BC TECH
Saved by @zmbnski

So, today, for the first time in 25 (!) years of Apple, I downgraded. From the 2016 MacBook Pro to my 2013, which I had kept in a drawer...

 It was pretty simple to do—Apple Time Machine backups let me do it with one click.
That first tweet captures, in two pictures, how badly Apple has “lost the plot” (to quote @wylieprof). On the right is the Apple MagSafe adapter, from 2013. On the left, what I had “upgraded” to.
@wylieprof Thanks, Apple! I really was nostalgic for worrying about yanking my computer off the table.
@wylieprof Oh and I really appreciated not knowing if my computer was charging. What was great was the little whoop sound you used, so that the speaker before me could be informed I was charging my laptop.
@wylieprof Just kidding! That was lame. On the plus side I could now plug the charger in either side. (Except I couldn’t quite because one of the ports was faulty, and it wouldn’t charge properly—I was alerted to that by the salience of a non-whoop silence.)
@wylieprof What else? Oh! The mysterious double-space. At some point, your new keyboard started occasionally inserting two spaces when I only hit the spacebar once.
@wylieprof Maybe I was typing too hard? But then I noticed it elsewhere. For example, I’m pretty sure it happened to Mary Beard too, judging by the unexpected in her tweets. Hi Mary!
@wylieprof The new software updates were great, too. For example, at some point AirPlay stopped working. Fortunately I had yet to upgrade my iPhone, so I could still play music on the stereo.
@wylieprof Still, the upgrade was worth it. After four years, I had a hard drive that was... 50% larger, and a processor that was... 25% faster.
@wylieprof This made it easier when I stared losing work (for the first time in a decade) by unexpected application crashes, because I could load up Safari and... hang on... oop
@wylieprof I also had new friends. Like Laurel and Hardy! Hi guys.
@wylieprof These were so advanced that I had to upgrade their firmware when I first plugged them in (!) Also I think they were $60 each.
@wylieprof The computer itself was so skinny that when I carried these around I felt like a photographer’s assistant at a fashion shoot.
@wylieprof Making the trackpad extra large was great because my finger got a concussion running off the edge of the last one? Not really, but now I could randomly fail to click something if I rested my palm wrong.
@wylieprof This was the first time since the late-1990s Jobs reboot that I felt I was working for my computer, not the other way around.
@wylieprof The era of understated perfection is, in my opinion, over. Given the bugs that erupt with each incremental update now, I can’t even imagine the current team rolling out an entire rewrite of the OS, as they did for OS X. https://t.co/2lZn5RQm4w
@wylieprof One last example, a little more technical. Apple rolled out a new file system. It’s called APFS, you’ll get it free if you upgrade to High Sierra.
@wylieprof APFS forbids “hardlinks”. So if you do upgrade, all of your UNIX stuff will probably break. Why? Because screw you, that’s why.
@wylieprof Oh also—APFS is incompatibile with older versions of Time Machine. Apple can’t even not break its own stuff. And you can’t reformat back to the old system.
@wylieprof https://t.co/RD5XpCYTSm if you don’t believe me.
@wylieprof A new update was released today or so—Mojave (motto: Welcome to the Desert of the Real).
@wylieprof I learned this because people already figured out it breaks Mathematica.
@wylieprof A well-built machine is a beautiful thing. You get attached to excellence in them the way people get attached to the old Volkswagen Beatle.
@wylieprof So, support request to @AppleSupport. Please fire Johnny Ive, and take everyone else on a five year retreat to Tibet to meditate on non-being or something.
@wylieprof @AppleSupport We can wait.
@wylieprof @AppleSupport Or, someone start a tweet campaign and get @elonmusk to build a better laptop—something that will last twenty years and be more than a platform for failed AI voice assistants and marketing popups from Software Update.
To cheer everybody up, here is a list of cool people using macs. https://t.co/pToRotyQyX
https://t.co/NloM4XBgIN
https://t.co/JcUr9ZahSZ
https://t.co/NTmT4BC8dA
Here's why Al Gore lost the election
https://t.co/Oi7WM6vmpe
(Compare to Gore)
The Dixie Chicks?
Don't tell Kayne he forgot the adapter.
Unfriend (@SwiftOnSecurity)
I do not enjoy this user experience
"Mr Putin, I can't find our password?"

