Essays: Letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee on App Stores – Schneier on Security

Essays: Letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee on App Stores – Schneier on Security:

I would like to address some of the unfounded security concerns raised about these bills. It’s simply not true that this legislation puts user privacy and security at risk. In fact, it’s fairer to say that this legislation puts those companies’ extractive business-models at risk. Their claims about risks to privacy and security are both false and disingenuous, and motivated by their own self-interest and not the public interest. App store monopolies cannot protect users from every risk, and they frequently prevent the distribution of important tools that actually enhance security. Furthermore, the alleged risks of third-party app stores and “side-loading” apps pale in comparison to their benefits. These bills will encourage competition, prevent monopolist extortion, and guarantee users a new right to digital self-determination.

[I think this will break both ways. There will be stores filled with spyware and crap, and none of these folks will be there to help you when that happens. But Apple could have moved in many directions to forestall all of this and instead they were greedy and prideful. So it goes.]

Two short AirPods “Find My” stories

Two short AirPods “Find My” stories:

The first one is about finding an AirPod in the snow. Follow the headline link to read.

But the second one is down in the comments, quoted here:

Their pods + case would always stay hidden away in their car, hidden from view and wirelessly charging for whatever place they were going to.

One day they went missing and that was that …until he was told about the Find My function.

Lo and behold, it registered in the app! And they went on to search for it.

It was at a car wash. When they told the boss about what they were doing on the premises, he went and rooted around for it himself and eventually found an employee wearing them.

Find My is brilliant.

∞ Read this on The Loop

[There is reasonable security in that you get notifications if someone leaves their AirPods near you, whether accidentally or as a spur of the moment attempt to track someone.]

Source: The Loop

The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson’s Get Back

The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson’s Get Back:

Paul: To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip.

Later…

As viewers, we get bored of seeing them rehearse it and we see only some of it: on January 23rd alone they ran it through 43 times. The Beatles don’t know, during this long process, what we know – that they’re creating a song that millions of people will sing and move to for decades to come. For all they know, it might be Shit Takes all the way down. But they keep going, changing the lyrics, making small decision after small decision – when the chorus comes in, where to put the guitar solos, when to syncopate the beat, how to play the intro – in the blind faith that somewhere, hundreds of decisions down the line, a Beatles song worthy of the name will emerge.

[Adding it to the list…]

I was a little nervous about a meeting a thread by @EPrecipice

Thread by @EPrecipice on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App:

When talking about our agendas for the day, I told my 5yo I was a little nervous about a meeting I have today. He said, “Mama, I am nervous all the time. I know what to do.” So friends, here is all the advice he could fit into the drive to school:
1. “You gotta say your affirmations in your mouth and your heart. You say, ‘I am brave of this meeting!’ , ‘I am loved!’, ‘I smell good!’ And you can say five or three or ten until you know it.”
2. “You gotta walk big. You gotta mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur. Because you got it.”
3. “Never put a skunk on a bus.”
4. “Think about the donuts of your day! Even if you cry a little, you can think about potato chips!”
5. “You gotta take a deep breath and you gotta do it again.”
6. “Even if it’s a yucky day, you can get a hug.”
Extra addition from this afternoon: “Don’t get distracted and your feet will stay on the sidewalk and not too full of snow.”

[Speechless at the emotional wisdom. Also, someone’s else’s child… wanted to be an astronaut. Mom says, study hard, go to college, learn a lot of science, take a physical fitness test. The response? “That’s just 4 things.”]

The president and the citizens should be joined by a social network for governing.

…joined by a social network…:

I’ve been saying this since long before Obama entered the White House. The president and the citizens should be joined by a social network for governing. The first president that does that well will be as revolutionary as Thomas Jefferson. It’s why we govern in fits and starts. As scared as it may make the established journos and politicos, it’s the big step we must take. Evolution demands it, nothing less than that.

[Remarkable]

Source: Scripting News

Twitter Announces NFT Profile Pictures

Twitter Announces NFT Profile Pictures:

Twitter Blue:

You asked (a lot), so we made it. Now rolling out in Labs: NFT
Profile Pictures on iOS.

Such profile pictures will be identifiable by being hexagonal. (Android and web users are still locked out of Twitter Blue.)

Sam Biddle:

I predict a browser extension that auto-blocks people with
hexagonal avatars would become very popular very fast.

NFTBlocker:

This is a browser plugin that blocks people who use Twitter’s NFT
integration.

See also: This.

Link: twitter.com/twitterblue/status/1484226494708662273

[Yuck on them all.]

Source: Daring Fireball

Fight against hell

Fight against hell:

When people say we’re “fighting for democracy” even that isn’t strong enough.

We must fight so we don’t become a fascist country with slavery for Blacks, ovens for Jews and women turned into baby-producing handmaidens. And for a human-habitable planet.

If you think that isn’t what’s happening, well it is.

  • This country has never actually revoked slavery. A lot of people are still bitter about the outcome of the Civil War. Blacks are not, according to many Americans, entitled to the full rights of Americans.
  • Anti-semitism is also a foundation, not just of America, but most of the world. We heard Trump say that American Jews are really citizens of Israel, which emphatically is not true.
  • And the last one, women as baby-producing handmaidens, that’s what overturning Roe v Wade is for.
  • And of course it’s not just Blacks, Jews and women, there’s a hellish place for every non-white non-male non-Christian American.
  • And who knows why they don’t want to keep the planet habitable for humans. Maybe they think God meant for them (and not us of course) to migrate to other planets. Whatever it is, it’s another form of hell.

Yet journalism still mostly sees it as a partisan horse-race and every step we take into the abyss is bad news for one or two people like Biden or Schumer. Their delusion by now is really a form of insanity. Forget about waking them up, we have to move past them.

The thing that unites us is the hell the Trumpists have in mind for all of us.

[Why ia this not obvious to everyone?]

Source: Scripting News

Gig Performer | Optimize your Mac for a Gig

Gig Performer | Optimize your Mac for a Gig:

Apple computers running macOS have great support for real-time audio and MIDI and typically do not require much optimization – however you may still want to make sure that your performance is neither impacted nor interrupted by other running processes. We have compiled a list of tips to help you get the best experience out of your Mac for your live performance.

All tips and screenshots were made using macOS Monterey 12.1, the latest version of macOS available at the time of writing

[It might be easier to have a operate account for live gigs… unless the computer is dedicated to live performance. That’s a lot of stuff to switch on and off.]