Rolandt

While in self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, I am keeping a daily diary—to pass the time and record moments and experiences during this unusual time.

How Cycling Can Change the Look and Feel of Toronto and How Covid 19 May be Pointing the Way 

Post Date: Thursday July 3, 2020 

We are becoming a biking city almost in spite of ourselves. There have never been so many of us on bikes. Bike sales have outstripped supplies; bike stores can’t keep up with the demand and bike share is expanding its territory into the inner suburbs. But we are still in early stages of making it safe and comfortable for many users. We have inherited streets designed essentially for moving cars, and while we have a growing number of bike lanes and off-street trails, they are still sparse, relatively few and far between. We have been timid thus far but can we now see an image on the horizon of a different city propelled by Covid-19which is bike friendly? Is this a mirage or a growing reality? Can we make the change more quickly and more nimbly? 

Covid-19 has shone a light on what is working and what is not in many areas, and has raised the ante. As restrictions begin to be lifted, Toronto is joining the dozens of cities around the world – Berlin, Bogota, New York, Paris, Oakland, Milan, Vilnius, Vancouver, Calgary to name just a few - that are rapidly expanding networks of safe ways to move around the city during the pandemic, turning over hundreds of kilometers of traffic lanes and in many cases entire streets to pedestrians and cyclists.

This shift is both an answer to the practical need for new ways of navigating the city on foot and by bike to get to work and essential shopping and also a way of addressing the insatiable desire to be outdoors while respecting physical distancing. A new form of ‘Emergency Urbanism’ is revealing the promise of what could be. A slow march has become a quick step as improvised ‘pilots’ expand the realm of the possible, testing hard-wired assumptions  about what works. As this happens, this response is revealing an entirely new way of using the city laced by interconnected bike lanes. 

This response is a powerful demonstration of city resilience, providing essential choices and work-arounds in a moment of crisis but also pointing the way to adaptations that have great potential to become permanent. As we experience the change, the momentum is unlikely to be reversed. Toronto has been slow off the mark but this can also be the city’s opportunity to boldly join the parade.  

This ‘improvised’ shift is dramatically accelerating a movement that was already underway. Toronto is evolving into a great and densely populated city. It has a wide range of existing parks and trails including the Martin Goodman Trail across the waterfront, trails in the ravines and river valleys, and a limited number of protected on street bike lanes.  What we are still missing, however, is a fully interconnected city-wide network for real transportation as well as for recreation. 

This Covid-19 crisis has put a premium on public spaces where people of all ages can get out and participate in active pastimes, simply walking and cycling, making these health-promoting activities part of their daily life routines. As things open up we will need safer alternative ways for cyclists and pedestrians to get to work, school or shopping. 

Many potential users who do not currently feel safe are being encouraged to use these expanded networks, not just during the summer months but all year around, as we see in the Nordic countries, for daily travel throughout the city as they find themselves less hemmed into narrow sidewalks and unprotected lanes by speeding traffic.  This is not to replace public transit, which will remain a vital necessity, but to supplement it. 

We are moving in Toronto from intermittent links to a more robust network, to an increasing number of protected lanes. It is a progression and with each addition our mental maps of the city of the city are changing as the balance shifts from no protection for cyclists squeezed against fast moving traffic…

…to ‘sharrows’, a faint painted signal of recognition but still ambiguous and providing a false sense of security… 

…to narrow or wider painted lines – a little better but still vulnerable, too easy for vehicles to cross or block with vehicles parked or stopped in lanes forcing cyclists out into moving traffic…

 …to Covid inspired “Quiet Streets”; throughout the neighbourhoods on smaller streets… 

…to clearly identified contraflow lanes on residential streets…

… to more emphatic painting identifying bike lanes to make it clear that we have rules for sharing, messaging to drivers to slow down and pay attention, to cyclists and cyclists to ride safely…

  …to physical separation in the form of pickets and lanes inside a row of parked cars… 

 …to raised curbs and planters…

… to wider lanes, with designated left turns at the crosswalks and traffic lights with cyclist signals… 

…to a new generation of integrated design with all users and movements accommodated in a completely blended shared street.

So far the redesign of Queens Quay is the exception that proves the rule even as its growing pains are being acknowledged and corrected. 

Then there are those euphoric and exhilarating moments when an entire street is liberated from vehicular traffic and the surrounding city can be appreciated in an entirely new way, encouraging many riders who do not currently feel safe cycling in the city to come out. 

As these interventions proliferate, we are getting glimpses of what the city could be like. The experience of cycling (and walking) goes from one of anxiety to a sense of ease and security – slower heartbeat, more enjoyment of surroundings. As more people are induced to get on bikes to try it and feel safe, the city itself feels and becomes different. The change is palpable, perceived distances shrink, getting from place to place becomes intuitive. Through a Vision Zero lens the city becomes immeasurably safer for all users of all generations. And perhaps counter-intuitively for those who still need to drive, the greater the success of the network of SAFEWAYS, the more they benefit by freeing up space in the rights-of-way as more people use them and get out of their cars. 

 Step by step, and accelerated by Covid, we are moving form isolated fragments to forging connections and moving slowly closer to the holy grail of a fully connected network where there is no need to worry about how to safely make the next connection to get from A to B throughout the city. Amsterdam and Copenhagen are the gold standard thus far. 

In our case five organizations have come together to produce an online community map of Toronto ‘SAFEWAYS’ tracking the evolution of our own emerging network.  In a great display of community collaboration, these five Toronto-based organizations dedicated to improving and enhancing the city’s public realm have come together to advocate for safe and viable ways for Torontonians to navigate our city on foot and by active transportation. The initiative, led by Cycle Toronto, Walk Toronto, The Bentway, Park People and Spacing Magazine, illustrates our emerging network of bike lanes, multi-use trails, parks and ActiveTO closures for recreational and commuting purposes. These SAFEWAYS are both a critical response to the current moment and hold the key to a safe and sustainable post-Covid Future. This is what it looks like so far.

The digital work in progress map serves 2 purposes. It helps Torontonians access and use the SAFEWAYS we now have.  It also sets the stage for what comes next, a new way of navigating the city as we continue to grow and complete the network not just downtown but throughout the city. The map is not about an end state but a beginning, to provide encouragement for further additions and improvements.  

In this period of Covid 19 we have come to understand that this network of SAFEWAYS is not a frill or a non-essential “nice to have”.  We were already in the midst of a public health crisis, exacerbated by sedentary lifestyles where an overreliance on the automobile and a tendency to spend long hours in front of screens has produced an epidemic of obesity as well as increases of diabetes and heart disease — especially alarming among children. This current situation has reinforced that need. A generously endowed and welcoming network of public SAFEWAYS provides a vital service and offers significant benefits for public health both physically and mentally.  

 The pattern of SAFEWAYS we have now is still fragmented and piecemeal, and parts of the city, particularly the inner suburbs, are not yet well served.  There is now an opportunity to build on the momentum to develop a unique made-in-Toronto solution combining both on street and off street components, our unique ravine system with trail connections, and our vast network of over 2,400 laneways, which, combined, extend for more than 250 kilometres. Our future success depends on resourcefully exploiting these arteries and veins, which can be stitched together with hydro corridors, rail lines, stormwater management systems, flood-proofing plans, and related transportation initiatives, to address many of the city’s current deficiencies. 

 By transforming these underutilized spaces more creatively we create opportunities to link existing and new green spaces into continuous interconnected webs. The entire city has the potential to become more park-like, green, and connected for people on foot and on bicycle. There has been a dramatic and noticeable impact on the environment. The air is cleaner, nature is more evident, and we can hear sounds of city life that were drowned out by traffic. What we are seeing and feeling intermittently with the temporary closings on Bayview and Lakeshore Boulevard, is a vivid demonstration of how all ages including children and seniors are encouraged to experience these safe spaces on their bikes. 

 The entire city will benefit as it becomes more connected for people of all abilities and ages on foot and on bicycle, fostering residents’ ability to move around relatively freely and experience more of the city, in ways that break down perceived barriers between neighbourhoods and districts as flows become more continuous. With time, the examples of connection that we are creating ‘on the fly’ today must become the rule. 

Can this pandemic show the way to a city laced with connected ‘Greenways’

 Post Date: Thursday May 6, 2020 

 As the weather turns and restrictions begin to be lifted dozens of cities around the world from Berlin to Bogota, New York, Paris, Oakland, Milan and Vilnius, Vancouver, Calgary and, Brampton are responding to an irrepressible demand for safe outdoor space by rapidly turning over traffic lanes and in many cases entire streets to pedestrians and cyclists. This is both an answer for the desire to be outdoors while respecting physical distancing but also to addressing the practical need for new ways of moving around the city on foot and by bike to get to work and essential shopping. As this happens this response is revealing an entirely new way of seeing and using the city laced by interconnected “greenways” and as we experience the change, the momentum is unlikely to be reversed. We have been slow off the mark but this can also be Toronto’s opportunity to boldly join the parade.  

 This ‘improvised’ shift is dramatically accelerating a movement that was already underway. On the one hand, an increasing desire for urban living was leading to a greater need for shared public space. Meeting this need in traditional ways was thwarted by high land costs for acquiring traditional parks. The need for more space was accompanied by a change in how we use that public space and the kinds of experiences we seek, more fluid and interconnected, leading to new forms like linear “greenways” reflecting the shift from auto-dependent lifestyles to active movement — cycling and walking.