More from Simon DeDeo

Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
Someone tosses a coin ten times; it comes up heads every time. What's the probability it comes up heads on the next toss? (Pretty darn high—part of @nntaleb's work is unprogramming you from your high-school rules of thumb.) Now consider the (related) Gambler's fallacy...

In this case, it's a theory about compensation: the worse one's luck is, the more likely it is to see a reversal. On the surface, it's irrational. The more bad luck you have, the more you accumulate evidence that the system is rigged.

But there's also an anthropic component. If the luck is bad enough, it starts to become inconsistent with your survival. You've accumulated evidence for correlations in the environment, but these correlations (may be) inconsistent with (people like you) being in this environment.

An example. You're in a city where everyone takes public transport. You encounter a string of bad delays. It's reasonable to conclude they'll end—otherwise people wouldn't take public transport. It's unlikely that you happened to show up right when the network collapses.

Of course, that's a bad heuristic in a casino, which relies on a constant influx of losers. But in other environments, particularly with persistent populations and no evidence for sudden changes in the underlying laws, it makes sense.
CRYPTO
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
Donna Strickland, one of this year's Nobel Laureates, was not considered "notable enough" for Wikipedia as late as this May—reported by a number of sites, including the Independent. I dug into this a little. Here's the data—


This is the first deletion, back in 2014. A bit hard to read between the lines, but the basic story that an admin had Stickland's page "speedy deleted"—i.e., deleted without debate. The method was something called Copyright Jujitsu.

In particular, the admin had the page deleted not because of notability, but because it included a photograph of Strickland that had ambiguous copyright status. This is a method that people developed to get rid of content they didn't want, but also didn't want to debate.

"Copyright Jujitsu" because it is usually used against spam from companies; a PR officer uploads promotional material to Wikipedia. Instead of debating whether it's neutral, the admin can say "we'd love to have it, but the material appears to violate your company's copyright".

Usually the PR office and the IP office are separate in a company, and the idea of releasing promotional material under public domain is such a legal nightmare that the PR person goes away.
ALL
Advertisement
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
One thing that goes unremarked about Wikipedia: the vast majority of the content was written over 12 years ago—which means (given turnover) that the editors dominant today were not directly involved in that creation.

Put another way, the editors who built the dominant nodes in this network...


...have little overlap with the ones who made this much more recent managerial flowchart.


Internet time runs at hundred-fold speed—the difference between the people who painted what's in the Uffizi, and the people in charge of keeping those paintings from deteriorating. Very different tasks, and (one presumes) very personalities as well. @PaulSkallas?
ALL
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
So—probability. Do we really need it? This has been on my mind since 2017, when I finally sat down to think through quantum theory. (/n)

One thing that’s always struck me is how *late* probability theory came in intellectual history. We had integral calculus before we had probability. And probability is insanely simple, mathematically!

I’m tempted to say that probability theory is not, in fact, Lindy. Frequentist probability is (for all the usual reasons) best understood as a heuristic. Bayesian interpretations, by contrast, take the remarkable step of tying it to mental states.

You have to work very hard to convince yourself that beliefs really are “degrees of belief in sets of events” (or whatever). It’s not natural—and I won’t rehearse the whole story about rational choice and decision theory...

So with those critiques in the back of my mind, when I read David Wallace’s decision-theoretic account of the Born Rule I was rather primed to say, hey, so what? Meaning...
PROBABILITY
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
ALL

More from Tech

Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr
There are only 3 real challenges to free speech at the tech level a) the need for CDNs at scale b) distortions of net neutrality c) nation-state firewalls.

All other claims are about social governance on private sites, where applying free speech doctrine is a stretch at best

Baseline free speech has expanded modestly since 1776 or whatever your reference point is.

About 20% beyond core case of government-critical speech in formally public spaces and media I'd say.

You can (for example) have more kinds of conversations in a bar without getting punched or kicked out by other patrons or management. You can teach more things in colleges than 100 years ago.

That's a genuine de facto increase in practical, informal free speech/expression.

