The Brooks Review

Month: September 2017

  • Fragility of Free, a Redux

    Six years ago, I wrote a post called “The Fragility of Free”, ostensibly about how “free” things will always break down over time, using popular apps, and Twitter as my examples. You can read the post here, while the references are dated (except Twitter) I still like the post.

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  • Frankly Inadequate

    Tony Romm for RECODE:

    In some cases, though, congressional aides appeared disappointed with the information Twitter provided. Some on the Senate Intelligence Committee, for example, fretted Twitter had not done more, and sooner, to patrol its website for Russian misinformation, according to a source familiar with its work. Afterwards, the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, thrashed the social giant’s presentation as “frankly inadequate.”

    There’s some good momentum for change with social advertising giants. Will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.

  • Change is hard, even in Silicon Valley

    Om Malik:

    This brouhaha around Twitter’s 280-character mini-experiment is actually a good encapsulation of how despite often touting disruption, change and innovation, the Valley (aka technology establishment) is often resistant to change, dismissive of change and behaving much like the world it wants to disrupt.

    See also: iPhone X, MacBook 12”, Outlier Clothing, Headphone Jacks.

  • Flowfold Optimist Limited 10L Mini Backpack

    Note: this is backpack was provided to me at no charge, for the purposes of this review.

    When we last talked about Flowfold, I heaved praise on the their minimalist wallet — which I am still using and love — but I also mentioned that they make backpacks. A couple weeks ago Flowfold sent over their 10L Minimalist backpack, made from the same material (and color in this case, though they sell others) as my wallet. It’s a cute match.

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  • Wool T-Shirt Review

    Evan Davis has a great run down of your Merino t-shirt options, as he has tested a wide variety of them. I was actually privy to his thoughts before he published, and it has guided my own buying. I love the Wool & Prince that he loves, but personally like the fit of Oultier’s Ultrafine better. Thing is, you don’t need many of these shirts. I own two Outlier, and one Wool & Prince — that’s basically all my normal wear t-shirts (I have some cotton MartianCraft shirts for PJs) and those three shirts are all I need. Good read.

  • iOS Default File Associations

    I mentioned in my iPad Productivity Report this week, that Google Drive is a pain in the ass on iOS. This explains why: they did it to be devious it sounds like. Bastards.

  • Apple is looking for terrible web sites

    Brian Heater on a new tool Apple us using to find shitty web development/design/marketing/revenue models:

    This form of data collection is the first of its kind for Safari, aimed at identifying sites that use excessive power and crash the browser by monopolizing too much memory. Apple is also documenting the popularity of these problematic domains, in order to prioritize which sites it addresses first.

  • Benchmade Griptilian

    In my quest to find a solid pocket knife to be my backup to my Chris Reeve Small Sebenza 21, I’ve been looking for something larger, and harder use. Something I have a reason to owning, other than wanting a backup. I initially looked at the Spyderco Paramilitary 2, but found that it was far too cumbersome to carry.

    Today, I am looking at Benchmade’s Griptilian, which is the larger of their two Griptilian knives and among one of the most popular knives out there. In this humble knife, I think I might have found my perfect backup knife, and a knife I really enjoy using.

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  • Science confirmed: text replacements do not sync

    Brian Stucki proves that text replacement syncing on iOS is fundamentally a pile of shit (my words), but its made even more odd because:

    From my own experience, syncing of all other data via iCloud has really improved. Notes, Calendar, address book, reminders, photos, etc all sync almost instantly across all devices.

    I can echo this. iCloud is flawless everywhere except text replacement syncing. My work email shortcut is three @ signs. When I left my old company in 2014 and came to my new one, I swapped out the replacement there. I have to delete the old email every other week, it just keeps showing back up. For no reason.

  • iPad Productivity Report — 9/25/17

    By now, hopefully, you’ve installed iOS 11 on your iPad. One thing that most were not able to test over the summer beta period (including me) was how powerful Files.app really is. Without a robust offering from third party apps, it’s hard to use Files, as it becomes something you actively must think about using, and even more than that, it’s not the defining feature of iOS 11 some would have you to believe it is.

    You must be a member to read this article.

  • Mystery Ranch Urban Assault Review

    Good review on the Urban Assault (I reviewed it here). One thing which cracked me up is his score, I’ll not comment on the craziness of his scoring system overall, but this bit is amazing:

    The score is a bit deceptive.  This is a pack that I would easily count as one of the best on the market.  I loved this pack.  But its flaws were flaws that I simply couldn’t NOT deduct a point for and so the score is what it is.  But don’t take that as an 18.  Think of it as an 18!  The 3-Zip is simply and without question, the best pack zipper system ever devised. 

    That’s why scoring anything with hard numbers is deceptive and should be avoided at all costs.

  • Facebook, Elections & the Spin

    This is a really good question from Om Malik

  • iPhone 8 Plus Camera Review: India

    If that’s how good the iPhone 8 Plus camera is, then with the iPhone X… Well does anyone want an X100T?

  • Triple Aught Design SERE Pouch

    I had almost given up on trying to find a small pouch to house my extended EDC kit in. The Maxpedition was too large, and cumbersome. The Skinth wasn’t quite right, despite being quite nice. Before giving up I decided to try something entirely different, the SERE Pouch, from Triple Aught Design.

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  • Arcade Belt

    When I snagged the Ferrosi pants for hiking, I knew I would need to grab a belt of some sort. The common style for hiking is a simple nylon web belt, but I went for something different in the Arcade Adventure Belt. This is a basically an elastic strap with a buckle. What’s neat about this is that it retains a lot of comfort, while allowing you to tighten the belt if you need to support your pants a little more.

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  • Review: The iPhone 8 is a look into the augmented future of photography

    Good review. I suspect the iPhone 8 will be, in many ways, a better upgrade for most than the iPhone X.

  • Keyboard Maestro 8.0: Work Faster with Macros for Mac OS X

    I miss this app so much (because I don’t use a Mac any more). And I’m so happy to see it still being updated with amazing new features.

  • What Is Trump Worth to Twitter? One Analyst Estimates $2 Billion

    Title says it all. So next time you think about when/if Twitter will act on all the user complaints about stuff, well remember the above.

  • iPad Productivity Report — 9/18/17

    This week: collaborating on ideas, and on editing — the iPad only excels in one of these two areas.

    You must be a member to read this article.

  • Advertisers are Super Mad

    Marty Swant reporting on advertising groups being super sad about coming privacy standards in Safari:

    In an open letter expected to be published this afternoon, the groups describe the new standards as “opaque and arbitrary,” warning that the changes could affect the “infrastructure of the modern internet,” which largely relies on consistent standards across websites. The groups say the feature also hurts user experience by making advertising more “generic and less timely and useful.”

    This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

    Update: Nah, it’s funny.