far too long for baseball. (But salary and contract lengths have gotten crazy.) I hope this works out, but then again, Mariners.

    Go Ms?