Rolandt

mkalus shared this story from Nothing To Do With Arbroath.

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Police have arrested a 17-year-old from the Frog Lake First Nation in Alberta, Canada, after an altercation that involved three dogs, a sword, an all-terrain vehicle and a shotgun.

Elk Point RCMP say a 35-year-old man was riding his an ATV on private property with his dog, when the animal got into a fight with two of the property owner's dogs.



The rider drew a sword to defend his pooch after a teen arrived on the scene with a shotgun and shot him in the leg. The rider escaped the property and was treated by paramedics before he was airlifted to the University of Alberta Hospital with severe but non-life threatening injuries.

Police arrested the youth and said he will answer to charges in St. Paul Provincial Court on Sept 1. Police did not say whether charges have already been laid, or what those charges may be. Frog Lake is about 250 km east of Edmonton.

mkalus shared this story from Colossal.

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Like most that read this article, German artist Menja Stevenson has had her fair share of rides in city buses and trains, each of which has forced her (and you) to sit on top of garishly designed uniform seating. The fabric, as investigated by this article on the BBC, is not only made to outlast spills and stains, but also trends, as many of the painfully drab designs can last a decade or more.

Interested in this accident-resistant material, Stevenson began sourcing and creating outfits out of the fabric in 2006 for her project Bustour. The project forced her to persuade German transportation companies to personally ship her the fabric, as they are not commercially available. After finally obtaining the material she designed clothes that aesthetically camouflaged herself within each bus or train interior matching the fabric, capturing the reaction of fellow passengers.

“Wearing them, you sweat like crazy, they feel like a knight’s armor and it’s hard to act naturally,” said Stevenson. “I couldn’t believe that many people didn’t realize the connection seeing me and the seats together. Did they think that it was sheer coincidence? Some curious people at least talked to me, and a very few laughed, but most passengers would look shyly at me and quickly look the other way again.”

You can see archived documentation of these reactions (or lack there of) on Stevenson’s website. If you’re searching for a slightly more practical use for old transportation fabric take a look at the bags and accessories made from airplane seat fabric by Fallen Furniture (previously). (via This Isn’t Happiness)

Every summer, the three brothers who run one of the world’s best restaurants, El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, shut up shop and go on an extended five-week tour sponsored by a Spanish financial institution.

If you’re wondering what metrics to collect and how to display them, here’s a simple rule.

If your boss is asking you for data to prove your worth, it’s already too late.

Your boss will ask for metrics when she isn’t sure the community is delivering value. By that point, her mind is usually made up and it will take something extraordinary in the metrics to change her mind (and if that extraordinary thing existed, it would likely already have been noticed already).

This works on a simple consistency principle.

Once we’ve formed an idea, we accept evidence that supports that idea and ignore evidence that doesn’t.

The best time to present data is when that idea is being formed. Waiting for your boss to ask for evidence that the community has value is a sure-fire way to sabotage your career.

Do it right now.

But understand that metrics without context are meaningless. Is 1300 active members good or bad? Who knows? But we know that number going down is bad and going up is good.

Add emotional spice to those metrics. Frequently share the good stuff. Collect sentiment stories and regularly share them so people feel good about the community. Share new milestones achieved. Share when you’ve held a successful event. Use Evernote and tag every good story you have to share.

How and when you present metrics are as important as what metrics you collect. Few bosses want an exact value, but they need a rough idea. The best time to present metrics and display stories is when they are forming that idea.

The classic big-company mistake is to not admit their mistake. They double down on them. Their pride or ego is so large that they can’t say we did something wrong. And I think the faster you do that, the better — change gears to something else. If you’re honest, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you have your head stuck in the sand and you just keep doing it, I think you lose your employees and your customers as well.

I had to immediately think of Lotus' Workplace disaster. Dual highway, pile the software stack on Notes & Sametime, and sink it all.

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Russian ruling could have global implications. 

• Although the Russian complaint against Google is a sideshow compared to the EU, it could materially weaken Google’s global agreements that allow it to ensure its ecosystem is on almost all Android devices in developed markets.
• The Russian regulator (FAS) has already fined Google $6.75m for requiring handset makers to install its services on their phones to be able to use its App Store: Google Play.
• FAS also came down on Google for refusing to allow other third party services such as Yandex Search to be pre-installed.
• However, Google appears to have already dropped this requirement and Yandex has seen a corresponding increase in search share in the Russian market.
• The Google agreements that really matter are the MADA and the AFA.
  • Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA).
  • This agreement requires anyone wanting to use Google Play to also include the key Google services such as search, mail and maps and to display them prominently in a folder on the home screen.
  • RFM research indicates that it also requires these services to be set as default on the device such that a request from an app to open a map always defaults to Google Maps.
  • This ensures that it is Google’s Digital Life services that are predominantly used and it is this bundling that both the FAS and the EU object to.
  • The Anti-Fragmentation Agreement (AFA).
  • This agreement is required for a handset maker to deploy Google Play and prevents the manufacturer from producing other devices that use non-Google versions of Android.
  • This prevents any handset maker from providing any alternative to Google on any Android device anywhere in the world.
  • I suspect that this has been a factor in Google’s ability to dominate the Indian market where it is now almost impossible to sell a device without Google Play on it.
  • Google has effectively seeded the Indian market with its services and the game may already be over for the home grown alternatives.
• In addition to the fine, the FAS has also demanded that Google change these agreements with device makers.
• Google has appealed this decision and a hearing is scheduled for August 16^th.
• While the MADA is signed on a device by device basis, the AFA is a global agreement and should the FAS force Google to relax the AFA, then it could have global implications.
• This is because handset makers would then be free to user other versions of Android without Google services being installed potentially weakening Google’s grip on Android in markets outside of Russia.
• Furthermore, the FAS’s decision will provide precedent which, in legal conflicts such as this, can be highly influential in determining the outcome.
• I continue to be concerned that Google’s grip on its ecosystem on Android devices may be slipping bringing into question RFM’s medium term revenue forecasts.
• Most of Alphabet’s revenue growth from here is being driven by advertising revenues derived from Android devices, raising the possibility that RFM’s numbers are too high.
• Even assuming that nothing goes wrong, the shares of Alphabet look fairly valued at best, leading me to believe that there is better value to be had elsewhere.
• Samsung, Microsoft and Baidu continue to be the places where I would be looking.

As the Olympics are all about reaching peak physical potential, it shouldn’t surprise that a lot of races are close, but there’s been a good number of ties this year. The measurement system allows for precision up to the millionth of a second. So what gives? Timothy Burke for Deadspin provides the explanation.

In a 50 meter Olympic pool, at the current men’s world record 50m pace, a thousandth-of-a-second constitutes 2.39 millimeters of travel. FINA pool dimension regulations allow a tolerance of 3 centimeters in each lane, more than ten times that amount. Could you time swimmers to a thousandth-of-a-second? Sure, but you couldn’t guarantee the winning swimmer didn’t have a thousandth-of-a-second-shorter course to swim.

Always consider the bottlenecks.

