Daring Fireball Renato Bond | usagoldmines.com

Times New Dumbass ★

Late-breaking candidate for greatest new font of 2024.

Dithering ★

Whereas there isn’t a subscription providing for Daring Fireball (by no means say by no means again), I’m reminded this week to remind you that, for those who get pleasure from podcasts, it’s best to subscribe to Dithering, the twice-weekly 15-minutes-on-the-button podcast I do with Ben Thompson. Dithering as a standalone subscription prices simply $7/month or $70/yr. Individuals who attempt Dithering appear to find it irresistible, too — we have now remarkably little churn.

Recording the present usually helps me coagulate free concepts into fully-formed ideas. Each my Tuesday column on Intel’s decline and today’s on using generative AI for research had been impressed by our dialogue on the present the night time earlier than. I toss numerous takes out on Dithering that by no means make it right here, although. In the event you’re on the fence, subscribe for a month and also you’re solely out $7 — however I wager you’ll stick round. Belief me. And due to everybody who’s already subscribed.

Thursday, 5 December 2024

Festivitas — Holiday Lights for Your Mac Menu Bar and Dock ★

Purely enjoyable, pay-whatever-you-think-fair app for the Mac from Simon Støvring (developer of quite a few high quality apps resembling Runestone and Scriptable):

Festivitas mechanically provides festive lights to your menu bar and
dock upon launch and you’ll tweak their look to match your
preferences.

There’s something very core to the Mac’s origins about not simply making a software program toy like this, however placing effort into making all the things about it very nice. Harks again to Steven Halls’s The Talking Moose and, in fact, the undisputed king of the style, Eric Shapiro’s The Grouch. Oh, and naturally (due to Stephen Hackett for the reminder), Holiday Lights.

Replace, Friday 6 December: At present’s 1.1 replace brings a number of enhancements, together with making the lights look means cooler in case your Dock is on the left or proper (as god supposed).

‘Appeasement in the New Age of Trump’, MSNBC Edition ★

David Frum, writing at The Atlantic, concerning his jarring look as a visitor on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

Earlier than attending to the article, I used to be requested in regards to the nomination of
Pete Hegseth as secretary of protection — particularly about an NBC
Information report that his heavy ingesting apprehensive colleagues
at Fox Information and on the veterans organizations he’d
headed. […] I answered by reminding viewers of some historical past:

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower,
senator from Texas, for secretary of protection. Tower was a really
appreciable individual, an actual protection mental, somebody who
deeply understood protection, in contrast to the present nominee. It emerged
that Tower had a ingesting downside, and when he was ingesting too
a lot he would make himself a nuisance or worse to ladies round
him. And for that purpose, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You
don’t need to suppose that our ethical requirements have declined so
a lot which you could say: Let’s take all of the ingesting, all of the
sex-pesting, subtract any data of protection, subtract any
management, and there may be your subsequent secretary of protection for the
twenty first century.

I instructed this story in pungent phrases. It’s cable TV, in any case. And
I launched the dialogue with a joke: “In the event you’re too drunk for
Fox Information, you’re very, very drunk certainly.”

On the subsequent advert break, a producer spoke into my ear. He objected to
my feedback about Fox and warned me to not repeat them. I stated
one thing noncommittal and received one other spherical of warning. After the
break, I used to be requested a follow-up query on a unique subject,
about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son. I didn’t revert to
the sooner dialogue, not as a result of I had been warned, however as a result of
I had stated my piece. I used to be then instructed that I used to be excused from the
studio chair. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski learn an
apology for my remarks.

Jesus. The abject obsequiousness is staggering. Sure, it’s a joke at Fox Information’s expense. However Fox Information — on-air — has certainly been backing Hegseth’s nomination, despite the fact that it’s fairly apparent that everybody who works there is aware of he has an alcohol downside. From that NBC News report (be aware that regardless of their names, the MSNBC and NBC Information newsrooms are now not related):

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s choose for protection
secretary, drank in ways in which involved his colleagues at Fox
Information, based on 10 present and former Fox staff who spoke
with NBC Information. Two of these individuals stated that on greater than a dozen
events throughout Hegseth’s time as a co-host of Fox & Associates
Weekend, which started in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him earlier than
he went on air. Those self same two individuals, plus one other, stated that
throughout his time there he appeared on tv after they’d heard
him speak about being hungover as he was preparing or on set.

One of many sources stated they smelled alcohol on him as not too long ago
as final month and heard him complain about being hungover this
fall. Not one of the sources with whom NBC Information has spoken may
recall an occasion when Hegseth missed a scheduled look
as a result of he’d been ingesting. “Everybody could be speaking about it
behind the scenes earlier than he went on the air,” one of many former
Fox staff stated.

Observe too that Fox & Associates Weekend airs at 6:00 within the morning.

Owner Patrick Soon-Shiong Is Tanking the LA Times’s Credibility ★

Oliver Darcy, in a well-sourced report at Standing (paywalled, alas, however with a preview of the article for those who join the free model of his publication, which I agree is type of a “Yeah, no thanks” provide):

Patrick Quickly-Shiong is tightening his grip over the Los Angeles
Occasions. The MAGA-curious proprietor, who drew controversy when he
blocked the newspaper’s deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris,
has waded additional into its operations for the reason that November
election, based on new info I’ve realized and public
remarks the billionaire made Wednesday throughout a media look
with right-wing character Scott Jennings. […] A number of
veteran staffers instructed me that morale has by no means been decrease, with
some individuals even questioning whether or not the newspaper will likely be
disfigured past recognition underneath this new period of
Quickly-Shiong’s reign. […]

One disturbing instance got here after the newspaper published an
opinion piece in November about Elon Musk that Quickly-Shiong
didn’t take care of, individuals aware of the matter instructed me. The
piece, written by Occasions opinion contributor Virginia Heffernan,
carried the headline, “Elon Musk purchased himself a starring function in
Trump’s second time period. What may go fallacious?”

Whereas the headline appeared innocuous, Quickly-Shiong expressed dismay
over it, based on the individuals aware of the matter. The
headline was allowed to stay unchanged. However, consequently, the
individuals stated, a brand new rule was put into place: Previous to publishing
opinion tales, the headlines should be emailed over to
Quickly-Shiong, the place he can then select to weigh in. Whereas it’s
regular for newspaper house owners to affect the opinion wing of a
newspaper, it’s extremely uncommon for an proprietor to have article
headlines despatched to them forward of publication for evaluation.

That additionally looks like numerous work for a busy billionaire. Marvel how he would possibly deal with that?

Talking to Jennings because the latter hosted a radio present Wednesday,
the billionaire revealed that, behind the scenes, he’s engaged on
creating a “bias meter” powered by synthetic intelligence that
will likely be positioned on each opinion and information tales. Quickly-Shiong
stated that the hope is to roll out the brand new characteristic, which is able to use
the know-how to seemingly warn readers that his personal reporters
are biased, as early as subsequent month. […]

Suffice to say, however when the journalists on the Occasions heard the
“breaking information” that Quickly-Shiong delivered to Jennings, they
spiraled even additional. “Individuals are actually deeply fucking involved,”
one staffer bluntly instructed me Wednesday night time.

What may go fallacious?

In response, the LAT Guild issued a statement, concluding:

The statements of Dr. Quickly-Shiong within the press and on social media
mirror his personal opinions and don’t form reporting by our
member-journalists.

Our members — and all Occasions staffers — abide by a strict set of
ethics guidelines, which name for equity, precision,
transparency, vigilance in opposition to bias, and an earnest search to
perceive all sides of a problem. These longstanding ideas
will proceed guiding our work.

The Guild has secured robust ethics protections for our members,
together with the proper to withhold one’s byline, and we’ll firmly
guard in opposition to any effort to improperly or unfairly alter our
reporting.

What’s Good for the Goose, AI Training Edition ★

Stephanie Palazzolo, writing for The Info (paywalled, alas):

Researchers at OpenAI imagine that some rival AI builders are
coaching their reasoning fashions through the use of OpenAI’s o1 reasoning
fashions to generate coaching information, based on an individual who has
spoken to the corporate’s researchers about it. Briefly, the rivals
can ask the o1 fashions to unravel varied issues after which use the
fashions’ chain of thought — the “thought course of” the fashions use
to unravel these issues — as coaching information, the individual stated.

