February 18, 2018
Learning to program is getting harder. I have no interest in being a programmer, but when I was a kid, here’s how you started programming: turn on your computer. Now it’s two days of installing libraries, troubleshooting, fixing issues, and janky workarounds to get the environment set up.
The 13 Indicted Russians. Aye. Not some grand defeat of Trump. It’s irrelevant and distracting garbage.
Amazon’s useless “transparency reports” won’t disclose whether they’re handing data from always-on Alexa mics to governments. Of course they are. I mean, come on.
February 17, 2018
It’s time to show the carnage of mass shootings. Yep. Close-up shots of dead kids’ bodies should be all over everything.
Lab-Grown Meat Is Coming, Whether You Like It or Not. This is in the “inevitable” category of tech progression, agreed.
Toward a multifactorial model of expertise: beyond born versus made. What I’m very good at, I trained very little to achieve that. What I’m bad at, I can train a whole lot and not improve all that much.
February 16, 2018
Why Ad Companies Love Google’s Ad Blocker, But Hate Apple’s Privacy Features. One of the main reasons I continue to use Apple for my main machines is that they don’t track, and don’t sell data.
Utility poles. I love old style blogs. So superior.
DNA from the poop of extinct four-meter-tall birds reveals lost ecosystem. We killed Big Bird.
Germany considers free public transport in fight to banish air pollution. Public transportation should be free everywhere.
Electronics-Recycling Innovator Faces Prison For Extending Computers’ Lives. Helping people is an easier way to go to prison these days than hurting someone, especially if you piss off corporations.
The Principled Intelligence Hypothesis. I don’t buy her explanation, though it is worth pondering. I am also unusually smart. However, I excel at norm evasion, and I don’t give a damn about rules or norms and will break them if I find them suspect or morally untenable.
The entirely unnecessary demise of Barnes & Noble. Is everyone with an MBA evil? I was going to say a company run that poorly doesn’t deserve to live, but the non-MBAs who work for B&N did nothing wrong — however, all the execs should be in jail. And I am absolutely not joking.
Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps On My PC Without Asking. This is why I do not use Windows. Well, one of the dozen reasons. MacOS does not pull this shit, and also works correctly in high-DPI and with mixed-DPI monitors (which Windows utterly fails at).
Google To Kill Off ‘View Image’ Button In Search. Thus making it useless.
February 15, 2018
The fact that the content of an email can’t be edited is one of the best things about POP3 and IMAP email standards. Yep. Saves my ass at work all the time. “Yes, you did say this a year ago, and here’s the proof. That’s why I designed it this way.”
Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere. It never left, in reality. In areas like where I grew up, meth is fun for the whole family.
February 14, 2018
AMP for email is a terrible idea. This is equally true with the “for email” part removed.
We conclude that ad blocking poses a threat to the ad-supported web. Good. If the ad-supported web disappeared utterly, so be it.
February 13, 2018
The Democrats’ obvious move is to propose completely free health care for everyone, with no tax increase. Obvious if you are not a Democrat. Something something BernieBros.
FCC report finds almost no broadband competition at 100Mbps speeds. So nice to have gigabit symmetrical fiber.
February 12, 2018
Whether or not Musk’s critics are right, they are not especially politically effective. Most people do not share the belief that a process must be morally pure before its results can be celebrated. Moral purity, strangely, is an obsession of the Left, not of the Right.
Everything Easy is Hard Again. Current web design and websites are horrific and bad and should be viewed by no one.
February 11, 2018
Why Microsoft Office is a bigger productivity drain than Candy Crush Saga. Sacking admins and typists looks cheaper on paper to accounting types, but was very expensive indeed.
February 10, 2018
February 9, 2018
Wall Street’s up and downs have little impact on the income or wealth of most Americans, despite the bromides of politicians on both sides of the aisle. Misleading. Little direct impact. Much indirect and deleterious impact.