Tags: Olympics, precision

Concordia University, Aug 18, 2016

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This one looks like fun. According to the press release, "While there are many MOOCs out there that introduce ecosystem services and related topics, this is one of the first that focuses explicitly on the ecosystem approach, long adopted as desirable by the UN, while covering so many key ecosystems and overarching themes." Wicked Problems, Dynamic Solutions: The Ecosystem Approach and Systems Thinking is an interdisciplinary course open to all.

[Link] [Comment]

Friday evening I travelled to the Lynn Loop trail in North Vancouver. I stopped to watch the rushing water flowing down Lynn Creek – alone with my thoughts. Spending time in nature always makes me happy and has a positive benefit on my health.

To recap: On Sunday, August 7th, I completed Cycle 20 Week 2. I have Multiple Myeloma and anemia, a rare blood cancer. It is incurable, but treatable. From February to November 2013, I received Velcade chemo through weekly in-hospital injections as an outpatient. Since February 9th 2015, I have been on Pomalyst and dexamethasone chemo treatment (Pom/dex).

Weekly chemo-inspired self-portraits can be viewed in my flickr album.

June 2014: English Bay

The post Week 78 chemo complete: Nature benefits my health appeared first on Fade to Play.

“Do you have Kik?” read the OkCupid message from Odin’s Thirst Trap, a 20-year-old blond living in Stockholm. “It’s what all the kids here use.”

I was traveling to Sweden to write and to get laid, not necessarily in that order. I prepped for my trip by checking the average April temperature, booking an AirBnB in Hornstull (“the Brooklyn of Stockholm”), changing my OkCupid location from New York City to Stockholm, and joining international Tinder. I downloaded an app for the T-Bana, the Stockholm Metro, because it was free.

Before hearing about it from Odin’s Thirst Trap, a creamy éclair of a Swede with milk-fed skin and the kind of wide-eyed blondness that would make for the third-favorite member of a boy band, I’d no knowledge of Kik. I downloaded the Kik app and created a profile because I wanted to communicate with Odin’s Thirst Trap — and, as it turned out, every Swedish guy I met through OkTinder. They all used Kik.

No, I’d written back to Odin’s Thirst Trap, I’ll get it.

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If you’re an over-18 American, chances are you’ve never heard of Kik. A messaging app with about 275 million worldwide users, Kik offers a baseline level of secrecy, a terrible reputation with law enforcement, and a huge popularity with teens. Launched in 2009 by Canadian tech company Interactive, Kik is unusual for its anonymity. You don’t have to provide a telephone number to create an account, and the app automatically deletes messages after a short, undisclosed amount of time. Kik’s ideal if you’re having an affair, or if you’re looking for one; it identifies people only by their profiles and it allows you to message anyone with a public profile. It is precisely the kind of technology that gives parents the howling fantods — or would, if they knew about it.

Not for nothing, Kik flies under the parental radar. Unlike Snapchat, another app for sharing evanescent moments, most adults have never heard of Kik; unlike iMessage, Kik doesn’t allow parents to monitor their kids’ messages from their own iPhones or iPads. Moreover, Kik eludes parental monitoring software, so the only way that parents can check their kid’s Kik account is to sign into it on their kid’s device. Kik “requires” you to be over 13 to use it, but since you don’t provide a telephone number or address when you create a profile, that requirement is more of a guideline. In a digital world where we leave fingerprints on every grubby thing we touch, Kik is one of those rare spaces where we don’t.

Depending on whom you ask, Kik is either the best thing since AOL Messenger and MySpace or the worst thing since the invention of the hooptie van. In a 10-day span in early 2016, the New York Times counted four criminal investigations linked to Kik: three involved attempted rape, statutory rape, or sending sexually explicit messages to 13- or 14-year-old girls, and one involved sending child pornography. Just this past month, Kik sat at the center of child pornography arrests in Alaska, the arrest of a teacher for sexual assault of a minor, a Florida mom caught for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and the arrest of a man charged with kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old girl.

Kik has been called “a growing concern for police,” “the worst, most dangerous app for kids,” and “a prime vehicle for sexual predators.” By reputation, it’s the new AOL chat room: the place for adults with questionable motivations to be other than they seem in order to get something they shouldn’t want.

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It came to me late in life, but instant messaging has always crackled on my skin with the erotic frisson of the illicit. I slipped my first slick AOL disk into my iMac at the age of 31; stumbling into chat rooms felt luscious and naughty. I loved the night-swimming nakedness of talking to strangers in the digital dark. I was Red wearing a hood and cloak to walk into the woods, doing something that someone else’s mom would have warned her about. Later, I’d discover online dating, where messaging with anonymous men put words and sex — my two favorite things — together in one seamless electric unit.

Thus, Kik was easy to love. Soaring on the Norwegian Air jet on my way to Stockholm, I felt a little bit like Kik’s predatory adults in my lusting after verboten nubile flesh, despite the fact that Odin’s Thirst Trap was entirely street legal and despite the fact that he had contacted me first on OkCupid. He and I were chatting on Kik, but I was also chatting with four or six other Swedish guys. Men are so fickle, you see. You need to stack them one upon the other like cord wood to ensure you’ll have enough to heat the night.

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Before 21st-century parents got fussed over their kids getting electronic mail from sketchy men, 18th-century parents got in a lather over their daughters getting letters from “crimping fellows,” period slang for fuckboys. This anxiety ranges far and wide across 18th-century writing, but it finds its apex in Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novels Pamela, the story of a serving girl seduced by her employer, and Clarissa, the story of a bourgeois young lady who is seduced — and then raped — by an aristocratic heir. Suffice to say that neither of these women is looking for their unsuitable suitors to slide into their DMs, and while Pamela ends happily, neither book makes getting letters from men look joyous.

In the eroticized freedom of their young female protagonists, Richardson’s novels warned parents about the dangers of men wielding pens, but just as a parental warning is catnip to the rebellious young, the novels also gave young female readers the delectable taste of autonomy.

Reading fucks with your head. You hear the voice of the writer, rewritten as you’ve rewritten it. Like a projection on a silver screen, you remake meaning, words flicker and fade, reborn in your own image. You thrill to the language, respond with rapid heartbeats and quickened breaths and damp panties. Letters saved until night were, in Richardson’s time, one of the very few private spaces afforded to women, especially young women; these days, messaging that can’t be surveilled operates the same way, for only in unseen spaces can we fancy ourselves the most adult.

“My sweet-eyed blackguard schoolgirl,” wrote James Joyce to Norah Barnacle, “my mistress, as much as you like (my little frigging mistress! my little fucking whore!).” Sprinkle the line with dancing ladies in red and it could be a text message. Thrust into a longer history of writing, Kik sits as a source of seduction as valid as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Letters from the Portuguese, Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus, or Virginia Woolf’s letters to Vita Sackville-West, or Vita’s to Virginia. It’s not to say that an anonymous messaging app isn’t problematic, but it is to say that reading another’s desirous writing holds power, even when it’s sprinkled with emoji.

