Christina Farr:
While the data shared would obscure personally identifiable information, such as the patient’s name, Facebook proposed using a common computer science technique called “hashing” to match individuals who existed in both sets. Facebook says the data would have been used only for research conducted by the medical community.
This is fine, it’s not like data earmarked for only one type of application every gets out.
Mohit Kumar:
On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that “malicious actors” took advantage of “Search” tools on its platform to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide.
Facebook is quite like Trump right now: what they are doing and have done would otherwise have sunk other companies/politicians — however both stand there telling people that it happened, they’ll do something about it eventually (maybe), but really don’t worry about it. It feels to me like Zuckerberg is basically daring the world to try and do something to stop him, because he believes it is simply not possible. And thus far, he’s not been wrong.
A new brass pen, that uses a Space Pen refill and just might be far more durable than the Space Pen refills themselves — which is saying quite a bit. But it’s quite heavy, so let’s start by talking about that.
Looks really solid, I just switched my router to using it.
There’s long been a development tool called “Charles” and in simple terms (as I understand it for you readers, not developers) it’s a way to see what you are sending over the network from software projects you are developing. Think of it as a way to debug where the problem lies in a piece of software (am I sending the wrong data, to the wrong place, or everything from the app is fine). Just a bit ago Charles Proxy came out for iOS, and it’s pretty amazing and terrifying at the same time.
What [Charles for iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/charles-proxy/id1134218562?mt=8&uo=4&at=1l3v36d) allows you to do is to create a *local* VPN proxy, which sends all your network traffic on your device through the Charles app — thus allowing it to see everything sent, and record that for you. This data doesn’t leave your device, it’s not some remote server providing the logs, it’s all local. This is kind of like running Little Snitch on your Mac, except it’s a log and not a tool you can use to block stuff.
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GORUCK has been teasing this for a bit and it’s finally here, a workshop for the GR1. You can customize the GR1 in a few unique ways and get it in August. I got the one with all the options, but I’ll admit that slick variant looks awesome too. Great stuff, wish I could get both variants, but that’d be crazy, right?
Brian Resnick:
Barasch and her colleagues have found evidence that taking pictures to share on social media changes our perspective within our memories. That is: When we’re taking photos to share on social media, we’re more likely to remember the moment from a third-person perspective.
The first thing we need to get out of the way is that this is a quartz watch. I wrote a bit about my evolving thinking about quartz versus mechanical watches, here. Basically, the lack of accuracy and the delicacy of mechanical movements can make bad options for watches when used particular ways. More than that, I wanted something which could be a better everyday watch, which can blend in many circumstances, while looking sharp.
This is where the Steinhart Ocean Vintage Military failed me: has lovely as the watch is, it really only worked with a couple NATO straps and the bracelet it came on. But it had one feature I didn’t want to lose: great lume on the hands and dials. I could read the time at 4am without squinting.
This is feels like something Q would cook up.
I’ve been talking about watches a bit recently, and will keep doing so for a bit longer, so I thought a quick post on what water resistance ratings mean to me would be handy to post.
The first thing to note is that no watch is really “waterproof” which is why you see the term “water resistant” and typically this is given in one of two metrics. As a pressure metric, 10bar/ATM (I’ve seen it both ways, no clue) water resistance, or as a depth, 100m water resistant. Both of those are the same (because of how watches are tested) what is being tested is how resistant the watch is to pressure from water. The deeper you go in the ocean, for example, the more pressure is being exerted on the watch.
Also on the Facebook front, this post from Doc Searls is great:
Giant Irony Alert: the same is true for the Times, along with every other publication that lives off adtech: surveillance-based advertising. These pubs don’t just open the kimonos of their readers. They treat them as naked beings whose necks are bared to vampires ravenous for the blood of personal data, all ostensibly so those persons can be served with “interest-based” advertising.
Now this is a comment on Reddit, so let’s be upfront about that, but the redditor has plenty of sources to back up what he says — quite interesting. I feel like I knew most of this, but never connected the dots on it. (In case you are not a Reddit person, scroll to the LONG comment from Puffin_Fitness.
Speaking of small and expensive keyboards, here’s another good read.
(h/t to Julia.)
A good read, I’m a huge fan of the 60% form factor which eliminates the arrow keys. I can see the argument for them, but 60% is considerably smaller.
Some apps are really starting to get good, and the tools are really shining through, let’s take another moment to talk about why *most* people don’t actually need anything more than an iPad Pro.
After all, *what’s a computer?*
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I’ve long been critical of two things: overly long blog posts, and podcasts. I’ve done both, to be clear, but I’ve come to realize that both of these things suffer from one core problem: a distinct lack of care.
> If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.
> – [Someone, depending on who you ask](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)
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Zeynep Tufekci:
Mr. Grewal is right: This wasn’t a breach in the technical sense. It is something even more troubling: an all-too-natural consequence of Facebook’s business model, which involves having people go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an enormous level of surveillance. The results of that surveillance are used to fuel a sophisticated and opaque system for narrowly targeting advertisements and other wares to Facebook’s users.
It’s a breach of the most basic level of trust, hell all levels of trust.
Months ago, Studio Neat sent me a note to ask if I wanted to test their take on a pen — and of course I did. I’ve been waiting for this to see the light of day, because it’s a fantastic pen. I have a prototype that slightly varies from the final production version, but I still waited to post this link until I backed the project on Kickstarter.
This pen is worth your money and time.
Note: this backpack was sent to me for review purposes.
Aer has built a brand around well-designed, purpose-built, bags. From their excellent Travel Pack, to the hybrid EDC-Gym backpacks they are known for. They recently released a new line they are calling “Work Collection” which as the name implies is for those who need a bag for work, not for travel or gym/work. The designs in this collection stand out as they all utilize a coated nylon as a key feature.
The Tech Pack is the largest offering of this collection and is what we’ll be talking about today in a brief post as I’ve only had it a couple of weeks.