Links
NFL+ Ain’t for Me, and I’m Not Sure Who It’s For
The NFL launched NFL+ today, and I went from excited to completely uninterested pretty quickly. I live in Illinois, but my favorite team is the Green Bay Packers, so I get to see about 1/2 of their games live, but the other half just don’t air on any channel here. I was hoping
Links
Take (way) More Screenshots
Alex Chan: You should take more screenshots
Digital files exist in a context: they rely on particular hardware and software to be useful. The more time passes, the harder a context is to replicate. It is possible to emulate older systems, but it’s requires a lot of time and expertise; more than I’m
Links
Google Walks Back a Crazy Change
Ron Amadeo: After public outcry, Google will reinstate Play Store app permissions list
The app permissions list is a factual, computer-generated record of what permissions an app can request, while the Data Safety section is written by the developer. You can't cheat the app permissions list, while Data Safety runs on the
Links
Martin Shkreli Wants to Help Me Save Money on Medicine? It's a Web3 Project?! How Could Anyone Be Skeptical?
Molly White: After five years in prison for a Ponzi scheme and a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry, Martin Shkreli announces his new venture: a web3 drug discovery platform
Web3 projects and Shkreli were basically made for each other, so I guess this should come as no surprise. From the press release:
"For
Apple
macOS Ventura Makes macOS's Contrast Problem Worse
Last month I complained about the Safari download window being hard to read with the default settings. Today I'
Links
On "the Best Laptop"
John Gruber: Wirecutter’s ‘Best’ Laptop
My longstanding complaint about The Wirecutter is that they institutionally fetishize price over quality.
And:
They do have a “Mac or Windows (or Something Else)?” preface to the whole comparison, but if you’re going to name a “best laptop”, putting aside OS preference, it’s incompetent not to
Links
Epidemic Sound Sues Meta for Massive Copyright Infringement
Meta Hit With Massive Piracy Lawsuit Over Epidemic Sound Royalty-Free Music
“Epidemic knows of over 950 of its music tracks that have been reproduced, stored, made available to, and distributed to its users by Meta through its Music Library or through its other content sharing tools without a license. Epidemic is confident that further
Links
Rage Against the Standards
Gruber snarking on consortiums working on open standards:
The good news is, Bluetooth is an open industry standard, governed by a consortium.
Hear me out here, but I actually think it's good that Bluetooth exists, and I think it's good that USB-C, Qi, Wi-Fi, and Matter are net good
Twitter Break = Leaning Into a Few New (and old) Hobbies
I took nearly a month off Twitter, and although I've come back, I'm spending far less time there than I was before. Like 10 minutes of Twitter a day is good for me, but an hour or more was not.
Anyway, in my time away I wanted to get a few
Politics
The Respect for Marriage Act
From the press release announcing the proposed act:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI), Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) today announced the introduction of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the
Apple
Font Book Gets Updated in Ventura
I just noticed that Apple updated the Font Book app in macOS Ventura, and while I don't know
Links
What Counts as Broadband Could be Changing
Jon Brodkin for ArsTechnica:
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is aiming to increase the agency's broadband speed standard from 25Mbps to 100Mbps on the download side and from 3Mbps to 20Mbps for uploads.
And:
The 25/3Mbps metric was adopted in January 2015 under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler and was never updated
Links
A Gerenational Change
Pew has polling out showing a pretty remarkable difference in how young and old Republicans see climate policy in the U.S. Stealing just one chart as an example:
I can't find anything breaking down "leans Democratic" age groups, and I'm hesitant to extrapolate too much from young people
iphone
Portrait Modes Have Improved a Ton
Here's a side-by-side comparison of a photo taken with my iPhone 13 Pro Max and then with my Canon EOS RP, including a few detail close ups:
Don't mind the color differences, I tried to make them similar, but I'm not an expert in matching colors between
Links
The Glorious Decimation of Smoking
I enjoyed this thread on things what were normal in the '90s but are non-existent now, and the thing the immediately came to mind for me was smoking indoors. You would go to a restaurant and you'd be asked two things:
1. How many people are in your party?
2. Smoking
Links
Eventually You Need to Upgrade
Nintendo Life: XEL - Promising Zelda-Style Sci-Fi Adventuring That Falls Short On Switch
Sections of the map will slowly spawn into existences as you approach, breaking the immersion that the developers are working so hard to create. The worst technical issue, however, is the stuttering frame rate that shows up when groups of enemies
Links
Renewables Accounted for Nearly 1/3 of U.S. Energy Usage in April
Elizabeth Weise USA TODAY: 'A 'Wow' moment': US renewable energy hit record 28% in April. What's driving the change?
The percentage of U.S. electricity produced by renewable energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric dams has been steadily rising, from 8.6% in April 2001 to this April'