You is likely to be questioning how rival builders can try this. OpenAI
has explicitly stated it hides its reasoning fashions’ uncooked chains of
thought due partially to aggressive considerations.

However in answering questions, o1 fashions embody a summarized model
of the chain of thought to assist the client perceive how the
fashions arrived on the reply. Rivals can merely ask one other LLM to
take that summarized chain of thought and predict what the uncooked
chain of thought may need been, the one that spoke with the
researchers stated.

And I’m positive these OpenAI researchers are blissful to offer this coaching information to opponents, with out having granted permission, in the identical means they educated (and proceed to coach) their very own fashions on publicly out there net pages, with out having been granted permission. Proper?

Wednesday, 4 December 2024

From the Department of Bringing Receipts to the Interview ★

From The Stanford Overview editor-in-chief Julia Steinberg’s interview with college president Jonathan Levin:

Stanford Overview: What’s a very powerful downside on this planet proper now?

President Levin: There’s no reply to that query. There are too many essential issues to present you a single reply.

Stanford Overview: That’s an utility query that we have now to reply to use right here.

(Via CJ Ciaramella on Bluesky.)

Jeff Bezos on Trump’s Second Term: ‘I’m Actually Very Optimistic This Time Around’ ★

Alex Heath, writing at The Verge:

“I’m really very optimistic this time round,” Bezos stated of
Trump throughout a uncommon public look at The New York Occasions
DealBook Summit on Wednesday. “He appears to have numerous vitality
round decreasing regulation. If I can assist him try this, I’m going
to assist him.”

Trump railed in opposition to Bezos and his corporations — Amazon, Blue
Origin, and The Washington Submit — throughout his 2016 time period. Bezos
defended himself nevertheless it did little to assist his repute with
Trump. Now, his corporations have rather a lot at stake within the coming
administration, from the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Amazon to
Blue Origin’s efforts to compete with SpaceX for presidency
contracts.

Onstage on the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Bezos known as Trump
“calmer this time” and “extra settled.” He stated he’ll attempt to
“speak him out of” the concept the press, which incorporates The
Washington Submit, is an enemy of the individuals.

“You’ve most likely grown within the final eight years,” he stated to
DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “He has, too.”

Subsequent up after Bezos at DealBook Summit was Charlie Brown, who professed optimism concerning his subsequent try at kicking a soccer held by Lucy Van Pelt. What the fuck did they put in the water at this conference?

Or, maybe, these very sensible guys are additionally craven, and these nonsensical remarks, that are fairly clearly contrary to reality, are merely additional reveals of shameful cowardly compliance.

Shame on Google for Their Description of Google Messages’s Encryption Support ★

Whereas writing the previous item concerning the FBI encouraging the usage of E2EE textual content and name protocols, I wound up on the Play Retailer web page for Google Messages. It’s shamefully deceptive concerning Google Messages’s assist for end-to-end encryption. As I wrote within the earlier put up, Google Messages does assist E2EE, however solely over RCS and provided that all members within the chat are utilizing a latest model of Google Messages. However the second screenshot in the Play Store listing flatly declares “Conversations are end-to-end encrypted”, full cease. That’s some critical bullshit.

I understand that “Some conversations are end-to-end encrypted” will naturally spur curiosity concerning which conversations are encrypted and which aren’t, however that’s the reality. And customers of the app ought to pay attention to that. “RCS conversations with different Google Messages customers are encrypted” would work.

Then, within the “report card” part of the itemizing, it states the next:

Knowledge is encrypted in transit
Your information is transferred over a safe connection

Which, once more, is just true generally. It’s downright fraudulent to explain Google Messages’s transit safety this manner. Think about a typical Android consumer with out technical experience who takes the recommendation (now coming from the FBI) to make use of end-to-end encryption for his or her messaging. An inexpensive one that trusts Google would have a look at Google’s personal description of Google Messages and conclude that for those who use Google Messages, all of your messages will likely be safe. That’s false. And relying who you talk with — iPhone customers, Android customers with outdated gadgets, Android customers who use different textual content messaging apps — it’s fairly seemingly most of your messages gained’t be safe.

Simply be sincere! The E2EE between Google Messages customers utilizing Android telephones that assist RCS is totally seamless and automated (I simply tried it myself utilizing my Android burner), however E2EE is rarely out there for SMS, and by no means out there if a participant within the chat is utilizing any RCS consumer (on Android or Apple Messages) aside from Google Messages. That’s an important distinction that must be made clear, not obfuscated.

Whereas I’m at it, it’s additionally embarrassing that Google Voice has no assist for RCS in any respect. It’s Google’s personal app and repair, and Google has been the world’s most vocal proponent of RCS messaging.

Lastly, I additionally suppose it’s a foul concept that Google Messages colours all RCS message bubbles with the very same colours (darkish blue bubbles with white textual content, natch). SMS messages, at the very least on my Pixel 4, are pale blue with black textual content. Google Messages does put a tiny lock within the timeline to point when an RCS chat is safe, and so they additionally put a lock badge on the Send button’s paper airplane icon, so there are visible indications whether or not an RCS chat is encrypted, however as a result of the messages bubble colours are the identical for all RCS chats, it’s delicate, not immediately apparent like it’s with Apple Messages, the place inexperienced means “SMS or RCS, by no means encrypted” and blue means “iMessage, at all times encrypted”.

U.S. Officials Urge Americans to Use Encrypted Apps, for Texting and Calls, in Wake of Chinese Infiltration of Our Unencrypted Telecom Network ★

Kevin Collier, reporting for NBC Information:

Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications corporations
resembling AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officers have advisable that
Individuals use encrypted messaging apps to make sure their
communications keep hidden from international hackers.

The hacking marketing campaign, nicknamed Salt Storm by Microsoft, is one
of the most important intelligence compromises in U.S. historical past, and it
has not but been totally remediated. Officers on a information name
Tuesday refused to set a timetable for declaring the nation’s
telecommunications programs freed from interlopers. Officers had instructed
NBC Information that China hacked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Applied sciences to
spy on prospects.

A spokesperson for the Chinese language Embassy in Washington didn’t
instantly reply to a request for remark.

Don’t hold your breath.

Within the name Tuesday, two officers — a senior FBI official who
requested to not be named and Jeff Greene, government assistant
director for cybersecurity on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Safety Company — each advisable utilizing encrypted messaging apps
to Individuals who need to decrease the probabilities of China’s
intercepting their communications.

“Our suggestion, what we have now instructed of us internally, is just not new
right here: Encryption is your buddy, whether or not it’s on textual content messaging or
when you have the capability to make use of encrypted voice communication.
Even when the adversary is ready to intercept the info, whether it is
encrypted, it can make it unattainable,” Greene stated.

It appears type of new for the FBI to name encryption “our buddy”, however now that I give it some thought, their beef over time has primarily been about having access to locked gadgets, not eavesdropping on communication protocols. Their advocacy stance on gadget encryption has not modified — they nonetheless need a “again door for good guys” there. Their considering, I believe, is that E2EE communications are factor as a result of they defend in opposition to distant eavesdropping from international adversaries — precisely like this marketing campaign waged by China. The FBI doesn’t have to intercept communications over the wire. When the FBI desires to see somebody’s communications, they get a warrant to grab their gadgets. That’s why the FBI wants device back doors, however are actually encouraging the usage of protocols which are really E2EE. However that’s to not say that legislation enforcement businesses worldwide don’t still fantasize about mandatory “back doors for good guys”.

Right here’s a clunker of a paragraph from this NBC Information story, although:

Privateness advocates have lengthy advocated utilizing end-to-end encrypted
apps. Sign and WhatsApp mechanically implement end-to-end
encryption in each calls and messages. Google Messages and
iMessage can also encrypt calls and texts finish to finish.