 In the process, we were already moving from seeing public space as interconnected webs or networks. Coved 19 has now raised the ante.  It begs the question of what our next public spaces will be as we continue to evolve into a great and densely populated city. Toronto has a wide range of existing parks, from expansive legacy parks, like the Toronto Islands and High Park, more intimate neighbourhood parks like Trinity Bellwoods, gardens and historic squares like Victoria Memorial Square, natural waterfront parks like the Eastern Beaches and Western Beaches, as well as a vast array of neighbourhood parks, some sixteen hundred, in fact. 

 We have also had a brilliant new round of renewal of existing parks, and creation of new ones, is underway in some areas. There is now a refurbished Grange Park behind the Art Gallery of Ontario with unique children’s play structures, and Berczy Park with its crowd-pleasing dog-inspired fountains; recent additions along the waterfront include Sugar Beach, with a sand beach and sturdy pink beach umbrellas; Sherbourne Common with its water filtration artworks; Corktown Common with a working wetlands; and Trillium Park with its cave like rock formations. And at the other end of the size spectrum, there is the new Rouge Park, the country’s largest urban national park, and the new sixteen-kilometre Meadoway, which utilizes a Hydro corridor to link Rouge Park to the Don Valley. 

 These new park spaces, however, even combined with existing parks, don’t even come close to fully meeting the city’s growing need, as the growing population is creating a Toronto that is literally bursting at the seams. A key demand of city residents, expressed over and over in community meetings about intensifying development, is the call for more and improved open space as part of an expanded public realm. 

 This has been our dilemma. How can Toronto get ahead of the intense development curve to shape a dynamic and growing city around a forward-looking program for expanding the public realm? The current moment offers some clues. It is not only about the quantity of public open space — in conventional planning terms, we have been focused on the square metres of parkland per inhabitant within a given radius — and while this is important, it is actually more important to focus on the quality and usefulness of that space and how it enhances our lives.

 We are now seeing dramatically how public space is not a frill or a non-essential “nice to have.” A generously endowed and welcoming network of public space offers significant benefits to public health, both physically and mentally. We were already in the midst of a public health crisis, exacerbated by sedentary lifestyles where an overreliance on the automobile and a tendency to spend long hours in front of screens has produced an epidemic of obesity as well as increases of diabetes and heart disease — especially alarming among children. This put a premium on public spaces where people of all ages can get out and participate in active pastimes, from simply walking and cycling to a whole range of year-round sports and athletic activities close to where they live and work, making these health-promoting activities part of their daily life routines.

 By transforming our underutilized spaces more creatively we create opportunities to link existing and new green spaces into continuous interconnected webs — linear greenways formed not just by conventional parks, but also trails and “green streets” of all scales. Our future success depends on us exploiting these arteries and veins, which can be stitched together utilizing our currently unsung hidden-in-plain-sight ravines, hydro corridors, and laneways. This stitching may be the key to our own genius loci in the public realm.

 Toronto’s vast network of laneways offers another huge potential. There are over 2,400 laneways, which, combined, extend for more than 250 kilometres in length. In terms of area, the laneways occupy over 250 acres, an area more than half the size of High Park. More significantly, this mid-block network penetrates many of the city’s neighbourhoods, providing the potential for an intimate network of open public space, pedestrian and cycle routes, and extremely valuable land for housing, studios, workshops, and service spaces. 

 Putting together all these pieces — laneways, street redesign, ravines, hydro corridors, rail lines, stormwater management systems, flood-proofing plans, and transportation initiatives, a vastly expanded public realm can emerge, one that addresses many of the city’s current deficiencies. This new realm will be different, both in scale and kind. Rather than discrete public spaces carved out of a grid of street blocks — parks and squares — this new kind of public space has the potential to become the fully continuous, connective tissue of the urban fabric itself.

 The entire city can become more park-like, green, and connected for people on foot and on bicycle. Fostering residents’ ability to move around relatively freely and experience more of the city this way will help to break down the perceived barriers between neighbourhoods and districts as flows become more continuous. The elements of the public realm that serve as links between areas will play a vital role in helping to make the city feel like a seamless whole. 

 With time, it can be anticipated that the examples of connection that we are creating ‘on the fly’ today have today will become the rule. With the shift to a more expansive sense of the public realm, a new liberating “reading” of the city will emerge, no longer orienting itself only or primarily by highways and major arterials but increasingly by connected networks of common space serving as guideways throughout the city. This more fluid idea of the entire cityscape as a landscape, where flows become more organic and seamless in some ways gets us back to a pre-colonial sense of the land we inhabit as a generous shared “commons,” less hard-edged and hemmed into narrow sidewalks by speeding traffic. 

Cities That Heal: How The Coronavirus Pandemic Could Change Urban Design

Post Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2020 

Can we design cities that heal? Listen to my conversation in the link below with Megna Chakrabarti of NPR’s ON POINT and Architect Michael Murphy about how to change the cities and buildings for better human health.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/04/28/coronavirus-pandemic-change-evolution-of-cities-and-urban-design

How Covid 19 is forcing us to acknowledge our place in the natural world   

 Post Date: Thursday April 24, 2020 

Steven I. Apfelbaum, (my ecologist colleague and friend from Wisconsin) and I have worked together for over thirty years. We have learned a great deal from each other. He has been truly mesmerized “learning about urban systems, structure, functions  and why unhealth and healthy conditions develop. And, I have been excited to see practical and cost effective ways to bring nature and green infrastructure into urban systems, into our lives, our community and neighborhoods. Nature and urban systems can be wonderfully complimentary is what we have both learned. Books by Steve such as   “Nature’s Second Chance” (Beacon press), and a series, “Restoring Ecological Health to Your Land” (Island press),   may be of interest.

Steve sees the COVID pandemic within a broader context. One in which we now have the “bulls eye on our back”, while for decades we have assaulted nearly all other life and natural resources on earth with pandemics, where the bulls eye is on the back of natural areas, migratory birds, marine fishes…when the pandemic was delivered by us, instead of a virus, we have been the agent of upheaval.

He has shared this remarkable prose poem with me: 

UNDERSTANDING PANDEMICS

IS THIS YOUR FIRST RODEO

• We recognize when the bullseye is on our back.

• We hide and cower in fear NOW, with the uncertainty of our survival.

• Neighbors are dying, never to be visited with again, 

• Families fear one another getting sick.

• We don’t understand nor have confidence we can be treated

• Doctors, nurses, and volunteers from the world over are playing MGyiver to keep us breathing

NO, IT’S NOT YOUR FIRST RODEO

• Industrial agriculture is the equivalent of a pandemic assault on sustainable farming in America

• Benign neglect for ecosystem health is the equivalent of a pandemic assault on ecosystems

• Over harvesting  of marine fish resources is the equivalent of a pandemic assault on fish stocks globally

• Spilling of pollutants into rivers, coastal zones, lakes, and into ground water is the equivalent of a pandemic assault on water resources on earth.

• The human population explosion is having pandemic effects on all of nature

• Human demand for natural resources is stripping the cupboard of nature bare, just like the pandemic effects in our food stores with COVID-19. 

• Our own assault on our gut microbiome is a pandemic on the hoof, waiting to stampede us down.

• Hunger and poverty occurs beyond our blind eye—this is a growing pandemic

• Habitat and biodiversity decline on earth has been our signature behavior as a species

 

WHEN THE SYSTEM THROWS YOU, IN THIS GAME YOU DON’T GET BACK ON THE HORSE QUICKLY---YOU GET TRAMPLED AND ALL CHANGES IN NATURE ARE FAIR GAME

• Assaults on nature come back to bite us--- recall, nature bats last.

• A pandemic that goes around will come back to us--- Turnabout is fair play in nature.

• Finally, we realize we are not separate from nature—not above or below, but part of nature

• Our world has been turned topsy-turvy by all measures—we have lost our freedoms (or suffer the consequences and risks)

•  Our 401k’s  have become the food of uncertainty- 

• Leadership not from above, where aloofness and ignorance and hubris prevail --no genius, no humanist; but from scientists, and medical professionals

• Our political divide is a pandemic

 

SO, PERHAPS NOW YOU FEEL A NEW PANDEMIC, BECAUSE IT IS THE ONE AIMED AT YOU

• An assault on nature, the health of the earth is surely cutting the very heart out of our civilization, humanity, our economy, our lives

• Business as usual will never work again.

• Ignoring the inevitable future and other looming risks will not be sane,

• Not caring because it’s too complex will no longer be an excuse

• Voting with your purchasing power will no longer be a method to rapidly scale success

SO, WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN?

• Nature will double back and outsmart our every move

• This chess game is more complex and is deadly serious

• As we’ve learned, we can’t be inoculated in time against pandemics

• Recognize the fast moving freight train (COPID-19) has derailed us beyond any prediction

• Recognize the slow moving tsunami (Climate change) will upheave us, move us from the land, dismantle our food supplies, directly displacing hundreds of millions.

• Recognize diseases, viruses, pestilence, and everything unimaginable is waiting in the lurch for the moment to pounce upon climate change victims.

 

SO, WHATS TO BE DONE NOW—GETTING THROUGH THIS ONE ISNT THE QUESTION

• Regain our composure and sense of place in nature

• Assume culpability for our assaults—myriad pandemics we have directed at nature, each other.

• Nurture nature--- give back to unsoil our nest, from the havoc we have wreaked.

• Assume Responsibility to replenish, repair, reinvigorate, restore nature, healthy soils, healthy food supplies, healthy humans 

• Assume a Humble role, as  a part of the earths system of life, and follow the rules and regulations of nature

• Make wise choices grounded in wisdom, not frivolity, and an “aw shucks” attitude to guiding our collective future

• Choose leaders grounded in science, understandings, not self-fabricated mythology, or ungrounded fantasy

• Avoid Complacency--- New pandemics are boiling up daily with the bullseye on our back.

