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Electronic Frontier Foundation: “EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 - 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed.”
Jason Fried: “No means you have to make tough choices that aren’t always obvious at the time. No can be hard, even painful; it can lead to imagining what could have been. But when you make software, it’s almost always a good idea to say no more than you say yes. Over time, you’ll regret saying yes more than saying no.”
Chris Zacharias: “Artistically-minded individuals derive personal value from expressing themselves through their work. Consequently, they become much more entwined in what they create and its success. They are often emotionally tethered to the product and will surface gripes long before they echo back from your users. These types of web developers are nearly incapable of ‘phoning it in’ or letting something subpar slip through the cracks.”
Merlin Mann on MacBreak Weekly: “You’re going to be distracted by everything until you find something you really care about . . . People who really care a lot about something don’t get distracted but the people who get distracted are just not sure what to pay attention to.”
New Scientist reports on an automatic driving system being developed and tested for the first time in Sweden. Cars are linked together wirelessly to form a “train” of semi-autonomous convoys controlled by a lead vehicle driven by a human. Researchers are hoping that road speeds can be reduced, improve fuel efficiency, and cut congestion. A navigation and communication system measures the car’s speed and direction and constantly makes adjustments. Steering and speed are all automatic.
Digital Society: “It currently costs Netflix up to $1 per DVD mailed round trip while a typical streamed movie costs 5 cents. With 2 million DVDs per day being shipped, Netflix is spending $700M per year in physical disk postage and that number continues to decline as Netflix adds more streaming content.”
Bruce Schneier on privacy:
To the older generation, privacy is about secrecy. And, as the Supreme Court said, once something is no longer secret, it's no longer private. But that’s not how privacy works, and it’s not how the younger generation thinks about it. Privacy is about control. When your health records are sold to a pharmaceutical company without your permission; when a social-networking site changes your privacy settings to make what used to be visible only to your friends visible to everyone; when the NSA eavesdrops on everyone’s e-mail conversations–your loss of control over that information is the issue. We may not mind sharing our personal lives and thoughts, but we want to control how, where and with whom. A privacy failure is a control failure.
Schneier nicely sums up why I have such an issue with Facebook. Facebook allows users the ability to control what they share, but at the same time seem to have no qualms about sharing that information with third parties (including sensitive data like phone numbers and addresses). Twitter is different: everything, unless it’s a DM or a locked account, is public. Facebook carries a different privacy expectation than Twitter: since it’s all assumed public, people don’t say or share things they don’t want to be heard. Facebook is theoretically limited to your friends, but the service continues to violate user control over their data.
I would submit that Jeff Jarvis is correct: there is a confusion within Facebook between a public and the public. When I publish something on this blog, I’ve made it immediately available to the public. But if I update a status on Facebook, the assumption is I’ve made that available to a private public of my own creation. Facebook continues to push the line of public and private on the Internet, but never defined where that line ended (by contrast, at least in theory, Google always promised its customers it would “not be evil”). Certainly being public can be a good thing – governments and corporations, for example, should strive towards transparency – plus there is value in being more public and sharing collective wisdom. I support publicness, but also will defend control over our private publics.
Camen Design speculates on the future of RSS in the face of recent browser changes in Chrome and Firefox.
Kyle Neath: “You should take time to design your URL structure. If there’s one thing I hope you remember after reading this article it’s to take time to design your URL structure. Don’t leave it up to your framework. Don’t leave it up to chance. Think about it and craft an experience.”
The Economist discusses the debates over net neutrality that is well worth reading.
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Occasional writing on the American West, agricultural history, and political culture.