It’s true that each voice and textual content communications over Sign and WhatsApp are at all times secured with end-to-end encryption. However Google Messages is an Android app that solely handles textual content messaging by way of SMS and RCS, not voice. There’s a “Name” button in Google Messages however that simply dials the contact utilizing the Cellphone app — only a plain old school unencrypted telephone name. (There’s a Video Name button in Google Messages, however that button tries to launch Google Meet.) Some textual content chats in Google Messages are encrypted, however only those using RCS in which all participants are using a recent version of Google Messages. Google Messages does present visible indicators of the encryption standing of a chat. The RCS standard has no encryption; E2EE RCS chats in Google Messages use Google’s proprietary extension and are unique to the Google Messages app, so RCS chats between Google Messages and different apps, most conspicuously Apple Messages, will not be encrypted.

iMessage is just not an app. It’s Apple’s proprietary protocol, out there inside its Messages app. All the iMessage protocol was constructed upon end-to-end encryption — all iMessage messages have been E2EE from the beginning. Apple additionally gives FaceTime for voice and video calls, and FaceTime calls are always secured by E2EE.

Tuesday, 3 December 2024

Andy Grove in 2000: ‘What I’ve Learned’ ★

A couple of nuggets of knowledge from Andy Grove, in an interview with Esquire after he retired as Intel’s CEO, however nonetheless served as chairman:

Earnings are the lifeblood of enterprise. Don’t let anybody inform
you totally different.

It’s essential to perceive your errors. Examine the hell out of them.
You’re not going to have the possibility of constructing the identical mistake
once more — you may’t step into the river once more on the identical place and
the identical time — however you’ll have the possibility of constructing the same
mistake.

Standing is a really harmful factor. I’ve met too many individuals who
make it some extent of delight that they by no means take cash out of a money
machine, people who find themselves too good to have their very own e-mail deal with,
as a result of that’s for everyone else however not them. It’s laborious to battle
the temptation to set your self other than the remainder of the world.

Grove, nonetheless serving as CEO throughout Intel’s zenith in 1997, didn’t even have an workplace. He worked out of an 8×9-foot cubicle.

What you’re seeing immediately is a really, very fast evolution of an
business the place the milieu is healthier understood by individuals who grew
up in the identical time-frame because the business. A whole lot of the years that
many people have spent in enterprise earlier than this time are of solely
restricted relevance.

This business is just not like another. Computer systems don’t get incrementally extra highly effective; they get exponentially extra highly effective.

Tuesday, 3 December 2024

The Verge Launches a Subscription ★

Nilay Patel:

So lots of you want The Verge that we’ve really gotten a
stunning variety of notes from individuals asking how they’ll pay to
assist our work. It’s no secret that numerous nice web sites and
publications have gone underneath over the previous few years because the open
net falls aside, and it’s clear that instantly supporting the
creators you like is an enormous a part of how everybody will get to remain
engaged on the fashionable web.

On the identical time, we didn’t need to merely paywall the whole web site — it’s a tragedy that conventional journalism is retreating behind
paywalls whereas nonsense spreads throughout platforms free of charge. We additionally
suppose our massive, well-liked homepage is a useful resource price investing in.
So we’re rethinking The Verge in a freemium mannequin: our homepage,
core information posts, Decoder interview transcripts, Fast Posts,
Storystreams, and reside blogs will stay free. We all know so lots of
you rely upon us to curate the information daily, and we’re going to
keep centered on making an incredible homepage that’s price testing
often, whether or not you pay us or not.

Our authentic reporting, opinions, and options will likely be behind a
dynamic metered paywall — lots of you’ll by no means hit the paywall,
however for those who learn us rather a lot, we’ll ask you to pay.

This feels like an especially well-considered stability between holding a lot of the location open to all, permitting metered entry to a restricted variety of premium articles freed from cost, and creating a brand new sustainable income stream from subscribers. Bravo.

Depend me in as a day one subscriber.

Monday, 2 December 2024

Google Search Is Already in Decline ★

Christopher Mims, writing for The Wall Road Journal (News+):

The corporate’s core enterprise is underneath siege. Persons are
more and more getting answers from artificial
intelligence. Youthful generations are utilizing other
platforms to gather information. And the standard of the
outcomes delivered by its search engine is deteriorating as the online
is flooded with AI-generated content. Taken collectively,
these forces may result in long-term decline in Google search
site visitors, and the outsize income generated from it, which prop up
its dad or mum firm Alphabet’s money-losing bets on issues like its
Waymo self-driving unit.

The primary hazard dealing with Google is obvious and current: When individuals
need to seek for info or buy groceries on the web,
they’re shifting to Google’s opponents, and promoting {dollars}
are following them. In 2025, eMarketer initiatives, Google’s share of
the U.S. search-advertising market will fall below 50% for the
first time since the company began tracking it.

The accompanying chart (“Estimated share of U.S. search promoting income”) suggests Google’s decline has been Amazon’s achieve. Principally, Google should dominate the marketplace for basic net search, however individuals an increasing number of are looking out utilizing apps and providers that aren’t (or aren’t solely) basic net engines like google. And the rationale why is that Google net search has gotten worse.

The Talk Show: ‘A Good Duck Butt’ ★

Particular visitor Allen Pike joins the present to speak in regards to the state of generative AI and the way Apple Intelligence measures up (to this point). Additionally: some hypothesis on Apple’s pending acquisition of the ever-difficult-to-pronounce Pixelmator.

Sponsored by:

• WorkOS: The trendy id platform for B2B SaaS — free as much as 1 million month-to-month lively customers.

Steep Discounts on M3 MacBook Air Models at Amazon ★

Amazon is working a vacation low cost on M3 MacBook Airs, nevertheless it’s difficult — it’s good to click on round via varied colour selections and watch the costs and ship dates. My most important hyperlink on this put up goes to the config that appears like their greatest deal for price-conscious reward patrons: the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air in space gray, with 24 GB RAM and 512 GB of storage for $1,299, a $200 low cost from the record value, with supply in a number of days. They’ve additionally received the identical configuration, on the identical value, with the identical supply window in silver. Starlight solely has “5 remaining in inventory” (and that was at 8 just some minutes in the past, so that they’ll seemingly be gone by the point you learn this), and midnight is already out of inventory.

The 13-inch configuration with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage is just $1,099, however supply dates are in early January. They’ve received the configuration with 16 GB RAM and 256 GB storage for just $899, however solely in midnight and starlight, and with supply home windows of “1 to 2 months”.

The best choice for 15-inch M3 MacBook Airs is the configuration with 24 GB RAM and 512 GB storage for $1,424 — a $275 low cost from the common value of $1,699. That’s out there at that value, with next-week supply, in all 4 colours. They’ve additionally received $200 reductions on various configurations with 16 GB RAM, however supply on these fashions is out in January.

For sure, all of those hyperlinks are utilizing my make-me-rich affiliate code. And Amazon still has USB-C AirPods Pro 2 for just $154, virtually $100 off the common value.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Retires; Bloomberg Reports He Was Forced Out by Board ★

Ian King, Liana Baker, and Ryan Gould, reporting for Bloomberg:^*

Intel Corp. Chief Government Officer Pat Gelsinger was pressured out
after the board misplaced confidence in his plans to show across the
iconic chipmaker, including to turmoil at one of many pioneers of the
know-how business.

The conflict got here to a head final week when Gelsinger met with the
board in regards to the firm’s progress on profitable again market share
and narrowing the hole with Nvidia Corp., based on individuals
aware of the matter. He was given the choice to retire or be
eliminated, and selected to announce the top of his profession at Intel,
stated the individuals, who declined to be recognized discussing
proceedings that weren’t made public.

Intel Chief Monetary Officer David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston
Holthaus are serving as interim co-CEOs whereas the board searches
for Gelsinger’s substitute, the company said in a statement.
Frank Yeary, impartial chair of the board of Intel, will serve
as interim government chair.

See additionally: Techmeme’s roundup.

* Bloomberg, in fact, is the publication that revealed “The Big Hack” in October 2018 — a sensational story alleging that information facilities of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of different corporations had been compromised by China’s intelligence providers. The story offered no confirmable proof in any respect, was vehemently denied by all companies concerned, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (regardless of a lot effort to take action), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Massive Hack” was full bullshit. But Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and their only ostensibly substantial follow-up contained not one shred of proof to again up their allegations. Bloomberg seemingly hopes we’ll all simply overlook about it. I say we don’t simply overlook about it. Every little thing they publish must be handled with skepticism till they retract “The Massive Hack” or present proof that any of it was true.