• No Double Standards--- It doesn’t matter who the bulls eye marks ( e.g. black, white, Soudanese, American, republicans, democrats, socialists, etc. ) —invest in solutions for all mankind, all  nature.

• The Old Finger in the Dike Trick will not work--- An outbreak anywhere becomes a risk everywhere, to everyone.

• Work Together--- no barriers --- all must be dismantled, one human civilization must be recognized

• Rationally view this omnipresent, omnipotent crisis as a wake-up!

SO, HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND SUCCESS?

• When Nature celebrates the resurgence of vital and vibrant life on earth!

• Some of us will be invited to the party!

   

Steven I. Apfelbaum, Juda, WI, April 11, 2020

steve@appliedeco.com

What might the post Covid 19 world mean for the city?   

Post Date: Thursday April 16, 2020 

In this moment of crisis we are witnessing remarkable examples of turning on a dime, of coming together to make the impossible possible, allowing ourselves to try new things and experiment. Can we capitalize on that momentum when the peak passes and we focus on renewal of our cities?

Before the pandemic arrived were already in md-stages of a major paradigm shift from away from a post WWII environment that had been built around the car, attempting to create inherently more sustainable urban places. Cities around the world were working through this transformation as part of a great collective learning curve. While progress was being made one could argue that it has been sometimes frustratingly slow and uneven.  

In a best case scenario can we use this force majeure of the Covid 19 crisis to accelerate innovation and adopt new practices and strategies for building better cities in the way that shared crises of the past led to similar farsighted responses? The Great Depression brought us the New Deal and Unemployment Insurance. The series of devastating contagions in the 20th century led to great advances in vaccination and public health. Can this be an equivalent shape-shifting turning point for cities?   

The to do list we were working on is still there: reintegrating the activities of city life in mixed-use, mixed income walkable settings, changing how we move, re-setting our relationship to the natural world, dealing with the challenges of climate change, expanding common ground. But now those goals have been overtaken by an expanded set imperatives coming out of Covid 19, piggybacking on and potentially driving the first with a heightened sense of urgency and new possibility. 

The defencelessness of disadvantaged populations, the lack of attention to public health, the extraordinary retreat into a digital world, the need for strong and reliable government and public services, the power of civil society and the deep well of generosity and caring of the public, all speak to the need to strengthen the inherent capacities of the city to be more resourceful and resilient. To get there will require unprecedented levels of collaboration, a sharing of resources, new forms of partnership, and a willingness to step out of established silos. 

A number of things have come into high relief as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic which might propel this shift. While the failure to address marginalized and disadvantaged populations is certainly not news, we have disastrously failed to act and have seen the consequences. Community health depends on making our cities and city regions more equitable and this underlines the need to give our public health officials a prominent place at the planning and urban design table. Malcolm Gladwell in the Munk Debates has used this persuasive analogy: If you want to improve the performance of a soccer team, it is important to improve the worst player on the team not to lavish attention on the stars. 

Yes we are in this together but not experiencing the pandemic in the same way. The focus on highly sophisticated medical treatments available to a small percent of the population in the US exists alongside a huge population of uninsured; great hospitals but an appalling lack of attention to public health among the poor. These weak links have contributed to making it the hardest hit country in the world. In Canada the festering problems of long term care facilities have been well known and now are producing an astonishing death rate. 

Can we learn from this painful wake-up call and make cities that are more equitable? This is particularly relevant for Canada with our great collective project of successfully absorbing migration from around the world to make our cities the most diverse on the planet. 

A second revelation has been the immediate and virtually total reliance on the digital world imposed by physical distancing. This is forcing us to come to terms with issues already in play around data security and privacy, but also the need to figure out the role we want this technology to play in our lives and our cities. How can we make best use of technology to advance a human centred urbanism and not allow it to permanently distance ourselves from each other? I am persuaded that when this is over we will want more than ever to be together physically and not seek to ‘cocoon’, combining the best of IRL (in real life) with our expanded digital presence.  

A third revelation has been the value of ‘redundancy’ as the cornerstone of resiliency, having multiple ways of doing things so that when one ‘system’ or ‘network’ breaks down we have recourse to others: the abrupt shift to virtual communication to achieve physical distancing being a prime example, but also multiple ways of getting access to food, moving around the city, walking, cycling, using thinned out transit and yes, cars; adapting spaces and institutions to new uses, seeing hotels become shelter housing, libraries doubling as food banks etc. This need for redundancy also applies to alternatives to tenuous supply chains, the need to keep local manufacturing capability and local agriculture for food security. We need to think of value engineering ‘in’ redundancy in cities for unforeseen and unpredictable events.   

We have been jolted into acknowledging the essential role of governments and the need for trust and confidence in their ability to act decisively and provide leadership. The talk of leaving everything to the private sector and disparaging the public sector has significantly quieted. At the same time the strength of civil society has been remarkable and its capacity for generous ‘caremongering’ is awesome to behold. Perhaps this will lead to a new and better understanding of these complementary roles and how they can be mobilized to make meaningful change. 

Finally the actions we are witnessing give some hope about our collective ability to mount a response to the even more existentially consequential, if less immediately dramatic challenge of our age, that of facing global warming and climate change. An initial knee jerk reaction declaring that density the enemy is based on a false correlation, conflating density with overcrowding. It has to be resisted, lest it lead to a renewal of low density sprawl, setting back decades of effort. The key is to do density well in in our cities in a way that addresses both challenges simultaneously.  

Two things in particular emerge as urgent priorities in light of the experience of the pandemic, making the city more equitable and making it more resilient. The urban ‘neighbourhood’ is a good intermediate scale to see how this may play out. The illustration above shows how a portion of the post war suburban landscape of strip malls in Brampton can be reconceived as a 20 minute neighbourhood.  

This is part of a work-in-progress initiative I have been working on with colleagues at the city which reflects the aspirations the city has endorsed in Brampton’s 2040 Vision. There are no silver bullets; there is no big bang, but it is about proximity and overlap, how things normally widely separated, are woven together in the neighbourhood in innovative ways challenging previous assumptions and formulas. So what does that look like? 

The image portrays a compact neighbourhood setting where many daily life needs can be met within a 20 minute walking distance with the density and diversity to support this. The neighbourhood is anchored by a ‘community hub’ linked to park space. It combines public and separate elementary schools, a library (which we have seen can be an extraordinary resource), a community and recreation centre, daycare, arts and culture, and spaces for entrepreneurial start-ups. 

Public spaces are shared and adaptable for efficiency and to foster interaction among different users of the neighbourhood throughout the day and week. Indoor spaces flow transparently into outdoor spaces and can be adjusted for seasonal comfort and cordoned off for security or safety when needed. 

There is a full mix of housing for the full range of the population in terms of age, income, household types and needs including seniors and young families with kids drawn by easy access to the community hub. There is a mix of ownership and rental options with different levels of subsidy to foster inclusion. People who work in the community can also afford to live there and the population can age in place within the neighbourhood as life circumstances change. The diverse architecture and built form reflect the social diversity, with buildings of different scales including the elusive “missing middle” of mid-rise structures.  The dwelling units themselves are conceived with adaptable space for work and home schooling for moments like the one we are currently living through. 

There is a lively daytime population in the neighbourhood with work in many forms from live/work to office space, incubation start-ups and space for collaboration including a mix of small businesses and maker spaces. There is neighbourhood shopping for food and other basic needs, restaurants, cafes providing informal sociable gathering places. 

There are many ways to get around. This neighbourhood is not a self-contained village but part of larger city and region. The street types have been designed to prioritize transit, cycling and walking but there is room for cars as well, including car share options and ultimately autonomous vehicles. Sidewalks are generous and universal accessibility is the rule.   

Space allocation within the rights-of-way can be redistributed as needed for different modes, for example when more space is needed for physical distancing.  Parking is shared and designed to be repurposed when no longer required. 

An expansive public realm, ‘common ground’ is a key feature of the neighbourhood. It turns out we need it more than ever. Park space serves many uses and users and is the essential social glue that ties the neighbourhood together and fosters the interaction that unites us in times of crisis. It is enlivened by opportunities for everything from sports and recreation, community gardens, to arts and culture which celebrate neighbourhood life and reinforce a sense of shared identity. Even overlook from balconies becomes part of the shared experience of the public realm as we have learned when confined to our units.    

The neighbourhood expresses its deep relationship to the natural world and its commitment to environmental sustainability in the way it handles energy, waste, mobility and storm water integrated within the parks and open spaces. It demonstrates how we can break our dependence on fossil fuels and move toward the goal of net zero or energy plus. 

You might say all these things are just normal and you would be right. Few if any of these ideas are absolutely new. Many have been there for the taking. The most important learning that can come from the Covid 19 pandemic is that when motivated we have the potential to rapidly expand the range of the possible.  We have it in our power to overcome inertia and make real changes that would take us to more equitable and resilient cities. 

 We then need to treat this experience of society mobilizing in a crisis as a dress rehearsal for confronting the next great challenge of climate change. 

Optimism <> Pessimism

 Post Date: Sunday April 12, 2020 

 It has been almost a month since I last went to any kind of gathering with other people and the fact of isolation is really sinking in. The holidays, Passover, Easter and Ramadan feel like a marker, a time to take stock in this passage from one reality to another. The world has gotten a whole lot smaller physically and expanded virtually. New routines have taken hold and are punctuating the days and weeks in new ways. 

 There are some significant revelations. We have learned that there is depth in government and in civil society that can be mobilized when there is a will and an urgent need. People, politicians are seen for who they truly are – qualities of steadiness and courage, and selflessness on the one hand and on the other mendacity, pettiness and seeking of partisan advantage. There are real surprises like our Premier Doug Ford stepping up in unexpected ways and forging alliances.  