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Like Craigslist Casual Encounters, Kik extends the erotic promise of anonymity; my Kik photo shows only the lower half of my face, my mouth open as if I’d devour the world. Yet I chose my legal name for my Kik screen name — and my legal name is not my public self, my writing name. Anonymity, to me, is trash; pseudonymity is treasure. I’ve had pseudonyms since college. Back then, I acted under a stage name, and I wrote under a pen name. More than mere pretense, the adoption of other names afforded me the chance to craft my own character. My 20-year-old parents made an identity for me in choosing my legal name (a first and a middle name that shifted vowels and a truncated the names of my two grandmothers), but I could change it. A pocket god, I could remake myself in my own idealized image.

The difference between an anonymous person and a pseudonymous name is that the former exists apart from time and space, while the latter shows the decoupage of time and history. One layer atop another, another glued atop that, more shellacked over those, and with time an anonymous name becomes a pseudonymous person. This transition from anonymity to pseudonym takes the labored cohesion of identity through mindful curation of self. This transition from no one to someone requires time and a visible, even performative, presence.

I know this is how anonymity becomes a self-fashioned identity because I lived it. I started writing anonymously in 2004 under the name chelsea girl; in 2007 I got published and had to refab that embarrassing handle into a legit name, and Chelsea G. Summers was born. These days, I’m more careful about my pen name than I am about my legal name. I do my job under my legal name, but my pen name is my work. And work, more than blood, is life.

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Kik’s pings sounded late into the night while I was in Stockholm. I made some plans, I broke others. I flirted and was flirted with. I texted the code to the electronic door of my AirBnB to a handful of guys. In short, I lavished in the potentially dangerous behavior that Kik makes possible. Though I’m a fully-fledged adult, I still feel the anxiety that wafts around young girls in reach of rapacious adults; it wafts like noxious clouds around us still. Women grow up, often in a hurry, but our sex lives are never free from nannying concern. Using Kik in Sweden made me oddly aware of being both the grownup and the child, both seducer and potential victim, both private adult self and public female symbol. (If I’d been raped and killed in Stockholm, how would the press have identified the victim? By my nothing legal name or my ooh-la-la public pseudonym? The latter makes a better story.)

It’s a tricky thing to glide between multiple names. My passport attests to my legal name — the one I use on Facebook, thus Tinder, thus Kik — but my essential self lives in Chelsea, the sex writer. My challenging legal name (it’s one that television writers give to unlikeable female characters) protects me in part because my legal name is no one. Chelsea G. Summers has 6,000 Twitter followers and gets hate mail from MRAs. Chelsea G. Summers has naked photos on the internet. Chelsea G. Summers has famous friends and misspells “Colette” on portraits painted of her. Renown follows Chelsea G. Summers, but my legal name is a cypher, and thus — strangely — erotic. Fuck me and call out my passport name, but you don’t know the real me.

Kik alleviated the worry that I, the real I, could be traced in hard black, indelible lines in the real world. And while I’m old enough to remember when not only did we all have landlines but also most of us had full phone books listings — including home address — I’m not nostalgic for a pre-digital world. I like the cloak of invisible ones and zeroes hiding my fingerprints in the digital dark.

My Kik profile is still live. Every so often, I get a strange text from a presumable human whose avi is usually ripped from manga. I don’t respond. I don’t care about these men. In Stockholm, I found a Swede to call my own — not Odin’s Thirst Trap, but someone I won’t even nickname for you — and text by text, drip by drip of erasable data, we fumble towards real feelings. He knows my birth name, and he knows my created, writing self, because she and I are symbiotic swimmers, remora and shark.

Twelve years ago, the landlord of 1765 and 1775 Weston Rd in Toronto was sued by his tenants for $250,000 in rent abatements.

Tenants fought for working elevators, properly installed pipes, better lighting and safe electrical wiring. The buildings were owned by the Montreal-based landlord Vincenzo Barrasso and tenants claimed that the buildings’ conditions steadily declined since Barrasso took them over in 2001.

The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), started its journey with this case and has since grown to include over 80,000 members. For the past eight years, ACORN has been fighting to pass a landlord licensing bill, which would instill financial punishments on landlords who don’t maintain their buildings.

The “Multi-Residential Rental Property Licence” bill was approved almost unanimously by the Toronto City Council this past June. Keep in mind that this simply forces city council to move forward on developing a landlord licensing program. In the weeks leading up to the vote however, ACORN enlisted the help of the New York City Housing activist Yale Fox, who founded the watchdog service for New York landlords, Rentlogic. His resolve to hold landlords accountable for maintaining their buildings stems from his own negative rental experience.

In 2013, after taking the landlord of a poorly maintained building to court to retain his deposit, Fox decided that there should be a “Yelp for buildings.” At the time, the city of New York had begun the process of opening its housing data, leading Fox to launch Rentlogic — a rating and review system for rental buildings in New York.

Since 2004, Toronto has been undergoing a similar housing movement, headed by ACORN. Over the first half of 2016, Rentlogic has built out a solution for Toronto renters to keep tenants informed about the city’s different buildings and landlords before they’re signed into unbreakable leases.

Landlordwatch.com launched on May 18th, 2016, giving renters an open platform to see which buildings have undergone city investigations and the number of violations recorded for each site. The platform is powered by Rentlogic and hopes to expand into other Canadian cities in the near future.

“It saves the frustration on the renters’ side but it also puts more pressure on landlords to maintain their buildings. If that vote passes, that means the city will have the funding to go and inspect every building,” Fox said before the vote passed.

It’s important to note however that Landlordwatch.com was created using the data from past building investigations, which currently need to be initiated by each building’s respective regional councillor. Without proper regulation, it was left to councillors to rule on the importance of building inspections. By agreeing to support a landlord licensing program, councillors agree to support a framework for holding landlords accountable.

Fox pulled data made available by the City of Toronto from past investigations to create Landlordwatch.com.

“It’s really hard to know what kind of building you’re living in without the active information. The data is kind of a tell-all…there’s open data everywhere, which is a good first step, but it’s not totally educated or understood.” Fox continued.

He goes on to say that while the city has taken some steps towards opening its data, Toronto is behind other metropolitan regions like New York that have already piloted similar initiatives in the past.

ACORN member Natalie Hundt was present the day Toronto city council decided almost unanimously to move forward with a landlord licensing program. However, she was an active member of ACORN long before that. After receiving a knock on her door from an ACORN representative who described the group’s push for landlord licensing, Hundt could relate.

Hundt joined the group on the spot when asked whether she was frustrated with her apartment and living standards, complaints which she felt had gone unanswered until then. Since that day, she’s been an active member of the group and a leader in the Toronto Chapter.

“We have a lack of accountability because the laws that we have are not strong enough. It’s got to the point where it’s an epidemic and people are suffering… I think the data is helping people see how bad it is,” Hundt said just before rushing into a meeting room at Toronto City Hall.

