Arnvidr

Onward, steed!

February, 14th

Frozach Submitted

Paul Ford, once again, has written up something fascinating. He discusses something I had no idea happened: when an iPhone user texts with another iPhone user using iMessage, the outgoing texts appear in calm blue bubbles. When an iPhone user texts with a non-iPhone user (or an iPhone user using something other than iMessage -- meaning mainly Android users, obviously), those outgoing texts are in a harsh green. Here are the two examples Paul shows, starting with the iPhone to iPhone: And then the Android to iPhone: As noted, I had no idea that this happened, because I don't own an iPhone. There is one slight functional reason for this: users may have to pay for SMS messages, but not for iMessages, and thus it could have an impact on a bill. But here's the more interesting tidbit, which is the crux of Ford's article: lots of people absolutely hate those green bubbles. As he notes, if you do a Twitter search on "green bubbles" you'll see an awful lot of anti-green-bubble sentiment. Here are just a few examples I quickly found (Paul has others in his article).

Those are just some of the anti-green-bubble messages from the past 24 hours. There are actually a lot more, and it goes on and on. It's kind of amazing just how many people are tweeting about their hatred for green bubbles.

Ford, then goes into a really interesting discussion on the nature of product management and design choices -- the kind of thing that Apple doesn't do on a whim -- to get to the real point: Apple is likely choosing harsh, ugly green bubbles on purpose. As a petty way to put down Android users:

Apple must know by now that the people of the blue bubbles make fun of the people of the green. And I guess if I worked at Apple I’d be pretty psyched with this reaction. After all, what is a more powerful brand amplifier than social pressure? If people who converse in green bubbles start to feel relatively poor, or socially inferior, because they chose to use a less-expensive pocket supercomputer than those made by Apple, that could lead to iPhone sales. Ugly green bubbles = $$$$$ and promotions.

But I think the ugly green bubbles are the result of a mean-spirited, passive-aggressive product decision, marketed in a mean-spirited way. Certainly it’s not a crisis in capitalism. This is not to say that Google is good and Apple is bad; they’re both enormous structures that have so much power that they can manufacture their own realities (except for Google Glass, then not so much).

The bubbles are a subtle, little, silly thing but they are experienced by millions of people. That amplifies that product descision into a unsubtle, large, serious-yet-still silly thing. The people who are tweeting about green bubbles are following Apple’s lead. It’s not unprecedented; Apple has done stuff like this before, like giving Windows machines on its network a “Blue Screen of Death” icon. But people spend so much time texting that it adds up.

Beyond highlighting Apple's apparent pettiness (and lack of ability to allow users to customize things for themselves), it also highlights how very minor design decisions do matter in a fairly big way. I recognize that some people like to get into tech fanboy wars: iPhone v. Android, Mac v. Windows v. Linux, Playstation v. Xbox, etc. That's going to happen, even if it mostly seems like a waste of time. But, really, using subtle design choices to highlight and further such fights seems to show such a childish attitude to competition. Good competitors focus on making their own products better, not demeaning the competition. It's when they run out of good ideas that the focus shifts to attacking the competition. Apple has done so many things right with the iPhone in pushing the barriers of innovation, it would be better if they just focused on making the overall customer experience better, rather than trying to offer subtle digs at non-iPhone users.

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We learned way the hell back in September that Faith No More, the restless and reunited metal greats, were at work on a new album, their first since 1997′s Album Of The Year. On Black Friday last year, they even came out with a new song, a total monster named “Motherfucker.” And now it’s all official: The new FNM album is called Sol Invictus, and it’s out 5/19 on Reclamation/Ipecac. The band recorded it in Oakland, and bassist Billy Gould produced. We don’t yet know what songs will be on the album, but this information alone is enough to get excited.

[Photo by Dustin Rabin]

As its plan to completely shatter the support it received recently by attacking the very same concept of free speech its enemies declared war upon with terrorist attacks on a parody magazine not so many weeks back, the French government's ability to be laughable and simultaneously dangerous never ceases to amaze. What at once looked to be rather punctuated attacks on opinions and social media, and even cable news (which I consider a common enemy but for vastly different reasons) has now since devolved into the kind of massive overreaction against a third-party target that is, dare I say, quite American in nature. Apparently no longer content with the plan to police the ever-dangerous internet themselves, the French government has suddenly and, it must be conceded, shockingly announced that it now has veto power over the internet, requiring ISPs to censor sites at its whim. And, because cynicism is practically the secret sauce in these kinds of things, they've laced their claims of "combating terrorism" via censorship powers with a dash of "preventing child pornography" to boot.