 We are seeing that things that seemed impossible, that were postponed and neglected can actually be done. The failings in our systems and social safety network have been dramatically exposed and the people who were ignored in precarious situations have now been made highly visible.

 The world is now truly connected; it is ‘globalized’ in that we are all vulnerable together in the face of this pathogen, which like climate change, can’t be solved by any group or nation alone.  But globalization of the economy is revealed as a two edged sword.  We are seeing the high price we have been paying for ‘cheap goods’ and services that enabled a certain lifestyle but led to tenuous supply chains for essentials, loss of local capacity and the precarity of the gig economy.  

 The limited ability of the private market, the working out of supply and demand, to address many basic needs has been painfully exposed from housing to health care itself especially in the US with its millions of uninsured. We are seeing  with new eyes those whose work is indispensable for our survival, the unsung heroes in the health care, first responders and service sectors many of whom have been ill-paid and without benefits and support who are now risking their lives.  

 The so-called austerity agenda has made us ill prepared, short staffed and vulnerable. There is no free lunch. We have to redress the public/private balance and pay for what we need to keep whole and safe through taxes.  The creation and manufacturing of the vaccine that will rescue us from this scourge will require vast public resources, a global sharing of information among scientists and free distribution on a world wide scale.          

 Fundamental questions of security, data privacy civil liberties and social discipline have all been raised in relation to our ability to sustain an open democratic society. These are all very big questions but perhaps the biggest on most of our minds is how will this end or will it? When and how will it be safe to be out in the world again?

 There is no doubt that the Corona 19 pandemic is a force majeure. It cannot be ignored. Nature through this pathogen has got the world’s rapt attention (with the exclusion of some incomprehensible deniers). Even wars are being put on hold like the endless struggle in Yemen.

 So what happens next? There seem to be three views emerging: 1) More of the same; 2) A wake-up call; 3) Regression to autocratic insularity. Historian Richard Haass argues the first in his piece “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than Reshape It”. Delcan Walsh   takes the third view that “the world’s strongmen are reverting to their standard playbook to project an aura of control". 

 And then there is this more optimistic second view which I share from yesterday’s Toronto Star Editorial praising the steps taken in Toronto re the housing crisis. It points to the fact that there is noth­ing like a pan­demic that forces peo­ple to dis­tance them­selves to re­ally fo­cus at­ten­tion on the fact that tens of thou­sands of Cana­di­ans don’t have a room of their own, let alone a home, in which to do that. To respond the city has scrambled “to open up new emer­gency shel­ter spa­ces and snap up en­tire ho­tels to al­low for the phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing that is so es­sen­tial in the col­lec­tive fight against the coro­n­avirus”.

 These changes that are be­ing made on an emer­gency ba­sis must now be used as a start­ing point for per­ma­nent change.  The ac­tions that Toronto and other cities are tak­ing demon­strate that when we mar­shal the right re­sources we can ef­fect change. It also shows that gov­ern­ments al­ready know what needs to be done and how to do it.

 It is now imperative that all lev­els of gov­ern­ment en­sure that we don’t go back to the old and com­pletely in­ad­e­quate way of do­ing things once bet­ter times re­turn. “That home­less peo­ple’s sit­u­a­tion could im­prove in the midst of a global pan­demic says a lot about how bad their “nor­mal” sit­u­a­tion is, and why it’s so im­per­a­tive that we con­tinue to move for­ward.”

 Do we really have a choice?  This unsettling article in the New Yorker by Matthew Hutson on “The Quest for a Pandemic Pill” alerts us to the fact that the Corona 19 pandemic is likely not a one off. There will be more, the question being not if but when. To prepare ourselves will require incredible levels of world-wide focus and cooperation. Can we do that? This will require new models for how we do just about everything. We will come together or go down together. 

Hundreds of Points of Light 

 Post Date: Friday April 10, 2020 

 A big shoutout to CityShare/ Canada This real-time crowdsourced platform available in both French and English shows how we are collectively responding to Covid 19 with remarkable ingenuity and generosity. All across the country there are ground up initiatives to fill unmet needs and help people to reach out to each other. At the time of this writing there were over 400 initiatives from every quarter, from the CBC, Community Colleges, First Nations, Public Libraries, to companies, unions, agencies, individuals and groups of all kinds with advice on getting access to everything from women’s shelters to housing for healthcare workers with links, interactive maps and sourcing for volunteers, it shows our extraordinary capacity for improvising in the face of a crisis and system gaps.  

We are a generous and resourceful people. While we definitely need, more than ever, the capacity of government and its ability to deliver programs at scale for all of us, this kind of ground up response is the essential counterpoint. It is a direct and immediate human response enabled now by the digital world to decentralize and democratize, to tap into people power.  This is yet another example of a legacy forged under duress that we will ideally carry forward. 

This Night was Truly Different 

 Post Date: Thursday April 9, 2020. 

This cartoon is humorous because it is absolutely true. This is exactly how my family got together on Zoom for the 2 nights of Passover. The question is one of the ‘4 Questions” usually asked by the youngest child at the Seder table to elicit the telling of the story of the Exodus and liberation from bondage. It is doubly poignant now because we are all in a peculiar form of bondage not imposed by one nation or group on another but by an invisible microscopic virus that is carried by each of us. We are for the moment each other’s bondsmen. 

 There has always been an aspect of universality to the telling this liberation story. It usually leads from the account of the freeing of the Israelites in biblical times to calling attention to the plight of others who have suffered and are still suffering in similar ways.  And there is another aspect of universality. Passover, Easter and Ramadan all fall roughly at the same time and signal the arrival of spring and new beginnings. Cementing this commonality there have been a series of broadcasts with Rabbis, Pastors and Imams all on air together talking about how they and their congregations are all improvising to deal with this common need to celebrate together and to stay together in spite of physical distancing.

 The urge to connect, to see each other at this time  is powerful, to experience if not the actual taste of the special food we would have shared and vicariously imagine that we are enjoying it together. We do the best we can with the technology available.  Another inspiring example is this video of the Israel Philharmonic orchestra playing a Passover medley, each member at home but still very much together. 

 After getting together online Eti and I were out on the balcony with our pots and pans to make some noise and express our thanks for the dedicated health care workers. Every night there are a few more of us. This nightly ritual is one of the few opportunities we have to actually see each other and affirm that we are still here.  The balconies which were essentially very private have taken on a new meaning as shared public space. 

Cracks in the Sidewalk?

 Post Date: Wednesday April 8, 2020. 

 Jordan Himmelfarb writes about an unwarranted fear of social breakdown as a result of impacts of Covid 19. It is impressive how people have supported the actions of our governments in Canada despite the fact that we have essentially shut down the economy to observe physical distance, and there has been a remarkable lack of partisan bickering or gamesmanship. In many ways we seem to be pulling together. We are taking bold steps and trusting the advice we are getting from public health experts. 

 What we are not seeing so far is a “dystopia of crumbled institutions and adversarial individualism”.  Sacrifices are being made to protect ourselves and each other. Neighbours helping others and front line workers taking great risks to help all of us. One of the important takeaways is the power of collective action in the face of adversity. This is an important antidote the declining trust in government, in evidence and in expertise that we were perhaps seeing prior to the advent of the virus. The key question is will this stick. Will we, Jordan Himmelfarb asks, remember how we got through this together? Will it have a lasting impact and enable us to make fundamental changes in other areas that have gone begging for cohesive action to maintain this sense of solidarity? 

 Through the harsh light of the pandemic we are seeing significant frays in the social fabric, inequities which have been there all along. They are showing up in who is most vulnerable. In many case it is the very people we now depend on most, the underpaid service workers, those who are poorly housed, who have insecure employment and few benefits, who are unable to shift to working from home, who are most at risk.   

 One clue in Toronto is who has to take the bus every morning to endure a harrowing commute, the part-time cleaners, the delivery people and others who are now providing essential services. While the TTC is reporting losses of 80% system wide some bus routes are still crowded particularly in the city’s northwest and southwest industrial areas where wages are low for shift work and there is no choice, and in neighbourhoods identified by the city as having a higher percentage of low-income households and lower access to jobs.   

 There is a social, economic and racial justice issue. In the US we have seen black Americans dying in disproportionate numbers. This disparity is stark in cities like New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit. In Chicago, for example where only 30% of the population is black, they account for 70% of all coronavirus cases in the city and more than half of the deaths in the state.   

 There are a number of factors at work including concentration in urban areas and working in essential industries with only 20% of black workers reporting that they can work from home.  There is also a high prevalence of Covid-19 among those suffering from obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes –more common among black Americans. Clearly an aggravating factor is the lack of access to health insurance. 

 The heightened vulnerabilities revealed by the pandemic for different parts of our population are a powerful call for action. There is no escape from our interdependence. How one community is treated affects all communities. This has major implications for social equity in our cities - decent housing, job security and reliable health care for all. 

mkalus shared this story from AliceAvizandum on Twitter.

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This is the first photo I posted here for the entirety of 2020, which speaks volumes where it regards how the pandemic has changed things.

We left the house for the first time in four months, drove to a secluded location in Alentejo so that the kids could see their grandparents and spent a few hours in the sweltering heat. Were it not for the 38^oC temperature and lack of sustained bandwidth, it would be the perfect place to spend the next three months.

Pretty much as expected, we spotted very few people wearing masks in Lisbon, and more than a few merry groups (cyclists stopping at cafes, etc.) along the way.

The Weather Network has disclosed that its app read contents of users’ clipboards, and notes that it has now removed the functionality from its app.