Landlordwatch currently ranks the 100 worst landlords in the city by the amount of times their buildings have undergone city investigations and how many times the state of their buildings have violated rental standards. It then goes further to consolidate all the investigations and violations collected by each landlord including every Toronto building they own.

Toronto Community Housing comes in number one with 8,339 violations and 1,044 investigations, though it’s important to note that TCH is, by far, the largest landlord in Toronto.

Also on the list are buildings 1765 and 1775 on Weston rd., the building so poorly maintained it prompted tenants to take their landlord to court in 2005. 1765 and 1775 Weston rd. racked up 768 violations in 2015, as recorded by the City of Toronto.

While landlord accountability was front a centre at city hall over the past few months, ACORN isn’t the only organization attempting to bridge the gap between tenants and landlords. Casalova is an example of a Toronto startup that collects data in a similar manner to help renters find a place that fits their needs.

“The Casalova platform handles the entire process from listing the property to delivering the key to the tenant and processing rent payments — no paper trails or post-dated cheques…Casalova’s built-in chat functionality makes it easy to communicate online with each other through the whole process, and tenants can gather feedback from other users by rating and reviewing landlords,” said founder Ray Taaeb in a statement sent to MobileSyrup.

Casalova provides a platform for landlords to list their buildings, for would-be tenants to filter their requests accordingly and most importantly, for tenants and landlords to review each other on the platform for other users to read. This feature was built into Landlordwatch.com, allowing tenants to review their buildings to help others going through the process of deciding where to live. Casalova has also created an end-to-end solution for landlords and tenants to communicate.

“We developed Casalova as an end-to-end rental platform to allow landlords to connect with tenants that match their criteria and vice-versa. After dealing with our own renting frustrations, we knew we had to build a solution that would streamline the process and create efficiencies in an outdated industry,” Casalova founder Ray Taaen said in a statement.

In addition to helping prospective tenants through the rental process however, Casalova also wants to give landlords a leg up. Casalova has built into its program a vetting process for landlords, which allows them to quicken the process of screening potential tenants. Essentially, using the data provided to landlords by prospective tenants as well as data from other sources, Casalova generates a Tenant Risk Score.

Furthermore, the platform offers a Landlord Care Package, which includes a $50 thousand rent guarantee clause for the duration of the lease in case the tenant defaults. Taaeb has also been quoted in articles like the one published by StartupHere when the $50 thousand rent guarantee feature was introduced in April that legislation in Canada is one-sided in favour of delinquent tenants without providing any real protection for landlords.

“We worked with data scientists to develop a proprietary algorithm that acts a strict vetting process for landlords. Looking at a multitude of factors, this allows landlords to evaluate a variety of tenants at once, and screen prospective renters at a quickened pace,” he continued.

While both Landlordwatch.com and Casalova are dependent on the use of data, and the platforms’ functionalities seem fairly similar, there is one fundamental difference. While Landlordwatch.com was developed to help tenants hold landlords accountable, Casalova leans the other way. This raises the question, who needs protection from whom?

According to Ward 38 Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, who has been active in the fight for landlord licensing, data will have a profound impact on the way governments relate to their constituents.

“The magic of the internet is that it allows people access to information they’ve never had before in the history of humanity,” he said De Baeremaeker

He went on to explain that with both the power of the internet and the city’s rental data, renters have been armed with the information to protect themselves as consumers.

“What we want to do is reward landlords who do a good job and punish landlords who do a bad job…It rewards landlords for good behaviour. The landlords who don’t care about the tenants, who really don’t care about the people, should be exposed.” he continued.

Coun. De Baeremaeker insists that good landlords have nothing to fear. He claims that the marketplace can do a better job than the government at monitoring the rental market in Toronto because while councillors can’t be in every building, the internet can be.

He believes that while the data plays a significant role in unearthing relevant information and keeping the public informed, he credits the people behind the movement and progressive-minded councillors for finally winning the 12-year fight.

He acknowledges however that, while it’s not a huge concern, some people are concerned about Landlordwatch.com distorting information or using it unfairly to implicate otherwise responsible landlords. For example, while Toronto Community Housing is number one on the website’s list of government investigated buildings, many don’t know that TCH buildings largely outnumber that of the city’s other landlords — a piece of knowledge that helps readers more accurately interpret the numbers.

Social movements are the backbone of political change. In recent years, as more and more information becomes readily available to anyone with an internet connection, social justice has taken on a slightly different tone.

Two companies — one with its roots in activism and the other knee-deep in entrepreneurship and innovation — have used public data to arrive at different conclusions about the same industry, push vastly different agendas based on this data and solve different problems. The city of Toronto is divided on whether rental data can really be trusted as an informative tool without putting it into proper context.

Data can prove an invaluable partner in anyone’s fight for a better tomorrow, whether it be starting a business or a movement. What’s potentially disturbing about this is that while data can prove a powerful ally, the bias injected into any given excel spreadsheet is often determined by who punched in the numbers.

When the City of Toronto opens its call for public consultation on August 17th, the city will be invited to discuss the living conditions of Toronto’s rental buildings. These community meetings, running in different locations from August 17 through August 31, cite “improving access to information” as being one of their main goals.

After a series of steps, a landlord licensing and enforcement program is forecasted to be implemented in early 2017. Despite the frustrating and often lengthy waits that come with implementing new legislation, seeking public opinion may be the most important step in the city’s official procedures.

Data is as nuanced and complicated as people because people themselves decide when, how, and which numbers should be used. While data is poised to drive the next wave of social change, it’s important to remember that — despite public opinion — the numbers don’t always speak for themselves.

Photo credit: Shaun Merrit

Related reading: I don’t understand Big Data and chances are, neither do you

Was in Hamilton this weekend, and I noticed some changes on Locke St since our last visit to the neighbourhood. Firstly, I see that Steam Whistle Brewery bike repair stations have made it to the Hammer.

Also, it seems that the bikeshare system is a hit, and I noticed some nice enhancements at this station. I like the fact that the advertising on the rack and sign is hyperlocal.

Also, it looks like wayfinding has been added as part of a 100 in 1 day project. This should be done in Toronto.

 

 

I have blogged 500 to 1000 words, every weekday, since March 26, 2015. That spans 387 posts, nearly all of which covered issues of substance. Today, I explain why I do this, how it helps, and what it takes. I did not set out to blog every day. My first post appeared on a Thursday. … Continue reading What I learned from blogging every weekday →

The post What I learned from blogging every weekday appeared first on without bullshit.

This column is from The MagPi issue 48. You can download a PDF of the full issue for free or subscribe to receive the print edition in your mailbox or the digital edition on your tablet. All proceeds from the print and digital editions help the Raspberry Pi Foundation achieve its charitable goals.

As Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, we tend to focus a lot on hardware. When a new or updated board is released, it garners a lot of attention and excitement. On one hand, that’s sensible because Raspberry Pi is a leader in pushing the boundaries of affordable hardware. On the other hand, it tends to overshadow the fact that strong software support makes an enormous contribution to Raspberry Pi’s success in education, hobby, and industrial markets.