But online free "speech" is, as @reneed has pointed out, not an expansion of free speech at all, but an expansion of reach. It is like the secondary freedom of the press to print as many copies as they can afford, not primary freedom to say what they want

If a newspaper wants to print more copies it has buy more printing equipment and front more upfront costs. Reach for a paper publication is not "free", but a function of desired circulation, which in turn is a function of demand prediction etc. But that logic is obscured online.
TECH
WIRED
WIRED
@WIRED
On Wednesday, The New York Times published a blockbuster report on the failures of Facebook’s management team during the past three years. It's.... not flattering, to say the least. Here are six follow-up questions that merit more investigation. 1/

1) During the past year, most of the anger at Facebook has been directed at Mark Zuckerberg. The question now is whether Sheryl Sandberg, the executive charged with solving Facebook’s hardest problems, has caused a few too many of her own. 2/ https://t.co/DTsc3g0hQf


2) One of the juiciest sentences in @nytimes’ piece involves a research group called Definers Public Affairs, which Facebook hired to look into the funding of the company’s opposition. What other tech company was paying Definers to smear Apple? 3/ https://t.co/DTsc3g0hQf


3) The leadership of the Democratic Party has, generally, supported Facebook over the years. But as public opinion turns against the company, prominent Democrats have started to turn, too. What will that relationship look like now? 4/

4) According to the @nytimes, Facebook worked to paint its critics as anti-Semitic, while simultaneously working to spread the idea that George Soros was supporting its critics—a classic tactic of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. What exactly were they trying to do there? 5/
TECH
Advertisement
EverythingOppresses
EverythingOppresses
@SoOppressed
The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:

USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the

ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.

Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this

Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
TECH
Austin Energy
Austin Energy
@austinenergy
LIVE: ❄️ City of Austin leadership including @AustinEnergyGM will address the unprecedented severe weather.
💻 Due to tech limitations, it will only be available via Facebook Live here: https://t.co/PchiwUgP0M
We will be live-tweeting in this thread.

Mayor Steve Adler: This will require us all to come together and help one another.
City Manager Spencer Cronk: As a City, we are doing our best to help those in need.

Cronk: Stay off the roads and conserve energy. Every little bit helps.

COA Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Juan Ortiz: Currently we have a warming center at the Palmer Events Center. You can show up at any time. As of this morning, cold weather shelters remain active. 282 were sheltered overnight.

Ortiz: Urge residents to conserve much power as possible to help with the emergency issues. We are working with critical facilities to ensure that access to those facilities remain open, so ambulances can get in.
TECH
Sarah Drasner
Sarah Drasner
@sarah_edo
🔥 It's probably common knowledge that Netlify makes deployment incredibly simple- you can connect a repo, pick a build command and 🚀

or just drop a folder in and you're done!

...but here are some other things you might not know about our deploys that are very special 🧵


Netlify has a concept of "atomic" deploys- which means a few things:

- You can preview a deploy when you've or someone else has just put in a PR

- You can roll back to ANY previous state, with one click, in milliseconds

- You always know what state your cache is in!

Netlify allows you to cancel a deploy- did you just put in a change, merge it and then realize you've made a terrible mistake? I've never done that. 😬 er...

No worries. You can cancel that deploy with the click of a button.

You can lock a deploy. Let's say you get everything ready for a big release, code review and tests are complete, it's all ready.

You can lock a deploy in a state to get ready for a major release, so that you know exactly what you're releasing and sleep well the night before. 😴


You can even get notifications about locked deploys via email, outgoing webhook, or Slack. Netlify can notify you when a deploy is either locked or unlocked.
TECH

You May Also Like

The Chartians
The Chartians
@chartians
Took me 5 years to get the best Chartink scanners for Stock Market, but you’ll get it in 5 mminutes here ⏰

Do Share the above tweet 👆

These are going to be very simple yet effective pure price action based scanners, no fancy indicators nothing - hope you liked it.

https://t.co/JU0MJIbpRV

52 Week High
One of the classic scanners very you will get strong stocks to Bet on.

https://t.co/V69th0jwBr

Hourly Breakout
This scanner will give you short term bet breakouts like hourly or 2Hr breakout