“In a recent beta software release by Apple, it has been identified that our application could read the contents of the operating system’s clipboard,” the company said in a statement.

The Weather Network notes that clipboard access is part of a diagnostics functionality that was present in its app to help developers troubleshoot user issues on a user initiated basis if required.

“Given the sensitivity around our user information and privacy we have removed the code and functionality from our app and reached out to Apple for their best practices for troubleshooting moving forward.”

It states that no personally identifiable information was ever copied, and any data gathered was a random ID to aid in troubleshooting and did not use the device’s unique identifier identifier.

As part of its emphasis on privacy in iOS 14, Apple has added a banner alert that tells users when an app is reading from their clipboard, which is why app violations are starting to get reported by users.

Several companies, including LinkedIn and Reddit, have vowed to fix their practices after the iOS feature revealed that their apps were reading clipboard data.

Source: The Weather Network

The post iOS 14 privacy feature reveals The Weather Network app read users’ clipboards appeared first on MobileSyrup.

This post is part of my thinking on how to respond to internet consultation on a bill that supposed to regulate homeschooling in the Netherlands. Comments and factual corrections are welcome; I expect the final version to have a different structure and to be written in Dutch.

For a context, you might want to read the summary of the bill in English, more information in Dutch and English on the website of NVvTO (The Dutch home education association).

* * *

Currently, in the Netherlands, all kids older than 5 are subject to compulsory education. Given that school is the only form of education described in the law, that means compulsory school attendance. Home education is legally possible as an exemption (article 5b of the Compulsory Education Law) based on parents objections to the orientation (richtingbezwaren) of schools within a reasonable distance from home. In practice, that means having beliefs (levensovertuiging, literally “philosophy of life”) not compatible with schools nearby. The bill under discussion describes in detail the process of getting an exemption and measures to control the quality of education provided at home.

In this post, I look at how the bill limits access to home education for particular groups and what are the implications of those restrictions.

Kids currently attending school

According to the law having beliefs not compatible with schools around is not enough. Only for kids who were not registered to a Dutch school the previous year can parents apply for an exemption. In practice, that means that home education in the Netherlands is not possible after attending a school, even for kids who struggle there (unless there is medical evidence sufficient for article 5a).

It makes home education not accessible for any families who experienced during the lockdown that this is a form that fits their kids better than school.

It also makes the choice of continuing education in a school after homeschooling very complicated since it means “burning the bridges” and not having an option to homeschool again if that would fit the child better.

Kids of parents with alternative educational views

What is also the case with the current law is that only broadly defined beliefs could be a ground for an exemption. Any objections in respect to educational philosophies, methods or ways schools are organised (inrichtingbezwaren) are reasons to disqualify the request.

The problem here is that educational philosophies are often difficult to detach from life philosophies. It is also impossible not to have an opinion on educational approaches, methods and materials when you homeschool in practice and the choices that you make might differ from those available in schools. It is not clear from the bill if doing something differently from schools education-wise might be treated as an objection.

Currently, it is up to the parents how much of their educational philosophy they reveal in communication with the authorities. Saying nothing about it is the safest bet – there are enough examples in the home education community when being open about your educational choices results in court cases. Given that the bill under discussion asks about a learning plan explicitly it creates the ground for disqualification for everyone.

Personally, I find it the most dangerous part of the bill, since it silences educational insights from those intrinsically motivated to find the most fitting learning formats for their kids. It also prevents dialogue between practitioners of mass education in schools and highly personalised home education, which could result in useful improvements on both sides.

Kids of parents who do not have evidence of proficiency in Dutch

According to the bill, the parent applying for an exemption has to demonstrate a level of proficiency in Dutch at B2- or 3F level. This obviously eliminates the possibility of homeschooling for expats, for whom it is often an important option for keeping continuity in education while they are relocated between countries.

It also creates problems for everyone else, who might have the level of Dutch required without a piece of evidence and would have to pay for courses or exams out of their own pocket.

Kids from multicultural and multilingual families

The bill specifies that Dutch has to be used as a language of instruction. For students with a non-Dutch background, speaking their mother tongue is allowed as an exception. Part of the education may be given in English, German or French.

It is not clear how “non-Dutch background” will be defined in a case of mixed families like ours where Russian and Dutch are spoken from birth and kids have both nationalities. We use “one parent one language” strategy consistently for communication with kids and use educational materials and instruction in those languages to provide continuous bilingual development.

Singling out German and French next to English is also unfounded given that there is a bigger choice of languages used for instruction in bilingual and international schools currently recognised by the Dutch government. Kids, educated at home, will not have opportunities for learning languages similar to their peers at schools.

Kids of parents that do not comply with questionable procedural requirements

There are many potentially challenging points in the process of securing the exemption according to the bill. Some of them are questionable from the perspective of respect for the private sphere (e.g. compulsory house visit). Others are described so vaguely that they could be interpreted in different ways, creating opportunities for misusing the law (e.g. the requirements for pedagogical qualifications of the parent or lack of clarity on how testing results of a child are used for further decision-making).

Given that getting a court case instead of an exemption already depends a lot on the local political situation and personal approach of compulsory education officer (leerplichtambtenaar) that a family interacts with, adding more points where things can go wrong creates an uncertain and unsafe environment for the families that do not fit into the school system because of their beliefs.

The bottom line

From my perspective, the bill makes home education more restrictive than it currently is, which is unwarranted. Addressing the points discussed in this post, my suggestions would be:

• make home education accessible for everyone by making it a recognised educational form next to school education (=let go exemption based on beliefs)
• recognise the value of different educational approaches based on their merit and not on their current status/feasibility in schools
• provide comparable requirements for Dutch language/instruction in Dutch in home education as in bilingual and international schools (more on Dutch in the next post)
• streamline most questionable procedural requirements based on the reactions to the internet consultation
• create clear procedures for an appeal/second opinion in case of a disagreement between parents and educational authorities involved prior to starting a court case or involving Child Protection Services

 

The post Home education bill: restricting access appeared first on Mathemagenic.

It appears the clipboard reckoning is upon us.

Both LinkedIn and Reddit have announced plans to stop repeatedly copying data from the clipboard following a change in iOS that exposed clipboard snooping. Popular app TikTok was also found reading users’ clipboard contents, as well as 53 other apps revealed by security researcher and app developer Mysk, which completed some of the research in Canada.

Shortly after Apple’s 2020 WWDC event, developer sessions revealed new details about upcoming changes to the company’s operating systems. Plus, developers and enthusiasts got their hands on beta software and began exploring all the changes. One of the more interesting changes with iOS 14, the next version of Apple’s iPhone operating system, is a new way to handle the clipboard.

iOS 14 notifies users when apps access the clipboard

MobileSyrup has already covered the changes extensively — you can read up on that here. In short, iOS 14 will notify users when apps copy information from the clipboard. The change should act as a form of “name and shame” public punishment in hopes to force app developers to use Apple’s new clipboard API.

The new API better protects user data by hiding what’s in the clipboard and communicating what type of data it is. For example, web browsers on iOS often include a ‘paste and go’ feature that checks that clipboard for a URL, copies it and pastes it automatically so users can tap a button to load the website. Apple’s new system could tell the app whether there’s a URL in the clipboard without exposing the actual content. If there’s a URL, the app then copies it. If not, the app doesn’t do anything and the clipboard contents remain private.

Although some apps do use the clipboard legitimately, many apps constantly check the clipboard to scrape user data or for other nefarious reasons. With the iOS 14 change, apps that constantly copy user data have been exposed thanks to the new notification, which pings users every time something accesses the clipboard.

LinkedIn repeatedly copied users clipboards as they typed

Twitter user ‘Don from urspace.io’ (@DonCubed) highlighted the privacy-invasive practice in LinkedIn. In a video shared on Twitter, you can see a near-constant stream of notifications appear as the user types. LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, said it would stop repeatedly copying clipboard contents and in a statement to ZDNet, called the behaviour a bug.

Hi @DonCubed. Appreciate you raising this. We've traced this to a code path that only does an equality check between the clipboard contents and the currently typed content in a text box. We don't store or transmit the clipboard contents.

— Erran Berger (@eberger45) July 3, 2020

LinkedIn’s vice president of engineering, Erran Berger, responded on Twitter and explained the app copies the clipboard to perform an “equality check between the clipboard contents and the currently typed content in a text box.” Further, Berger says LinkedIn doesn’t store or transmit the data. He also shared a link to an open-sourced code library containing the equality check and fix on GitHub.

The Mysk Twitter account also chimed in at this point to acknowledge that the clipboard-reading code was harmless, but the frequency of checks was concerning. “Reading the clipboard with that frequency might be used as a cover-up of clipboard snooping,” the tweet said.

Reddit also copied clipboard contents while users typed in the post composer

Likewise, Reddit was also caught repeatedly copying data from the clipboard by Don on Twitter. Similar to LinkedIn, the Reddit app would trigger a clipboard notification in iOS 14 with each keystroke a user typed in the app.

UPDATE: Seems like Reddit is capturing the clipboard on each keystroke as well

Seeing the notification come up just as much. pic.twitter.com/nzbElmRG2a

— Don 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 urspace.io (@DonCubed) July 2, 2020

Reddit told The Verge that it tracked the issue to a “codepath in the post composer that checks for URLs in the pasteboard.” The tool is supposed to check the copied URL and suggest a post title based on the text contents of that URL. Additionally, Reddit said it doesn’t “store or send” the clipboard contents.

“We removed this code and are releasing the fix on July 14th,” Reddit told The Verge.