Because of that, I want to take the opportunity this month to highlight how important software is for Raspberry Pi. Whether you’re using our computer as a desktop replacement, a project platform, or a learning tool, you depend on an enormous amount of software built on top of the hardware. From the foundation of the Linux kernel, all the way up to the graphical user interface of the application you’re using, you rely on the work of many people who have spent countless hours designing, developing, and testing software.

The look and feel of the desktop environment in Raspbian serves as a good signal of the progress being made to the software made specifically for Raspberry Pi. I encourage you to compare the early versions of Raspbian’s desktop environment to what you get when you download Raspbian today. Many little tweaks are made with each release, and they’ve really built up to make a huge difference in the user experience.

Skin deep

And keep in mind that’s only considering the desktop interface of Raspbian. The improvements to the operating system under the hood go well beyond what you might notice on screen. For Raspberry Pi, there’s been updates for firmware, more functionality, and improved hardware drivers. All of this is in addition to the ongoing improvements to the Linux kernel for all supported platforms.

For those of us who are hobbyists, we have access to so many code libraries contributed by developers, so that we can create things easily with Raspberry Pi in a ton of different programming languages. As you probably know, the power of Raspberry Pi lies in its GPIO pins which make it perfect for physical computing projects, much like the ones you find in the pages of The MagPi. New Python libraries like GPIO Zero make it even easier than ever to explore physical computing. What used to take four lines of code is boiled down to just LED.blink(), for example.

Not all software that helps us was made to run on Raspberry Pi directly. Take, for instance, Etcher, a wonderful program from the team at Resin.io. Etcher is the easiest SD card flasher I have ever used, and takes a lot of guesswork out of flashing SD cards with Raspbian or any other operating system. Those of us who write tutorials are especially happy about this; since Etcher is cross-platform, you don’t need to have a separate set of instructions for people running Windows, Mac, and Linux. In addition, its well-designed graphical interface is a sight for sore eyes, especially for those of us who have been using command line tools for SD card flashing.

The list of amazing software that supports Raspberry Pi could go on for pages, but I only have limited space here. So I’ll leave you with my favourite point about Raspberry Pi’s strong software support. When you get a Raspberry Pi today and download Raspbian, you can rest assured that, because of the rapidly improving software support, it will only get better with age. You certainly can’t say that about everything you buy.

The post Software, the unsung hero appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

The Guardian released a preliminary report prepared by Britain’s Royal Town Planning Institute on the state of planning in Britain, and the need for planners. Sure, this sounds like one of those studies, of course a planning institute will say that planners are needed. But here’s the thing-The Guardian’s  Rowan Moore says a better Britain could be built if planners were given a chance.

“At one time or another, most people will have reason to be grateful to their profession – for mitigating the expansion of a neighbour’s house, for example, or stopping an open-all-hours club opening in their street. We take it for granted that noxious industries can’t pop up in residential areas and that historic buildings and green spaces have some protection. This is due to planning, an area of government that is nonetheless showered with exceptional levels of derision.”

Moore notes that the way planning systems are instituted in municipalities and regions is constantly changing to be speedier, deliver more service, and also to save money. Planning departments are being cut back in budgets, and developers and other governments want less red tape.

As reported by Moore “So it’s not surprising that the overwhelming majority of planners, according to a report to be published this week, believe that they cannot provide the benefits of planning due to the constraints and changes in their jobs. The report argues that reforms of the planning system often don’t work. It challenges the fantasy that, if only the bolts on the planning machine could be loosened enough, private enterprise would achieve the abundant flow of new housing that the country desires. It argues that there are economic costs to inadequate planning, such as uncertainty and the cost of poor decisions.”

Planning at a municipal and regional level can confirm livability and accessibility through planning that private developers cannot. The article cites Brindleyplace in Birmingham, where 12,000 jobs are now based, and Cranbrook in Devon, which may provide 7,500 homes.

 

“When building a kitchen, you don’t just plonk down a stove, sink and fridge and hope that they will end up in the right relationship to each other. You plan them. This gets more true as projects get larger and as space for building gets more scarce and precious, as is happening in Britain now.”

Both Britain and British Columbia are looking at how to provide affordable housing, create jobs, provide good accessibility and public transit, and create lively, sustainable communities. In British Columbia, there is pressure to cut red tape at municipalities so that buildings can be produced quicker, faster and cheaper. But is creating more buildings the answer to creating cohesive, connected communities? Can we really construct our way to housing affordability, enhanced public transportation, and better places to live without a consolidated comprehensive overview? Is it too late?

Screengrab via

For good or ill Blade Runner 2 is in the Hollywood pipeline. Whether it will sour or compliment the sci-fi classic, we'll have to wait until October 2017 to find out. Philip K. Dick certainly didn't write a sequel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (although somebody else did), but the film does have Harrison Ford on board, Sicario director Denis Villeneuve, Ryan Gosling, and regular Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins. Plus Ridley Scott, who's producing, has already shared his vision for the opening which sounds interesting. And EW have reported that it's set a couple of decades after the original, with L.A. in an even worse state than it was before. 

While fans await that with cynicism and bated breath, the original is never far from any sci-fi filmmaker's (or any filmmaker's) mind. Tokyo-based CGI studio Reelvision have created a homage to Scott's vision of Los Angeles c. 2019 (by way of Toyko's red light district, Hong Kong, and Syd Mead's Heavy Metal magazine/Moebius-inspired artwork). Called Tears in Rain: Homage to Blade Runner it was shot in Tokyo and has flying cars, giant imposing hologram ads, towering skyscrapers, and lots of visual motifs from the film—plus a Vangelis-style soundtrack by echoes-breath. All of this, mixed in with footage of people and cars going about their business against the backdrop of Tokyo's skyline.

From the Instagram account @BladeRunnerReality which uploads photos of real-world locations that look like the production design of the film, to your own Blade Runner visions when walking through a city, to homages like this, turning real-world locations into scenes from Scott's movie is almost an industry in itself. 

It's testament to how immersed in our cultural DNA the movie is, that reality is itself becoming a Blade Runner clone. Perhaps this was Philip K. Dick's dastardly plan all along. 

Visit Reelvision's website here.

Related

'Blade Runner' Meets 'Bullit' in Trailer for Indie Sci-Fi Epic

Somebody Analyzed All the Typography in 'Blade Runner,' and It’s Epic

Stanley Kubrick's Special Effects Guy Helped Make This Indie Sci-Fi Thriller Possible

Apple will release three new iPad models, lead by a new 10.5-inch iPad Pro model and a “low cost” 9.7-inch model, in 2017, according to noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

“We expect three new iPads (12.9″ iPad Pro 2, new size 10.5″ iPad Pro & low-cost 9.7″ iPad) to be launched in 2017, though this may not drive shipment growth amid structural headwinds,” says Kuo in a report obtained by MacRumors.

