Category: Links

This is the post I have been waiting for. Immensely helpful.

President Obama’s recent remarks on gun violence, via David Jackson at USAToday:

His “biggest frustration” as president, Obama said, has been that “this society has not been willing to take some basic steps” to keep guns away from people who “can do just unbelievable damage.”
The president again criticized Congress for blocking a proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers and said too many lawmakers are “terrified” of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.
While “our levels of gun violence are off the charts,” Obama said, the American people themselves have to demand new laws: “If public opinion does not demand change in Congress, it will not change.”

It’d be one thing if that was a local Mayor, or Police Chief who is more or less helpless to change national laws, but that statement is from the President of the United States of America. The man that quite literally is in charge of the country, our safety, and our children’s safety. And his bullshit response amounts to little more than: “the public really needs to get mad at Congress for not making a change.”

Give me a fucking break.

Al Gore on Edward Snowden (via David Sirota):

But what he revealed in the course of violating important laws included violations of the Constitution that were way more serious than the crimes he committed. In the course of violating important laws he also provided an important service because we did need to know how far this has gone.

Matt Drance:

The “Continuity” suite of features says more to me than anything else announced last week, naturally blurring the line between Mac and iPhone and iPad while still accepting each product for what it is. Recent updates to OS X seemed intent on forcing iOS down the Mac’s throat. Last week, for what felt like the first time ever, the two were on equal footing: an Apple device is an Apple device is an Apple device.

Liam Spradlin on a new feature he says is coming to Android, as this alleged text from the new feature called Google Nearby:

When Nearby is turned on for your account, Google can periodically turn on the mic, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and similar features on all your current and future devices. Google+ and other Google services need this access to help you connect, share, and more.
When you turn on Nearby, you’re also turning on Location History for your account and Location Reporting for this device. Google needs these services to periodically store your location data for use by Nearby, other Google services, and more.

I’m really disappointed with Google here — there was a clear opportunity for them to also grant themselves remote access to the camera and they just completely miss it. Google is slipping.

Recently the City of Seattle passed a $15/hour minimum wage. It’s not as brutal to businesses as many make it out to be (it raises from current level to $15 over a few years).

What’s interesting isn’t so much the debate, national or local, or the dollar amount. But to me the most interesting part is the perception of value. Washington state already has a ‘high’ minimum wage ((Comparatively.)) at around $10 (just under), now Seattle and SEATAC have $15 minimum wages (with the latter city having some exceptions). So if you are within a reasonable commuting distance to either, why would you take a lower wage when you could commute to a much higher wage.

It’s not about the dollar amount, it’s about the fact that it is so much higher. If you live in a state and you are making less than $8 an hour, and you look at Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum — well you get a different perspective on the value of that money you are making.

How this all plays out should be very interesting to watch.

Redditor iOSecure:

In iOS 8, Wi-Fi scanning behavior has changed to use random,locally administered MAC addresses.
The MAC address used for Wi-Fi scans may not always be the devices real (universal) address.
Once the iOS device is done scanning it will give the real MAC ID.

Very cool feature to make it harder to “track” iOS users.

I heard about this from some drama going on surrounding it, but man am I glad I heard about it. This is like xScope, in that it is for measuring things — but holy shit is it awesome. There’s a free beta right now, so give it a shot if you design at all on the screen. Really stellar tool.

Juliette Garside:

Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond.

That’s not an NSA thing, thats an, almost every other government thing

Thomas Brand:

Instead of re-envisioning how an iOS application should look, Blixt has reinvented how an iOS application should behave. Users are no longer content navigating their apps the same way they browse their address books. Being pulled along a string of endless lists tied together by the Back button. Instead Blixt takes a new approach. Giving users full screen content in stacks they can shuffle using just their fingertips.

Thinking about it, it is quite remarkable how you never get lost in Blixt. If you are an iOS developer you must download this app, because it just raised the bar.

Olga Khazan:

She has partnered with Steelcase, the office furniture maker, to create new types of office spaces that will allow introverts to both work and respite in peace. Some of the new modules will house desks, others will contain couches, and others still will have yoga mats. All will have walls.

WOW, walls? What a new and novel concept — taking a desk and wrapping walls around it. Wow, I wonder what a floor of these ‘offices’ may look like.

Adam Felder:

Respondents who saw comments evaluated the article as being of lower quality—an 8 percent difference. In other words, authors are judged not just by what they write, but by how people respond. The presence of comments did not make a statistically significant difference in a person’s likelihood to read more content by the same author, nor did it make an appreciable difference in respondent self-reported mood.

The results seem contradictory. Having comments make the perception of the article quality to be less, but not your likelihood to read or enjoy the article? Huh?

Nate Barham:

Think, “I am using my Mac,” or “I am using my iPhone.” Unlike Microsoft and Google, for whom the device is a layer of abstraction between the user and the primary product, which is the respective company’s services, Apple’s devices are zero layers of abstraction from their primary product: the device itself.

Such a fantastic article about the Apple line of thought. “What ever makes users love our devices more.” That’s what it is all about, that’s why iCloud is now front and center and will likely get a lot of resources to be great.

Sarah Perez:

The end result was a social search engine built on top of a mapping interface.

Everyone’s watching the visible Apple versus Google battle that is taking place in courts and on smartphone/tablets — but the real war is being waged in search. Apple has been upping its efforts to building a better search solution than Google can offer.

No, I’m not joking.

Look again at how Apple is approaching this. You won’t ever go to Apple.com/search you just will pop open Spotlight, or Siri, on your Apple devices and magically get the result you wanted. All the while bypassing Google completely through the use of clever built-in search tools.

Google wants to give you robust search offerings, complete with highly targeted ads. Apple wants to give you the single right result, without you ever having to visit a web browser.

That should scare the shit out of Google, because Apple is trying to build the more elegant, and built-in, solution.

Very well done video. If you think about Google and Facebook as magicians, both trying to get you to look the other way while they collect data on you, Facebook comes in as the master magician to Google’s amateur hour.

In other words, Facebook is collecting more than Google, and yet you notice them way less.

Kirk Johnson:

The police are crediting the quick response of students at Seattle Pacific University in subduing a man who opened fire on the campus Thursday afternoon with keeping down the number of victims.

It’s a sad state of affairs that, like with plane hijackings, we as citizens now know that we must act decisively and quickly to stop those who wish harm on us.

Jason Koebler:

Throughout the country, companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and Verizon have signed agreements with cities that prohibit local governments from becoming internet service providers and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations. 

This has long been true, but it’s not just the case with internet, as local municipalities have been pull this shit for decades.

Ever wonder why there is just one garbage company that serves your house? Because the city/town/county decided that was the garbage company, and you are actually not allowed to use a different company in many areas. How stupid is that?

In a country that is hellbent on ‘anti-trust legislation’ and breaking up ‘monopolies’ we allow our local governments to create these monopolies within their jurisdictions.

It drives me nuts.

Federico Viticci dives into iOS 8 extensions:

With less annoyances, faster access to information, and better communication between the apps we use every day, iOS is growing up. Apple put the ball in the developers’ court, and now they have to figure out how they can improve the ways we use our devices every day with more flexible, powerful apps.

These are going to be very cool. Can’t wait.

Michael Lopp:

The work isn’t hard because of the things you know; it’s hard because of the unknowable. This piece is not an argument for more leaders, it’s a request to appreciate that the unknowable arrives – every single day.

Interesting poll results over on The Online Photographer. I was surprised to see the Olympus OM-D E-M5 come in at number 2 overall — though it is a very good camera (even still).