Considering the new clipboard privacy features in iOS 14 are still part of a limited beta for developers, it’s likely that we don’t yet know the full scope of clipboard snooping. Apple is expected to release a public beta of iOS 14 in the coming weeks and, later this year, the public release of iOS 14 will arrive. As more people use iOS 14, more apps will likely be caught snooping on users’ clipboards.

Source: Twitter Via: The Verge, ZDNet

The post LinkedIn, Reddit to fix how their apps copy iOS clipboard contents appeared first on MobileSyrup.

I have now read several non-fiction books on my Nova2 reader. This is a marked improvement from before. I dislike reading non-fiction on my Kindle. Part of it is in the slightly bigger screen of the Nova2, and easier flipping back and forth between parts of a book. Part of it is that it’s a separate device, and not the same screen I read on for relaxation. An important part is also the ease of taking (handwritten) notes while using it.

A very pleasant additional side-effect of this e-reader, compared to the Kindle, is that in the past few weeks I have bought several e-books outside of Amazon. Because the tablet is a generic e-reader, I can now shop around for a much better mix of price, absence of DRM, and local/independent bookshop. This allows me to go outside the silo Amazon wants to lock you into more easily/often.

Two useful things I found out today about my Nova2 e-ink reader/tablet, while trying to figure out how to retrieve and use notes made on it:

• Any markings / scribbled note I add by hand to a book or pdf, are accessible as a table of content (under the TOC button even). These can be exported to PDF for all notes, or for selected notes.
• Next to marking things in a text, you can split the reader’s screen to have the text on one side and a notepad on the other (it doesn’t automatically set it to the left hand side when the reader is set to left handed, don’t know yet if I can change that manually). Hand written notes are then connected to the book and like the notes made in the document itself can be exported and accessed as pdf.

The future will not be like the past. The comfortable Victorian and Georgian world complete with grand country houses, a globe-spanning British empire, and lords and commoners each knowing their place, was swept away by the events that began in the summer of 1914 (and that with Britain on the “winning” side of both world wars.) So too, our comfortable “American century” of conspicuous consumer consumption, global tourism, and ever-increasing stock and home prices may be gone forever.

— Tim O'Reilly

Last night on the regular family zoom it was trivia night. Oliver made up the teams: OG Canada, OG USA, New Canada. I made up the questions, questions like:

The following pairs of NHL players are each related to each other. For each, what is their family relationship? Ty & Jack Arbour (brothers). Don & Riley Barber (father and son). Toe and Mike Blake (Uncle and Nephew). Red Kelly and Mark Jankowski (grand uncle and grand nephew). Guy Carbonneau & Brenden Morrow (in-laws).

and:

Here are some capital cities; what are their countries? Riga, Vilnius, Chișinău, Ulaanbaatar.

But also family-related questions like:

When Mike and Peter were little, Mike would tell stories about what fictional band of heros?

Surprisingly, the questions that seemed to stump almost everyone were:

Name three significant inventions that didn’t exist when Frances was born.

Name three significant inventions that didn’t exist when Karen was born.

Name three significant inventions that didn’t exist when Oliver was born.

The teams eventually squeaked out the answers, but it was a lot harder for them than you’d think (“Alexa” was one of the answers for the last one; surely there’s something more significant than that that’s come along in the last 20 years?!).

This got me thinking about nuclear weapons, which didn’t make the cut, but arguably have been one of the most significant inventions in the last century, if by “significant” we mean “existential threats to humanity.” Right up there with the internal combustion engine.

The threat of nuclear winter was a palpable part of my childhood in a way that people of Oliver’s generation will never understand. When The Day After aired in 1983, it seemed like a real possibility that it described our future. We watched Dr. Helen Caldicott in the 1982 documentary If You Love This Planet in high school and her warnings about the dangers of the nuclear age were more than just academic.

So the idea of going into a bunker when Buffalo, New York was hit by Soviet missiles, only to emerge sometime later into a much-changed world, seemed like something that might be part of my future, a possibility helpfully illustrated for my teenage imagination by Jason Robards, Steve Guttenberg and JoBeth Williams:

(Still from The Day After, 1983)

Today was the first day the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market was open, in something approaching its usual fashion, in 17 weeks, and there was no way that Oliver was not going to seize the opportunity to latch onto some pre-COVID routine comfort, so I concocted a reasonable simulation of our regular Saturday morning, mindful that the market, while open, was not operating at full strength and thus was going to be missing some important components.

I started the day making a smoothie-to-go for Oliver, as this was something I knew he’d be missing. Then we headed for Gallant’s in the industrial park, where Tyler helpfully had a couple of smoked salmon bagels waiting for us to pick up. Bagels and smoothie in hand, we parked in the UPEI parking lot across the street from the market, waving at friends and neighbours coming and going.

We managed to time our arrival perfectly: there was no line-up at all, as the early-birds were gone and the late-birds were yet to arrive.

The market was set up in a large loop in the parking lot, the market building itself closed. Oliver was initially flummoxed that the vendors were in a different order than our usual loop sees us encountering them: John Macfarlane was near the beginning, not the end, for example. Oliver was also perturbed that the instructions from the market were to move right along and not dawdle with the usual small-talk, something he described succinctly in an after-action blog post.

While the effect was rather more pleasant than emerging from a bunker into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it did have the effect, more than anything else I’ve encountered in the months since March 7, of reinforcing that everything is different now.

We walked the out-of-order loop, making the best of the topsy-turviness, buying Peach My Cheeks iced tea from Willow, spinach and bok choy from Paul and Jen Offer, chocolates from Katlin, romaine lettuce from Sam, and perogies from Lori. We’ll be eating salads every meal this week, I think.

We did manage to fit in a tiny bit of kibitzing, not nearly enough for Oliver’s tastes, and not enough, thankfully, to exact penalties from the COVID-enforcement monitors.

The end effect was something equal parts pleasantly familiar and eerily different.

Who knew that 1971’s The Andromeda Strain was the film I should have been paying attention to when looking for the apocalypse in my future.

(Still from The Andromeda Strain, 1971)

Nicholas Carr wrote a blog post well worth a read last January, positing the impact of social media is content collapse, not context collapse. Indeed when we all started out on social software the phrase context collapse was on our lips.

Since 2016 Carr sees context restoration however, a movement away from public FB posts to private accounts, chat groups, and places where content self-destructs after a while. In its place he sees a different collapse, that of content.

Context collapse remains an important conceptual lens, but what’s becoming clear now is that a very different kind of collapse — content collapse — will be the more consequential legacy of social media. Content collapse, as I define it, is the tendency of social media to blur traditional distinctions among once distinct types of information — distinctions of form, register, sense, and importance. As social media becomes the main conduit for information of all sorts — personal correspondence, news and opinion, entertainment, art, instruction, and on and on — it homogenizes that information as well as our responses to it.

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8724

Content collapse, because all those different types of information reach us in the exact same templated way, the endlessly scrolling timeline on our phone’s screen.
Carr posits our general unease with social media stems from this content collapse even, and names four aspects of it:

First, by leveling everything, social media also trivializes everything….

Second, as all information consolidates on social media, we respond to it using the same small set of tools the platforms provide for us. Our responses become homogenized, too….

Third, content collapse puts all types of information into direct competition….

Finally, content collapse consolidates power over information, and conversation, into the hands of the small number of companies that own the platforms and write the algorithms….

http://www.roughtype.com/?p=8724

My first instinct is that it is that last aspect that causes the most unease. The first and third are ultimately the same thing, I feel. The second trivialises not the content but us. It severely limits people’s response range, leaving no room for nuance or complexity (which makes unease and lack of power more tangible to users, such that I suspect it significantly amps the outrage feedback loop in people’s attempts to break the homogeneity, to be seen, to be heard) It is what removes us as an independent entity, a political actor, a locus of agency, an active node in the network that is society.

So here’s to variety and messiness, the open web, the animated gifs of yesteryear, and refusing the endlessly scrolling algorithmic timelines.

Once upon a time, we did not have to worry about connection encryption.  everyone connected in plain text and often did not even need a password.  How time have changed, over the last 20 years, connection encryption has become a defacto standard. So now there is not only the End of Life dates for Operating systems (windows 7 14 January 2020)  but these encryption protocols come out with new versions and older versions are cryptographically broken and have to be removed from active use.

The time has come in Thunderbird for the end of life of TLS version 1.0 and 1.1.  TLS 1.0 was technically "end of life" 30 June 2018 but for reasons, I do not grasp the agreement between Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla to retire support for these aging cryptographic protocols is for version 1.0 and 1.1 together. Firefox has now retired them in Version 74, and as Thunderbird is built on the Mozilla platform it is also retiring them at the same time as Firefox ESR removes it in Version 68.5.

So what does this mean to Thunderbird mail users?  For most people it means nothing.  Your mail provider will have been proactive in retiring old protocols and maintaining their PCI DSS compliance so the change will have no impact at all.

For those who use mail servers that do not have proactive administrators, you will not be able to connect to the mail server to get your mail.  If you suspect this might be the case, open the error console (Alt+Shift+J) and clear it (trash bin icon) then attempt to get your mail.

You will see errors about incompatible connection or security issues. I do not have access to a noncompliant email server to offer examples.  But as an alternative, you can go to the ssl-tools web site and put in the part of your email address after the @ and check in the report that your mail server supports TLS versions greater than 1.1

mkalus shared this story from jwz.

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mkalus shared this story from jwz.

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Dave @davewiner
I enjoy writing my blog because as I’m writing I feel like I’m helping straighten things out, but it’s an illusion,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Martyn Schmoll @martynschmoll
On this, I recommend reading The Smart Enough City by Ben Green. twitter.com/martynschmoll/… pic.twitter.com/zJFftGP634

mkalus shared this story from law blog.