Saturday, 30 November 2024

Streaks and Little Streaks ★

My due to Crunchy Bagel — the corporate of developer Quentin Zervaas — for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to advertise Streaks, their glorious app for iPhone and Apple Watch. Streaks is a to-do record that helps you type good habits. The purpose is to encourage you to deal with the stuff you need to do: something from each day train objectives, studying a brand new language, taking your nutritional vitamins, or quitting a foul behavior. Something. I’ve brushed my enamel each day since I used to be a toddler however I’ve by no means been good about flossing — till, typically, a number of days earlier than a scheduled dental cleansing. I’ve been utilizing Streaks currently to groove a each day flossing behavior. (I count on a pat on the again the following time I’m on the dentist.)

Streaks first sponsored DF again in 2016 and all the things I wrote about it then stays true immediately. It’s a superb design, each visually and conceptually. I’ve tried a number of apps like this over time — together with a number of new ones in recent times — and what kills most of them is friction. If it takes too many fiddly steps to mark off the stuff you do, you cease utilizing the app. Streaks makes it extremely easy and quick to mark issues finished. For something activity-related, you don’t must do something in any respect — it simply tracks info from HealthKit (together with your permission, in fact) mechanically. And when it comes to the visible design, Streaks is each extremely distinctive and really iOS-y — it doesn’t seem like a inventory iOS app, nevertheless it very a lot seems to be and appears like native iOS app. That’s a mix that takes an incredible eye to tug off. (Unsurprisingly, Streaks gained an Apple Design Award a number of years in the past, and has usually been featured by Apple in the App Store.)

iOS has not been standing nonetheless over the past 8 years and neither has Zervaas. Streaks helps all the newest stuff you’d hope for in an iOS app, together with interactive widgets. Streaks’s interactive widgets scale back even additional the friction of marking issues finished — interactive widgets had been virtually made for apps like Streaks. Streaks additionally has an incredible Apple Watch companion app.

I solely settle for sponsorships for services or products that I’m proud to assist. However Streaks is so good that I need to exit of my means to attract consideration to it (once more). I’m not praising it with superlatives as a result of it’s my sponsor; I’m doing so as a result of it’s superlatively good. It’s a one-time buy, and the newest replace has added seasonal themes, simply in time for Christmas (and your New 12 months’s resolutions).

When you have any type of curiosity in an app to assist reinforce each day habits (or an curiosity in nice UI design), go check Streaks out.

When you have younger youngsters, make sure you additionally attempt Little Streaks. It’s a good way to assist children give attention to routines: supper time, bedtime, studying to journey a motorbike, brushing their enamel (and flossing!) — something. Little Streaks is free for one routine, or use code “DARING” for 50% off the primary yr of a subscription for limitless routines.

Friday, 29 November 2024

‘Building LLMs Is Probably Not Going to Be a Brilliant Business’ ★

Cal Paterson:

Massive language fashions (LLMs) like Chat-GPT and Claude.ai are
whizzy and funky. Lots of people suppose that they will be
The Future. Perhaps they’re — however that doesn’t imply that constructing
them goes to be a worthwhile enterprise.

Within the Nineteen Sixties, airways had been The Future. That’s the reason outdated movies have
so many swish pictures of airports in them. Airways although, turned
out to be an unavoidably garbage enterprise. I’ve flown on a great deal of
airways which have gone bust: Monarch, WOW Air, Thomas Cook dinner,
Flybmi, Zoom. And people are all busts from earlier than coronavirus –
occasions change however being an airline is at all times a foul concept.

That’s odd, as a result of different companies, even ones which appear actually
silly, are rather more worthwhile. Promoting fizzy drinks is,
surprisingly, an incredible enterprise. Maybe the very best. Coca-Cola’s
return on fairness has hardly ever fallen under 30% in any given yr.
That appears very unfair as a result of being an airline is difficult work however
making Coke is fairly straightforward. It’s much more galling as a result of
Coca-Cola don’t really make the Coke themselves – that’s
outsourced to “bottling corporations”. They actually simply promote it.

That is such a crackerjack essay. Clear, concise, and uncomplicated. I discover it laborious to argue with. I’ve repeatedly mentioned an inside paper that leaked out of Google final yr, titled “We Have No Moat, and Neither Does OpenAI”. The truth that OpenAI has lobbied for stringent AI regulation across the globe means that they concern this too — their encouragement of regulation could be explained by seeking a regulatory moat as a result of there isn’t a technical or enterprise mannequin moat available.

Paterson, expounding on his comparability to the airline business, observes that industrial airways have solely two suppliers: Boeing and Airbus. He continues:

LLM makers generally suggest that their suppliers are cloud
corporations like Amazon Net Providers, Google Cloud, and many others. That
wouldn’t be so unhealthy since you may store round and make them
compete to chop the massive value of mannequin coaching.

Actually although, LLM makers have just one true provider:
NVIDIA. NVIDIA make the chips that every one fashions are
educated on — no matter cloud vendor. And that offers
NVIDIA colossal, close to complete pricing energy. NVIDIA are extra
highly effective relative to Anthropic or OpenAI than Airbus or
Boeing may ever dream of being.

At this moment, there are three corporations on this planet with market caps in extra of $3 trillion: Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft. There are solely two extra with market caps in extra of $2 trillion: Amazon and Google. Engineering, coaching, and offering LLMs isn’t the enterprise with a moat. The enterprise with a moat is making the cutting-edge pc {hardware} that trains LLMs, and that belongs to Nvidia.

I’ve extra to say about Paterson’s essay, however I actually simply need you to learn it for now.

Welcome to Aperture 3 ★

Type of wild that this complete sub-site remains to be standing on Apple.com, together with working video. (Fingers crossed that my linking to it doesn’t deliver it to the eye of somebody who decides to 404 it.)

Nathan Edwards Reviews the iMac M4 for The Verge ★

From Nathan Edwards’s 6/10 evaluation of the M4 iMac for The Verge:

I additionally don’t love that the stand has no top adjustment, and
you may’t swap it for a extra ergonomic choice with out shopping for an
totally totally different pc. Apple sells a version of the iMac
with a VESA mount, nevertheless it doesn’t include a stand in any respect,
and most height-adjustable VESA mounts will not be as fairly because the
iMac. The Studio Show has a height-adjustable stand choice, so
we all know Apple can make one it’s keen to place out into the
world. It simply hasn’t finished so right here. However no matter. I’ve hardcover
books. It’s high quality.

It wasn’t Edwards, however Nilay Patel, who reviewed the Studio Display for The Verge, however in that evaluation the $1,600 value — which known as out the $400 surcharge for the non-obligatory adjustable stand — was one of many three bullet gadgets underneath “The Dangerous”. So it’s not laborious to guess that if the M4 iMac had an non-obligatory adjustable stand, it will nonetheless be listed a con, as a result of certainly that choice, from Apple, would value at the very least $300.

(I’ve used a Studio Show with the expensive choices for nano-texture and adjustable top ever because it got here out, and take into account each choices nicely price the price.)

However the bizarre factor about Edwards’s evaluation is that the entire thing is based on his not seeing the attraction of an all-in-one pc. I really feel the identical means, personally. My major pc is a MacBook Professional that I join, lid-closed, to the aforementioned-in-parenthetical-aside Studio Show more often than not. If I had been to purchase a devoted desktop Mac I’d get both a Mac Mini or Mac Studio and join that to a Studio Show. However the iMac is clearly supposed for individuals who need an all-in-one.

It makes for a really unusual, dare I say pointless, evaluation. It’s like a bicycle evaluation from somebody who admits that they solely ever stroll or drive a automobile and don’t see why anybody else doesn’t stroll or drive all over the place. In concept, somebody who doesn’t take care of style X can write a evaluation of one thing from style X, and their dislike of the style would possibly present a singular perspective. (David Foster Wallace wrote a masterpiece of the style with the title essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again concerning a weeklong Caribbean cruise.) However the evaluation nonetheless must gauge the product accordingly, for what it’s. Does anybody make a greater all-in-one PC than the iMac? If that’s the case, who? If not, why is that this a 6/10?

Space/Time: Black Friday Mac Apps Collection 2024 ★

Vacation purchasing bundle of 13 glorious Mac Apps, with two methods to purchase. Get the entire bundle of 13 apps for $74 (a 76 % low cost from the mixed common costs), or, choose and select a la carte and purchase apps at 50 % off.

