Boing Boing: “Massive scale” shut-down of polling places in districts known for suppressing black voters. You want to talk about questioning the legitimacy of an election? Maneuvers like this one make me question which party is the crooked one.
Links
A syllabus for a history of Internet social and privacy issues
Paulina Borsook, Freedom to Tinker: Neophilia and Human Nature. After a well written illustration about how concern about Internet behavior and regulation is more “nothing new under the sun,” Borsook offers a bibliography that would make a fantastic syllabus for a college course on the roots of Internet culture, policy, and journalism.
Batch rename files in Mac OS Finder
OS X Daily: How to batch rename files on Mac OSX easily from the Finder. Awfully useful. Though it’s not “instant” on files in iCloud Drive.
“We clearly missed the mobile phone”
Slashdot: Satya Nadella: “We clearly missed the mobile phone.” What is so frustrating to those of us whose fortunes were tied to Microsoft’s (I was an intern in 2001 and an employee from 2002 to 2004) is that it wasn’t for lack of trying.
There was constantly something going on in mobile, often with senior leadership taking the reins. But too often it was trying to push a version of the Windows user experience into a handheld format.
The lesson? Don’t let your product portfolio strategy overrule user experience, or users will overrule you.
Waiting on a train
The New Yorker: Billy Bragg’s Railroad Songs. Splendid write-up of Bragg’s new album, and its connection to America in the year of Clinton vs. Trump.
Crowdsourcing transcriptions of Nat Turner’s trial
Out of the Box: “Nat’s War”: The Southampton Slave Rebellion of 1831. The Library of Virginia has posted original documents from the trial of Nat Turner and is inviting people to help transcribe the documents.
Most welcome news yet
Boing Boing: Spy is back! Sort of. No word yet on whether Carl Swanson is on board.
Hacking the legal system for reputation repair?
Eugene Volokh and Paul Alan Levy, Washington Post: Dozens of suspicious court cases, with missing defendants, aim at getting web pages taken down or deindexed. Brilliantly slimy hack of the legal system and search engine infrastructure. Google won’t take down search results without a court order? Sue an imaginary defendant with a similar name, get him to settle, and use the settlement to get the pages taken down.
It’s so hot, it’s on fire
CNet: Samsung puts Galaxy Note 7 out of its misery. When your recalled phone bursts into smoke and flames on a plane, it might be time to give up the ghost.
Spoiling it for everyone else
The Verge: Replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone catches fire on Southwest plane. If the FAA bans smartphones from flying over this, I know who I’m blaming. Note the kicker last line.
Oh, my head
Five Thirty Eight: Election Update: The Craziest End To The 2016 Campaign Runs Through New Mexico. There’s a scenario in which there’s a tight electoral college such that the electoral votes in New Mexico might decide the election, but in which Gary Johnson holds those votes. I don’t even wanna think about how that scenario plays out afterwards.
Our Siri future
OSXDaily: Use Siri on the Mac! A List of Mac Siri Commands. I’m still one OS version back on my work Mac, so I’m looking forward to being able to try these out soon. I do wonder what sort of look I’ll get from my coworkers, though.
Farewell Roy?
Alabama’s activist judge Roy Moore was removed from office for gross misconduct on Friday for his role in blocking same-sex marriage legislation. It’s all First Amendment until it runs into violations of federal court orders, folks.
Speedballs for Hitler
Boing Boing has a pointer to information about Norman Ohler’s Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, which lays out the degree to which Nazism in general, and Hitler in particular, grew dependent on meth and oxycodone.
With a little help from his friends
New Yorker: David Bowie, celebrated by his friends. That’s a concert I’d love to have seen. I’m a huge fan of Blackstar and of McCaslin and his band.