Noting a continued downturn in the tablet market, Kuo adds, “As a result, we expect Apple to launch a 10.5-inch iPad Pro in 2017. In addition, we estimate the 12.9-inch iPad Pro 2 and 10.5-inch iPad Pro will adopt the A10X processor, with TSMC being the sole supplier using 10nm process technology. The low-cost 9.7-inch model may adopt the A9X processor, which is also exclusively supplied by TSMC.

He does not mention whether Apple will release an iPad Mini 4 successor, which, while surprising at first blush, makes a lot of sense. As MacRumors notes, given the existence of the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus and large phones in general, demand for Apple’s smallest tablet has likely weakened since it was first introduced in 2012. With that in mind, Apple may have made the decision to start phasing out the model in favour of its larger siblings.

Moving into 2018, Kuo says he expects a major revamp of the company’s entire iPad lineup. According to the analyst, Apple will commit to a “radical form factor” redesign in part thanks to the company’s planned adoption of AMOLED displays across its entire lineup of mobile devices.

From The Sun op-ed page:

 

PT: I have argued that undertaking a city-wide plan- except for the most general policy purposes – is futile: too ambitious, too expensive, easily frustrated – especially if it is actually meant to provide specific zoning changes for every neighbourhood, with the intent to make spot rezonings, and hence CACs, unnecessary.  

However, this is one city-wide debate that Gordon touches on that is necessary:

… whether to revise the CityPlan policy to preserve 70 per cent of the city’s residential areas for low-density housing

Let’s start there: an agreed-upon statement that there will be a substantial change of scale and hence character to many if not most of the neighbourhoods in this city.

If we could achieve first-principle agreement on that most contentious item, then we could move on to how it could actually be implemented on the ground.  Without that consensus, we would never “rise above the neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood battles.”

Any attempt to use a CityPlan mechanism to sidestep this issue will either end fruitlessly or devolve to the most general statements of intent.  Good intentions without substance.

Just days ago, stirrings regarding what could be a new Google operating system began to suface. While no one knew for sure, a page had  been discovered on the code-sharing website GitHub outlining the new OS, Fuchsia.

This new OS appears unrelated to Android and doesn’t build on the foundation of the Linux kernel. The lack of an official announcement from Google suggests that this is an early-stage project.

This story was first reported by Android Police on Friday, August 12th, which suggested that the Linux kernel isn’t ideal for every OS, including embedded devices like car dashboards or GPS units. Android Police speculates that Google could treat Fuchsia as a lightweight OS used on hardware not designed for full-blown Android.

The GitHub page where remnants of Fuchsia were first discovered offers short and stark tidbits of information, including a confirmation in the headline that it’s intended to be a new OS. Furthermore, the GitHub page reveals that rather than the Linux kernel, Fuchsia will likely be built on the Magenta kernel, which is more suited to embedded devices.

Lastly, the page appears to have three users. These include Christopher Anderson, a senior systems software engineer specializing in embedded devices at Google, Brian Swetland, a senior staff software engineer at Google that worked as an Android kernel engineer at Google until 2014, and Travis Geiselbrecht, a senior software engineer working on embedded OS at Google.

It’s important to keep in mind that with a lack of finite details or any information from Google, there’s no way of knowing whether this is simply a short-term project or of it will eventually be built out for use by the public.

Related reading: Android users may no longer need a Google+ profile to review Play Store apps

Bute and West Hastings, at the Cielo condo tower and restaurant.

Delta Land Development president Bruce Langereis gave artist Al McWilliams a rare directive regarding passersby when he commissioned a public sculpture to stand beside his firm’s $100-million Cielo tower at Hastings and Bute Street.

“I asked him to generate the looks folk would give if a couple was having sex there,” Langereis said Monday.

McWilliams responded with two 1.6metre-diameter golden spheres mounted atop a five-metre plinth that some may take to be the world’s biggest licorice allsort or a stack of monster ice-cream sandwiches.

A retort-like tube projecting from each 24K-gold-coated sphere echoes MarsVenus, male-female astronomical symbols.  (Thanks to Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun, 2008)

Normally, I can only take so much art-speak, but this artist statement by Al McWilliams, makes good sense to me.  Make of the differences to the developer’s words (above) what you will.

From the artist’s statement (thanks to ipernity.com):

“The ambition was to place an autonomous work into the chaos of downtown, with its traffic lights, signage, newspaper boxes, street lamps and traffic, that could sit independently from all of that – an anomalous and allusive object that would create its own context and exist on its own terms amidst the downtown swirl and still belong, while strongly suggesting otherness. In other words to be both part of yet separate from the surrounding architectural reality.

The references are many yet suggest nothing to anchor the sculpture into a specific interpretation. The black and white bands of stone may recall 12th century Italian church architecture. The gold leafed spheres with the projecting necks are suggestive of the retorts of the medieval alchemists whose putative ambition was to transmute lead into gold. The gold forms also suggest the popular symbols of the male and female.

In addition the tower or column elevates the gold objects and, by making them inaccessible, enhances their mystery. Resting lightly on the column in spite of their considerable mass, the scale and precarious position of the spheres imply the possibility of arrival from some unknown place and time to briefly alight before moving on – a suggestion of a mind or consciousness, of the anthropomorphic? Or the kinetic potential of a bird that briefly alights on a rooftop before flying on.

The placing of real gold – which one usually finds in the sanctity of the church, in museums, or bank vaults – into the public realm is a means of acknowledging that there can be riches for public pleasure, treasure above ground for the eye to see and the spirit to ponder; a recognition that public art is, in every sense, an honouring of and a gifting to the community.”

One person taking a few minutes to park the Mobi and check up on the virtual world; another strolling with the baby. In one of the loveliest and busiest places in Vancouver.

Google’s forthcoming Nexus devices, which were confirmed to be HTC-made by a recent FCC filing, were subject to a battle of the leaks over the weekend, beginning with a photo of one the devices that emerged from an anonymous Twitter account.

The photo shows a glossy black phone with rounded edges, “glass and fingerprint scanner on the back.”

The account also tweeted that there were two devices: a premium device shown in the tweet, and one “glossy plastic (lower end),” adding, “Both looked like smaller devices <5.5 inch screens.”

The 2016 HTC Nexus looks like a cross between the Nexus 4 & iPhone with glass and fingerprint scanner on the back. pic.twitter.com/7pm9fhszki

— nexus (@usbfl) August 14, 2016

Shortly thereafter, Android Police, the publication that has been the most prolific in sharing leaks of Marlin and Sailfish, went live with their own photos of the Sailfish, the smaller of two devices. The smartphone shown in the website’s photos shares the same design as the render it shared in early July.

The photo shows a black device with rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, a volume rocker and power button on the side and no forward-facing hardware buttons. Most notably, it also shows that the glossy portion only extends across the top half of the back of the phone, around the fingerprint sensor. The rest is matte metal. Returning to the initial leak, a close look will reveal the same.

Android Police goes on to report that apart from a difference in size — Marlin will reportedly have a 5.5-inch display, while Sailfish will have a 5-inch one — both devices will share the “same basic industrial design and materials. There is no ‘plastic’ phone between the two.”