Included within the promotion is Stairways Software program’s astonishingly highly effective and helpful Keyboard Maestro, which almost never goes on sale. There are numerous longstanding Mac apps and utilities that I get pleasure from, recognize, and advocate. There are only a few that I can say I’d really feel misplaced with out. Keyboard Maestro is a kind of.

Different apps within the Area/Time bundle that I take advantage of: TextSniper (immediately OCR any textual content you see on display screen), DaisyDisk (disk house visualizer/cleanup), CleanShot X (superior screenshot utility), and Bartender (menu bar merchandise supervisor).

Thursday, 28 November 2024

The UX of Lego Interface Panels ★

Enjoyable interplay design treatise from George Cave.

Completely satisfied Thanksgiving, everybody.

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

AirPods Pro 2 for Just $154 at Amazon ★

Borderline unimaginable low cost on AirPods Professional 2 at Amazon. That is simply in need of $100 off the retail record value of $249. (Purchase via this hyperlink and I’ll get wealthy on the affiliate fee.)

John Siracusa’s Review of Delicious Library 1.0 ★

John Siracusa, in his inimitable fashion, reviewed Scrumptious Library 1.0 upon its launch, 20 years in the past this month:

A part of what makes the Mac group so particular is that so many
Mac builders have itches — and, extra importantly, corresponding
abilities — which have little or nothing to do with computer systems. I
invite you to look once more at a few of the screenshots and art work in
this utility. Somebody liked these graphics. Somebody sweated
over each pixel of that utility window. Somebody is aware of what it
means to be a lover of artwork, music, books, video video games. That is in
addition to (not as a substitute of) the flexibility to put in writing nice code.

All of those human services and experiences have been harnessed
to create not only a mere “program”, “utility” or (God forbid)
“executable”, however a digital love letter to collectors. Scrumptious
Monster, from its merchandise to its web site, exudes a
spirit of ardour and enjoyable. “I’ve by no means been happier at work”, Wil
Shipley instructed me in an electronic mail. “I believe it exhibits within the completed
product.”

I believe so too. It could solely be model 1.0, nevertheless it’s scrumptious.

Re-reading this evaluation — which I first linked to, with little comment, upon publication — jogged my memory of a number of issues. First, Siracusa is without doubt one of the few writers I’ve ever felt aggressive with on this racket. This entire factor is so fucking good, and touches upon so many delicate factors which are so laborious to convey in phrases. (In some methods it’s higher to learn in its original multi-page layout, by way of Web Archive, however these archived variations are inexplicably lacking some, however not all, of the screenshots, and for a evaluation of an app as visually bold as Scrumptious Library, the screenshots are important. However the present Ars Technica model of the evaluation, though it has all of the inline pictures, is lacking this “larger version” of Delicious Library’s main window. Open the model I’m internet hosting in a tab for reference. Observe too that “bigger model” meant one thing totally different 20 years in the past — it’s solely 183 KB, however is the most important picture within the evaluation.)

Second, I had forgotten simply how bold Scrumptious Library 1.0 was, proper out of the gate. I remembered that Scrumptious Library ultimately supported barcode scanning by way of webcams, however that characteristic was in truth current in model 1.0. It labored extremely nicely. And the characteristic was to this point forward of its time. In 2004, no Mac had yet shipped with a built-in camera. As an alternative, all of us purchased Apple’s standalone $150 iSight camera, which related by way of FireWire. (What a beautiful gadget.) By the top of his effusive evaluation, Siracusa (unsurprisingly) has a wishlist of further options, however what was in Scrumptious Library 1.0 comprised excess of a “minimal viable product”. It exemplified Apple’s — and Steve Jobs’s — personal ethos of debuting with a bang, proper out of the gate. It made you say “Wow!” And then you definitely’d suppose, “Oh, nevertheless it’d be cool if it…” and, it seems, it did that too.

Scrumptious certainly.

Tuesday, 26 November 2024

The End of the Line for Delicious Library ★

Wil Shipley, on Mastodon:

Amazon has shut off the feed that allowed Scrumptious Library to
lookup gadgets, sadly limiting the app to what customers
have already got (or enter manually).

I wasn’t contacted about this.

I’ve pulled it from the Mac App Retailer and shut down the web site so
no one by chance buys a non-functional app.

The top of an period, nevertheless it’s type of stunning it was nonetheless practical till now. (Shipley has been a full-time engineer at Apple for 3 years now.)

It’s laborious to explain simply what a sensation Scrumptious Library was when it debuted, and how influential it was. Scrumptious Library was concurrently very helpful, in very sensible methods, and obsessive about its exuberant UI in ways in which served no objective aside from trying cool as shit. It was an app that demanded to be praised only for the way in which it regarded, but additionally served a objective that resonated with many customers. For a few decade it appeared as if hottest new apps could be designed like Scrumptious Library. Then Apple dropped iOS 7 in 2013, and now, no apps seem like this. No matter it’s that we, as an business, have misplaced within the now decade-long pattern of iOS 7-style flat design, Scrumptious Library epitomized it.

They had been even intelligent and modern in the ways they promoted the app. The first time Scrumptious Monster sponsored Daring Fireball for every week, their sponsorship message learn, in its entirety:

Set up the shit you want.
Eliminate the shit you don’t.
Scrumptious Library 2.

After they created an iPhone model of Scrumptious Library, they introduced it by way of this delightfully intricate but decidedly lo-fi stop-motion-animated video.

20 years go by and there’s some inevitable nostalgia trying again at any artwork type. However man, Scrumptious Library exemplified an period of indie app improvement that, sadly, is basically over. And make no bones about it: Scrumptious Library was a artistic murals.

‘It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty to Endanger the Lives of as Many Trans People as Possible’ ★

The Onion Editorial Board:

All nice journalists, and even these lesser journalists who don’t
work for The Onion, ultimately ponder why we do what we do. Is the
level of reporting to light up the world round us, in order that we
could make which means of it? Or is it to trigger individuals in minority
teams to query their humanity and persuade others to demonize
them? We all know the place we stand, proudly dreaming of genitals.

Analysis exhibits that trans persons are over 4 occasions extra seemingly
than cisgender individuals to be the sufferer of a violent crime. We
salute our colleagues throughout the media who’re working tirelessly
to make that quantity even increased.

This was revealed in 2023, however appears notably apt post-election.

OpenAI Might Be Making a Web Browser ★

Erin Woo, Sahil Patel, and Amir Efrati, reporting for The Info (paywalled, alas):

OpenAI is making ready to launch a frontal assault on Google. The
ChatGPT proprietor not too long ago thought of creating an internet browser that it
would mix with its chatbot, and it has individually mentioned or
struck offers to energy search options for journey, meals, actual
property and retail web sites, based on individuals who have seen
prototypes or designs of the merchandise. […]

Making an internet browser may assist OpenAI have extra management over a
major gateway via which individuals use the online, in addition to
additional increase ChatGPT, which has greater than 300 million weekly
customers simply two years after its launch. It isn’t clear how a
ChatGPT browser’s options would differ from these of different
browsers.

In a sign of its curiosity in a browser, a number of months in the past
OpenAI employed Ben Goodger, a founding member of the Chrome staff at
Google. One other latest rent is Darin Fisher, who labored with
Goodger to develop Chrome.

However OpenAI isn’t remotely near launching a browser, a number of
individuals stated.

Goodger and Fisher’s hirings weren’t secret — each hold up-to-date profiles on LinkedIn — and simply because two individuals have beforehand created new net browsers (even a number of occasions) that their new gig is creating a brand new net browser. But it surely positive appears like guess.

Fisher most not too long ago was at The Browser Company for 2 years, engaged on Arc, an modern browser that I love for its originality however which merely didn’t click on for me in any respect. The Browser Firm is in flux, too, working each on Arc 2.0 and an as-yet-unnamed second project that is likely to be a extra conventional net browser.

Mix this with regulatory stress on Apple’s Safari and particularly Google’s Chrome, and it’s an thrilling time for net browsers. It’s type of wild how each few years the online browser market will get shaken up. The sample that’s repeated a number of occasions is that simply when the browser market appears settled — just like the markets for, say, spreadsheets and phrase processors — there’s a interval of flux and new entries shake up the market. There was some extent when it appeared like Web Explorer could be dominant endlessly; immediately it doesn’t even exist. There was some extent when Firefox appeared entrenched on Home windows; today it’s an afterthought. At present Chrome seems entrenched, as dominant as IE once was. Perhaps not?