A new decree that went into effect today allows the French government to block websites accused of promoting terrorism and publishing child pornography, without seeking a court order. Under the new rules, published last week by France's Ministry of the Interior, internet service providers (ISPs) must take down offending websites within 24 hours of receiving a government order. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the decree is critical to combating terrorism, but civil rights groups say it gives the government dangerously broad powers to suppress free speech.

The decree implements two provisions from two laws — an anti-child pornography law passed in 2011 and an anti-terror law passed late last year. A department of the French national police will be responsible for identifying the sites to be blocked, with the suspected terror-related sites subject to review by an anti-terrorism branch. An administrator from the CNIL, France's independent data protection organization, will be charged with overseeing the process. Once a site is blocked, its page will be replaced with an explanation of why the government took it down. In the case of child pornography pages, the text will also include a recommendation to seek medical help.

Now, anyone reading this site already knows why anointing a government with these kinds of powers, whether by the excuse of child pornography or via the far more mangled conflation of speech and terrorism, is inherently problematic. We should simply be able to trot out examples of governments declaring non-offending sites as falling under these kinds of headings and rest our case. When we see France spiral into this kind of out of control fear-based tailspin, however (particularly after having gone through it ourselves to such a degree that we're still trying to dig ourselves out of it), we should find it conscripting us to fight against a stupid history that is attempting to repeat itself.

What this move relies upon, as do most attempts to censor speech on the internet, is a misguided fear of the seduction of internet-based communications. You can see this especially in the perhaps well-intentioned proponents of censorship when they speak.

Supporters of the measure say it's critical to preventing future attacks, pointing to the growing number of young French nationals who have joined jihadist movements in Iraq and Syria, as well as aggressive online propaganda campaigns from terrorist groups like ISIS.

"Today, 90 percent of those who swing toward terrorist activities within the European Union do so after visiting the internet," Cazneuves told reporters last week, after presenting the decree to French ministers. "We do not combat terrorism if we do not take measures to regulate the internet."

Just try to implement that mode of logic in any arena that doesn't involve the internet and see how far it gets you. You'll be laughed out of the conversation if you were to say, for instance, "A large percent of those committing terrorist acts within Europe attended a mosque before doing so. We do not combat terrorism if we do not regulate mosques." It misses the point entirely, of course, because it punishes what is largely the innocent while doing very little toactually combat terrorism. We might also find that terrorists largely wear silk, or listen to a certain type of music, or are part of any number of subsets of culture that we wouldn't dream of censoring, regulating, or placing under the watchful eye of a French government that has appeared all too happy to blame everyone for the failures of both their own security apparatus and civilization as a whole. But with the internet? That we'll censor, because the ruling class is still of an age that might find it scary enough to allow it to happen.

Add to this that the blocking attempt will be largely ineffective for those with the will to circumvent it and this essentially amounts to one part grandstanding and two parts setting up a precedent for government interference in speech in the future.

"In light of the recent arrests that have followed the Charlie Hebdo attacks — many of which are clearly overboard — I would say that France's government needs to seriously think about whether this law will stop terrorists, or merely chill speech," Jillian York, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said in an email to The Verge.

Others question the effectiveness of the measure. Felix Tréguer, of the French online rights group La Quadrature du Net, says the decree risks "over-blocking perfectly legal content," adding that the domain name system (DNS) blocking that it calls for can be easily circumvented. "The measure only gives the illusion that the State is acting for our safety," Tréguer said in a statement published today, "while going one step further in undermining fundamental rights online."

A small ruling class exerting control over the rights of the many in favor of its own power? Where have I heard this story before?

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sleepingwithryley:

mercurymoans:

missinglinc:

That last gif slayed my entire soul.

This woman gives me hope. 

i love you

StartsWithABang writes Moons in our Solar System — at least the ones that formed along with the planets — all revolve counterclockwise around their planetary parents, with roughly uniform surfaces orbiting in the same plane as their other moons and rings. Yet one of Saturn's moon's, Iapetus, is unique, with a giant equatorial ridge, an orbital plane that doesn't line up, and one half that's five times brighter than the other. While the first two are still mysteries, the last one has finally been solved.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Happy Bear‘s got all of the answers.