The publication also says that according to its sources, the handsets will have identical specs apart from screen size, resolution and battery capacity.

Android Police also commented on the secondary tweet from the user, stating that the leakster likely mistook another “glossy plastic” device that they didn’t recognize as a Nexus.

The leaker, in turn, later responded on Twitter that it was possible that the handset mentioned was a prototype and would not be released as a Nexus. They added that they believed Android Police‘s metallic Nexus isn’t the final design, as the device in their picture had a full glass back — though many Twitter users are saying it’s possible to see the dividing line in the leakster’s photo.

I believe @AndroidPolice's [metallic] Nexus isn't of the final design. The Nexus in my picture had a full glass back.

— nexus (@usbfl) August 15, 2016

Only time will tell whether Android Police or the new kid on the block are correct. The Nexus devices are expected to release this fall, with one publication claiming October 4th, specifically, will be the date.

Related: HTC Nexus Sailfish specs leaks reveal Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM

The pendulum swings, as we engage in fractious debate about how we change Vancouver’s Arbutus Corridor from an unused 9-km railroad into a multi-use treasure for future generations. So far, the “we love gravel, let’s not change much of anything” crowd has won the day.

Mark Battersby, a Kitsilano resident who protested the paving, said his group was mainly against the project because it was proceeding without consultation. He is concerned that plants like blackberry bushes were being cut back and the berries made inaccessible, and that cyclists would go too fast on the paved path. [Thanks to Metronews.ca for the quote]

But now come other voices, that start to represent more of the citizens of Vancouver. And it gives a glimpse of the difficulty faced by City staff and elected officials when planning things.  There are plenty of competing interests, and none of them has a veto.

Since the City fought for decades, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, to make sure we got a 42-acre transportation corridor for all its citizens, how do we do this?  Does it make sense to simply rip out the rails and then leave things as they are, or should we find a way to let all potential users of this transportation corridor have a chance to see what it is, and envision how they’d like it to be?

Here’s a compelling voice:  SG Peters’ blog, in an open letter to Council called “The Public Part of Public Space”.  The author writes from the point of view of accessibility, with wit and precision. How, wonders the author, can the broad public assess the Arbutus Corridor’s potential unless everyone can actually use it. How can the design incorporate ideas and issues involved in getting to it, onto it and riding it for someone excluded due to accessibility challenges?  You could say the same about many other points of view, for that matter.

I am going to assume Mr. Battersby did not mean to suggest otherwise but, just to be certain we are all clear – my rights as a human being should supersede those of a berry bush. . . .

. . .  But this isn’t really a plant problem; it is a people problem, presented under the guise of being a nature problem.

It comes down to how you imagine public space, which in turn comes down to who you include in the word public.

If you do not see me as having the same right to access public space as anyone else then you can come up with any number of reasonable-sounding excuses for excluding me. If you believe I have the same rights as you do, then you may get creative about how to improve a space but you will not suggest sacrificing accessibility to do so. . . .

. . .  And while I think railway lines can be quite beautiful, I don’t think they qualify as a nature preserve, particularly when running through the centre of one of Canada’s largest cities . . .

. . .  Sentimentality aside, we are talking about making an area already developed by humans of a previous era more useful and accessible to people in this era.

Of course aesthetics and berry bushes are important concerns, the question is where they sit in the hierarchy of considerations.

The same can be said for many potential corridor users from the broad public.  Those who walk, run or ride; those who move quickly, those who don’t; those who want to sit and enjoy the views and the passing parade; those who want rails, those who don’t; those who have places to be and errands to run; and yes, those who want to pick berries or garden.

And I’m sure I’ve missed some group or another — but let’s not presume a veto-toting hierarchy based on organized yelling and exclusionary thinking.  Let’s let everyone try out the Corridor, and then let’s design something wonderful for future generations through many decades to come.

Castro 2 from Supertop demonstrates that there is still plenty of room for innovation in podcast apps. Although every podcast app starts with the goal of helping listeners find and play podcasts, the path each app takes varies as widely as the listening habits of users.

Castro 2 eliminates much of the complexity of other podcast apps by focusing on a single podcast queue. The result is a focused listening experience that emphasizes episodes over shows, playlists, or feeds. It's not an approach that will appeal to everyone, but if you find yourself looking for a simpler way to manage podcasts, or listening to some, but not all, episodes of shows, Castro is worth considering.

At the heart of Castro is its queue, an easily managed list of just the shows you want to listen to, in whatever order you choose. To understand how the queue works, first you need some podcasts.

Importing podcast feeds into Castro.

Castro makes the process of importing shows you subscribe to easy with clear instructions for exporting podcast subscriptions from Overcast, Apple Podcasts, and other apps using a share extension that copies your podcast feeds into Castro. The other way to add podcasts to Castro is from its Discover tab. From the search field, you can search for the name or creator of any podcast. Castro also includes the top charts for each podcast category in the Apple Podcasts app. These categories are a nice addition for people who are new to podcasts, but I suspect that the majority of users who are willing to pay for a third-party app like Castro are probably already podcast listeners and may not find these lists useful.

Castro's Discover tab includes search and iTunes' Top Charts.

After adding your podcast subscriptions to Castro, it's time to start queueing them up. A good place to start is the Inbox tab. Along the top is a series of show art icons that display the number of new episodes in your inbox and can be used to filter episodes by show. Below that is a chronological list of episodes with a summary of each. If the summary isn't enough to help you decide if you want to add an episode to your queue, tapping the disclosure indicator on the right side of the cell displays the full description and show notes.

Castro's inbox collects every new episode of your podcasts.

Tapping on any episode in the Inbox reveals four icons. The first is a play icon that immediately adds the episode to the top of your queue and starts streaming it while it downloads. The next two icons add episodes to the top or bottom of your queue with a delightful animation that makes it clear where you sent the episode. After an episode is in your queue, it begins to download immediately. The final button moves the episode to the Archive, which I discuss below.

Castro's animations are practical and fun. (Thanks for the GIF Graham!)

The Inbox is not, however, the only way to move episodes to your queue. You can do so from any list of episodes in Castro or by tapping on show art, which opens a detail view for a particular show. Each show's detail view has its own settings, from which you can choose to automatically send new episodes to the Inbox (the default), to the top or bottom of your queue, or to the Archive.

All of the episodes you have queued appear under the Queue tab where you can refine the playback order by using the drag handles next to each episode. If you press the play icon at the bottom of the screen, the first episode in your queue will play. Tapping on an episode reveals three icons, a play button, an archive button, and a star button. If you tap play for an episode that is not at the top of your queue, it immediately jumps to the top and begins playing. Tapping the archive button removes the episode from your queue and sends it to your archive. The star button marks an episode as a favorite, which makes it easier to find for re-listening or sharing later.

You can add episodes from any list and even automate the process.

The playback controls at the bottom of the screen can be expanded by tapping the disclosure indicator, which gives you access to a sleep timer with multiple time increments, a playback speed control with several settings, episode and title information, and a scrubber for moving through an episode. There is also a share button for sharing the episode with a special castro.fm URL that opens an episode in Castro if the app installed on the recipient's iPhone or on a webpage with playback controls if Castro isn't installed.