Monday, 25 November 2024

Apple TV’s Hardware Situation Is Fine ★

Mark Gurman, in his weekly Energy On column:

The most effective state of affairs for Apple in TV {hardware} could be an inexpensive stick
(maybe with no bodily distant — use your iPhone as a substitute). It’s
an concept that Apple advertising executives detest, however it will assist
the corporate shortly develop its presence. If customers need extra
energy and storage, they’ll go for the present field.

On the prime of the road, Apple may provide one thing like the brand new
Mac mini, offering the very best streaming high quality and gaming choices.
For this train, let’s name these three tiers the Apple TV SE,
Apple TV and Apple TV Max. It will use the identical “good, higher,
greatest” technique employed by the iPhone, Mac, iPad, AirPods, Apple
Watch and even the Apple Pencil.

Neither of those ideas makes any sense. The one fascinating factor about both concept is making an attempt to resolve which one is worse.

Streaming sticks are crap, and Apple doesn’t make crap. I additionally suppose streaming sticks are quick going the way in which of the dodo — they had been a stopgap low-cost resolution for when TV units didn’t have “sensible” experiences with built-in integration for main streaming platforms. These built-in integrations obviate the necessity for streaming sticks, and Apple TV is now built into TVs from all major brands, together with Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio. That’s the Apple TV app, not the total Apple TV tvOS platform, however that serves Apple’s wants. I don’t suppose it’s attainable to offer a full-fidelity tvOS expertise by way of a stick-sized pc that pulls energy from an HDMI port, and it’s actually not attainable to take action by omitting the goddamn distant management. Arguing that Apple must and even should construct an inexpensive TV stick immediately is like these dumb columns from 2009 arguing that Apple needed to make a netbook to compete in opposition to shitty $300 laptops. Apple TV is to set prime packing containers because the Mac is to PCs — it’s by no means going to get a big share of the general market, nevertheless it dominates the high-end of the market catering to individuals who really care.

As for Gurman’s high-end {hardware} concept, a Mac Mini begins at $600. What could be the purpose of connecting such {hardware} to your TV? A Mac Mini wouldn’t provide higher streaming high quality than the prevailing Apple TV 4K gives. 4K is 4K, and even older Apple TV {hardware} streams it completely. And whereas in concept an M4-powered Mac-Mini-caliber Apple TV may provide higher gaming than the iPhone-13-era A15 Bionic chip within the present Apple TV 4K {hardware}, there are zero tvOS video games immediately that concentrate on {hardware} like that, and there’d be little purpose for sport builders to focus on such an “Apple TV Professional” gadget as a result of virtually nobody would purchase one. Regardless of the causes are for gaming not being an enormous deal on tvOS immediately, the dearth of a “professional” $500 or $600 {hardware} tier is just not certainly one of them.

I believe Apple ought to get the entry value right down to $99 (at the moment $129), and eventually they should replace the {hardware}, if solely to assist Apple Intelligence. (Maybe to the A18 or A18 Professional subsequent fall — the present A15 Bionic Apple TV 4K fashions came out one year after the chip debuted in the iPhones 13.) However the {hardware} story for Apple TV is okay.

Perhaps Acquiring Pixelmator Is Not About Competing With Photoshop and Lightroom, Per Se, but the Adobe Creative Cloud Bundle ★

Zac Corridor, writing at 9to5Mac again in Might 2023:

Now that Closing Minimize Professional and Logic Professional for iPad are
official, let’s speak about pricing. These apps popping out
on a random day in Might is stunning. Subscription pricing? Not so
a lot. However, pricing for these lengthy overdue apps is
fascinating when you think about their Mac counterparts and the Apple
One bundle.

First, let’s deal with the Mac apps.

How would Apple value Closing Minimize Professional and Logic Professional for Mac in the event that they
had been launched immediately? Within the period of service income, Apple would
virtually actually cost a subscription price for entry fairly than
a one-time price.

Mac customers have had years of free updates to Logic and Closing Minimize
Professional after paying as soon as for every app. The truth is, Logic Professional X will likely be a
decade outdated in July, and Closing Minimize Professional X turns 12 subsequent month. The
value of Logic Professional for Mac immediately ($199.99) is similar as 4
years of subscribing to Logic Professional for iPad, and Closing Minimize Professional for
Mac ($299.99) will equal six years of paying for the iPad model.

The iPad variations of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are each priced the identical: $5/month or $50/yr. There is no such thing as a bundle to get each at a reduction.

I used to be slightly stunned when Apple announced Final Cut Pro 11 for Mac two weeks ago and didn’t announce a swap to subscription pricing. As an alternative, it stays a $300 one-time buy, and for current customers model 11 is a free improve. Whether or not you prefer it or not, subscription pricing is now not the long run, it’s the current, and it’s the dominant mannequin for skilled artistic instruments immediately.

Adobe made this swap years in the past, with a specific emphasis on the Creative Cloud bundle that features their total suite of apps — Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Professional, Audition, Acrobat Professional, and extra. You get entry to Adobe’s total suite for $90/month, or $60/month for those who pay yearly ($720/yr). They at the moment provide a first-year 50 % low cost for those who pay yearly. A la carte, subscriptions to every app value $20–$23/month, so the Artistic Cloud bundle is an efficient deal for those who use three of them, and an incredible deal for those who use greater than three.

Apple clearly understands the attraction of subscription bundles too, with Apple One. Even supposing Apple didn’t swap to subscription pricing for Closing Minimize Professional 11 for Mac, I nonetheless count on them to sooner fairly than later, and in the event that they do, I additional count on a bundle. Apple is rarely going to supply a swath of artistic instruments as broad as Adobe’s, however the greatest lacking items proper now could be options to Photoshop and Lightroom. My intestine feeling is that’s why they acquired Pixelmator and Photomator. They may promote a bundle for, simply spitballing right here, $20/month or $200/yr that would come with the Mac and iPad variations of Closing Minimize Professional, Logic Professional, Pixelmator, and probably Photomator. Perhaps throw in some additional iCloud storage.

Sunday, 24 November 2024

WorkOS ★

My due to WorkOS for sponsoring final week at Daring Fireball. With WorkOS you can begin promoting to enterprises with just some strains of code. It offers a whole Consumer Administration resolution together with SSO, SCIM, and FGA. The APIs are modular and easy-to-use, permitting integrations to be accomplished in minutes as a substitute of months.

At present, a few of the quickest rising startups are already powered by WorkOS, together with Perplexity, Vercel, and Webflow. For SaaS apps that care deeply about design and consumer expertise, WorkOS is the proper match. From high-quality documentation to self-serve onboarding in your prospects, it removes all of the pointless complexity in your engineering staff.

Take a look at WorkOS’s Launch Week announcements to see their newest.

Friday, 22 November 2024

Shazam Hits 100 Billion Song Recognitions ★

Apple Newsroom:

Shazam has now formally surpassed over 100 billion tune
recognitions because it launched. To assist put that into perspective:

• That’s equal to 12 songs recognized for each individual on
  Earth.
• An individual would want to make use of Shazam to establish a tune each
  second for 3,168 years to succeed in 100 billion.

Shazam launched in 2002 as an SMS service within the UK, and again
then, music followers would dial 2580, maintain up their telephones to establish
music, and obtain the tune identify and artist by way of textual content message.
Shazam’s following and affect continued to develop within the years
that adopted, nevertheless it was the 2008 debut of the App Retailer and
introduction of Shazam’s iOS app that introduced its music
recognition know-how to thousands and thousands of customers. By the summer time of
2011, Shazam had already acknowledged over 1 billion songs.

I had no concept Shazam began within the pre-iPhone period of cellphones, getting audio by way of a telephone name, and sending outcomes by way of SMS. Intelligent! That takes me back to Moviefone — the service we’d dial within the Nineties to get theater listings and showtimes. You’d name your metropolis’s native Moviefone quantity — virtually actually utilizing your landline — navigate a menu (“Press 1 if you recognize the identify of the film you’d prefer to see…”), and Moviefone would let you know which theaters had been displaying it, at what occasions. It sounds archaic nevertheless it was nice, and so they did an incredible job with the telephone menu consumer interface so you possibly can navigate it shortly.