RØROS/OSLO (NRK): Petter Northug fikk hele Norge til å måpe mot slutten av sin stafettetappe: Han rykket i siste bakke, stoppet opp og lekte seg med Lyn-løper Hans Christer Holund.

Last year, Neil Young launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a new digital music player called Pono, the idea being that it would serve as a high-quality alternative to the MP3s that he felt had degraded sound quality and fucked up the way everyone heard music. Young raised more than six million dollars on the campaign, exceeding his goal many times over. And now you can buy a Pono player for a cool $400, and you can pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 for a whole lot of classic-rock albums at the Pono store. But does Pono actually offer an audible upgrade over what the way-less-expensive iTunes store offers? A lot of tech people seem very, very skeptical.

Read More...

January, 24th

January, 19th

January, 10th

Coloring the Black will bring theorists, philosophers, artists, musicians, and aestheticians together to have a black metal party.

As we've noted a few times, one of the biggest obstacles to getting real next-generation broadband networks deployed in the United States is the protectionist broadband laws large ISPs have written and lobbied for nineteen states. These laws erode local rights by prohibiting or hindering towns and cities from building their own broadband networks (or in some cases even partnering with a private company) -- even in cases where nobody else will.

In a sane world, most of us would normally agree that letting AT&T or Comcast write self-serving state law that tramples citizen rights is bad for everyone. But like so many technology issues in the United states (like net neutrality), municipal broadband has somehow fallen victim to partisan nitwit disease, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. That shouldn't be the case; most municipal broadband networks are actually voted on and built in Conservative leaning areas (since it's more rural areas that tend to have less competition and need the most help). As with net neutrality, if you actually sit people down and talk to them most people actually tend to agree. "Why yes, I would prefer it if my rights weren't curtailed by a Comcast lawyer, thank you very much."

But instead of acknowledging we agree and moving forward to carve out the best solution possible, money in politics has polluted the discourse well. As a result, we all get to live in a badly-written dystopian novel, where giant companies write the law, and loyal politicians like Martha Blackburn defend protectionism by pretending they're only really concerned about the little guy.

I've written about this issue for fifteen years, and for most of that time it wasn't a sexy enough of a subject to get the attention of technology news outlets, much less the mainstream press. As such, it was relatively easy for carrier lobbyists to get these laws passed. In the last few years, however, things have been changing; efforts like Google Fiber and municipal broadband builds in places like Lafayette, Louisiana, Wilson, North Carolina, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, have shown a bright spotlight on the lack of competition and the precise reasons why. As such, protecting broadband duopolies through greased-palm legislation has gotten a tiny bit harder.

Yet we still can't seem to cure partisan nitwit disease. Take for example, the recently re-introduced by Cory Booker Community Broadband Act (pdf). A rehash of truly bipartisan efforts attempted in both 2005 and 2007, the bill has been brought out and dusted off to try and kill off these awful state laws. The proposal's wording is clear:

"No statute, regulation, or other legal requirement of a State or local government may prohibit, or have the effect of prohibiting or substantially inhibiting, any public provider from providing telecommunications service or advanced telecommunications capability or services to any person or any public or private entity."

Of course the law is most likely going nowhere, because giant ISPs have, like most companies, poured gasoline and campaign cash on partisan divisions to ensure partisan gridlock. As such, Republicans will mindlessly fight the measure under the pretense of just being super concerned about states' rights and the poor American taxpayer. The point may be moot. On February 26 (the same day it's slated to vote on net neutrality), the FCC will vote to consider pre-empting the restrictive provisions in these state laws under its Congressional authority to ensure broadband is deployed in a "reasonable and timely basis."

That's the first time in fifteen years the FCC could be bothered to even look at this relatively common sense issue, much less engage it on the policy front. That suggests progress -- even if we're still looking for a cure to the pandemic that is partisan nitwit disease.

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mazeltoph:

how can we believe the dates written on historical documents when the other day i wrote january 2010 on one of my papers

Frozach Submitted

Frozach Submitted

BarbaraHudson (3785311) writes "Researchers were startled to find fish, crustaceans and jellyfish investigating a submersible camera after drilling through nearly 2,500 feet (740 meters) of Antarctic ice. The swimmers are in one of the world's most extreme ecosystems, hidden beneath the Ross Ice Shelf, roughly 530 miles (850 kilometers) from the open ocean. "This is the closest we can get to something like Europa," said Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a chief scientist on the drilling project. More pictures here."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.