With Apple preparing to potentially update some products for next Tuesday, I’m really hoping that they end up announcing a refreshed AppleTV!
Category: Aside
A way forward for U.S. Policy on TikTok:
“Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese state media outlet the Global Times, weighed in recently on the most recent merger proposal. “The US restructuring of TikTok’s stake and actual control should be used as a model and promoted globally,” remarked Hu on Twitter. “Overseas operation of companies such as Google, Facebook shall all undergo such restructure and be under actual control of local companies for security concerns.”
It’s not exactly a good sign for Chinese state media to tout a U.S. play designed to be “tough on China” as a model for global behavior. The United States may be bumbling its way into a precedent the consequences of which it has yet to anticipate. “
This was exactly the concern that was raised by experts in North America the second after the Trump administration proposed its bumblingly-stupid approach to TikTok. With the American policy in place it’s going to be that much harder for Western companies operating in China to have convincing arguments that they shouldn’t need to partner with Chinese organizations tans engage in manufacturing, technology, or intellectual property disclosures as a condition of doing business in China. And the issue won’t end in China: American (and other countries’) businesses are almost certain to have (now) US-framed arguments thrown at them when operating all around the world whenever there is even a marginal ‘national security’ concern linked to the foreign company’s operations.
While all the attention for tomorrow’s Apple event is, understandably, on the release of Apple Silicon (and the associated devices running it) I really, really wish that the company will announce either its long-rumoured new headphones or the refreshed Apple TV.
Really appreciated this interview with Eno. Two select quotations that stuck with me:
Something that kind of disappoints me is that most of the new technology from the ’80s onwards has been about the atomization of society. It’s been about you being able to be more and more separate from everybody else. That’s why I don’t like the headphones thing. I don’t want to be separate in that way.
I can’t say that I agree with this assessment, but understand that technology is wrapped up in a very particular culture of neoliberal capitalism that can be harmful for communities writ large. His subsequent reflections more broadly about social media—that it can create the almost total self-enclosure of micro-communities—is definitely something that raises prominent concerns, though frankly I wish that there was more scholarship that dug into this as an issue as took place about 15 or so years ago. Obviously there is new scholarship but little of it seems methodologically satisfactory with focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Quite a few of the films I’ve made music for, I never saw the picture before I finished all the music. And I like that, because I don’t want the music to map totally onto the film. I want the music to suggest — to increase the ambiguity, basically. To expand the film a bit. Not to underline it. Often, and especially with Hollywood soundtracks, the whole point of the soundtrack is to tell you, the dumb sod watching it, “Now you’re supposed to feel sad. Now it’s funny. Laugh! Go on!” And I just don’t want to be in that business of underlining things.
This seems like a pretty stellar way of thinking through what he wants his work to do, and not do. Though in a contemporary era I’m surprised that producers or directors are willing to leave the music so out of their control.
I’m preparing to run a very small Japanese whiskey tasting, and it only now occurs to me that I have to cut off a bunch of whiskeys from the entirety of my Japanese collection (most of my tastings max out at 6-7 different bottles, carefully organized so as to experience and compare across varietals). It’s hard because I want to showcase lovely examples of the nation’s whiskey while, at the same time, exposing my guests to a range of distilleries and the sheer variety of styles that are available. I can almost certainly predict this means some of my Nikka bottles will need to be excluded, as well as at least one of Suntory’s, though it should mean that I ultimately showcase 5-6 different distilleries and the different characteristics of each.
For the past many months it’s been hard to write here; the very idea of sitting to write was just too hard given the world as it is today. To try and publish here, and get past some of the difficulty writing here, I’m going to experiment with fewer roundups and more independent posts.
Let’s see how this goes.
After 3+ months of using a janky Apple keyboard—keys sticking, not registering presses, adding double characters, etc—I’m finally able to get it to a service centre next week. I cannot wait to have a reliable writing device to work on once more!
For the last few weeks I’ve been jarred awake by an overly loud alarm; it didn’t seem to always be so loud, but maybe I’d forgotten?
Nope. Not the case at all. When I updated to iOS 13.4 it set my ringer and alarm volumes to 100%. Now that I’ve reduced the volume I’m hopeful that my wake ups will be a lot more peaceful than they’ve been for the last few weeks.
To change the volume of the built-in Apple alarm: Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics. Under Ringers And Alerts, drag the slider left or right to set the volume. As you drag, an alert will play, so you can hear how the volume changes. Turn on Change with Buttons to use the volume buttons on your device to change the alarm volume.
I’ve been lusting over a new coffee grinder given the current state of self-isolation and, thus, increasing my coffee consumption at home by about 300%. Part of the reasoning has been that I—seemingly—couldn’t pull apart my current grinder to give it a deep cleaning, which was throwing off some of the taste.
It turns out, however, that I just didn’t have the right angle to grab, twist, and pull the top of the grinder.
20 minutes later and I’ve got a very clean coffee grinder and the first brew already tastes better and more true to the beans. And my lust for a newer grinder has receded (somewhat) for now.
I really appreciate and respect the journalists who are trying to explain to their audiences why location tracking isn’t a panacea to Covid–19. But holy hell is it ever tiring to schedule multiple interviews a day to walk each of them—and their audiences—through the efficacy and human rights issues linked with such surveillance.
Mobile device tracking only starts being a real possibility when absolutely massive testing is possible, especially when up to 50% of asymptotic persons can spread the disease without knowing they are infected. And even then there are strong indications—such as from Korea—that a multifaceted approach is required that needs to be pre-planned and -coordinated before an outbreak.
Diverting telecommunications engineers, now, from better securing networks or bringing networking capacity online towards developing surveillance systems of limited effectiveness is about the worst idea that could be promoted right now. Unless, as a society, we really want to develop superior surveillance systems that will certainly be repurposed by law enforcement and security agencies, that is.
Excited Pixels 