It additionally jogs my memory of the very early days of IMDB, which preceded the online. You can ship an electronic mail to IMDB with the identify of a film within the topic, and IMDB would electronic mail you again with all the knowledge it had about that film.

Android Authority Reports Google Has Cancelled the Pixel Tablet 2 ★

Mishaal Rahman, reporting yesterday for Android Authority:

Android Authority has realized that Google has canceled the Pixel
Pill 2, the presumed identify of Google’s second-generation Pixel
Pill. That is disappointing for Pixel followers who had been ready for
Google to refresh its first-generation Pixel Pill with a more moderen
chipset, a greater digital camera, and, extra importantly, an official
keyboard accent. […]

Final week, I shared what I learned about the Pixel Tablet
2 from a supply inside Google. I deemed this supply to be
very credible given my previous historical past with them in addition to the very fact
that they had been in a position to share unreleased pictures of the gadget with
me (which I clearly didn’t publish to guard their id).
After the publication of this text, nevertheless, I realized from my
supply that Google had determined to cancel its plans to launch the
gadget, citing considerations that the corporate would lose cash on it.

“Issues that the corporate would lose cash on it” and 9to5Google’s framing of the same news as “profitability considerations” are enjoyable euphemisms for “nobody desires an Android pill”.

This comes on the heels of news just this week that Google is supposedly “totally migrating ChromeOS over to Android” — however in some way not “merging” them — with the precise purpose of higher competing in opposition to the iPad. So a beneficiant learn is likely to be that Google is scrapping the Pixel Pill 2 as a result of that gadget was deliberate to run Android (as the existing Pixel Tablet does) however now Google is rejiggering their pill and laptop computer {hardware} roadmaps with the upcoming ChomeOS-migrated-to-not-merged-with-Android OS in thoughts.

A much less beneficiant learn is that Google is with institutional ADHD and customarily acts with no obvious technique. They’ve stored their give attention to annual updates to the well-regarded Pixel telephones for 8 years now, however haven’t managed to make them hit merchandise. With the remainder of their {hardware}, their technique has been about as coherent as their comically chaotic efforts in messaging apps.

Thursday, 21 November 2024

‘The Blurred Line Between X and the Trump Administration’ ★

Mike Masnick, writing for MSNBC:

Seems for the “Twitter Recordsdata” crew, “creeping
authoritarianism” isn’t so creepy when it’s your staff doing the
creeping.

Earlier than, we had been instructed that White Home officers’ merely reaching
out to social media corporations about election misinformation was a
democracy-ending risk. Now, the world’s richest man has overtly
used his platform to spice up one candidate, ridden that marketing campaign’s
success into the White Home himself, and … crickets. The
silence is deafening.

There isn’t even a suggestion that Musk ought to must divest from
his possession of X. Nobody expects that. There is no such thing as a dialogue of
how Musk arrange an entire account on his personal platform for
his personal “Division of Authorities Effectivity” and gave it a “grey”
test mark — denoting it as a verified authorities entity.

The silence or cheers from “Twitter Recordsdata” writers and boosters
over this merging of personal and public pursuits — which they
deemed a risk to Western civilization, when it wasn’t even
taking place — is credibility-destroying. They had been merely a
handy political cudgel, shortly deserted as quickly as an
precise government-social media alliance benefited their aspect.

A person named Frank Wilhoit coined an oft-cited adage in 2018 that I discover profound, notably in relation to the absurd hypocrisies of the Trump period in American politics: “Conservatism consists of precisely one proposition, to wit: There have to be in-groups whom the legislation protects however doesn’t bind, alongside out-groups whom the legislation binds however doesn’t defend.”

But it surely’s not simply legal guidelines, though legal guidelines are the place the stakes are highest. It’s all the things, together with conventions and norms.

No matter it’s you suppose the Biden administration did to nudge Twitter (and different social media platforms, however let’s follow Twitter/X) to clamp down on what the administration perceived as “misinformation”, it pales compared to Musk taking possession of the platform and turning it into a transparent pro-Trump platform for this election. I’m not saying that was unlawful, or must be made unlawful. I’m saying that the whole argument over “The Twitter Recordsdata” was that the previous management of Twitter put their thumb on the size to adjust to the desires of the Biden administration. I’m with Masnick — I don’t suppose that even occurred, actually. However even for those who purchase into “The Twitter Recordsdata” thesis, it was a few thumb on one aspect of the size. After which Musk purchased Twitter, renamed it X, and dropped an anvil on the opposite aspect of the size. The “Twitter Recordsdata” argument wasn’t that the fallacious aspect of the size was advantaged by a bias, it was that platform house owners ought to scrupulously keep away from any imprecise trace of a bias in any respect. However now right here we’re with Elon Musk serving as a de facto member of Trump’s 2.0 administration and not one of the identical critics even see an issue.

The hypocrisy is baked into their worldview. So nevertheless we counter it, it may well’t be by merely mentioning their hypocrisy, as a result of they don’t see it and so they don’t care. My greatest quibble with Masnick’s piece is within the headline (which, maybe, he didn’t write): the road between X and the incoming Trump administration hasn’t been blurred — it’s been erased.

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Apple Is Selling Apple News Ads Directly for the First Time ★

Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios:

Apple has began promoting its personal promoting stock for Apple
Information, two sources aware of the hassle instructed Axios. It’s
pitching new advert models that it hopes will maximize income for
itself and its publishing companions. […]

• Publishers will get a 70% reduce of the advert income offered by Apple
  inside their articles.
• They are going to get a share of the advert income offered by Apple
  throughout the Apple Information feed, depending on engagement with their
  content material.
• Apple Information publishers will proceed to obtain 100% of the
  income from the promoting that they promote in opposition to their
  content material within the app.

Apple Information+ is a extremely good product. Scanning its most important At present tab within the morning has change into my modern-day equal of scanning the entrance web page of a printed newspaper — a technique to get a way of what’s occurring in world information. There’s a stage of editorial curation and presentation in Apple Information that I don’t suppose has a peer. Apple Information itself doesn’t publish or report something, however there’s clearly a gifted, level-headed editorial staff that’s choosing and selecting a very powerful and most fascinating (which are sometimes very various things) tales from all kinds of sources. So possibly a greater analogy to the bygone period of print isn’t scanning the entrance web page of a newspaper, however fairly stopping at big-city newsstand the place you possibly can scan the entrance pages of a slew of newspapers from across the nation (and world).

I don’t look to Apple Information for something associated to tech. I positively need to try this by way of RSS (which for me means NetNewsWire), the online (Safari), and social media. However for nationwide, world, and basic curiosity information, Apple Information is admittedly good. I don’t know what it’s like and not using a Information+ subscription, however with one, it’s really glorious. And a Information+ subscription will get you entry to a bunch of nice publications with paywalls on the net.

In the event you cemented your opinion of Apple Information years in the past and tuned out, it’s best to give it a contemporary look — particularly when you have a “free” Information+ subscription by way of Apple One.

However, my god, the adverts suck — low-rent and extremely repetitive. I posted screen recordings over the summer illustrating this. It looks like not too long ago, although, I’ve seen fewer adverts, and so they’ve gotten much less repetitive. I simply spent a couple of minutes now perusing the At present tab whereas penning this put up, and I learn a bunch of articles with out seeing any adverts in any respect. For me at the very least, the Apple Information advert expertise appears to be getting higher already. However there’s nonetheless a lot room for enchancment.

At any time when I write about this, some readers will remark that, to their minds, a paid subscription like Apple Information+ ought to bestow a very ad-free expertise. That’s how streaming video and music subscriptions are inclined to work, however even there — as I just posted regarding Disney+ — many individuals are selecting lower-priced streaming subscriptions sponsored by adverts. The economics for ad-free information simply don’t work, and by no means have. Information+ isn’t like TV+, the place Apple owns or has paid for the rights to the entire content material.

Bob Iger Inadvertently Reveals Percentage of Disney+ Subscribers on Ad-Supported Tier ★

Dade Hayes, reporting for Deadline:

Fielding a query from a Wall Road analyst in regards to the progress
outlook and pricing technique of Disney+, Iger divulged what number of
Disney+ subscribers take the ad-supported tier within the U.S. (37%)
and globally (30%). The disclosure was uncommon within the streaming
sector. Netflix, as an example, has by no means damaged out the same
share, preferring as a substitute to report month-to-month lively customers of
its advert tier (as it did earlier this week).

