Category: Links

This is a fascinating read and shows the true dangers of networks like Facebook, and Twitter as well. What’s most interesting, and most dangerous is that these networks themselves don’t know how they impact the world until well after the fact.

At its core, Medium has two good things going for it:

1. Design, it’s phenomenal and well considered.
2. Desire to be better. They know what they want to achieve.

The problem with Medium is that they have no fucking clue how to actually accomplish the second thing, and so they quickly erode the trust of writers. If you are serious about writing, it’s the worst possible choice you can make for publishing your words.

Daniel Kreiss and Shannon McGregor, reporting on another side of Facebook, Google, and Twitter during the elections:

For example, these firms offer an extensive array of campaign services — including advising campaigns on everything from the content of ads and other communications to the specific groups they might benefit most from targeting, and how best to reach them. Consider the fact that all three of these firms have dedicated partisan teams that work with campaigns. Staffers work with campaigns to guide advertising buys, boost engagement around online ads, and shepherd the use of their platforms.

Zeynep Tufekci:

In a largely automated platform like Facebook, what matters most is not the political beliefs of the employees but the structures, algorithms and incentives they set up, as well as what oversight, if any, they employ to guard against deception, misinformation and illegitimate meddling. And the unfortunate truth is that by design, business model and algorithm, Facebook has made it easy for it to be weaponized to spread misinformation and fraudulent content. Sadly, this business model is also lucrative, especially during elections.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a really good question from Om Malik

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

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

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.

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.

This is an awesome update, and I love the new styling. I forgive them for using Medium.

Jacqui Cheng:

What differentiates Wirecutter from other review sites is the rigor of our review process, the transparency we provide to our readers about that process, and our reader-centric, useful approach to recommendations. The most important thing to us is not to only practice those values when it comes to home and tech, but to hit those values consistently no matter what topic our crack team of researchers, testers, reporters, and just plain curious staffers put their minds to.

It’s more than that though. They really care about every topic they work on. They want feedback from the groups in that area. If/When I criticize a pick, they explain it and remind me: this isn’t the same as what you pick, because it’s the pick “for most people”. I see the Wirecutter as a truly vital resource.

Om Malik:

Every single event leaves me more in awe of Apple’s semiconductor group – and what they seem to achieve with each passing year.

He makes a good case (which I agree with) that Apple’s core strength right now is the silicon which powers iOS. I mean the iPhones are now as “fast” as a MacBook Pro. That’s insane. And nobody is near it, read his entire post.