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Das Oberlandesgericht Hamburg hält Instagrammer für schlau. Oder sagen wir, für schlau genug, dass sie problemlos durchschauen, wenn ihnen Influencer Werbebotschaften servieren. Genau deshalb, so das Gericht, müsse eine Influencerin mit 1,4 Millionen Abonnenten eventuelle Werbung auch nicht als Werbung kennzeichnen.

Thema das Rechtsstreits waren Postings, in denen die Influencerin zwar Produkte präsentiert und anpreist, aber dafür keine (direkte) Bezahlung erhält. Postings, für die sie Geld erhält, kennzeichnet die Hamburgerin ohnehin als Werbung.

Eine Irreführung der Verbraucher sehen die Richter nicht. Sie weisen darauf hin, dass auch die Redakteure von Printmedien Produkte besprechen und persönlich empfehlen. So lange hierfür kein Geld fließe, sei auch das nicht als Werbung kennzeichnungspflichtig. Überdies, so das Gericht, gehe es den Nutzern in sozialen Medien gerade darum, welche Produkte die Influencer empfehlen. Wieso das geschehe, sei für sie zweitrangig. Der kommerzielle (Gesamt-)Hintergrund sei insgesamt so offensichtlich, dass eine Kennzeichnung überflüssig ist.

Es gibt auch anderslautende Urteile, aber Ende letzten Monats hat das Oberlandesgericht München in einem anderen Fall ähnlich entschieden (Aktenzeichen 15 U 142/19).

I was actually surprised at the changes Apple is making to stop tracking. It’s not enough to stop tracking on the web, and it’s not enough to stop tracking in iOS apps — which is happening probably way more than you think it is — so Apple did both.

While I know that Apple takes privacy seriously in a way other large tech companies don’t, I still didn’t expect them to go this far. I’m glad they did.

My pet theory is that this set of changes is the most important thing to come from WWDC this year. These privacy changes will, I think, have far more impact on the tech industry, on society, and on our lives, than SwiftUI or a new processor for Macs or anything like that. (As fun as those things are.)

It’s always going to be an arms race, I suppose — see this press release from Kochava:

Options exist to perform identity resolution using hashed-email-to-device linkages, device connections by household, and other first-party identifiers key in solving for identity resolution and attribution.

[…]

Further scarcity of the IDFA forces greater reliance on attribution by fingerprinting. Fingerprinting is a probabilistic method of attribution based on device IP & user agent that’s less precise than deterministic attribution based on the globally unique IDFA. Nonetheless, a high degree of accuracy is still maintainable with fingerprinting…

IDFA stands for “identifier for advertisers.” One of the changes Apple is making is that when an iOS app asks for the IDFA, the system will ask the user to consent to being tracked. When consent is not given, the IDFA will just be a string of zeros.

It’s self-evident that pretty much everyone will say no, which makes the IDFA useless. App makers will want to avoid even the shame of asking for consent.

Kochava is saying — and I’m betting they’re not the only company saying this — that they’ll find a way around the IDFApocalypse to identify users. They will probably succeed, too, at least to a certain degree.

However, Apple has shown that it has a mandate to fight, and the will, and it doesn’t mind dropping down some very large technical hammers to protect our privacy.

* * *

It’s important to note — before people get stigmatized unfairly — that most of the tracking and metrics collected by various websites and apps is done so with innocent motives. Marketers want to know which campaigns are more effective; they want to get the most bang for their buck. Product designers want to know which features are more popular; they want to know what’s working for people and what isn’t. Publishers want to know which pages people visit and how they got there. Engineers — like me — want to be warned of potential problems.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting those things! The people who want those things aren’t trying to snoop on people or anything — they’re using data to do their jobs better.

The problem is that the tech industry, in order to serve these needs, did what it always does: code up the thing, take the biggest bite it can, and hope to make enough money, and amass enough power, to be able to repel any future ethical distractions. So now we have mass surveillance.

But Apple recognizes that there’s still a need to know, for instance, which of your ad campaigns is doing best — and so there’s SKAdNetwork, which is a thing I don’t totally understand yet, but I get that it answers marketing questions in the aggregate (which is all marketers should want) and doesn’t violate privacy.

I like that Apple knows that it’s not enough to just shut down the bad actors — people who have questions to answer, but who have no interest in violating privacy, need solutions.

PS See the WWDC 2020 video Build trust through better privacy for way more about all this.

Eric Bucad @heyrickie
I’ll raise you an Order of Canada for Dr Henry, Dr Tam, and all the provincial and territorial health officers. twitter.com/gdmplanning/st…

Mozilla is finally simplifying its Firefox browser lineup on Android. For the past several months, there have been a variety of options for those who want to use Firefox on their phone, but it wasn’t always clear what the differences were.

To put it in perspective, Mozilla offered six different versions of the browser on Android: Firefox, Firefox Beta, Firefox Nightly, Firefox Preview, Firefox Preview Nightly and Firefox Focus (although Focus is a separate thing).

To be fair, Google also offers several versions of its Chrome browser on Android — Chrome, Chrome Beta, Chrome Dev and Chrome Canary. Microsoft actually seems to be one of the few companies doing it right and using the Play Store’s built-in beta function to power its Edge beta.

The main reason there are so many different Firefox browsers on the Play Store is that Mozilla is in the midst of completely rebuilding the browser. Because its new Firefox mobile browser is so experimental, Mozilla added a ‘Preview’ version to the Play Store. Later, it also added the ‘Preview Nightly’ variant — Mozilla’s Nightly browsers get very frequent updates and can have stability issues. Firefox Preview and Preview Nightly ran in parallel to original Firefox Beta and Nightly apps with the old design.

Mozilla is getting rid of some Firefox versions as it finishes the new browser

However, now that Mozilla’s new Firefox is nearly ready, the company has begun merging them and getting rid of the unnecessary apps. If you use Firefox Preview, you’re likely already aware of the change. The most recent update rebrands the app to Firefox Nightly and a new banner notes it will get nightly updates and “may be less stable.” Mozilla recommends switching to Firefox Beta for a more stable experience.

Likewise, the Firefox Preview Nightly app has been discontinued. A warning in the app tells users it won’t get updates anymore and suggests they switch to the new Firefox Nightly (previously Firefox Preview).

With those two out of the way, Mozilla will soon be back to the stable Firefox, Firefox Beta and Firefox Nightly (plus Focus, for those who enjoy that app instead). Further, a Mozilla employee noted in a GitHub comment that things will stay this way until the new Firefox’s user interface and extension support are finalized.

It all still sounds rather complicated, but here’s the basic breakdown. ‘Firefox Browser‘ is the current stable variant and sports the old UI with full extension support. ‘Firefox for Android Beta‘ sports the new UI and limited extension support and is relatively stable. Finally, ‘Firefox Nightly‘ is less stable and receives nightly updates and will be the first place changes to the new Firefox show up. Some of the other Firefox apps are still floating around the Play Store, but expect those to disappear in the coming days.

Source: Mozilla Via: Android Police

The post Mozilla to simplify the Firefox Android app lineup appeared first on MobileSyrup.

If you want an edit button on Twitter, you better start wearing a face mask.

As COVID-19 cases continue to reach alarming numbers in the United States, Twitter has decided to help motivate people to be a bit safer and protect those around them — but, as you may have already guessed, it’s not going well.

When I first started writing this story, I thought it would be fun. I’d get to make a few jokes, and have a few laughs, but after reading the responses to Twitter’s tongue-in-cheek tweet, I’m just disheartened.

That said, if you’re in the mood to be once again disappointed with the current state of the world, scroll through the answers to the tweet, and the crazy responses people are posting are likely funnier than anything I’ll ever write.

You can have an edit button when everyone wears a mask

— Twitter (@Twitter) July 2, 2020

If you were ever wondering what ‘doomscrolling‘ is, just read through the replies to that tweet and see how many people tell Twitter to stay out of politics or stop muzzling them — it’s not a pretty sight.

For reasons that make very little sense, people are really really against wearing masks and even the concept of an edit button, the very definition of an often-requested Twitter feature.

Source: Twitter

The post Twitter will add an edit button to its app if people start wearing masks appeared first on MobileSyrup.

From a message by Joshua Strobl I noticed that Mastodon.cloud had changed owners. On their frontpage I read that the same is true for the bigger mstdn.jp instance (and their about page confirms that). These are the 3rd (mstdn.jp has about 200k users) and 5th (mastodon.cloud has about 59k users, source) biggest Mastodon instance respectively, housing 11.5% of the total number of Mastodon users. Both are now run by Sujitech LLC (USA), which consists of two people. One of the two is Suji Yan, who works on privacy related services.

I’m interested in how this is perceived by the account holders on those two instances. Mastodon instances generally seem to regard themselves as communities, so did the change of hands have community involvement, are the new instance maintainers members of that community? Is the change of hands a shock to those communities (as far as 200k people and 59k people can be a community)? What’s the shock about? Will some conclude a big instance is just someone else’s silo? Will the change of hands, if it was unexpected or sudden (what was the reason for the change?), lead to people seeking out smaller instances? Or start their own?

We have received several inquiries showing interest in a transfer following the announcement of the end of the mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud services.

As a result of subsequently evaluating the situation and making preparations, we have decided that the corresponding services will be transferred to Sujitech, LLC. on June 30.