Volume shocker
Volume spurt in a stock with massive X times
SCREENERS , ALL , CHARTLINK SCREENERS
Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
दधीचि ऋषि को मनाही थी कि वह अश्विनी कुमारों को किसी भी अवस्था में ब्रह्मविद्या का उपदेश नहीं दें। ये आदेश देवराज इन्द्र का था।वह नहीं चाहते थे कि उनके सिंहासन को प्रत्यक्ष या परोक्ष रुप से कोई भी खतरा हो।मगर जब अश्विनी कुमारों ने सहृदय प्रार्थना की तो महर्षि सहर्ष मान गए।


और उन्होनें ब्रह्मविद्या का ज्ञान अश्विनि कुमारों को दे दिया। गुप्तचरों के माध्यम से जब खबर इन्द्रदेव तक पहुंची तो वे क्रोध में खड़ग ले कर गए और महर्षि दधीचि का सर धड़ से अलग कर दिया।मगर अश्विनी कुमार भी कहां चुप बैठने वाले थे।उन्होने तुरंत एक अश्व का सिर महर्षि के धड़ पे...


...प्रत्यारोपित कर उन्हें जीवित रख लिया।उस दिन के पश्चात महर्षि दधीचि अश्वशिरा भी कहलाए जाने लगे।अब आगे सुनिये की किस प्रकार महर्षि दधीचि का सर काटने वाले इन्द्र कैसे अपनी रक्षा हेतु उनके आगे गिड़गिड़ाए ।

एक बार देवराज इन्द्र अपनी सभा में बैठे थे, तो उन्हे खुद पर अभिमान हो आया।


वे सोचने लगे कि हम तीनों लोकों के स्वामी हैं। ब्राह्मण हमें यज्ञ में आहुति देते हैं और हमारी उपासना करते हैं। फिर हम सामान्य ब्राह्मण बृहस्पति से क्यों डरते हैं ?उनके आने पर क्यों खड़े हो जाते हैं?वे तो हमारी जीविका से पलते हैं। देवर्षि बृहस्पति देवताओं के गुरु थे।

अभिमान के कारण ऋषि बृहस्पति के पधारने पर न तो इन्द्र ही खड़े हुए और न ही अन्य देवों को खड़े होने दिया।देवगुरु बृहस्पति इन्द्र का ये कठोर दुर्व्यवहार देख कर चुप चाप वहां से लौट गए।कुछ देर पश्चात जब देवराज का मद उतरा तो उन्हे अपनी गलती का एहसास हुआ।
ALL
Advertisement
Em\U0001f383jipedia \U0001f4d9
Em🎃jipedia 📙...
@Emojipedia
✨📱 iOS 12.1 📱✨
🗓 Release date: October 30, 2018
📝 New Emojis: 158
https://t.co/bx8XjhiCiB


New in iOS 12.1: 🥰 Smiling Face With 3 Hearts https://t.co/6eajdvueip


New in iOS 12.1: 🥵 Hot Face https://t.co/jhTv1elltB


New in iOS 12.1: 🥶 Cold Face https://t.co/EIjyl6yZrF


New in iOS 12.1: 🥳 Partying Face https://t.co/p8FDNEQ3LJ
SOCIAL MEDIA
Vibhu Vashisth \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Vibhu Vashisth 🇮🇳...
@VIBHU_Tweet
MAHARAJA CHHATRASAL BUNDELA was the great Bundela King who revolted against the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb.
Chhatrasal Bundela was born in year 1649 CE in Maur Hill of Bundela region to Champat Rai and Lal Kunwar. He was the descendent of Rudra Pratap of Orchha.


His ancesters were the vassals of Mughal Emperor. He drew inspiration from his father and revolted against the alien rule of Mughals. He was just 12 yrs old when his parents died in fight against the Mughal Army of Aurangzeb in 1661.

When his beloved father attained martyrdom in the year 166, the young Chatrasal was present in the last battle of his father against the Mughal and from these valiant campaigns,..

..he gathered the courage to free Bundelkhand from Aurangzeb’s rule.
He joined the Mughals initially, and was recommended by the Rajput King Mirza Jai Singh to be recruited in the Mughal Army in order to support their Deccan Campaigns.


But serving the alien rule of Mughals which brought chaos and misery to Bundelkhand was unacceptable for Chatrasal Bundela and his father’s incessant struggle against the Mughals kept the fire of independent Bundelkhand alive in his heart.
ALL
Matt Fuller
Matt Fuller
@MEPFuller
They’re shooting into the chamber.
POLITICS