The final main tab of Castro is the Archive tab, which seems like a bit of a misnomer. It is an archive of past shows you've listened to, but it also includes shows you've marked with a star, all the shows in your Inbox, ones you are currently listening to in your queue, and past episodes of the show. I found this a little confusing at first because I was expecting a list comprised of just the shows I had listened to or moved to the archive, but if you think of the Archive as something more akin to the 'All Mail' view in an app like Apple Mail, it makes more sense.

The Archive tab includes starred episodes and your listening history.

Castro also has an excellent Night Mode that is reminiscent of the dark themes in Supertop's RSS reader, Unread. Night Mode can be turned on in Castro's setting or anywhere in the app by swiping down with two fingers, just like Tweetbot. When you turn on Night Mode, there is a fun animation that makes it look like a window shade is being pulled down.

Dark Mode.

Castro is well-executed, but there are few things that I hope are addressed in future versions. The first is that I would like an iPad version. I don't listen to podcasts on my iPad often, but I know people who do, especially on the iPad Pro, which has fantastic speakers that make it a great option if you listen to shows with someone else.

There is scrolling text with the episode name and show information on the play screen, but no show art, which make it hard to quickly identify what you are listening to. Elsewhere in Castro, show art is limited to small images that can make it hard to distinguish shows from each other. The play screen seems like a natural place to add large show art.

Castro's show art is smaller than I like.

More room should also be allotted to episode and show names in the playback view. The horizontal space for both is about half the width of my 6s Plus in portrait and only about a third of the space in landscape, which means most episode titles and show names scroll horizontally, which wouldn't be necessary as often if they were given more room.

Pocket Casts' recent update added trim silence and volume boosting features similar to Overcast's Smart Speed and Voice Boost. It's worth noting that Castro does not include equivalent features. Speeding up and slowing down playback worked well in my tests of Castro, but it does so at a constant rate, whereas Overcast and Pocket Casts reduce silences proportionately, which sounds more natural. Castro does not support chapters either.

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Podcast management is hard if you listen to a lot of shows. Castro's episode-focused approach works especially well if you find yourself not wanting to, or without the time to, listen to every episode of each show. By adding some shows to the top or bottom of your queue automatically and moving others there manually, it is possible to strike a nice balance between automation and curation that fits most listening styles without maintaining multiple playlists based on complex rules.

Whether Castro is the right podcast player for you depends on your own listening habits and 'must-have' features. What Castro lacks in features in comparison to Overcast and Pocket Casts, it makes up for in ease of use and an elegant design. I won't be switching from Overcast personally, primarily because of Smart Speed, but I have enjoyed using Castro over the past ten days and am considering using it in tandem with Overcast for secondary and one-off podcast episodes because it is so easy to comb through episodes quickly and create an on-the-fly queue.

Castro 2 is available on the App Store for $4.99.

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Iain said this in an interview the other week:

"I guess the dark art is how to influence people to do what’s right, but let them feel like it’s all their idea."

This is a skill you have to learn if you want to get your ideas into the advertising process and you're not an official 'creative'. Your ideas are very welcome as long as no-one knows they're yours.

A good way to do it is described in this story about Angelo Dundee:

"Leaders of all kinds, whether or not they read social science, are alert to the power of making certain abilities and characteristics salient. Angelo Dundee, perhaps the best boxing trainer of all time, had the difficult task of training Muhammed Ali, who did not exactly like to take direction. But Dundee had a brilliant trick: “Every now and then I’d subtly suggest some move or other,” he explained, “couching it as if it were something he was already doing.” For example: “‘My gosh, you threw a tremendous uppercut. That was beautiful!’ But he had never thrown an uppercut.”

 

With the final release of Android 7.0 Nougat rumored to arrive sometime this month and Google preparing for the unveiling of the new Nexus handsets, the hype around the HTC-built Nexus devices is slow reaching its peak. Continue reading →

Tami Reller, the chief marketing officer and chief financial officer of the Windows division, on the Desktop:

“We started talking about the desktop as an app. But in reality, for PC buyers, the desktop is important.”

Microsoft presented the Desktop as "just another app" before Windows 8's release. I was never convinced. But the problem with Windows 8's Desktop wasn't a matter of semantics. After all, it's unquestionably a better Desktop than Windows 7's. That despite being a menu short. And that menu is coming back anyway. Well, sort of. As a button. 

My immediate reaction was that this is less of a solution and more of a (another) compromise. Critics routinely refer to the popularity of start menu replacements to justify re-introducing the Start menu. These third-party extensions' utility effectively allows users to bypass the Start screen. This suggests a convenient shortcut to the Start screen isn't the fundamental need they address. 

Windows 8's Desktop problem isn't the absence of a familiar interface element, but the need to leave the Desktop when launching (unpinned) apps or searching. Even if Windows Blue allows you to boot straight into the Desktop, that would result in only one less Start screen visit. Not exactly a measurable improvement. However the addition is not without merit, albeit for different reasons.

Windows 8 did a lousy job in educating previous Windows users on what the Start screen represents. There's no discernible link between it and the Start menu it was replacing. This causes users' conceptual model of Windows 8 being inconsistent. Some may consider the Start screen as a Start menu replacement. Others may think of it as a Desktop replacement. The re-introduction of the Start button externalises the Start screen's purpose and role and thereby educates users in a manner that a hot corner is inherently incapable of. 

Although I fail to see how adding a shortcut button translates to Microsoft acknowledging the importance of the Desktop, it does show they're willing to let go of the idea that the Desktop is an app. By breaking convention they've conceded the Desktop is different, if not important. 

Perhaps more significantly, it's further evidence that Microsoft is losing confidence in the effectiveness of hot corners to communicate actions. Moves have already been made in first-party Metro app updates that can be interpreted as Microsoft conceding Windows 8 Charm's lack discoverability; changes evident in Windows Blue leaks reinforce this idea. 

However nothing hitherto suggests Blue's Desktop addresses this deficiency. And that's surprising because if Microsoft genuinely considers the Desktop to be an entity of its own as of Blue, then I would expect its Charms to be more discoverable. For the Desktop to be the natural exception to the rule. It once was. Maybe it will be again.

starwars:

Today we lost a dear friend. We’ll miss you, Kenny Baker.

Jordan Gill, CBC News, Aug 17, 2016

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This is the problem that needs to be solved. "One of the inspirations behind the project was seeing many of his friend having to continue living like students, even with professional jobs," according to this article. "You find out that the government's charging you, you know, $6-7 a day interest, and that money doesn't even go to the schools, or the teachers that taught you ... it just goes to banks." We need to get the cost of education to zero, or as near zero as humanly possible. No, it doesn't solve every problem. But it solves some big ones.

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grace perry @perryjetaime
I found this explanation of the deep web two weeks ago and have not stopped laughing since pic.twitter.com/iwBwGdcZcX