Recent Articles

Sam Nichols:

With this in mind, I decided to try an experiment. Twice a day for five days, I tried saying a bunch of phrases that could theoretically be used as triggers. Phrases like I’m thinking about going back to uni and I need some cheap shirts for work. Then I carefully monitored the sponsored posts on Facebook for any changes.

You’ll not be shocked by the results.

(H/t to Steve)

Looks like this post has been disputed enough to warrant not reading it. Apologies.

By GABRIEL J.X. DANCE, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL LaFORGIAL:

“It’s like having door locks installed, only to find out that the locksmith also gave keys to all of his friends so they can come in and rifle through your stuff without having to ask you for permission,” said Ashkan Soltani, a research and privacy consultant who formerly served as the F.T.C.’s chief technologist.

Only difference: the Facebook users don’t give a shit.

Bradley Chambers:

Here’s what the iPads needs: a desktop version of Safari with external trackpad support. Yes, Mobile Safari has a “Request Desktop” mode. There are plenty of websites that completely ignore that request, though. Even for the ones that don’t, many of the designs and navigations are built for a mouse pointer. The iPad already has external keyboard support and an external trackpad support would go a long way to making the iPad a Mac replacement.

The iPad comes pretty close with iCab Mobile which is a great web browser when Mobile Safari isn’t working. However that’s not quite what Chambers is talking about here because this is more of a chicken and an egg issue. For instance many ‘modern’ websites rely heavily on the notion that there is such things as drag and drop, hover states, and generally speaking a cursor. Without a cursor a lot of the web doesn’t work, not because technically it cannot work, but because of lazy product design.

Because some product manager decided that their support response would be “use a desktop, sorry”. I don’t want iPad to have a cursor, because that’s not what iPad is. I want websites to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that there are far more people using mobile Safari than there are those sitting down at a desktop to work. Just as web designers had to learn to design responsive websites mobile first, web application developers need to make their apps work on iPhones and Android phones first and foremost, desktops second. Because if it works on an iPhone, it will certainly work on a MacBook Pro.

Some fantastic new features. Both fenced code blocks and a new deadline feature for sheets are tops. I’ve been testing this for a while and the deadline feature has a lot of potential.

Since I track all my writing in in Ulysses I’ve been setting deadlines as “at most 1,500 words, deadline DATE” this not only keeps me at a reasonable word count but let’s me plan out my writing better. Good stuff, can’t wait to see how this feature evolves.

I own two, and it’s all I can do to not buy another.

Weed is legal in Seattle, in case you wondered how they came up with this explanation.

Out today is Obscura 2. I had a chance to play with the beta version and came to like it quite a bit, and it has become a home screen app for me. More information on the blog post here. I don’t know what it is about this app, but it’s really stuck with me, I like the controls and the amount of control it gives me — while at the same time working like “normal” when I don’t have time to futz about.

Nick Statt:

Instapaper happens to be owned by Pinterest as of 2016, which does add a bit of a wrinkle to the situation as it’s not entirely clear what type of data on users’ reading habits or any other behaviors Pinterest may have gleaned from its subsidiary. When questioned by Williams on Twitter about the subject, Brian Donohue, a product engineering manager at Pinterest, said, “I can’t comment on specifics other than to say that I’m actively working on resolving it.”

Sketchy.

There’s a new version of Castro out, which switches the app to the now popular subscription model. Castro, as far as I am concerned, is the best podcasts app you can get. But also don’t take it from me because I so loathe podcasts.

One thing to note here is the additional features of the app: silence trimming and chapter support. These are both features you only get if you pay for the app.

Ryan Christoffel in his overview of the app for MacStories writes:

Eventually though, I became more selective about the portions of podcasts I listened to, and Castro’s lack of chapter support sent me elsewhere.

The line cracks me up, because you need to think about this in terms of what you are paying for with Castro. Listening to podcasts is free, it always has been. You are now paying, and not a small amount of money (but not much), a subscription fee so that you can make podcast listening better because the podcast producers themselves don’t. I know that sounds harsh, and like another slam from a guy who loathes podcasts, but think about it.

Podcasts are too long, but instead of podcaster doing the hard work to shorten them, listeners use hacks like trimming silence (ruining the tempo, not that there was any) and playing at faster than normal speed playback. Listeners (and this was literally news to me today) also use chapters to jump about in the podcasts to skip over the boring bits.

Isn’t the entire point of a podcast that the entire podcast is relevant and entertaining?

Why are people paying to get these “features” instead of demanding better content? This entire thing reads to me like people saying “that book is too long, where’s the Cliff’s Notes version of it?”

Antonio Garcia Martinez:

Facebook is to real community as porn is to real sex: a cheap, digital knockoff for those who can’t do better. Unfortunately, in both instances use of the simulacrum fries your brain in ways that prevent you from ever experiencing the real version again. But we’ll take what we can get.

I’m not one to defend pornography — it does strike me as poor wording to say “for those who can’t do better” above. Both for pornography, as well as for community. Because I don’t think “doing better at community” is what not using Facebook is.

That notwithstanding, the analogy is interesting, because like pornography everything is amplified to a fictitious level on Facebook. Which then creates real problems, like porn does for sex education and expectations, in the real world. It’s not people flock to Facebook because they are incompetent at finding real people to talk to, its that when you go to talk to real people they are buried in their iPhones. It’s that when you go to talk to real people, they ask you if you saw what they just posted on social media.

The other interesting analogy here is that not only can people be “thine true self” on Facebook as with porn, but they are also far more likely to see and desire to see the limits. “What crazy shit can I post to get people to like it?” Which becomes problematic because it normalizes the extraordinary.

Bruce Schneier:

Why is anyone using encrypted e-mail anymore, anyway? Reliably and easily encrypting e-mail is an insurmountably hard problem for reasons having nothing to do with today’s announcement. If you need to communicate securely, use Signal. If having Signal on your phone will arouse suspicion, use WhatsApp.

I wondered the same thing, though I do use ProtonMail. Signal is great, I question WhatsApp’s long term changes which might cause encryption woes later on. But I can answer why use encrypted email: for many people it’s easier to type out emails on a laptop than tap them out on a phone. Signal is trying to overcome this, but I think it is an uphill battle. Still, way better than encrypted email.