When the Q&A with analysts moved to the following query and CFO Hugh
Johnston was giving his reply, Iger’s voice abruptly may very well be
heard on the decision. “I don’t know if I used to be speculated to disclose
these AVOD numbers,” he stated, earlier than Johnston continued talking.

Looking at Disney+’s pricing page (and ignoring the large assortment of bundle gives), their ad-supported “Fundamental” tier prices $10/month; their ad-free “Premium” tier prices $16/month or $160/yr.

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

‘Can You Take a Photo of Us?’ ★

Delightfully intelligent sketch from Tiny Concept.

‘Inside the Rather Bizarre Relaunch of Jaguar’ ★

James Baggott, writing for Automotive Vendor Journal:

Jaguar unveiled a brand new look, emblem and path for its vehicles at
what was fairly probably probably the most weird automotive media launch
I’ve ever attended — right here’s what occurred.

Embargoed till immediately, the occasion felt like a hallucinogenic sci-fi
film the place the presenters had been solely allowed to talk in advertising
babble. Unveiling a brand new idea automobile — the small print of that are
nonetheless underneath embargo till December 3 — Jaguar’s passionate staff
spoke for a lot of the day about how they plan to ‘delete bizarre’
and ‘reside vivid’. No matter meaning…

In what, at occasions, felt like a drunken dream, Jaguar personnel
walked journalists via its plans to ‘reimagine’ the much-loved
model over the following few years. Calling it a ‘full reset’,
McGovern at one level instructed journalists that his staff had ‘not been
sniffing the white stuff — that is actual’.

Translation: they’ve all been sniffing a metric ton of the white stuff. This looks like the identity for a women’s razor brand or one thing. Definitely not the id for a longstanding British sports activities automobile firm.

Lulu Cheng Meservey:

Jaguar already nailed their advertising many years in the past, and given the
demand for nostalgia, now would’ve been the proper time to
revive it.

As an alternative, the unhappy irony is that their “Copy nothing” marketing campaign
abandons their very own originality in favor of a fad that peaked
through the pandemic.

Texas Education Board to Vote on Bible-Infused Lessons in Public Schools ★

Troy Closson, reporting for The New York Occasions (reward hyperlink):

The non-obligatory curriculum, certainly one of most sweeping efforts in latest
years to deliver a Christian perspective to extra college students, would
check the boundaries of non secular instruction in public training.

It may additionally change into a mannequin for different states and for the
administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has
promised to champion the conservative Christian motion in his
second presidential time period. […]

Faith makes up a comparatively small portion of the general
content material. However the classes delve into Christianity much more usually
and in depth than they do into different faiths, spiritual students
say and a evaluation of the supplies by The New York Occasions discovered. In
kindergarten, for instance, youngsters could be taught that many
religions worth the Golden Rule, however the classes could be centered
on the Christian model, and introduce college students to Jesus and his
Sermon on the Mount.

The Occasions runs an excerpt from the curriculum, which reads:

The Sermon on the Mount included many various classes. A few of
these included don’t choose others; don’t search revenge, or attempt to
get even with somebody; and provides to the needy. Past the Sermon on
the Mount, there are lots of guidelines included all through the Bible.
Jesus stated that the Golden Rule sums up the entire essential
teachings from scripture. “So in all the things, do unto others as you
would have finished unto you.”

“Don’t choose others; don’t search revenge, or attempt to get even with somebody; and provides to the needy” — the very phrases that Donald Trump himself lives by.

See Additionally: Associated protection from The Onion: “Christian Right Lobbies to Overturn Second Law of Thermodynamics”.

Airport — A Typeface Revival ★

Lukas Schneider:

On 13 November 1961, the Oceanic constructing at London Airport opened
to deal with long-haul flight departure. In 1979, German writer
Ravensburger introduced out a sport designed to assist youngsters be taught to
rely. Round Christmas 2023, I stumbled throughout a duplicate of that
classic sport. The kind on the field caught my eye, and that’s the place
this story started.

The letterforms resembled these of Helvetica. Because the corners had been
comfortable, I initially thought it is likely to be its Rounded model.
Nevertheless, the typeface featured a a lot bigger x-height, the
capitals had been much less large, and the glyphs additionally had white bits in
some locations, yielding a spotlight impact. I had by no means seen this
design earlier than. My first suspicion was that it is likely to be a Letraset
face, as this could have fitted in nicely with the discharge date of
the sport. Sadly, I couldn’t discover a match in a catalog by
this producer of rub-down sort, so I contacted Florian
Hardwig, who had usually helped me with sort analysis up to now.
Florian was in a position to establish the thriller typeface. He discovered it in
a catalog revealed in 1985 by Structure-Setzerei Stulle, a
typesetting service in Stuttgart, Germany. Named Airport
Highlight, it’s a spinoff of Airport, a typeface that Matthew
Carter had designed within the early Nineteen Sixties for indicators at London
Airport.

What a present that Matthew Carter remains to be with us immediately. How’s this tidbit strike you, concerning the velocity at which the world labored simply many years in the past:

In lots of regards, the variations made to Akzidenz echo the
issues made within the design of Helvetica. In an interview
for Laptop Arts, Carter feedback: “[I]f you have a look at it immediately,
you’d suppose was a rip-off of Helvetica. However we’d by no means seen
Helvetica in 1961 in London, though it had been produced in
Switzerland close to Basle on the Haas foundry in 1957. Even when we had
seen it, and wished to have it typeset in London, we’d have needed to
get on a aircraft and fly to Basle and have it typeset there, as a result of
the British typesetting commerce was so conservative that typefaces
like that had been merely unobtainable.”

Via Typographica.

Android Authority: ‘Google Is Transforming ChromeOS Into Android’ ★

Mishaal Rahman, reporting for Android Authority:

Whereas each Android and ChromeOS have seen large success in
totally different markets, they’ve struggled to compete in a single product
class the place they overlap: tablets. The high-end pill market
is dominated by the Apple iPad, and it doesn’t matter what Google has
tried, it has failed to vary that. Nevertheless, a supply tells
Android Authority that Google is engaged on a multi-year undertaking
to completely flip ChromeOS into Android, and the top end result may very well be a
platform that lastly bests the iPad.

Most likely not. Frankly it’s type of bizarre that Android is a peer to iOS in relation to telephones, however under no circumstances in relation to tablets, despite the fact that iPadOS stays only a big-screen model of iOS. There are zillions of tablets on the market that run Android, however they’re all crap and everybody is aware of it. “Flagship Android telephones” are a factor; “Flagship Android tablets” will not be. And iPads are a huge business for Apple, and the iPad is now solidly established as a bit of our cultural firmament. Everybody is aware of what an iPad is.

To higher compete with the iPad in addition to handle engineering
sources extra successfully, Google desires to unify its working
system efforts. As an alternative of merging Android and Chrome OS right into a
new working system like rumors prompt up to now, nevertheless, a
supply instructed me that Google is as a substitute engaged on totally migrating
ChromeOS over to Android. Whereas we don’t know what this implies for
the ChromeOS or Chromebook manufacturers, we did hear that Google desires
future “Chromebooks” to ship with the Android OS sooner or later.
That’s why I imagine that Google’s rumored new Pixel Laptop
will run a brand new model of desktop Android versus the
ChromeOS that you simply’re seemingly aware of.

In order that they’re not “merging” the 2 OSes as rumored, many occasions, up to now, however they’re “totally migrating ChromeOS over to Android”. The one means that basically makes a lick of sense is that they’re shitcanning ChromeOS and dealing to make Android not suck on gadgets aside from telephones, like laptops and tablets. Good luck with that, provided that even Apple has struggled to make iOS/iPadOS laptop computer OS. OS platforms are simply laborious — laborious to design, laborious to engineer, laborious to evolve. And Apple, for one, appears extra dedicated than ever to the concept MacOS and iPadOS stay very totally different platforms.

And, in some way, there’s no point out of Fuchsia in Rahman’s piece. Fuchsia is supposedly Google’s OS of the long run, however which an increasing number of is smelling like Google’s Copland or Pink — a sprawling “next-gen” OS undertaking that collapses underneath the burden of its personal ambition and lack of sensible focus, spinning its wheels for years “in improvement” while the world strikes on.