Thank you.

https://mastodon.cloud/about

Update (same day): The mastodon.cloud admin account posted on May 25 that it would close the two instances down in expectation of not being able to deal with the administrative overhead of stricter regulations concerning defamation in Japan:

Recently, the handling of online defamation has become a hot topic on many mass media as well as social media channels.
News Article for Reference: https://www.jiji.com/sp/article?k=2020052500387

In response to these reports, it is expected that lawsuits and disclosure requests will become more publicly known;
and government agencies will order stricter enforcement in addition to tightening regulations.

https://mastodon.cloud/@TheAdmin

However, under the current state of Japan, we will not be able to handle the increase of such administrative burdens and will have trouble dealing with it appropriately.Thus, we have decided to stop providing our service on mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud starting June 30, 2020.
We are very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding on the matter.

https://mastodon.cloud/@TheAdmin

If both instances were hosted within Japanese jurisdiction, moving them to a US based company makes sense, especially as the company has personal ties to Japan through its owner.

If it was indeed to avoid administrative hassle, then like with the discussion if the new EU copyright law means Mastodon instances should adopt upload filters to avoid being liable, it’s a further nudge to small group and personal instances.

This is a RSS only posting for regular readers. Not secret, just unlisted. Comments / webmention / pingback all ok.
Read more about RSS Club

Leo Mirani, The Guardian, Jul 02, 2020

One of the turning points of my life was watching a talk by Francisco Varela on connectivity. The key, he said, was to find a sweet spot - not too dense, otherwise the signals would overwhelm the network, and not too sparse, or the signal would never propagate. He was talking about immune networks, but it was clear to me that the principle applied more generally.

When we have an epidemic, the problem is that the signal - in this case, a virus - is spreading too rapidly. The basic reproduction number (R0) is used to measure the transmission potential of a disease. This number is based on the connectivity of the network - which is why we're applying social distancing. The same problems causing an epidemic, says this article, are the problems that cause misinformation. "The spread of misinformation is enabled by the structures of social networks. These structures reduce friction in sharing. They speed up flows of information and incentivise users to post things that will earn likes, replies and shares."

This is a structural problem. As Umair Haque said three years ago, "Social media has great economics: Facebook and Twitter and so on maximize incomes and earn fortunes. But it’s eudaimonics are profoundly unsuccessful: it makes people unhappy, unfulfilled, and more distant - and it’s a vector for misinformation and mistrust that’s eating away at the fabric of democracy." We need to value the local more - maybe not so much as suggested by Jenny Mackness, but in that direction.

We do this by making it harder to be too big. In an economy, it should be much harder (not easier, as it is to day) to generate more income if you already have a lot of income. In a social network, it should be more expensive to amass large numbers of users, by making it harder to finance through mass-driven economics like advertising. In media, each additional person you reach with a message should cost more, not less. And, as we already know, in a pandemic, we make it much harder for the disease to find large numbers of people such as are found at sporting events and concerts. When you hear me talk about decentralized and distributed technology for learning networks, this is why.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The upcoming iPhone 12 will reportedly feature a “high-end” rear-facing camera array, according to often-reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Kuo goes on to say that Taiwan-based ‘Largan Precision‘ is set to supply the premium camera lens to Apple in mid-July, with the phone’s production being delayed four to six weeks. MacRumors says that lens shipments will peak between September and November instead of August to October like in the past.

It’s unclear why there’s a delay in shipment, but it’s likely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affecting Apple’s iPhone parts supply chain. Rumours have been swirling for weeks that the tech giant might not launch at least some 2020 iPhone models until October or November.

Apple pushing the iPhone’s launch by even a few weeks could have a significant impact on the tech giant’s quarterly earnings.

Interestingly, Kuo’s report doesn’t specify what a “high-end” camera lens means in the context of the iPhone 12. Though this is speculation, the iPhone 12’s rear camera array will likely feature larger sensors capable of capturing more light, resulting in improved low-light performance.

Previous rumours indicate Apple has plans to launch four 2020 iPhones, including 5.4-inch and 5.1-inch iPhone 12 models and a Pro version that comes in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes.

Other expected features include a more squared-off design reminiscent of more recent iPad Pro models, a new faster 5nm A-series processor and 5G connectivity.

Source: MacRumors 

The post Apple’s iPhone 12 rumoured to feature ‘high-end’ rear camera array appeared first on MobileSyrup.

One of the most effective ways to make someone not want to do something is to force them to do it. That’s exactly what Microsoft has done with its new Chromium-based web browser.

Over the last few months, Microsoft began rolling out an update through the Windows Update Center that delivered its new Edge browser to users. On the surface, this update makes sense. Chromium Edge will replace the old Edge browser, so an update that swaps one out for the other should be expected. However, Microsoft took it a few steps too far.

A Windows 10 update forces a full screen @MicrosoftEdge window, which cannot be closed from the taskbar, or CTRL W, or even ALT F4. You must press "get started," then the X, and even then it pops up a welcome screen. And pins itself to the taskbar. pic.twitter.com/mEhEbqpIc7

— Taran Quarantino (@TaranVH) July 2, 2020

Several people have taken to Twitter to complain about a forced update that not only installed the new Edge, but also placed icons on the desktop and taskbar, inserted itself into users’ next website launch (ignoring their browser preference) and tried to convince them to switch to Edge.

My PC just force shutdown to install Microsoft edge. Losing at least an hour of drawing. Thank you @Microsoft
No one is gonna use you're shitty excuse for a browser, no matter how much you force it.

— richie (@paperichie) June 30, 2020

Some users noted that after applying the update, a full-screen Microsoft Edge window took over their computer and they couldn’t quit out of it without partially progressing through the welcome screens. Others said their PC forced a shutdown to install the app, costing them hours of work.

#Windows10 update. Install the update and get MS edge as default browser and propaganda/advert distributer.. And you can't remove it. Dont be fooled. Skip the update. @Microsoft

— Paul Laris (@Paul_Laris) June 30, 2020

It’s an understandably frustrating experience for users and, unsurprisingly, has encouraged many to outright dismiss the new Edge. It’s a shame, really, as the browser is actually really good. I’ve used it on and off over the last year in part because I was genuinely curious and in part because I’m MobileSyrup’s resident browser expert. MobileSyrup managing editor Patrick O’Rourke also started using Edge as a replacement for Chrome on his MacBook and found the experience much smoother and faster.

Ultimately, the way this update has played out is incredibly disappointing. Instead of just swapping out old Edge for new and letting users check it out on their terms, Microsoft has forced the browser on users in a rather underhanded and frustrating way. It’s a move that The Verge likens to Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour with Internet Explorer back in the 90s. And it’s turning people off the browser before they’ve even tried it.

Hopefully, Microsoft takes note of the outcry and puts a stop to the aggressive take over before it undermines what little goodwill the new Edge has left.

Source: Twitter Via: The Verge

The post Microsoft just ruined the debut of its new browser by forcing it on users appeared first on MobileSyrup.

GeoffreyRockwell, Theoreti.ca, Jul 03, 2020

Theoreti.ca reports, "Another one of those 'what were they thinking when they created the dataset stories' from The Register tells about how MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs." The problem, in my view, is not merely that they were careless in creating this dataset, but that they are being educated in an environment where these sorts of things simply aren't considered. So long as elite educational institutions are reserved for the wealthy, these sorts of incidents are going to continue to happen. Cause. Effect.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Google Chrome on Android will finally make the jump to 64-bit, a change long in the making.

For those well versed in Android history, you’ll likely remember that Google introduced support for 64-bit architecture back in Android 5.0 Lollipop in 2014. In the years since, hardware has followed and now almost every Android phone runs on 64-bit processors.

Despite that, Google has continued to develop its Chrome browser on Android in the 32-bit flavour, potentially leaving it open to security and performance problems.

As spotted by Android Police, starting with Chrome 85, Android 10 and newer devices will automatically get a 64-bit version.

If you want to confirm this for yourself, type ‘chrome://version’ into the URL bar in Chrome on your Android phone. The current stable and beta builds — version 83 and 84 respectively — will say they’re 32-bit apps. However, the same test on the Chrome Dev or Canary channels — version 85 and 86 — should say 64-bit if you’re running Android 10.

Unfortunately, since the move to 64-bit seems to depend on Android 10, Android Police points out it will likely only impact about eight percent of users based on data from April. Still, it’s a start. Hopefully Google will start with Android 10 as a test and bring 64-bit to older Android versions later.

Considering the search giant’s own Play Store rules dictate all apps must be updated to 64-bit variants by August 1, 2021, Chrome should offer 64-bit to the majority of Android users before then. Chrome for Android is expected to go stable in August 2020, so that gives Google roughly a year to bring 64-bit Chrome to everyone.

It’s also worth noting that iOS removed support for 32-bit apps in 2017 and forced everyone over to 64-bit. Thanks to Apple’s complete control over software distribution and hardware, it was easier for the company to make that transition.

That said, Google should be leading by example with its apps — many of which are first-party and come installed on Android phones. Still offering 32-bit Chrome six years after rolling out 64-bit Android support is frankly disappointing.

Source: Android Police

The post Google Chrome on Android to switch to 64-bit starting with version 85 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Emily Boudreau, Usable Knowledge, Jul 03, 2020

I think this is an unusual perspective, and I'm not sure I agree with it, but it's worthy of note. Excellent instruction, according to Rhonda Bondie, "is based on decision-making — how teachers decide to respond to and engage with students, select curriculum materials, organize learning, and use communication strategies." This article summarizes Bondie's book Differentiated Instruction Made Practical (co-authored with Akane Zusho). The role of decision-making is only accentuated in an online environment. “Now, teachers need to make deliberate decisions about how students will feel belonging in a classroom community in a space without walls, see themselves reflected in the virtual space, feel both independence and belonging, and share power dynamics intentionally.” Teacher as decider. No, I'm not sure I agree at all.

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