Links
Apple’s Biometrics Should be Multiple-Choice
Apple’s new iPad Mini is becoming a powerful healthcare tool, by Niel Smith
The Powerful A15 Bionic chip with support for super-fast 5G and the Apple pencil makes this iPad ideal for situations where you can carry it in your palm or your coat pocket and meet the rigorous requirements of the healthcare
So Far, Only the Good Guys are Here
A not so gentle intro to web3 - Koos Looijesteijn
Anybody can ‘mint’ an NFT of any piece of art (whether they made it, own it, or just found a picture online), or sell a token that claims access to a piece of land on the moon. But if you want to buy and sell real
Links
What Will Replace the Smartphone?
John Gruber in response to the sugestion VR headsets will replace smartphones:
VR headsets will never replace phones. I highly
newsletter
🎆 End of the Year Blowout! (Newsletter #96)
Hello and welcome to the first brand new issue of The Birchtree Newsletter! The back end has been swapped out, so there may be some bugs here and there, so let me know if you notice anything and I'll do my best to resolve anything ASAP.
As always, thank you for reading and
movie
Critics vs "Real People": Rotten Tomatoes (and Letterboxd) Data Tells All
A thing I've seen crop up over the past few years has been people lamenting how film critics "just don't get it" when it comes to determining what actually is good. While I would contend that "good" and "popular" often get conflated, I wanted to
Links
That Sounds Way More Creepy
Jesse Pujji in a Twitter thread on why Facebook isn’t “always listening” to you and why they don’t have to:
If me and @mrsharma get lunch, FBs systems can figure it out (still anonymously of course) How? Our devices were near each other for about an hour at neither of our houses around
Links
Why we Argue About Die Hard
Is [REDACTED] a Christmas Movie? - Kaitlyn Tiffany
Because of the dreaded incentives of social media, we force debate upon ourselves all the time, even at the most wonderful time of the year. And we do so even when our arguments hold no promise of a resolution.
“Arguments that hold no promise of a resolution,” is
Links
Sewing Doubt
Tim Harford on The New Bazaar podcast:
Cigarettes smokers are going to eagerly grab onto any evidence they can to doubt the scientific consensus that's emerging. And so the tobacco lobby would say, "oh well we need more research," which of course is a good idea. They would say, “oh it&
newsletter
🎄 That's a New Look! (Issue #95)
Hello and welcome to the new and improved newsletter! Long story short, the look is a bit different, the name
Links
Where do You Post Ephemeral Thoughts?
Finding the Right Place
There’s a type of content, that I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but for quite a long time, I’ve itched for it to find a place. There might be a word or phrase for it already, but I can only describe it as informal,
Links
Let’s Pretend the Last 20 Years Never Happened
Ben Thompson writing for Stratechery:
Skeptics argued for years that “That’s fine for Ben”, the insinuation being that I was some sort of unicorn. In fact, one of the most exciting stories of 2021 has been the absolute explosion in subscription-based blogs, primarily thanks to Substack, very much a web2 company. Other mediums
Improve Your Pitch, Don't Just Tell People They Don't Get It
Yesterday I tweeted out a remix of a video Elon Musk tweeted out. The original was a video of Jason Calacanis reacting to a clip of Bill Gates explaining the internet to Davin Letterman, and Letterman was skeptical, to say the least. We can now look back on this clip with the benefit of hindsight
Photography Needs to be Fun
I was very high on Glass, a new photo sharing app this summer, but my enthusiasm for it has dropped in perfect sync with the temperature dropping here in the Midwest since then. Not only that, it’s made me appreciate Instagram more.
You may be like “it’s the likes that ruined it!” but
Links
My Interview with Craft VP of Engineering on Craft 2, Extensions, the Web App, and More
Craft 2.0 released a few weeks ago, and it had some things I really wanted more details about, so
review
AirPods 3 Review
This has been a draft for over a month and I haven't known what to say, so here&
